Chapter 370
“There’s a God Equipment that represents each of the four elements? They represent the highest authority of the Elemental Gods? Such God Equipment exists?”
“Yes, this is the highest-level secret of the elementals. Unfortunately, all four God Equipment of the Elements have been lost. Even though the Elemental Gods are able to sense their locations...”
From a certain standpoint, the four elements were products of other planes, so elemental magic, too, could be considered products of other planes. That was why Antiholy Knights were capable of dispelling elemental magic, creating an area of zero magic which dispelled all spells and magic equipment.
Could the Antiholy Knights also dispel the power of Law? Although I needed to test this, I believed that the answer was likely yes, for the same reason as above. That was because the power of Law was supported by Wumianzhe’s automated divine server, making it a type of divine power.
Still, dispelling magic and divine power wasn’t something Antiholy Knights could do indiscriminately. It was just like how the conflict between positive energy and negative energy forever remained in balance. Only a large amount of water would be able to put out a fire. A minor amount of water would only be vaporized into steam by the same fire. It would still depend on the respective power levels between the Antiholy Knight and whoever they were fighting against, meaning that this job class wasn’t ridiculously overpowered. However, the other new job class, Desecration Priestess, was absolutely ridiculous. They were capable of stealing divine power.
I didn’t have information on the Desecration Priest job class in my System, partially due to the fact that Victoria’s ties of karma to me weren’t that close, but even more because this job class wasn’t yet complete.
Victoria thought like a typical Dark Elf in every way. She would never take an unknown path that may be fraught with peril. Desecration Priestess wasn’t anywhere near as complete a job class as Diana’s Anti-Holy Knight. However, Victoria had many former Lorci priestesses as subordinates and plenty of her subordinates were willing to take risks in order to obtain power. Naturally, her subordinates explored this path for Victoria’s sake.
Judging from what the Desecration Priestesses showed off at the battle of Kagersi, they possessed a mysterious power capable of stealing and manipulating enemies’ Divine Arts, magic, and racial talents.
That’s right. In that battle, they had managed to steal the Sea Tribe’s natural talent to whip up gigantic waves on the sea, achieving great accomplishments. But I could only guess the actual specifics. Perhaps this, too, was related to me, but I would still need to talk to Victoria for myself. Making a conclusion now would be too hasty.
Even if I thought about it with my knee, if Desecration Priestesses were capable of “borrowing” a True God’s Divine Concept and specialized Divine Arts, not only would this ability be ridiculously powerful, but it would break all the True Gods’ churches’ taboos by challenging their authority and unique powers. This job class likely already caught the attention of the Gods, which would definitely create a huge wave in society. Right now, I was thinking about how to deal with Ayer’s questions for me that were sure to come.
“This is truly troublesome... I hope Victoria can give me an appropriate explanation.”
At least, from an outsider’s standpoint, Victoria and Diana were both my subordinates. Their actions would be viewed as extensions of my will. Since Victoria herself was the one viewed responsible for the Desecration Priestesses, the overall responsibility would naturally fall to me. This was exactly why Camdian directly came to find me.
Also, the God Equipment of the Elements that he mentioned, one for each element, was something I was quite interested in.
“The Elemental Thrones give Elemental Gods an endless source of power and regeneration. In comparison, the God Equipment of the Elements allow Elemental Gods to have a foundational difference from ordinary Elemental Lords. It’s difficult for me to explain. But you’ll instantly understand if you see one.”
Camdian’s explanation sounded rather vague, but I could guess at what Camdian was here for.
Back when I was fighting solo against Emordilorcan, he hadn’t brought out anything like a God Equipment of Earth. His power was at most equivalent to an Earth Elemental Lord at his peak, with no foundational difference. Emordilorcan’s scariest powers of limitless energy and regeneration had disappeared when I had Beifeng destroy his Earth Elemental Throne. And his melee combat skills were countered by my Cold Flames of Despair, which was why I was able to win.
Was Emordilorcan at the time even farther away from his peak of power than I realized? I felt this was getting more and more interesting.
After putting Camdian’s information together with what I already knew, I could guess at what Camdian wanted from me, along with where the God Equipment of the Elements were located.
“The God Equipment of Wind is located in the Earth Elemental Plane’s forbidden zone, while the God Equipment of Earth is located in the Wind Elemental Plane’s forbidden zone. The Elemental Tide density is far too high there; even I cannot go there...”
Since the God Equipment of the Elements were so important, then the existences capable of sealing the Elemental Gods wouldn’t leave them be. But there would be no place capable of sealing such powerful equipment other than the Elemental Plane of the countering element. These locations were all such that the original user of the God Equipment of the Elements would be unable to access them. This way, even if the Elemental Gods broke free from their seals, they would be unable to return to their peak.
According to what Camdian told me, his God Equipment of Wind was located in the Limitless Hourglass, a location only the Earth Elemental God could access. The God Equipment of Water was similarly sealed within a place only the Fire Elemental God could access... this was obviously designed to make the Elemental Gods suffer.
Find helpers? This was something far beyond what mortals could achieve. The Chaos Faction only needed the Elemental Gods to be active, which would naturally increase the Elemental Tide. Why would the Chaos Faction possibly help them retrieve the God Equipment of the Elements, which would level the Elemental Gods up from fighters into veterans in their own right?
When I had fought with Emordilorcan, he must have checked on the God Equipment of Wind while working hard to convince other Earth Elemental Lords to join him. But he probably found that even he was helpless to enter that location. In the end, Emordilorcan never mentioned the God Equipment of Wind to us. Perhaps he even made preparations around this Limitless Hourglass location to conceal it from his enemies.
Now, Camdian’s motive should be obvious. Upon seeing that Diana had the potential to retrieve the God Equipment of Wind, Camdian came running over to me to beg for it. How practical of him.
I naturally wouldn’t agree to give it to him so easily. I needed to consider if he could offer me something worth its value as the God Equipment of Wind was something I really wanted for myself as well. At the very least, it would definitely be of high enough quality to use in my Frigidwinter Earth to help balance out my elements there.
As Camdian and I both continued to hesitate and think of the future, a seemingly limitless castle wall appeared before us under the dawn sky.
We had finally arrived at the ancient Bardi capital. Our journey in the sky had come to an end.
Not long after entering the Bardi capital, Archduke Halent and I agreed to meet Orloss on the day after tomorrow. Although he really wanted to take me to meet the emperor right away, I used the excuse of fatigue from my travels to refuse him.
Actually, my energy and spirit were at their peak after hibernating for seven days for my evolution. How could this small journey possibly fatigue me? I simply wanted to obtain more information and at least meet up with my subordinates to compare notes before I went to talk to Orloss.
As for the dragons’ important matter? Halent told me that the entrance to Dragon World was currently being guarded by a senior dragon, and that I would need permission before I could enter.
Halent told me where Cher and the others were temporarily staying. However, I didn’t hurry to meet them. Instead, I sent Little Red and the others to first meet up with Cher at the embassy hotel. I first roamed the streets to check the situation here.
For some unknown reason, even when I was as far away as in the Forest of Dreams, I kept having an ominous premonition about coming here, as if some major misfortune or calamity would befall me.
Personally, I was never the type to believe in prophecies. However, this warning was different from an inexplicable prophecy. I felt as if this unease was due to me forgetting about something, as if I were a student who had played around all summer vacation and finally copied someone else’s summer homework on the last day, but still kept worrying that I forgot something on my first day of school... By the way, while I was still a student, I did indeed forget something each and every time. Now that I recalled this, I started worrying even more.
Not only that, my System was recently trying to recommend me to buy “Resurrection Ankhs,””Revival Coins,” and so on every day, which only increased my anxiety...
What? You’re asking me why I wasn’t buying such useful life-saving items while my System was being nice to me for once? Actually, Revival Coins could only be used on the dead. That’s right, I would have to die and someone else would need to use it on me. Meanwhile, Resurrection Ankhs needed me to first learn the Taurens’ racial natural talent of Ancestral Call. I would have to change my bloodline to that of Taurens first before I’d be able to use it. In summary, the System would never be so kind. She was mostly trying to play a joke on me.
But all this further increased my anxiety. My System made it obvious that she intended to sit back and enjoy the show, which meant that something major was to occur, and soon at that.
“Ever since I entered this city, my instinct has been warning me to run away at top speed. But the more you run away from your problems, the bigger of a problem it’ll become. With my luck stat, I doubt I’ll be able to escape no matter what I do, so I might as well grit my teeth and face my problems head on. Do you all agree with me?”
I looked back behind me, where there was seemingly no one. The street wasn’t illuminated by sunlight and was abnormally empty. But I could sense that more than ten people were following me.
“Stealth, disguises, traveling through the ground, and even paint camouflage... Are you joking with me? Is this a ninja variety contest? You all have excellent sources of information to have noticed me the moment I entered the city. But which factions do you belong to, and what business do you have with me?”
“Seven...”
“Nine...”
“Thirteen...”
In response, they uttered a large amount of numbers. Not only that, not a single number was repeated.
What did that even mean? Was this some sort of password?
I was rather confused. Was this some sort of spy meeting? But what type of spy meeting would play such games with number passwords? They just gave more than ten different numbers, so what number was I supposed to give in return?
“What number are you?”
And then, as I expected, someone asked me what number I was.
...Could this really be spy meeting where everyone was currently reporting their own code numbers? I knew it!
Since I guessed at what was going on, of course I would play along. Perhaps I would even find out a secret. This was getting quite interesting.
“I’m ninety-seven!”
In a typical spy organization, the smaller the number, the more powerful the individual. Since there were already two-digit numbers being reported, I decided to report one of the largest two-digit numbers, which naturally meant that I would be unimportant. Perhaps I would be able to fool them like this.
“Is there already a ninety-seven?”
“I don’t think so. Wasn’t it only at sixty-eight at last count?”
“Perhaps that old man adopted some more at a whim.”
“Adopting more than thirty in one go? At this point in time? That’s too ridiculous to be a joke!”
“Are all of you idiots? Can’t you tell that this brat is just fooling with us!”
Finally, there was one who was slightly smarter among them, making it impossible for me to simply pretend.
As they all looked at me with eyes filled with enmity, I could only sigh. It would seem that I couldn’t fool them after all. I prepared to draw my sword with my right hand.
“Actually, I’m not ninety-seven. I’m... nine thousand five hundred and twenty-seven!”
Alright then. After that, even the dumbest among them knew I was only making stuff up. They all charged at me.
“Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m fighting here. I feel like my luck stat has gotten even lower after entering this city.”