Chapter 2344: Show Your Resolve.
Even before Legion-10 finished speaking, the divine beast had kicked someone else and severely injured them. This unfortunate godclad was Sir Kris. The clawed limb of the blue cock had directly impaled him.
He was using a divine artifact with the Aegis shield to defend himself, but the shield had collapsed without putting up a fight as soon as the foot of the peacock struck him.
The divine artifact had failed him because of the spiritual impact of the divine form of the peacock. Legends can't use divine artifacts, but weak divine artifacts can't be used against them either.
Even epic godclads and normal godclads couldn't withstand the spiritual impact of seeing the divine form of a legend while they were alive. So there was no way something made out of their corpse could stand up to the divine form of a legend.
If it were the vine plant that injured him like that, Sir Kris would likely not survive it due to the use of the rank 2 Death Mark, rank 3 Stun, and rank 5 Bleed divine abilities.
Even if the vine plant didn't use any of these divine abilities, the fact that its limbs were made of the rank 4 Blood Limbs divine ability would have doomed him easily. ๐ป๐ณโฏโฏ๐คโฏ๐ท๐ฏโด๐โฏ๐ญ.๐โด๐
The Blood Limbs would have drained him of all his life energy, grown stronger, expanded, and then crushed him from within. But the limb of the divine peacock wasn't so great at killing.
The injury caused to Sir Kris looked heavy and serious, but it was nowhere near enough to kill him because the injury was purely physical. His life energy was intact, so he would remain alive for a long time more.
In fact, Sir Kris was still capable of fighting and resisting in his state. He grabbed onto the leg of the divine peacock and used his whole strength to trip it up so that the others would be able to subdue the beast.
He was putting in a lot of work, but his teammates were still lagging behind in achieving their aim. The beast was just too strong for them. It appeared that Sir Kris was being dragged and tossed about for nothing.
In terms of strength, the divine beast might be stronger than a rank 8 demigod. This was also the case for its defense.
This enhanced defense and strength is why the beast was so difficult to subdue. The peacock wasn't using any divine ability, but it didn't need to because the divine form might be an ultimate divine ability on its own.
In this state of liberation, the peacock possessed the strength and defense of giants. But it also possesses the speed of travelers.
It was as if the divine beast was using Speed Boost divine ability of the pathway of travelers, the Strength Boost divine ability of the pathway of giants, and the Copper Skin and Iron Bones of the pathway of divine abilities.
Even their claws and wings were so sharp that it was as if they were using the Sever divine ability of the pathway of killing. So it will be very difficult for them to catch up to the divine beasts, block an attack of theirs, and subdue them.
The failing nobles quickly came to the conclusion that they needed to use a powerful ability to subdue the divine beasts or risk more deaths. So they used their domain divine ability.
The first legend said, "Divine beasts are forbidden from moving in this city."
The second beast said, "Divine beasts are forbidden from resisting capture in this city."
The two divine beasts were struck by the rules immediately and were forced to become still. But the legends who used the rules on them didn't go unscathed.
The two legends staggered after making the rules and even stumbled. They were struck by a wave of fatigue immediately after the rules took effect.
Even though they basically set the same rules to affect the same targets and were sharing the burden, the drain of spiritual energy was still enormous for them. It was because the targets they were using the domain on were divine beasts and also nobles like them.
The form of a divine beast has an innate resistance to the effect of divine abilities. It would take a lot of power, both physical and spiritual, to subdue them.
What's more, the beasts also have the rank 7 divine flesh of the pathway of nobility within them, and Reinfield City was their territory too. These two similarities caused the two legends to not have the 90% reduction to spiritual energy expenditure when using their domains that they normally should.
And since the divine beasts were stronger than them, they needed to expend a lot of spiritual energy to subdue them. The worst part was that they couldn't subdue them for long after expending so much spiritual energy because they couldn't last long under such a severe strain.
The time that the beasts would remain immobile was nowhere near enough to tie them up securely. Even if they managed that, it was nearly impossible for them to prevent the Divine Beasts from using their own divine abilities when the Divine Beasts recovered their spiritual energy.
The angel of killing chuckled in amusement at this moment and asked them, "So what will it be? Will you liberate your divine form and try to subdue them, or will you bring out someone stronger to subdue them, or will you quickly end them when you still have the chance?"
"I am curious to see what you will do. Show me your resolve."
The angel of death appeared to be very curious about what they would do next. Legion was also curious to see if these nobles will continue to be stubborn in their stupidity or do something smart for once.
It appeared to be a smart decision to Legion, but they weren't the only ones who thought so. Many people also thought that the smart decision was to kill the two divine beasts
Chapter 2345: End It.
Even the two legends and the other rank 6 godclads knew that the smart thing for them to do was to kill the two divine beasts as soon as possible.
Not only was that the most efficient way to end all of these, but it was the best way to cut their losses short because the two divine beasts are unlikely to regain control.
It is common sense that once a godclad loses control and mutates, they are gone, and it is almost impossible for them to recover. So even if they manage to capture these two divine beasts, there is no way to help them recover their sanity.
But they didn't want to give up on the two divine beasts just yet. The two of them used to be their close friends and even family members. They don't want to be the ones to kill them just like that.
And there was a slim chance that a legendary godclad of the pathway of light would be able to help them recover. The shorter the duration of the loss of control, the higher the chance of recovery. So it would be great if they could capture the two divine beasts as soon as possible.
However, it didn't matter what they wanted if they were not strong enough to bring it to pass. They simply lacked the strength to execute their wish, so they will have to do something they don't want to do if they want to cut their losses now.
If they don't subdue the divine beasts quickly, the two of them will only become more dangerous as more time passes. And now that they have used their domains against the two divine beasts, they will have to put an end to things before they run out of spiritual energy.
This consideration and many thoughts passed through their minds before they made up their minds. The two legends then passed the order to the other six rank 6 godclads, so everyone moved to kill.
The two divine beasts were immobile and unable to resist. So they became living targets for everyone to attack.
In just a few seconds, the two divine beasts were torn apart. It was a miserable sight and a miserable end for such great people.
The nobles were sad and sorrowful after what they had done. Their moods were downcast, but a certain powerful being was having the time of life.
The angel of killing didn't say anything. He or she just laughed.
Even though they didn't speak, their laughter didn't help the situation at all. Their laughter was grating for the defeated nobles to bear. The sound was like salt on their fresh and deep wounds.
The nobles were angry, but not one of them said anything for fear of angering the angel of death. They could keep their mouth shut and hope that the angel of death was too busy resisting losing control to bother with them.
Legion, who were usually in agreement with the angel of killing, were not laughing this time around. Instead of laughing and being amused, they were fixated on something more important.
The item of their focus was Sir Kiss. They were fixated on his injured form as he was carried away from the battlefield. Apparently, he couldn't walk on his own anymore.
Legion-1 said to the others, "I think it is high time we introduced ourselves to Sir Kris."
Legion-7 smiled and said, "We should also apologize for killing so many of his children. This bad blood between us should be removed as soon as possible."
Legion-4 nodded in agreement and said, "Yes, yes. We should kiss and make up. I'm sure he will forgive us because we are so convincing."
Legion-11 grinned evilly and said, "Then we will become the best of friends. We will become of one heart and mind."
The other clones began to laugh together with him. Even as they did so, they had Black Axe and what was left of his entire gang step forward to help the nobles.
More than 50% of the forces in the outer city had been killed in the earlier battle. The Golden Hammer gang and the Black and White gang are two of the few gangs that remained largely intact.
The Black and White gang was not attacked by the beast tide because their territory was on the opposite side of the Golden Hammer gang. So they were one of the gangs that was the farthest away from the forest.
But unlike the gangs close to their position, the Black and White gang didn't send anyone to join the resistance against the beasts after they breached the wall of the outer city. They stayed in their territory, so their leader and the other gang members were not mowed down by the vine plants.
The vine plants were one of the main causes of casualty in the battle. They had too many limbs and were too powerful to be resisted, so nearly everyone that went to reinforce the breached territories in order to gain some benefits didn't return.
The other half of the main cause of casualties, and even the ones who killed the most, were the legends. Their divine forms killed every normal godclad and mortal who so much as laid their eyes on them.
In summary, the beasts themselves had killed 5%. The vine plants were responsible for 10% of the total casualties. Then the divine beasts were responsible for the remaining 85%.
The worst part about the casualties caused by the divine form of the two legends that lost control was that the deaths they caused were not limited to the outer city. Anyone who gazed on them and was weak died regardless of their position.
The two divine beasts were as tall as four-story buildings, so they were seen far and wide by a lot of people in the city. This is why they were responsible for so many deaths. Even the Golden Hammer gang and the Black and White gang suffered because of this.
Chapter 2346: Lacking Manpower.
To be fair, the beasts and the vine plants were responsible for most, if not all, of the deaths of epic godclads.
Epic godclads could resist the spiritual impact caused by gazing at their divine form, so epic godclads who weren't killed by the vine plants and the beasts survived the unfortunate turn of events.
The only epic godclad that the divine beasts managed to kill was one of the rank 6 nobles that went to subdue them. But the two divine beasts had killed so many mortals and normal godclads that the whole city felt empty.
This many casualties meant that now that the battle had ended, there were very few people that were capable of helping the city recover. So Black Axe coming forward with the lucky few from his gang who were still alive was really appreciated.
No one suspected him of ulterior motives for coming forward to help. Even if they did, they needed his help because the city was short of manpower.
So they allowed him to help them lift Sir Kris and escorted him to his house. They also allowed him to move around the inner city and even attend a meeting with all the remaining legends in the city about what they would do now.
It can be said that Reinfield City had been devastated by that attack. The interesting thing about so much death and destruction was that it was caused by the nobles, not the enemies.
Surely, the angel of killing had a part to play in this much devastation. But their plan had been to kill two and maybe four legendary nobles.
The ultimate goal of the angel of killing was not the weak godclads or the mortals in the city. It was the failure to achieve that ultimate goal that led to many people dying instead.
Legion was perhaps the only one who thought that this dynamic was interesting, though. They were the only ones who marveled about the power of an angel and how even their failed plans could lead to such catastrophic damage. ๐๐ซ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฅ.๐๐๐
Legion-2 asked the others, "Do you think that the nobles would have decided to give up the lives of four of them if it meant that Reinfield City wouldn't suffer so much?"
He was referring to the plan of the angel of killing and if the nobles would have allowed it to succeed in order to avoid so much destruction and death to Reinfield City.
But Legion-4 didn't think the nobles would be willing to sacrifice their lives for the city.
He said, "I doubt it. I don't think even the total destruction of the city would be enough to convince them to sacrifice just one of them."
Legion-6 was even less optimistic about the possibility of self-sacrifice. He shook his head and said, "Even if those two legends who died knew that they were going to die at the end of the day, they still would not have given up on living and fighting for their lives. They would have done the very same thing and resisted to the bitter end when that red lightning bolt struck them."
Legion-12 nodded and said, "That's the way it should be. Fighting and resisting to the bitter end is the way to go because what use is the life and death of others to you when you are going to die?"
They were discussing among themselves while simultaneously listening to the nobles discuss and plan about what to do about their hostile and powerful neighbors.
Legion was not focused on this meeting, though. They were glad to be able to acquire inside information about the plans of the administrators of the city, but they had so many other things to do at this time too.
For one, they sent their assassin to visit Sir Kris and were keeping track of that mission. They wanted to make sure that nothing would go wrong.
They also sent their traveler and thief all over the city to collect information for them. The information they were most interested in was about the defense of the energy spring at the center of the city.
The city is currently lacking in manpower, and the legendary nobles are busy, so the energy spring is currently at its weakest state. This is the best time for them to snoop around and do things they wouldn't be able to do in a normal situation.
To be honest, they were tempted to attack the city now. But they are hesitant to do so because they are not prepared enough.
For one, they want to get all of their pathways to rank 6. Secondly, they want to get all of their slaves to rank 6 too.
They believed that this was the minimum requirement to gain access to the energy spring and get away with it. This belief has only been reinforced by the sight of two legends and six rank 6 godclads failing to subdue a divine beast.
That sight proved that even if they could somehow threaten a legend, once that legend becomes desperate and liberates their divine form, it is unlikely that they would be able to resist them.
But the sight of the two legends failing to subdue a divine beast and the events that led up to it also taught them a lesson that they could take advantage of. That lesson is that legends don't want to liberate their divine forms if they can avoid it.
They knew this because they knew about the power paradox. But it was confirmed when a legend would rather bring another legend and six other rank 6 beasts to solve a problem that one of them could solve by liberating themselves.
Then it was confirmed again when the legends refused to unleash their divine forms and chose to resort to killing a friend of theirs even though they wanted to save that friend.
There was also the angel of killing and the fact that he or she or it didn't make an appearance in Reinfield City even though they should have the power to destroy the city.
Chapter 2347: Dealing With An Angel.
It is said that the powerful defender of the forest is a tree and cannot move. Legion isn't sure about this, but even if it is true, they suspect that the angel of killing should be able to move and wipe out this city in a few seconds if they liberate their divine form.
If what they suspect about the power of the divine form is true, then either the angel of killing can't unleash their divine form, or they don't think it is worth it to unleash their divine form just to wipe out the city.
Either way, these events have taught Legion that as long as they push the legends to the limit and they don't make them desperate, they won't liberate their divine forms. So they don't plan to try and kill any legend anymore.
For now, they are content with meeting with Sir Kris and having a heart-to-heart with him. If they can't even achieve this in his current state, then they have no business trying to take on the city. ๐๐ซ๐๐ฒ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐ฏ๐๐น.๐๐จ๐บ
While this was happening, the nobles were settling on what to do with the angel of killing. It appeared that their discussion had been fruitful because they came up with two solutions.
The first method they came up with to deal with the angel of death was to report them to the royal family and the dukes of the Wessex kingdom. This will force the angel of killing to either join the kingdom as a noble, come to a truce with the kingdom, or antagonize the entire kingdom.
What the nobles of Reinfield want are the first two options. They want the angel of killing to become a noble like them so that the angel won't be able to attack them anyhow.
If this option comes to pass, they might even gain a powerful ally to protect them. All they will need to give up are some benefits in exchange for the protection. As merchants, any problem that can be solved with money is better than risking their lives for it.
If this option doesn't go through, they are willing to settle for a truce with the angel of killing. As long as the angel of killing stops attacking them, they are willing to consider any type of demand.
The second option is practically an option of surrendering completely to the angel of death in the worst case or becoming the business partner of the angel. It could be good or bad, but they are willing to roll the dice on it.
But if these two options don't work and the angel of killing is hell-bent on killing them. Then they will have to resort to drastic actions themselves.
The nobles of Reinfield don't believe that the powerful nobles and the royal family of Wessex will be comfortable allowing an angel to live in their territory and not abide by their rules, but even if the royal family doesn't help them deter the angel from killing, the nobles of Reinfield City are willing to contact the church of justice for help.
They don't want to have anything to do with the Church of Justice, and they also don't want any fight on the level of angels to occur in the vicinity of Reinfield City, but if they are going to lose their precious city anyway, then they don't mind making the angel of killing pay a price.
The nobles spoke at length, but nowhere was revenge mentioned. As the discussion went on, it became clear that they don't plan to take revenge for the death of so many people and two legends personally at all.
In fact, they don't want to fight anymore. Reinfield City has suffered too much, so all they want to do is recover and regain some peace.
In a normal situation, the quest for revenge will cost them. Not that the target of revenge is an angel; the cost will be too much.
At the very least, they have to be ready to give up on Reinfield City completely if they want revenge. They don't think such a loss is worth the revenge, so they are giving up on it right from the start.
After the discussion, the nobles dispersed, leaving behind only the legends. The legends stayed back to finalize the division of labor. It is something they have to do now that they have lost two sources of legendary manpower and have to deal with an angel.
There are currently five legends still alive in the city. That's what the nobles claimed even though only four of them attended the meeting.
Black Axe was able to confirm that there were at least four legends in the city. But the nobles he spoke to dropped the information that there was a fifth legend, who was a rank 8 demigod, still alive.
Some of the nobles claimed that this rank 8 demigod was in the city, while others claimed that the demigod had gone traveling. They don't know where the rank 8 demigod is for sure because she rarely shows her face, but all the nobles believe that she is still alive somewhere.
It is not strange for demigods not to be seen for a long while. Especially since demigods have a lifespan of 1,000 years. What is considered a long time by weaker beings might not be so long for them.
It was a little strange that the demigod didn't show herself to save Reinfield City earlier in its time of trouble if they were alive and in the city. But the fact that she didn't appear still doesn't prove that she isn't alive. Legion didn't like this uncertainty at all.
Things can become very bad if they miss a rank 7 legend and fail to account for it in their plans. But things can go so much worse if the entity they missed is a demigod and it backfires.
This uncertainty made them begin to consider giving up on Reinfield and targeting some other city or forest in order to safely meet the advancement requirement of rank 7 for the pathway of undying.
Chapter 2348: New Information.
They thought that Reinfield City was too dangerous to covet, so they began to entertain the idea of leaving it alone and choosing another target.
Not all the clones agreed to do this, though. Their main reason for disagreeing was that they knew Reinfield very well and didn't want to go to another city and start investigating all over again.
At the very least, the clones that disagreed with this proposal wanted to see if there was anything they could do to make the uncertain situation become certain first before they gave up. ๐ฏ๐ง๐๐๐ฌ๐๐๐ฃ๐ค๐๐ฎ๐ต.๐๐ค๐ข
The idea they came up with was to do something that would force the appearance of the demigod if she really is in Reinfield City at this time. But they also didn't want her to appear and target them, so they didn't know how to move ahead with this plan.
While they were arguing about this, the assassin that they sent to meet Sir Kris finally met up with him. She was able to sneak into his bedroom without being caught and had a chat with him.
It turned out that Sir Kris was an easygoing person and was fun to chat with. He was injured, but he was still able to chat amicably with the assassin, so the slave of them had a fulfilling meeting with him.
The meeting was so fulfilling that Sir Kris shared some secret information about Reinfield City with them.
One of the secrets that he shared with them was that the rank 8 demigod was indeed alive and was truly in Reinfield City, but she was teetering on the edge of madness, so she rarely moved.
Apparently, the source of her problem is something that every demigod has. After they become demigods, they can project their divine form with their spiritual energy instead of liberating their bodies completely into the form of their divine beasts.
This projection of their divine form is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The biggest advantage is that demigods have a lesser risk of losing control if they project their divine forms instead of liberating.
The projection can also be used together with the divine form liberation. So it can serve as another source of power for demigods.
The first disadvantage is that the projection is weaker than their divine beast form. But the biggest disadvantage is that the divine flesh can take over the projection and try to use it to seize control of the body.
The chances of the divine flesh taking control of the projection are very low. But once it happens, the projection will begin to fight the main body for control.
The irony of this situation is that this process of fighting with the projection is a necessary step to advance to rank 9. Only after the projection has been defeated or convinced that the main body is the original source of the divine flesh will a demigod be able to become a legend.
So according to what Sir Kris said, the rank 8 demigod is currently locked deep within the city wrestling for control of her existence with the projection.
But while this looks bad, she is actually in the process of advancing to the next rank. If she wins the fight, she will become an angel. But if she loses, she will lose control and become mad.
The more Legion heard of this, the more they couldn't help but say, "The Lord of Madness surely has a thing for madness. I am willing to bet that he engineered the power system of godclads so that he can take advantage of their madness to benefit himself somehow."
They only considered the motive of the Lord of Madness for creating a power system where losing control is a risk of power for a short time. What they dwelled on is the fact that the demigod won't be able to help Reinfield City any time soon.
This information gave them the confidence to continue with their plans for Reinfield City. They began to eagerly put the steps of their plan into action.
The assassin left Sir Kris after the discussion. She left to pick up a certain high-rank divine artifact in possession of one of the noble families.
The divine artifact is the one that possesses the rank 7 Mind Domination divine ability. The person in charge of the artifact was also severely injured and couldn't keep the artifact.
Sir Kris was the one who told them about the divine artifact and its current situation. Thanks to the information that he gave them, the assassin was able to easily find and take the divine artifact.
After the slave left him, Sir Kris decided not to rest and let time heal him. He decided to go the expensive route of healing himself by using the precious water of life that was in possession of his family.
As the head of the family and the strongest one apart from the legends, no one could stop him from using the water of life. Especially since the situation in Reinfield City was so tense.
Sir Kris's reason for using the water of life to heal himself was that he wanted to make himself available to work for Reinfield City in these trying times. This reason made everyone praise Sir Kris for being loyal to the city.
He had used his property to heal himself, but he was being praised for his willingness to sacrifice for the city because Sir Kris is a well-known miser. He usually wouldn't spend money on something he didn't need to spend money on.
What everyone expected him to do was rest and slowly heal with time. Apparently, they were wrong to think that he would do that.
Apparently, Sir Kris recognized that the city was in dire need of help and that he needed to be available to help. To top things of, he decided to be available for the city in its time of need. This move earned him a lot of praise from the legends.
Chapter 2349: Being Responsible.
The legends rarely paid attention to the things going on in the city. Their current priority is to give the talented senior who advanced to rank 8 all the help that she could get so that she could safely advance to the rank of an angel.
That goal was why not one of them had it in mind to advance to rank 8 themselves. They understood that they couldn't divide their time and resources on two rank 8s, so they all chose to prioritize the advancement of the one that was already in rank 8.
Their goal has become even more important now that it has become a fact that their neighbor is an angel or has angelic means at their disposal. So they wouldn't have heard about Sir Kris's situation and praised him if he hadn't gone to them.
He went to them to offer to offload some of the work that they were responsible for. He wanted to help them do one particular job so that they would be free to do other things. The job he suggested to take over was guarding the energy spring of the city.
Aside from guarding the rank 8 demigod, the legends are responsible for protecting the energy spring too. Usually, at least two legends guard the rank 8 demigod while one of the legends protects the energy spring.
Two legends have to guard the demigod so that they will be able to resist if she loses control. Even if they can't resist her, two of them will have time to call for reinforcements.
If there is only one guard and the demigod loses control, the demigod can kill the single guard before the guard can call for reinforcement and warn the others.
In order to prevent this, they must guard the demigod with as many legends as possible. Even if they are cutting corners, they must have at least two guards watching her at the same time.
There used to be 6 legends in the city apart from the rank 8 demigods. These 6 legends shared their duty equally. So while three of them were busy protecting one thing or another, the other three had time to rest or enjoy themselves.
But now two legends have died, and one legend needs to visit the capital and speak with the royals about the angel in the forest beside Reinfield City. This means that the three legends remaining in the city will be too busy to rest until the situation becomes better.
To top it off, with three of the legends remaining in the city being so busy, they won't have any legend on guard by the wall of the city to look out for any move from the angel.
This is why the legends were already discussing asking one of their descendants to take over guarding the energy spring so that one of them could monitor the forest to make sure that they are not caught off guard with another attack.
They were also discussing moving the rank 8 demigod so that the angel of killing wouldn't be able to interfere with her advancement. But they didn't tell Sir Kris about this.
What they told him was that they were impressed with his sacrifice and dedication to the family. Then they agreed with his proposal to let him guard the energy spring.
But they didn't let only him guard the energy spring. They asked someone else to work together with him, so there would be two rank 6 godclads guarding the energy spring.
With their decision made, they dismissed Sir Kris and continued to discuss their situation. What they discussed next was about the probability that the angel of killing was targeting the rank 8 demigod locked away deep within the city.
Meanwhile, the city settled down. It had to settle down because the nobles didn't want anyone causing trouble in the city right now.
In fact, the nobles had agreed to ban any sort of fighting, open or covert, between the gangs of the outer city. They didn't want anyone upsetting the already fragile peace of the city.
Every gang leader sighed in relief when they heard this ban. They were happy to receive it because it meant that powerful gangs like the Golden Hammer gang and the Black and White gang wouldn't be able to expand their territory while the other gangs had become too weak to resist.
In general, the gangs of the outer city are at their lowest point. The devastation to the city had eliminated many gangs completely, while some gangs only had their gang leaders.
For the gangs that were eliminated completely, they have the vine plants for killing their gang leaders and the divine beasts for killing the normal godclads and mortals in the gang.
For the gangs who only had their gang leaders still alive, they have the divine beasts for why their gangs had shrunk to a record low size.
Either way, in the outer city there were either territories without any gangs in control of them or there were territories with gangs who were too weak to defend them.
So if a gang like Golden Hammer with a suspected number of 8 epic godclads decided to expand their territory, there would be very few people who could stop them.
The nobles recognized this situation, so they discussed it among themselves and banned any fighting. They also began recruiting more gangs to take over the empty territory.
Nobles usually don't recruit gangs in the middle of a game. They wait for a game to be over before they recruit gangs. But the situation is dire currently.
The current situation is that if an attack comes from the forest again, the outer city is in no shape to defend against it. This is far more important than some game to select successors for the noble family.
While it was unlikely that the forest would be able to mount another attack on the level of the previous one, the nobles were not willing to take any chances and be caught off guard.
Chapter 2350: Deadly Blunder.
The nobles had a lot of things they wanted to do but had very little people capable of doing those things. They were so desperate for manpower that they allowed gang leaders that had been banned before from the games to return.
This permission allowed the rank 4 machinist that used to be the neighbor of the Golden Hammer gang to return to the outer city as a gang leader.
The machinist was the leader of the Five Gears gang. He was punished a few months ago after 256 men and women in his gang died because of a powerful disease.
Cedric was determined to be the culprit of the death of so many people, so he was disowned publicly. But the nobles didn't stop there.
In order to discourage using underhanded schemes to attack other gangs, the nobles decided to punish the machinist too for attacking the Golden Hammer gang with an undying godclad and another knight.
All of these happened about six months ago. The machinist was supposed to be banned for life from participating in the game, but he was back again doing what he loved in less than a year.
What's even better than his return is that he gets to pick whatever territory he wants to take control of. It was a matter of first come, first served. He came to sign up as soon as the nobles announced their permission of his crimes, so he came first and became the first to choose his territory.
This opportunity was very good for him because it meant that he had the option to pick somewhere to stay that was as far away from the Golden Hammer gang as possible.
He didn't want to be anywhere near the Golden Hammer gang after experiencing multiple losses and nearly dying himself. So he chose to stay close to the Black and White gang since it was directly opposite the territory of the Golden Hammer gang in the outer city.
After arriving in his new territory, he went to greet Black Axe, as he was his neighbor. When they were chatting, he casually mentioned why he picked the location of his new territory and how much he hates the Golden Hammer gang.
Legion-5 chuckled when he heard this and said, "What a loser. We are not even interested in you, yet you still show up to be killed."
The machinist thought that he was moving away from danger, but he was only getting closer to it from another direction. His move to stuck with Black Axe was simply a deadly blunder.
If not for the fact that fighting among the gangs was banned and Legion didn't want to antagonize the legends of the city yet, they would have killed the machinist.
They would have killed him out of spite and to mock him for his decision because they don't have a better reason to kill him. He is just that inconsequential to them.
There is very little that they will gain from killing him if they could do so and get away with it. But now that killing him would bring them trouble, they didn't bother to waste time on him.
Besides, they didn't have the time to waste on him. They had more important things to spend their time on, such as fishing for psychic shriekers.
After a month of baiting and using their fate weaver to calculate the fastest way to get what they want, they finally got something to show for their efforts.
Their fate weaver had been manning the fishing rod and had been using her divine ability to predict where to fish for the optimum outcome. Now a psychic shrieker had taken the bait.
The psychic shrieker had been hooked because it had swallowed the bait, and the binding formations on the hook had activated. The binding formation caused a tattoo of a rope winding around the neck of the psychic shrieker to appear.
The tattoo wasn't for show. It wasn't just an ornamental manifestation. The tattoo of the rope was really crushing the neck of the psychic shrieker and holding onto it very tightly.
What's worse is that the tattoo was still spreading from the neck of the shrieker to the rest of its body. Soon even its four feet will be bound up, not just its neck. This was the cost of eating free food.
The psychic shrieker couldn't escape its bounds, so the fishing rod was reeling back the hook out of the spirit realm and pulling the psychic shrieker with it. Legion had to be there to fight and kill the psychic shrieker, so they went there and didn't bother with the leader of the Five Gears gang.
The psychic shrieker is a large red bird the size of houses. It was as big as the rank 6 beasts that led the beasts tide earlier.
The psychic shrieker was as big as a three-story building and also strong, so its resistance to being pulled was very high. The fishing rod was groaning and creaking as it struggled to pull back its catch.
It appeared that even though the psychic shrieker couldn't escape, it wasn't going to make capturing it easy at all.
Legion had to join the efforts to pull the psychic shrieker out of the spiritual dimension. To do this, they activated all of their pathways and let all of their arms grow out.
With four pairs of arms, they grabbed onto the rope and pulled it. The effect was immediate. Their strength tipped the outcome heavily in their favor quickly. The psychic shrieker was yanked out of the rift into the physical world, so they were finally able to get a good look at it.
The psychic shrieker had four limbs. Two of them were large. They were the hind limbs that it used to stand.
The other two arms were small. They were attached to its chest like two little hooks. Their small size made them look diminutive and useless.
Chapter 2351: Death Stare Vs. Mental Armament.
If the two large wings that the psychic shrieker possessed were counted as part of its limbs, then it would have six limbs, not four.
These abundance of limbs is why the two fore limbs attached to its chest being useless didn't matter much to thr psychic shrieker. Unfortunately, the psychic shrieker couldn't use its large wings to fly because they were bound to.
The psychic shrieker also got a good look at them. Its large single eye on the top of its beaked face was staring intensely at them.
It looked like it wanted to eat them. But it was willing to do what needed to be done to eat them. It attacked him as soon as it determined that they were its enemies.
As a creature of the pathway of telepathy, it didn't need to move to attack its enemies. All it needed to attack was its mind, so the binding spreading all over its body didn't hinder it at all.
It used Death's Stare on them, which is a mental attack that is performed through its eyes. The attack is similar to those of Mental Armament, but it can only attack beings that its single eye is focused on.
The mental attack flew out of its eye and struck them. Throughout the process, the attack was invisible. So those who were ignorant of the psychic shrieker's capabilities would think that a single stare from it was capable of killing people. That's where the name of this move came from.
Unfortunately for it, Legion was not ignorant and was not weak, so Death's Stare didn't work on them. The mental attack was a hammer that flew like an arrow and smashed onto their mind with the force of an explosion, but the shield that they had prepared stood its ground.
They had crafted the shield with the Mental Armament divine ability. It was in the shape of a sphere, so it covered their minds from every direction.
The shape of the sphere was very important because when the psychic shrieker realized that its straightforward attack had failed, it decided to change its tactics.
With this decision made, the mental attack in the shape of a hammer changed its shape into that of a snake with multiple heads. The heads of the snake crawled all over their shield looking for a vulnerable point to take advantage of.
Creating and maintaining an all-encompassing spherical shield is more difficult than creating a small, flatshield to resist an attack. But if they had created the small flat shield, the mental snake would have been able to bypass the shield and strike their minds from behind it.
This move failed again. So the psychic shrieker changed its tactics again.
It controlled the heads of the snake to return to the body of the snake and fuse with it until the whole snake became a round ball. Then it controlled the round ball of mental energy to explode.
The mental ball exploded and released all of its power at point-blank range on the shield. This caused the shield to crack and begin to split.
Unfortunately, the explosion wasn't enough to crack the shield completely and reach their minds because the shield was very thick.
The psychic shrieker created another attack, but the shield was already healing. Legion had also begun attacking the psychic shrieker.
Legion was using Mental Armament to create mental attacks to strike the psychic shrieker. They were doing this while simultaneously defending their minds from the barrage of mental attacks from the psychic shrieker.
The psychic shrieker was an expert telepath. It knew how to attack well and also how to defend its mind against mental attacks.
Even if it didn't know how to create shields, all it needed to do was copy what they do to defend themselves from its attacks. It was intelligent, so it could do that easily.
For a while, the two of them couldn't gain any advantage against each other. To a bystander, they were just standing still and silently looking at each other with animosity. They didn't appear to be close to blows yet.
But in the mental world, attacks were flying back and forth between them. Their attacks were exploding and there. Shields were cracking and being replaced all the time.
The two of them were basically doing the same thing because the two of them were smart enough to copy each other's move. And because the two of them were evenly matched in terms of spiritual power, an outcome to their mental battle will not be easy to achieve in a short time.
The battle had devolved into a battle of endurance. Whoever ran out of spiritual energy first would be the one to lose.
Legion was confident that they would win the battle because they were sure that there was no way that anyone at the same rank as them would be able to compare to them in terms of spiritual energy capacity.
But they didn't want to wait so long for an outcome. They wanted to end the fight as soon as possible, and they also didn't want to leave anything to chance.
They wanted to make sure that they would win, so while attacking the mind of the psychic shrieker and also defending their minds, they sacrificed part of their life energy to create a blood limb. Then they attacked the psychic shrieker with the blood limb.
It was already impressive that they could attack and defend at the same time. That is something that many epic godclads would find difficult to do, especially in the thick of battle like theirs.
But they have three consciousnesses in charge of the pathway of the telepath, so they were able to handle simultaneous attack and defense easily.
They also had consciousnesses in other pathways, so they were able to do the impossible and use the divine abilities of two pathways at the same time.
The psychic shrieker was already bound up, so it couldn't escape or avoid physical attacks. It could only intensify the mental attacks while the blood limb snaked its way over to it and pierced its body.
Chapter 2352: Divine Ability Barrage.
Legion had used the Sever divine ability on the blood limb, so it was able to easily pierce the incredible defense of the psychic shrieker.
This success didn't come for free. It cost them some spiritual energy to do so, but they are not lacking in spiritual energy.
The blood limb entered the body of the psychic shrieker and began cutting it up from within while simultaneously consuming its blood to grow stronger. ๐๐ณ๐๐๐๐ฆ๐ฃ๐ฏโด๐ฃ๐ฆ๐.๐ค๐๐
Legion used the Bleed divine ability too so that the blood of the psychic shrieker would flow easily. This allowed the blood limb to engorge itself easily.
The blood limb was like a blood leech. It sucked and sucked while growing bigger and stronger. All the damage it was causing to the psychic shrieker's body also affected their mental battle.
The psychic shrieker could ignore the pain, but it required mental focus in order to do so. It dearly needed its mental focus for the mental battle, so the extra stress was causing it to falter.
There was also the fact that the blood limb was draining its life energy and destroying its internal organs. This caused a deficit in its body that it now required to make up for with its spiritual energy.
Just like its mental focus, its spiritual energy is also a limited resource that is currently in high demand. Even if it could shoulder through the pain, the lack of spiritual would be the end for it.
Seeing the psychic shrieker being difficult to deal with, Legion decided to add another factor into the situation to push it over the edge as soon as possible.
They activated the rank 5 Divine ability of the pathway of slavery called Whip. A mental whip appeared from their minds and stood above the head of the psychic shrieker. Then it fell on its head.
The mental whip actually fell on the mind of the psychic shrieker, not its physical body. The attack was mostly harmless because of the shield protecting its mind. But the attack still caused it a lot of pain, which caused its focus to falter.
The psychic shrieker realized that it couldn't attack while defending anymore, so it chose to give up on attacking and focus on defending. It put all of its efforts into defending its mind, but this wouldn't be nearly enough to protect it.
Thanks to the psychic shrieker giving up on attacking, Legion could now focus on attacking it. This didn't help them much because they could already do many things at the same time without much effort.
But the change in the situation meant that they didn't need to spend spiritual energy on defending anymore. This was food, but it would have been better if they were lacking in spiritual energy.
Still, they decided to take advantage of the change to their benefit. They did this by splurging on attacks. They increased the size of the mental attacks and caused them to explode, thereby wasting all of the spiritual energy used to create the attack.
It was more efficient to create a small mental attack and chase it to explode. This was far better than creating a single large explosion because most of the power from a large explosion will be wasted.
Both small and big explosions will have the same force because they are from the same spirit. The main difference between them would be the area of impact that they would have.
For an explosion to be effective, it had to have contact with the shield. Bigger explosions would have bigger areas, so they would affect a shield more.
But bigger explosions would also waste more energy because they would have more explosive power that didn't make contact with the shield. This is why smaller explosions
However, Legion didn't care about that now. They went all out and were determined to crack the mental shield of the psychic shrieker at all costs.
Their aggressive actions also forced the psychic shrieker to use more inefficient methods to defend itself, such as creating multiple layers in its shield to dampen the effects of the bigger explosions.
It had to do this, or its shield would crack quickly. But by using this inefficient means, it was losing spiritual energy faster than before and approaching its end sooner than expected.
When its end was about to arrive and it realized that it couldn't save itself, it decided to use the Psychic Shrieker attack. This attack was a suicide attack.
The psychic shrieker attack was done by putting all of its mental power and resources into a suicide attack. The psychic shrieker then launched its entire mind at Legion in one single desperate attack.
Legion received the attack and settled down to digest it. They were digesting the process by which the psychic shrieker created its final attack while the divine flesh in their bodies was absorbing the last remnants of the mind of the psychic shrieker.
When both of them and their divine flesh were done eating the mind of the psychic shrieker, they had fulfilled the advancement requirements for rank 6 of the pathway of the telepath and could advance now.
They decided not to wait and immediately absorbed the rank 6 divine flesh of the pathway of the telepath. After they advanced to rank 6 with it, they executed more steps in their plan in preparation to advance to rank 7.
One of the steps they executed was to help their slaves achieve 50% mastery in the few epic divine abilities that they have. This made all of the five divine abilities from their individual pathways reach 50% mastery now.
They did this and many other things while they purchased the rank 7 divine flesh of the pathway of the undying that they needed for their upcoming advancement.
They had previously bought the rank 7 divine flesh of killing, and they already have the high-grade artifact of Mental Domination that they stole from the nobles to solve their need of rank 7 divine flesh for the pathway of the telepath.
Now that they have bought another divine flesh, they have acquired three of the rank 7 divine flesh that they needed. As for the rank 7 divine flesh for the pathway of slavery, they are nowhere to acquire it because it is scarce.
Legendary slaves are rare and also too powerful to kill. They also rarely show themselves and have puppets who do their bidding for them.
These two reasons make the rank 7 divine flesh of this pathway difficult to acquire. At the very least, the divine flesh is not present anywhere in the Mindscape.
The rank 7 divine flesh that is available in the Mindscape is very expensive, though. It cost them 12,800 gold coins to purchase the rank 7 divine flesh. This was after haggling the price with the seller.
After they got the rank 7 divine flesh, they secured it in a box. Then they left Reinfield City to find the spring of life.
They could have kept the divine flesh in the Mindscape, but they wanted to keep it close to their physical body to prevent any accidents.
Chapter 2353: Knight + Farmer.
They happened to leave Reinfield just after one of the legendary nobles left the city to go to the capital. This was not by chance. They had inside information, so they knew when the legend would leave.
They didn't leave after the legend so that they could attack it. They didn't have that intention yet, as they didn't need to attack someone that was going to be out of the picture.
The reason why they waited until the legend left was to see for themselves that he truly left, not just pretending to leave. For that, they sent their illusionist to follow the legend and make sure that he left.
After they were sure that the legend had truly left and they didn't need to eliminate him, they left Reinfield City themselves.
They didn't leave alone. They left with some slaves. In particular, they left with slave number 1, their giant and guardian slave; slave number 3, their walker and traveler; slave number 4, their thief and rule breaker; and slave number 6, their knight and farmer.
The rest of their slaves remained in Reinfield City to execute their will. The five of them went to buy some rank 6 beasts first.
The rank 6 beasts are for slave number 6. He is a rank 5 knight and also a rank 5 farmer. He doesn't have a large army to support him, but he can substitute the power of an army with the power of beast pets.
Rank 4 farmers have the Beast Tamer divine ability, so the slave can have many pets. Rank 5 knights also have the Rider divine ability, which helps them to combine their power with the power of the beast they are riding.
These two divine abilities will make the slave useful for what they are about to do. The other two slaves will also help in their own way.
Even slaves that are not currently with them are also helping them. For example, the fate weaver is helping them predict the situation from where she is back in Reinfield.
It is because of the prediction of the fate weaver that they decided to buy the rank 6 beasts that they need instead of branching by a forest to kidnap them.
Their knight slave has a 50% mastery of the beast-taming divine ability, so he can have up to 4 pets. A rank 6 beast costs 12,800 gold coins, which is already the cost of a rank 7 divine flesh, so they will need to spend 51,200 gold coins to fit their knight with the four pets.
This is expensive, but their fate weaver had deemed it to be cheaper than what it would cost them to apprehend and tame four rank 6 beasts on their own.
It is not that they can't catch and take four rank 6 beasts on their own. They can, but it will take a lot of time and effort. And some accidents can happen along the way that can delay them.
So instead of wasting their time, they decided to spend money on pets. Then they went straight to the location of the spring of life.
With an extra four rank 6 beasts, they became nine in total. This gave Legion more confidence to go ahead with what they had planned.
The spring of life they were targeting was in control of the vault of gold and was being guarded by a legend. The presence of the legend is why Legion decided to try the stealth approach first.
The vault of gold decided to guard the spring of life with a legend instead of harvesting all of the water of life in the spring and calling it a day because they would gain more by keeping the spring intact.
The water of life inside a spring doesn't regenerate naturally. Once it is used up, the spring will die, and nothing will be gained from it again.
But the spring of life can be induced to regenerate some more water of life by pouring energy water into it. This process takes a long time and requires the spring of life to have some water of life in it.
As merchants, the people of the vault of gold decided to opt for the slow and tedious process because it means more money in the long run. Besides, the investment of energy water to get water if life is an investment without loss.
The only way they will lose their investment is if someone comes to steal the spring of life and everything within it. This is why they made a legend guard the spring of life.
The spring of life itself is a pond containing milky white water. It is surrounded by a series of walls that formed layers of protection around it. Each layer of walls also had defensive and protective arrays on them.
There are also alarm arrays around the spring of life. There was only one door through each layer of security. If there was an alarm, every door would close, and access to the energy spring would be cut off. ๐๐๐๐ฆ๐๐๐๐๐๐ท๐๐ญ.๐ธ๐ฐ๐
There were five layers of walls in total. Each layer was manned by two guards. The deeper the layer, the stronger the guards.
The entire arrangement was like a fortress. It was also a fortress with a thick roof, so no one could just bypass the walls by dropping from the sky or climbing over the walls.
All of these defensive measures might fail, and the spring can be taken by force, but no matter what happens, it is unlikely that someone would be able to break in unnoticed.
Legion didn't break unnoticed. Instead of doing that, they sent their number 4 to scout and gain access to the spring through the normal route.
Their number 4 slave is a thief with the rank 4 Stealing Abilities divine ability. This divine ability of his is at 50%, so he can steal and use up to four divine abilities at the same time.