The Law G.o.d was fair, but in a way, he was also strict. As the embodiment of "fairness," he always followed his Divine Obligation of Law and abandoned all sense of self in exchange for pureness. This actually allowed Wumianzhe"s growth rate to surpa.s.s all other G.o.ds.Even the back door I left behind would only be able to temporarily influence Wumianzhe, but some troublesome matters were unavoidable. For example, as a member of the Order G.o.ds, Wumianzhe would instinctually reject the members of Chaos, which was why Reyne, who had now accepted Chaos, was destined to lose her job cla.s.s as a Law Knight.
[Reyne, level 60 Law Knight (former) / level 20 Aurora Knight / level 14 Black h.e.l.l Knight, Total Level: 94, General Level: 97, General a.s.sessment: average Legend rank.]
I didn"t know what exactly Reyne had done, nor did I want to know whether it was because she used the power of demons or did something overboard that caused her to lose her Law Knight cla.s.s.
Demons typically obtained power through destruction and sacrifice, and judging from Reyne"s ridiculously high speed of growth in ranks, she probably didn"t do anything good.
Even if most elemental creatures were wild beasts with no will of their own other than instinct, and even if they could regather their elements after destruction, it was still no excuse to slaughter them en ma.s.se. This was the most likely the reason she lost her Law Knight job cla.s.s.
I was still able to keep my Law job cla.s.s probably because I was so skilled at finding the loopholes in laws. In my eyes, this invasion of another plane was nothing than a rather large-scale hunt for an escaped criminal.
Yep, an escaped criminal. Emordilorcan—crimes of murder, war, species genocide, destruction of public property and so on; he was nothing more than an unreformable criminal.
His first action changed the shape of the earth. He was an accomplice to the beastmen as one of the perpetrators of war. His second action, taken in rage, even destroyed the defense lines at Red Maple Castle, causing countless deaths among the human warriors. The b.l.o.o.d.y battle during the snowy night afterwards could probably be attributed to him as well.
And, as for the beastmen from the plains that ambushed us in the end, if it weren"t for the gray elves and distant armies from Xiluo that stopped them in their tracks, they probably would have caused the entire combat situation to turn in their favor again. In fact, the entire Northlands might have been lost and the beastmen would have become the new rulers with another round of species genocide. After all, in such a situation, even I wouldn"t be able to overturn it anymore. A trump card like G.o.d"s Descent wasn"t something I could use against mortals.
I definitely wasn"t some hot-blooded defender of justice, nor did I even agree that this cruel world still had a concept such as justice. It was just that I still remembered all those innocent citizens and warriors" unsatisfied looks in death as they died protecting their homes. If I couldn"t make Emordilorcan pay the price, I probably wouldn"t be able to sleep peacefully at night anymore.
"Everyone, pay attention. Focus your attacks on the Elemental Throne. I refuse to believe that that b.a.s.t.a.r.d will still be able to hide like a coward!"
Fight for the sake of justice for the deaths of innocents? I wasn"t such a good person. I simply didn"t like him.
That b.a.s.t.a.r.d felt like he would be fine after hiding in his own home after causing such a ruckus. He thought he would be able to sleep in peace, believing that n.o.body would dare do anything about him. Yet I had no intentions of letting him sleep as he pleased; I preferred to instead have this b.a.s.t.a.r.d die as well to accompany those innocent citizens.
Right now, the battle was at a stalemate. As expected of the most ancient Elemental G.o.d, he was now summoning all sorts of ancient contracted allies, and countless amounts of cannon fodder were forced onto the battlefield by him.
Sand dragons, single-pincer beasts, Kasla elemental knights, Giant Sand Worms, descendants of t.i.tans, earth dwarves, mountain dwarves, mountain giants, Abarros monsters, and various ancient species that had already disappeared from history all came to this battlefield. This was basically turning into an earth elemental creature museum.
But we weren"t letting them have it easy either, as we weren"t exactly pushovers.
Amelia"s Death Garden, Margaret"s rune puppets and rune giants, and all the various Earth Elemental Lord"s armies went to the battlefield in turns. It was just a cannon fodder contest, so what did we have to fear?
Both sides" elemental creatures fought just like this, and huge dragons roared in the skies as the tower giants and their inhabitants entered the battle. Everything was now in chaos, and Emordilorcan"s elemental army seemed to be imperceptibly yet constantly increasing in number.
However, this was all within my expectations from the very start. As this was Emordilorcan"s main home, if he was all by himself, I would have begun suspecting whether or not there was some scheme.
This endless summoning of reinforcements meant that he was obviously in a tight spot already, and as for his next step—
"If he still hasn"t appeared yet, it"s obvious that he"s stalling for time. Emordilorcan"s no coward who fears death. In that case, it means he has an ace that needs more time."
After coming to this realization, I didn"t intend to wait around any longer.
"Kaid, it"s up to you guys."
"Don"t we need to disperse our own forces first? Even if we"re just acting, we should do it as believably as possible."
"There"s no need. As long as Emordilorcan isn"t an idiot, he can"t possibly allow us to finish casting. If he truly doesn"t even have to power to stop a forbidden spell"s casting anymore, then we just have to stop it ourselves mid-cast."
"Hah! You make it sound so easy, since you"re not the one casting the forbidden spell."
Although Kaid was complaining, judging from the Elemental Tide"s fluctuation that suddenly magnified by several times, the forbidden spell had already started to be prepared.
Amongst all the major countries, the Mage Country had always had a relatively good reputation. But if there was anything they were unreasonable about, it was the fact that they were too obsessed about all types of magic.
As large-scale weapons, forbidden spells were treated as the ultimate weapons of magic. In the Mage Country"s capital"s library of forbidden books, it was said that they had collected more than half of all known forbidden spells in the world. This was doubtlessly a fearsome threat all by itself.
Actually, having the information and theories on forbidden spells didn"t mean that they were usable. First of all, there would be extremely high requirements for the caster"s level. The number of mages that could cast each forbidden spell would definitely be in the single digits, and the most important of all was that forbidden spells weren"t easy to use.
A mage"s mana was limited. In order to cast a spell of such power, the spell would naturally be connected to the natural laws of the world and the sources of the elements, which would always be a complex, difficult, and dangerous process. Basically, the moment a mage started casting a forbidden spell, he was turned useless.
The casting times for forbidden spells were typically long to begin with, and even the shortest would always take several hours. In this period of time, he wouldn"t be able to move nor would he be able to stop casting. He would have to continuously mutter incantations to control the magic, and if he was attacked during the process, he would either have to forcefully stop the magic and receive a life-threatening backlash or grit his teeth and take the attack. No matter what he did, he would likely end up dead.
Once a forbidden spell was begun, the unimaginable waves sent out by the Elemental Tide was basically no different from a loudspeaker broadcasting to the entire battlefield, "Hey, I"m about to start a huge areof-effect magic. If you don"t want to die, come kill me!" Anyone who wasn"t an idiot would spend all efforts on stopping this forbidden spell.
And the most pitiful part of all was that forbidden spells would use up the caster"s lifespan. Something like ten years" worth of lifespan was quite common. Some top-level forbidden spells even required the caster"s very life and soul as a sacrifice, and in the end, any forbidden spell mages typically wouldn"t live very long whether they used forbidden spells or not. There were far more mages that could secretly use forbidden spells than the publicly known ones.
Of course, these limitations were only for mortals. For example, in Auland"s "Rain Capital," divine powered forbidden spells had both much more power and stronger effects than mortals" forbidden spells, but even so, the Storm G.o.ddess and Water Elemental G.o.ddess paid a tremendous price.
Forbidden spells that borrowed from divine power had a weakness that wasn"t publicly known. They mostly lacked power to directly kill people. Even if they were able to kill people, it would typically be in an indirect fas.h.i.+on. I didn"t believe at all that this was because the True G.o.ds would take pity on the mortals. This was most likely another way of how the G.o.ds were forbidden to directly interfere with the cycle of reincarnation.
The previous generations where forbidden spells could be casually tossed out on battlefields with ancient G.o.ds and magic everywhere was long past already. In modern battles, even with forbidden spell mages, that was only a type of threat that wouldn"t be used unless it absolutely came to it. After all, forbidden spell mages would want to have longer lives as well.
But there were always exceptions to everything. In the modern era, there was a certain mage who didn"t follow any of the rules at all, tossing out forbidden spells like common vegetables and causing a series of incidents.
Fine, that was me, Lord Yongye from before.
As for why I dared to run rampant like that, it was mainly because I had endless undead armies acting as my s.h.i.+eld. Even if some strong ones managed to break through all the way to face me, my loyal Red Hunting Hounds would teach them the price of using their ultimate abilities too early just to get to me. And as for any magical backlash and cost to my lifespan, since I had a Lich"s body, I stopped caring about those things long ago. If any serious aftereffects ever happened, I still had my System to clean things up for me.
The current me no longer had the power to cast forbidden spells, but Kaid did. With Amelia and Margaret"s a.s.sistance as two top-level mages from the Truth Symposium, the earth element specialist Kaid would be able to borrow the endless elemental power of the Earth Elemental Plane to use the forbidden spell Continental Sinking (incomplete edition.)
Yep, it was indeed incomplete. Kaid"s power level was insufficient to cast the true version of Continental Sinking, which ranked near the top even amongst all forbidden spells. Continental Sinking"s complete version would be able to cut off an entire continent and sink it into the sea or even bury it into the ground. It was something incredibly fearsome.
As for Kaid"s version of the Continental Sinking forbidden spell (incomplete edition)—
"It"s probably just an earthquake at the level where it could make people hide under tables, but wouldn"t be able to harm a single person."
The fact that the attack power of Kaid"s spell was so insignificant aside, this was actually a complete forbidden spell of its own, and as long as Kaid"s power level was sufficient and he didn"t fail in the casting, it would definitely seem exactly like a real top-level forbidden spell.
At the moment, countless numbers of rocks started floating in midair, and "floating islands" suddenly increased in number by several thousand. The never-ending sandstorms in this plane fell abnormally silent, and only the scary-seeming increase in the Elemental Tide was evidence of the calm before the storm.
"Target, Elemental Throne."
Elemental Thrones were basically the equivalent of the Elemental G.o.ds" home in this plane, as well as the connection between an Elemental G.o.d and the Elemental Plane. It was definitely their greatest weakness. Of course, in normal situations, the Elemental G.o.d would die first, and the Elemental Throne would simply have a new owner afterwards.
But if this "top-level forbidden spell" destroyed everything around here and cut of the Elemental Throne"s connection to the Earth Elemental Plane, perhaps the next new Earth Elemental G.o.d"s birth would have to wait first for the birth of a new Elemental Throne, which would take thousands of years rather than hundreds.
We knew that this was nothing more than a fake forbidden spell, so that couldn"t possibly happen, but Emordilorcan would believe that we were going all-out. As long as he was still alive, it would be impossible for him to watch and let us cast this forbidden spell.
This was the strategy of attacking the enemy at his greatest weak spot, which he would be forced to defend. It was a vicious strategy that would give us the advantage of proactiveness. Or, to put it simply, it was just bait.
And things developed as I expected. Not even two minutes after the forbidden spell started casting, a white shadow appeared on the battlefield, rus.h.i.+ng at high speed towards Kaid.
"Emordilorcan has finally appeared. He"s taken the bait hook, line and sinker, and now it"s time to reel in the net."