Chapter 170: Gulie's Compromise
[Experience points have reached the required threshold. Individual: Sophia Keren Lv39→Lv40]
[Stat values increased. Skill proficiency increased. Resistance levels increased...]
[Warning: Stat values have reached the upper limit of the system. Continuing to level up will enter unknown territory.]
Sophia grinned broadly.
"Fufufu, has this queen finally reached the peak?"
"Even though it feels like I can still level up, this amount of power is temporarily enough to deal with that smelly woman."
Gazing at the surrounding battlefield littered with corpses, Sophia used a short-range teleportation to return to the Fourth Army's front line.
Once she departed, the busty succubus Sanatoria let out a long sigh of relief, her delicate body going soft as she collapsed onto the ground.
"Too brutal. Thank goodness I was smart enough to stay far away, otherwise..."
Sanatoria still felt a lingering fear in her heart.
Even though her own Second Army had been completely wiped out, at the very least, the Imperial Army opposing them had been annihilated alongside them.
Even if this was all Sophia's doing, she had at least accomplished her mission. Upon returning, she would be able to report back to the Demon Lord.
Feeling that the state of affairs was becoming increasingly severe, she could no longer bear to stay and silently vanished from the battlefield.
At the same time, the other battlefields were equally tragic and wretched.
Even Commander Agner and the little punk Bloe had fallen in battle.
As luck would have it, they had run into the Hero Julius and Old Man Ronandt; one was born with a Hero's aura, and the other was humanity's strongest sorcerer.
[LanLi: KitKat?]
One could only say the two were rather unfortunate.
The remaining battlefields were either submerged by the massive spider army led by the four puppet spider sisters, or harvested cleanly by Sophia.
A massive influx of souls returned to the system, letting the system feel for the very first time what it was like to be completely filled to the brim.
Dustin stood alone atop a towering city wall, overlooking the entire tactical situation.
Although the process had deviated somewhat from the original course, the outcome was still favorable.
A vast quantity of high-grade souls had replenished the depleted energy reserves of the world.
Dustin narrowed his eyes slightly, seemingly deep in thought.
Suddenly, four figures materialized behind him.
"All settled?"
He inquired expressionlessly without turning around.
"Of course, it was a total piece of cake, hee-hee."
Ariel revealed a pair of small canine teeth, her bright smile like midsummer sunshine—warm and fulfilling.
"Yes." Dustin nodded, then looked toward the adjacent Shirazawa. "So, how should we wrap things up next?"
"Break the system, release the energy, repair the world, and rescue the Goddess."
Shirazawa answered succinctly.
He did not beat around the bush; aside from Gulie who might potentially turn rogue, the remaining ones present were all on the same side.
"Shiro, how is the system energy collection progress coming along?"
"Will it meet our expectations?"
Shiraori shook her head slightly. "Not enough. Still a little short."
"Is that so..."
Shirazawa's gaze grew deep as he looked toward the final remaining battlefield.
Sophia was currently facing off against the Saint Yuri, and both sides were wildly hurling verbal garbage at each other. "What if we count those?"
"Probably... still a tiny bit short."
After pondering for a brief moment, Shiraori calculated the precise answer.
"Then I shall continue to mobilize human troops to fill the vacancy."
Dustin immediately utilized an ultra-long-distance Telepathic Group Chat to broadcast a divine oracle, ordering the various nations to squeeze out a bit more, sending all their remaining military forces to the battlefield to meet their deaths.
Hearing these words, Gulie's brow instantly furrowed.
And then, there was no then.
Three overwhelming presences locked firmly onto him. He could only sigh helplessly, looking as though he had abandoned all resistance.
"Sigh~ according to D's orders, I should be launching a sneak attack on you guys right about now."
Before the plan commenced, Gulie had received D's command stating that he must stop Shirazawa and the others from acting, otherwise the story wouldn't be exciting enough.
Faced with the arrangements of the Supreme Evil God, he was powerless to resist and could only obediently execute the order.
"Oh ho? So you're planning to make a move now?"
Shirazawa sized up the opponent with great interest, feeling slightly surprised.
Upon hearing this, Ariel's expression turned instantly cold, ready to strike at any given moment.
No one could stop her from saving the Goddess, not even Gulie.
"Protecting humanity is carrying out Sariel's will, but that does not hinder my resolve to save Sariel."
"I do not know what the consequences of defying the Evil God will be. You all had best not disappoint me."
"This world can do without an Administrator, but it cannot do without the Goddess. This is what the world owes her."
Gulie took a deep breath, a look of resolute determination flashing deep within his eyes.
Since he had chosen to defy the Evil God, he was already fully prepared to face death.
Ariel's tightly clenched fist slowly relaxed, and she stood on her tiptoes to heavily pat the other party's shoulder.
"Back then I told you to be more proactive, but you just had to be a tsundere."
"So many years have passed, and you're still this much of a closet pervert."
"Being a tsundere ruins your whole life, sigh~"
Even though she clearly possessed the appearance of a ten-year-old lolita, her old-fashioned, world-weary manner was truly a sight that made people not know whether to laugh or cry.
"Hmph~"
Gulie let out a cold snort and turned his head away.
The cinematic flashback of his life began to pass before his eyes, and the image of his younger self surfaced in his mind.
Suddenly, he felt that Ariel's words weren't entirely without merit.
He really wanted to slap his past self a few times...
...
Being knocked flying by an existence other than a Dragon was a first for Gulie.
Ever since that day's encounter, he had developed a trace of interest in the Goddess.
However, he considered himself to have no special fetish for falling in love at first sight with "the person who knocked me flying."
Therefore, there were no romantic feelings involved at that time.
His mental logic back then was: "Sariel was the first foreign-enemy-like existence he had ever encountered. Being wary of a foreign enemy is a biological instinct."
Hence, he quite naturally began to investigate and monitor the other party.
Although he later learned that this action was classified as being a "stalker"—taking a massive psychological hit because of it—looking back now, it could still be considered a rather amusing memory.
Through his investigations, he learned that it was already impossible to know when Sariel had first appeared on this planet.
But it was at least certain that she was already here before their Dragon Race arrived. Looking through human history, Sariel's character descriptions could be seen throughout the entire text.
Her true identity was an Angel, and a stray Angel who had been separated from the Angel vanguard at that.
As for the definition of an Angel, he had no way of knowing for sure, but there were still traces to follow.
A so-called Angel, to put it simply, was a combat weapon designed specifically against gods.
For some unknown reason, the Angel race insisted on taking the elimination of gods as their mission, engaging in endless warfare against various deities.
As long as you were a god, no matter where you came from, it was hands on sight.
However, Gulie had never seen any Angel other than Sariel; these were all merely rumors, and it was unclear why Angels hated deities so much.
The Angels themselves were shrouded in mysteries, some of which even the Angels themselves could not comprehend.
In an even more distant era before Gulie was born, Angels were believed to have suddenly appeared.
Some said they were a divinely engineered race created by a certain immortal existence, while others claimed they were created by the universe itself—acting as a sort of antibody engineered to combat gods whose strength posed a threat to the universe itself.
The greatest characteristic of the Angels was their absurdly high combat capabilities. Being able to persist while taking deities—including the Dragons—as enemies was proof enough; even the lowest-ranking Angel's strength could reach the Divine Realm.
Such a terrifying existence always attacked in swarms every single time, like a plague of locusts blotting out the sky, absolutely horrifying.
And Sariel's combat power ranked her as a high-ranking Angel within her race.
Only after learning all this did Gulie finally realize why the older generation lived their days with their tails between their legs; it turned out they were terrified of their race being wiped out.
Sariel alone could practically cause the near-total annihilation of the Dragon Race.
And the mission she had been assigned was to execute protection over the native species born and bred on the land.
That was precisely why the Dragon Race did not dare to casually make a move against humanity.
Angels were fiercely loyal to their mission, using any means necessary to achieve it, even to the point of being somewhat stubborn, rigid, and incapable of flexibility.
However, usually after achieving a mission, they would accept a new mission and begin to move out.
There would also be Angels who remained stubborn about a single mission, continuing a mission that had clearly already been achieved.
Or they would continuously challenge a mission that was impossible to achieve, and thereafter get separated from their companions, becoming a lone stray Angel operating entirely on her own.
Sariel was precisely one of those stray Angels.
Her mission was to protect the native species.
Presumably long ago, foreign deities wanted to dominate this planet.
To stop them, she had been dispatched here.
Gulie surmised that originally, as long as she repelled those deities, her mission would be considered complete, and she would be assigned a different mission to go somewhere else.
However, due to some unknown error, Sariel ended up being left on this land permanently, continuing to carry out her protection.
And there was practically zero contact between Angels, so once one became a stray Angel, other Angels wouldn't come to recover them either.
Even a high-ranking Angel like Sariel was directly left behind by the main force.
From the Dragon Race's perspective, it was truly far too inconceivable.
In short, under the shelter of the abandoned Angel Sariel, humanity continuously multiplied and evolved.
Gulie's interest in Sariel grew increasingly intense, and he began to attempt to make contact with the other party.
And then, that was on a bright and sunny afternoon...
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