“Nobody won on the eastern battlefront.”
The Cloud Tower was filled with a depressing atmosphere even though the sky was bright and sunny.
The only good news was that Devil Main God Sarwenstan had also perished.
“The dragons surrounded Sarwenstan and attacked all out, not caring about the price they had to pay. Wood Spirit Goddess Amelia and Dunder, leader of the Dwarven Gods, personally assisted in the fight which lasted for 16 hours. Finally, they were able to slay Sarwenstan. The Hell Dragons showed incredible combat strength in this fight, especially the mythic nine-headed Hell Dragon Evelynn…”
The fairies would always have information quite quickly. We really needed good news to help improve morale, especially due to what happened unexpectedly on the eastern battlefront.
Sarwenstan was probably the most unfortunate Main God of all. He was surrounded and killed right after he gave up on being a devil and transformed himself into a demon.
However, even if he had survived our attack, Sophocles likely would have sacrificed him. That was yet another pitfall waiting for Sarwenstan.
In this battle, Sarwenstan’s death even became minor news. The Hell Dragons had displayed their abilities as a legendary dragon species and received official recognition from the surface dragons. Sam, the old Hell Dragon who was formerly a Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, had finally gained face.
The plan was that the Hell Dragons would establish their own Dragon City in the mortal plane to create a relatively stable channel of communication with other countries in order to carry out their role as Hell’s messengers.
As for Amelia being together with the leader of the Dwarven Gods, that was the Nature Faction working closer together with the wood spirits. It seemed likely that Amelia would soon gain the astonishing title of “Nature Main God” and leadership of the Nature Faction.
Successfully slaying Devil Main God Sarwenstan was likely the most astonishing combat achievement of this Holy War so far; it was proof that my strategy had been correct. Having Amelia, the Nature Gods, and the Hell Dragons attack the western battlefront had been the best arrangement. They managed to kill someone as tough as Sarwenstan in quite a short period of time.
“Are you certain that you didn’t also privately want Amelia to be far away from this battle?”
“I’m not the God of Fate, so how could I possibly see so far ahead? Still, it really was incredibly fortunate that Amelia hadn’t been on the eastern battlefront.”
I was rather afraid of what might have happened. Normally, Amelia should have been on the eastern battlefront, but Sophocles likely would have locked onto her as his primary target without second thought simply because she was a Chaos Girl.
I had pretty much figured out the strange situation regarding Sophocles, but I still needed some more time and evidence to prove my inference.
It was now the morning after the “Sophocles self-destruction” incident. The fairy magazines and special reports before us all carefully avoided mentioning the eastern battlefront’s battle, only mentioning that a gigantic explosion had occurred, and that the specifics were still being investigated. The fairies placed most of their news report’s emphasis on the victory on the western battlefront.
The death of Devil Main God Sarwenstan would have been an astonishing victory which would cheer up the entire world if it had happened only a few days ago.
But now, this news was only enough to temporarily let us forget the pain of war…
“Analysis still hasn’t been completed on the dimensional space of that chaotic domain? What about the most basic data? Temperature, atmosphere, and physics constants still haven’t been determined yet?”
“Has the rescue team returned? There’s still nothing?”
“Damn it, those unfortunate guys still haven’t come out of the teleportation room? We have no time left. This place isn’t safe. We must change locations swiftly.”
The mages’ courtyard wasn’t as idle as it usually was. Its formerly clean streets were now covered with rubble and stone debris. The wise mages carefully conserved every bit of mana they could due to the chaotic situation. People were busy everywhere.
The mages had lost more than they had expected in certain areas.
The Cloud Tower, which was the Mage Country’s national treasure, had suffered the destruction of five out of its seven main gravity engines. The Cloud Tower had barely managed to fly away from the battlefield for 10 or so minutes before it crashed into Bardi’s Hake Mountains.
More than 70% of the Cloud Tower’s streets were damaged. More than 3000 residents had died due to the destruction from the earlier battle. The financial losses would be completely uncalculatable.
The most important was the lasting damage to the mage towers’ functions. Although the Cloud Tower had been shielded from the brunt of the explosion by the thousands of mage towers and tens of thousands of archmages casting defensive spells, a large majority of mage towers with defensive functions would now require extensive repairs. The Cloud Tower wouldn’t have much combat strength again anytime soon.
Additionally, all the magic puppets, war puppets, and summoned creatures that the mages had sent to the battlefield had all been instantly destroyed in the explosion. As it had been an army accumulated over many centuries, this was an astronomical loss of resources.
The only part worth celebrating was that the Cloud Tower had arrived on the battlefield.
Correct, the Cloud Tower arriving on the battlefield and suffering severe damage was actually a truly fortunate event for the Mage Country. This prevented even more losses and an unspeakable tragedy from occurring.
Mages would always leave dimensional portals in their personal mage towers. In a time of need, as long as the mage wasn’t too far away from their mage tower, the mage could use a very simple spell to teleport themselves back to their mage tower. This was typically a mage’s final method of escaping danger.
The Cloud Tower had a record of every single registered dimensional portal within it. The moment that the self-destruction occurred, archmage Lain and the others activated an ultimate defense spell which forcefully summoned back every single mage currently on the battlefield. This avoided the worst possible outcome of countless archmages dying for nothing on the battlefield.
Of course, there were also losses with this as teleportation would require a tremendous amount of energy. Summoning so many thousands of people simultaneously required an energy expenditure that really crippled the Cloud Tower on top of all the damage it took.
There was an unexpected side effect of the teleportation that nobody had expected.
Since the teleportation rooms had limited space, the mages who were teleported back didn’t even react to what happened yet when other mages were teleported on top of their heads. Trampling incidents occurred in every single teleportation room. The archmages’ old backs suffered severe blows, with many of them still moaning with pain in their beds even now.
The teleportation rooms became bursting with people. The mage tower spirits in charge of teleportation activated the backup plan, and started teleporting the remaining mages out… Where had those unlucky mages been teleported to? Were they still alive or even in this dimension? That would have to wait until we had the free time to check every single mage tower spirit’s teleportation records.
Despite all this, there was still some joy at being able to survive such a calamity even though things had been so scary.
The Mage Country hadn’t suffered the most severe losses. Sophocles’ self-destruction had caused an explosion that was far quicker than any tidal wave. Every single one of Bardi’s ships along the shoreline was completely annihilated.
There was no need to even try to search for survivors on the ground. Even now, the eastern battlefield was still a chaotic domain that was impossible to analyze and completely inhospitable to any life. The mages’ rescue teams were currently searching on the sea instead in hopes of finding more survivors.
I communicated with Halent by using a long-distance magic spell. His expression was rather subtle when he saw me.
In a way, Halent had suffered severe losses in this battle, to the point of being a loser. But from another standpoint, he had also mysteriously obtained what he wanted, gaining both reputation and benefits.
What benefits had Halent obtained? Sophocles’ self-destruction hadn’t cared about enemy or ally. Apart from the mages, Sophocles had killed every single ground unit from both the human alliance and the Chaos Faction. The self-destruction had also acted as an indiscriminate mega divine power shock wave and earthquake AOE.
Asolivis, which wasn’t far from where the battle took place, also got caught in the blast… or, more accurately speaking, the rubble of what had previously been Asolivis.
About half of Asolivis had become part of the new chaotic domain left behind. The explosion had destroyed the entire city’s foundation. The powers of Chaos and Order had destroyed all the Dimensional Doors here along with the area’s dimensional stability. The residents of the lower planes would have to find another route to the mortal plane in the future.
Of course, all the demons, devils, and undead stationed here… well, none of them had strong magic defense, so they had all returned to the River Styx together with everyone else that died.
The human alliance’s primary goal here was to completely eliminate Asolivis as a strategic threat that was an open route for dimensional invaders to come attack through. Sophocles’ self-destruction had achieved this goal for the humans.
Ironically, Sophocles was the one who brought all the demons here, but he also personally killed all the demons.
The combat results from the eastern battlefront were far more glorious than from the western battlefront. It was now completely confirmed that five Main God level existences had perished due to Sophocles’ self-destruction. Sophocles (Chaos), Sophocles (Order), Barbarot, Heimor, and the God of Holy Light’s incarnation. …When I saw this list, I made up my mind that I would run as far away as possible the next time that I met the God of Holy Light’s incarnation. His incarnations always ended up exploding every time that they appeared. It was as if he was even more of a jinxer than I was!
“It’s not the same thing at all. Karolan is a God with no self-will. Once his mechanical way of thinking has been analyzed, it’s actually quite easy to lure his incarnation to a fixed location so that the incarnation can be slain in order to weaken his true body. This is the only method to even possibly defeat him to begin with… Judging from the results, it really is no mistake to run as quickly as possible from his incarnations. But, the fact that his incarnations always explode is absolutely related to you being a jinxer.”
Harloys seemed to still be in good spirits as she still took the time to comment regarding me.
Oh, someone seemed to be missing from the list of the dead Main Gods? Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom? He had unexpectedly managed to survive again in the end. However, he had lost his divinity as the God of Wisdom. His situation was quite complex, so I won’t be going into it.
Ahem, so basically, there was no victor at all in this battle… if there had to be a victor, then only Sophocles and Karwenz likely counted.
Karwenz was already public enemy #1 of the entire world. The Order Faction, Chaos Faction, and Hell Faction had all suffered severe losses from Sophocles’ self-destruction. Karwenz’s goal was also exposed already, so everyone was going to give him trouble.
Unlike before, as the chaotic domain stabilized and was analyzed, Karwenz’s was also now exposed to the world. Nobody would give him free time to do as he pleased in the new chaotic domain that appeared, as that would mean allowing the world itself to end.
The end of this battle signified that a new battle would begin. I really didn’t know what to say.
The Truth Symposium members were focusing fully on analyzing the new chaotic domain. The time for the next battle might arrive really quickly.
“Sir Roland, Lain and Margaret are requesting that you go to conference room #3.”
“Tell them that I’ll be there immediately,” I casually answered a familiar as I got up.
The mages were doing their best to regain face after suffering such severe losses. The first step to this was naturally analyzing the enemy.
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