Chapter 663: The Battle Begins
The battlefield stretched for miles, an expansive storm of life and death—a chaotic surge of clashing powers and blood-soaked earth.
The ground shook with every thunderous step, as the natives of Iohodis clashed with the invading Infernal Devils and their mounts, while the Vanguards of Triffid tore through their ranks, aiming to make them a part of Triffid’s ever-growing forest.
The air was thick with the stench of sulphur, the crackling of magic, and the screams of the dying.
Thousands of infernal beasts charged the lines of the Spirits, lashing out with fiery breaths that scorched the earth.
Above, in the smoky sky, blazes of elemental energy streaked past like meteor storms, colliding with infernal flames and shattering in bursts of sparks.
The skies trembled with the clash of power as cultivators, glowing with auras of every hue, darted through the skies like shooting stars.
Their weapons gleamed, each slice and thrust cutting through devils with their various techniques and weapon arts.
From atop the wyvern and airborne Infernal Beast mounts, arrows of law energy rained down, blackening the earth where they struck.
In response, the elves fired arrows of light that pierced through the bodies of the wyverns and their riders, forcing them to crash to the ground.
In one corner of the battlefield, a cultivator raised his hands and the ground trembled as jagged ice spikes erupted, impaling the infernal beasts and sending waves of freezing mist through the ranks of the devils.
In another corner, Vanguards of Triffid lashed out with their part plant bodies, smashing through the lines of the Spirits. Roots and tendrils shot from their bodies, coiling around them and squeezing them into crushed broken heaps.
The ground beneath them cracked and split as they moved, spreading the corruption of the Tree of Creation wherever they went.
Some Vanguards leapt into the air and landed in between clusters of Spirits, their wooden limbs tearing through them with sickening crunches.
But the Spirits fought back with desperation, summoning their powerful elemental magic to pierce the bark-like armour of the Vanguards, blasting them to shreds.
In the distance, the Infernal Devils continued their onslaught. Large formations of them cut through the elven ranks, splitting apart the bodies of the long ears with ease.
The air crackled with various energies as lightning bolts arced across the sky, striking down entire battalions in an instant. Firestorms roared louder than tornadoes, scorching everything in their paths. The earth split open with violent tremors, unleashing towering waves of water that surged through the battlefield, accompanied by howling whirlwinds that swept away all before them.
The battlefield was a cacophony of destruction, with no respite in sight. Flashes of light, blasts of energy, and the sound of splintering wood and bone filled the air, while the ground beneath shook with every clash.
More Vanguards of Triffid emerged, their roots breaking through the earth, launching themselves into the fray, while the infernal beasts clashed with the flying Spirits, turning the skies into a deadly storm of claws, fire, and swirling magic.
Above it all, the Elder Spirits had already made their choice: they were going to force the Infernal Devils’ hand, fast.
Half of the Elders charged forward, slicing through the ranks of Devils and wildly unleashing attacks that made the battlefield shudder.
"?!"
"Wh???"
"!!"
The Infernal Devils had no way to resist the might of these Transcendents. With each sweep of an Elder Spirit’s power, thousands of Epics fell like leaves, hundreds of Legendries collapsed, and even Sovereigns were vaporized in dozens.
It was clear they weren’t holding back.
This wasn’t the usual drawn-out grind of lower ranks fighting first, slowly escalating as each side sent in stronger soldiers.
Not today.
In under fifteen minutes, the Spirit’s Superior Sovereigns and Transcendents were in the thick of it, carving deep into the Infernal ranks.
The Archdevils on the Infernal side had no choice. They couldn’t sit by and watch as their foot soldiers were decimated.
If they let the Elders have their way, the Spirits’ forces would overwhelm everything left standing. What good would they be as generals with no army?
The leader of the Elder Spirits from Tír Síorghlas revealed his Superior Transcendent power as he gathered a massive orb of multi-elemental magic over his head.
The Archdevils saw it and knew instantly—if that struck, it could obliterate an Inferior Transcendent in a single blow. If that hit the ground, tens of thousands of their soldiers would drop faster than flies.
They couldn’t risk it.
Bursting from their hidden vantage points, the Archdevils charged toward the Elder Spirits, weapons drawn and law energies swirling.
But as if waiting for this exact moment, the Elder Spirits turned in unison, each perfectly aligned with the Archdevils’ surprise attacks.
Their weapons were already drawn, spells cast and skills activated with precision. The air rippled as aerial mines detonated around the Infernal Archdevils, followed by missiles charged with divinity and destruction energy, streaking into the fray from behind.
In a blinding series of crimson and silver explosions, space itself tore open, scattering destruction in every direction.
In that one well-timed blast, several Inferior Transcendent Devils plummeted from the sky, lifeless.
The Elder Spirits shifted their attention, ignoring lesser foes to focus fully on the remaining Transcendents.
What the Infernal Archdevils hadn’t noticed—amid the chaos—was the reason behind the Spirits’ seemingly impossible timing.
Each Elder Spirit’s left eye glowed faintly, a light blue hue that radiated the unmistakable energy of time.
Down below, Arthur’s left eye also shone with the same hue as he murmured under his breath.
|¬Pseudo-Authority of Time: Shared Memories of the Future¬|
Thanks to this shared vision, Arthur had guided their opening strike to perfection. Spirits’ synchronized assaults, combined with Arthur’s divinity missiles and destruction energy, shattered the Devils’ strategies, leaving them scrambling.
But as they began to recover, Arthur raised his hand, fingers snapping like a spellbound drumbeat.
Above, the sky darkened as he called forth a rain of meteors—over a hundred of them, gathered across the past eight weeks and marked with his gravity Pseudo-Authority.
The meteors came down, scattered through Cosmic Gates to randomize their appearance points across the battlefield.
Time energy accelerated some, warping the space between them and their targets, while concealment laws cloaked others in invisibility.
Sure, the Infernal Archdevils could handle these meteors, but those few seconds they needed might as well be an eternity when fighting against the Transcendent Elder Spirits.
Arthur, being the nasty teenager he was, didn’t stop there.
With an evil grin, he locked onto the Archdevils who dodged and redirected several meteors toward them, crashing them into the Devils at impossible angles.
And for those who tried to destroy a meteor mid-air, he triggered early detonations, showering the battlefield in razor-sharp fragments.
Once again, the Devils’ plans—and contingency plans—lay in ruins.
Arthur deactivated his Pseudo-Authorities and heaved a heavy breath. He’d consumed a lot of magic power just now, even for him.
"It’s my turn, right?"
Turning, he saw Evan holding out a potion bottle and he accepted it, only to stop after a sip.
"Why does it taste like strawberries?"
"My personal blend. Normal potions are too bitter for my liking."
Evan responded with a shrug and Arthur just shook his head before downing the rest of the bottle. Now was not the time to talk about the taste of potions.
After finishing it, he answered Evan’s earlier question.
"Yeah. It’s your turn."
Receiving that answer, Evan nodded and kicked off the ground. Once he was 100 metres away from Arthur, he coated his fist in flames and punched the ground, creating a giant explosion.
Arthur blinked for a moment. An instinctive reaction to dust flying in one’s eyes.
But when he opened his eyes afterwards, Evan’s existence had completely vanished from his perception.
"Damn, this guy’s concealment is broken."
The boy couldn’t help but feel admiration for Evan’s ’Lethe’ Concealment Skill that only those with Pseudo-Authorities could detect.
Meanwhile, the Rogue Hero moved through the dense forest like a ghost, placing Arthur’s Divinity bombs in precise, calculated positions.
Both Arthur and Charisse had pooled their future-sight powers to identify the ideal spots for maximum impact.
Once the bombs were set, Evan set his next plan in motion. He used ’Chain Lightning’ to intentionally trigger the Devil’s trap-laden magic circles, igniting a chain reaction of explosions that rattled the entire forest.
One by one, these explosions neared the Divinity bombs, and the forest erupted in a nuclear-level blaze of divinity, annihilating thousands of Devils in an instant.
Evan appeared beside Arthur, tossing the severed arm of a devil on the ground and wiping the blood of his sword.
"Nice one."
Arthur raised his hand and Evan reciprocated the gesture, high-fiving him as they watched the mushroom clouds in the sky.
Smoke and fire blanketed the woods as the Devils’ ranks were thrown into disarray, their plans forced to change yet again. Under mounting pressure, they deployed their hidden reserves earlier than intended.
Among these forces, one of their three Commanders finally stepped forward—Jegunul.
He led an assault alongside the red and ash dragons that had attacked Arthur and Evan weeks ago—or at least, what was left of them after Lostvayne’s Rampage.
Without hesitation, Jegunul fixed his gaze on the Head Elder of Tír Síorghlas, recognizing him as the primary threat.
Just as Jegunul lunged, the Head Elder of Nature’s Dwelling and two other Elders quickly turned away from their opponents and charged at Jegunul.
Mid-flight, they flared their auras, revealing that they had also attained Superior Stage Transcendence—a result of the battle at Yujia’s base.
Compared to Jegunul who was over Level 990, these newly minted Superior Stages were easy to handle individually.
But their combined force, along with Tír Síorghlas’ Level 980 Head Elder made the story change.
Even Jegunul could not defeat them easily.
The sky blazed with a spectrum of colours as the Transcendents clashed, each strike reshaping the landscape in shockwaves of power.
Meanwhile, Arthur’s gaze landed on the dragons circling overhead, the very ones who had rained down their breath attacks on him and Evan.
"I’d take the Transcendents."
Hearing him, Evan nodded, his body shifting into his half-dragon form. Horns sprouted from his head, wings emerged from his back and a spiked tail snaked off his lower back.
"I’d deal with anything below."
With those words, the two boys kicked off the ground and launched themselves at Vonun’s dragons.
◇ ◇ ◇
The wave of Ash and Red dragons tore through the air, spewing jets of fire and poison that engulfed the battlefield, obliterating scores of spirits in their wake.
The remaining Inferior Transcendent Spirits launched themselves into the fray, charging at the dragons to put them down.
One of the Ash dragons, about to spew another breath, suddenly sensed danger from behind.
It turned its head and bared its teeth, but that action took too much time. With the speed its assailant moved, the dragon might as well be stationary.
"Cataclysmic Divide."
Arthur’s sword cleaved through the dragon’s wing joint, with the air itself distorting on impact.
The dragon shrieked as its wing detached from its body, spiralling down in a bloody rain. It thrashed wildly, struggling to regain balance, but Arthur didn’t give it a break.
He stopped its movements in time for a second, just long enough to close the gap and drive his blade straight through its chest, twisting as he plunged it deeper.
Destruction energy surged from the wound, eating away at the creature from the inside out, its scales cracking and crumbling into ash.
The dragon let out a last, gurgling roar before collapsing mid-flight, falling like a meteor to the earth below.
Arthur barely took a breath before turning his attention to the next target.
