Chapter 603.1: The Final Resort (1)
Chapter 603.1: The Final Resort (1)
Howl of Crimson Lightning was the spell Roel had inherited from Prince Wade from the first Witness State after pitting his life against the latter, and it was one of the strongest army buff spells he had ever seen.
That being said, Howl of Crimson Lightning’s area of effect shouldn’t have been large enough to envelop the entire battlefield, and it shouldn’t have been strong enough to overcome the Deviant Sovereign’s Divine Domain, either.
Yet, Roel managed to achieve the impossible thanks to Sia’s blessing.
Sia’s blessing, Being Toward Death, bestowed power upon him in accordance with the damage he had sustained. This ‘power’ wasn’t limited to enhancing just his mana, but his army buff spell as well, and the latter had become the key for him to turn the tides of battle.
When the specks of crimson lightning seeped into their bodies, the human soldiers who were waiting to be slaughtered like helpless lambs in an abattoir let out furious roars and struggled free of the Divine Domain’s restraints.
That changed everything.
The hundreds of thousands of elite human soldiers, who were on the verge of dying in vain, were granted a second chance to fight for their lives.
The Deviant Sovereign’s face darkened as he glared at Roel menacingly. Once again, he realized how important it was to eliminate Roel. It was not just because he was the Kingmaker but also his uncanny ability to change his fate and that of those around him, moving the future toward somewhere impossible.
As the Savior has prophesied, this is an ability that should not exist.
“You blasphemer,” Banjol growled hoarsely as his mana blazed.
At the same time, the massive Egg of the Beast God beside him began making noises before beginning its second eruption of black sludge.
Boom!
Baleful beast roars echoed in the sky as another rain of black sludge sprayed all over the entire desert. All it took was a few seconds for hundreds of thousands more deviants to take shape.
“You should understand it by now. All you managed to do was to break the restrictions imposed by my Divine Domain. Your struggles are futile. Opposing the gods will only hasten your death,” Banjol said.
“Is that your catchphrase as a failed race leader?” Roel scoffed.
Blood was trickling from his arm due to the injury he had inflicted on himself to further activate Being Toward Death. He looked at Wilhelmina, who was crossing blows with the two-headed deviant, followed by Charlotte, Nora, and Lilian, who were dealing with the encirclement of the deviants.
“I’ll leave this place to you. Wait for my return…”
“Mm!”
“Darling…”
“Roel.”
“…”
The four women replied in different ways. All of them shared the same worried frown, but not one of them tried to stop him.
This rescue operation had already changed in its nature from the moment the Egg of the Beast God emerged and the Deviant Sovereign unleashed his Divine Domain with the intent to destroy humankind’s core force. It was now an all-out war.
And this was likely to be their best chance to defeat the Deviant Sovereign before he amassed more power and created an even greater army.
The three-million-strong combined army of humankind along the eastern border was working in unison to tie down the deviants, and the three deviant Race Sovereigns were occupied too. Lilian’s arrival with an unprecedentedly massive army had also greatly boosted the strength of the army confronting the Deviant Sovereign. Humankind was still able to withstand the deviants and the black sludge army’s attacks.
At the very least, both sides were equally matched for the time being. This felt like a stage built just for Roel’s decisive battle.
Sensing the tides of the battlefield, Lilian finally understood why she had been asked to go all out for her reinforcement.
“…We absolutely have to hold on until darling’s battle ends.”
“Our military strengths are equally matched at the moment, and we have our own army buff too. We can do it!”
From Charlotte and the others supporting in the backline, to Kurt and the vanguards holding their ground on the frontlines, most of the commanders realized that this was also a chance for them to decide this grueling war. They gathered their fighting spirit and roared tenaciously.
Meanwhile, Roel turned to the Egg of the Beast God in the sky and frowned.
“I won’t let you spew your trash anymore,” he murmured as he readied himself for a charge.
“Let the ancient bloodline perish for good!” Banjol declared as he raised his hand and released an intense surge of mana.
The scene before Roel turned dark as if someone had pulled a dark cloth over his eyes. Even so, he displayed no fear in his eyes.
“Is it pressing down on us now? I think that it’s about time to disperse those dark clouds. Peytra!”
“Understood. Go ahead and do what you must,” the Primordial Earth Goddess replied.
The ground Roel stood on began to rumble as it glowed with a fiery light. Then, a volcano beneath the desert suddenly erupted, releasing a terrifying deluge of lava that sent Roel, who was wrapped in the power of Magma Core, into the sky.
Boom!
This massive explosion caught the attention of all soldiers on the battlefield.
Banjol widened his eyes. The sheer momentum and heat of the rising lava pierced through his mana pulsation and dissipated the dark clouds in the sky. Roel, who was protected by the power of the Crown’s Stones, was unharmed.
By then, Roel had successfully risen to the sky to stand at the same height as Banjol.
The Deviant Sovereign quickly raised his hand once more to release a second wave of attack, but this time, he was going to activate his bloodline ability since he had a clearer aim without the hindrances on the ground.
This attack of his was met by Grandar’s fist.
As powerful as Banjol’s ability to directly steal his enemy’s heart was, it came with a condition: he had to be at a higher level of existence than his enemy. To Roel, who was currently cloaked in Grandar, this ability of his was no longer effective.
Grandar hurled his fist forward in a crimson whiz, producing countless sonic booms as it descended straight toward the Deviant Sovereign. At the same time, Roel turned his sight to the massive Egg of the Beast God and compressed his mana to its limits.
“Glacial Touch,” he murmured as the silhouette of the ancient calamity flashed behind him.
A flood of frost aura compressed to the extreme shot out like a beam and squarely struck the Egg of the Beast God, swiftly encasing it in a layer of permanent blue-white frost.
The sight of that induced cheers from the united army. Roel also breathed a sigh of relief at having sealed off the Deviant Sovereign’s means of producing endless soldiers.
Even with the army buff, Howl of Crimson Lightning, the united army couldn’t possibly cope with the Egg of the Beast God’s endless eruptions of black sludge. That was also the reason Roel had chosen to deal with it first. He took into account the liquid nature of the black sludge and figured that it would be safer to freeze it, which was why he had resorted to Glacial Touch.
As much as Roel felt threatened by Banjol’s presence, for some reason, his gut feeling was telling him that the massive egg was the more important target here.
Just as he concluded his attack and was about to turn his attention to the Deviant Sovereign, the frost-encased Egg of the Beast God suddenly shook before releasing a huge wave of mana and light.
“Grarr!”
“How could this…”
A deep bestial roar shook the sky. Following that, the layer of frost cloaking the Egg of the Beast God began to recede, as the lingering frost aura in the vicinity swiftly dissipated.
Roel could hardly believe his eyes.
His frost aura was a power stemming from the Six Calamities, existences that had driven countless civilizations to extinction. It was almost like a law that couldn’t be circumvented, even when the enemies were the deviants’ Race Sovereigns who boasted terrifying recovery ability.
Yet, this law had now been broken by the egg before his eyes.
What shocked him even further was…
“It’s… absorbing it?”
Upon careful examination, Roel realized that the Egg of the Beast God’s way of dealing with Glacial Touch was not to break free of it with a stronger surge of mana but to absorb its power through its pitch-black shell.
In the first place, the Egg of the Beast God was a weapon created by the Savior to deal with the Mother Goddesses’ envoys, the Six Calamities. The chances were high that the other Crown’s Stones would be ineffective against it too.
The realization of that made Roel’s expression darken. He immediately switched to an alternative plan.