Chapter 133: Cold War [2]
While war simmered quietly in the Midnight Forest, the rest of the world watched- distant, curious, and unbothered.
Gomorra was not used to quiet wars like a resources war.
The rest of the world didn’t react to it, but there was barely any Awakened in the world who didn’t know about the silent battle currently ongoing between Dreadmoor and the Demoness Sect in the Midnight Forest.
From the 3 Empires of the world to the Kingdoms, the Cities, Towns and Villages, the slums, and across every race, everyone heard the news.
It spread through the great Exodus of people migrating from the immediate surroundings of the Midnight Forest, and from the hidden powerhouses of different Kingdoms who kept tab of the situation in the Midnight Forest.
Within the past 2 weeks, at least a few dozen A Rank powerhouses already snuck into the vicinity around the forest to keep tabs on what was happening.
To the weak Awakened who made up 90% of the world population, they were more than glad to hear of the news of the 2 evil organizations clashing.
To them, it was a good thing. This was a clash of evil.
If the result of the war was both organizations blowing up themselves to oblivion, to them, that was the best result.
The world hated the Demoness Sect, but they hated Dreadmoor even more.
They didn’t know details about the war but the true players of the world knew details, their spies who were in place reported back to their respective Kingdoms and Empires daily about the situation in the forest.
And as they watched, for 2 weeks, Dreadmoor had the advantage in the war, gradually forcing the Demoness Sect into a tight spot with their innate superiority.
The Demoness were yet to show any weakness, they stayed strong but everyone could feel that they were drawing close to their wit’s end.
They were being pushed to the wall, and somewhere along the line, they would finally snap. And when that happened, all hell would break loose.
The prediction was that the cold war would erupt soon.
The only question was when.
...
Inside a realm with trees in different hues of black and grey, with the sky covered in a spiraling lavender firmament that was lavender and abyssal like the pupil of some colossal eye...
The Fate Realm stood still, closed and isolated.
The entire realm looked like a 2 dimensional painting rather than an actual 3-dimensional world where people lived, breathed, and survived.
Inside the secondary dimension that was created by the S Rank Artifact of the Demoness Sect, the atmosphere had always been gloomy. But in the past 2 weeks, the atmosphere inside became even more gloomy as its inhabitants were forced into a resources battle.
They felt like a school of fish that were confined inside a small pond, isolated from the boundless ocean outside.
And to the Witches of the Demoness Sect, this was suffocating.
Most of the Witches didn’t really know what was going on outside, but alongside the others, they were forced to suffer in silence.
Afterall, no one dared speak against the High Priestess. Besides, the bulk of the Witches still believed that the High Priestess had their best interests at heart so her decision must be favoring them in some way.
For weeks, Seraphina watched it all simmer like fog.
At the heart of the realm stood Ravenhelm, a massive gothic black coven rising from a floating mass of stone and petrified roots, a Witch Citadel of jagged spires and crescent towers suspended in mist.
Within the walls of this gothic black coven, the Witches performed witchcraft and rituals.
Within the first week, nothing really happened. They endured. But by the second week, impatience and frustration led into violence as the Witches began killing each other for sustenance rituals!
It was an internal cannibalism but no one complained. Afterall, this was the nature of the Demoness Sect.
The nature of a Witch’s Class skills dictated their progression, and their progression was naturally set on evil and forbidden rituals, making them one of the most feared and hated Classes in all of Gomorra.
And now, they practiced their skills in house for the first time in a long time just to sustain themselves and survive through the war and period of confinement.
Hex Spark!
Misfortune Drift!
For the first time in a long time in Ravenhelm, the Witches cursed each other, using their sinister skills to create multiple dark outcomes.
From the first victim, it quickly snowballed to the second, the third, and then the fourth victims in quick succession.
And soon, there were dozens of casualties, then hundreds.
They cursed each other every day, killing dozens every day for sustenance and to fuel their research.
Seraphina just watched.
But by the 3rd week, it finally became unbearable. By now, Seraphina could tell that Dreadmoor were ready to play the long game, holing up inside the Fate Realm was no longer an option and she finally made the decision to send a team of elite Witches outside to test the waters.
On the first day after the 3 week mark, in the evening, a tiny crack opened in the Fate Realm, letting out a small and elite team of Witches to sneak outside in search of food.
They emerged in the Eastern quadrant of the forest, far away from where the bulk of Dreadmoor’s forces were concentrated. And though Seraphina took a lot of measures to prevent prediction and prophesy, she couldn’t hide it completely as Lilith discovered the disturbance in the fate threads.
She had been waiting for this for 3 weeks.
The first team outside comprised 6 elite Witches, 2 A Rank Crone Witches and 4 B Rank Hex Queens, all elite Awakened of the Witch Class.
The moment they emerged though, they walked into an ambush that was led by Lilith herself.
There were only 4 Awakened in the ambush squad: Lilith, Pandora, Puck, and Dante. It was just 4, but it was one of the most stacked A Rank Awakened squad that you would ever find anywhere in the world.
And they started with a bang.
Level 100 Skill: Omni-Fate Domain!
Level 100 Skill: Annihilation of Fortune!
BZZZ!
Though Lilith was still injured and recovering, unlike Julian, she still had access to her Level 100 skills though their efficacy was reduced to just 20%.
By activating the Level 100 Skill, Omni-Fate Domain, she dragged all 6 enemy Witches into a domain where she fooled their destinies that were under the watch of the High Priestess of the Demoness Sect.
She severed the thread connecting their fates to the fate of the High Priestess of the Demoness Sect!
And by fooling their destinies, for 2 minutes, Seraphina would be unable to read their fate threads to realize that they were in danger.
She was kept in the dark, and that meant everything to the ambush plan.
Originally, Lilith was not supposed to be able to do this to another S Rank Fate Sovereign when injured but just as the Fate Realm protected the Demoness Sect, it also acted as a barrier separating the Fate Realm from reality.
This barrier acted as a veil blurring Seraphina’s connection to the Witches that she sent out, and with it as the catalyst, Lilith was able to briefly fool Seraphina.
That was all they needed, but Lilith wasn’t satisfied with just that as with the Level 100 Skill- Annihilation of Fortune, she temporarily destroyed their luck and their blessings, their connections and divine favor from Seraphina.
They became unlucky and unblessed, and that was the signal that the rest of the ambush squad needed to act.
When unlucky, anything that can go wrong will go wrong!
To an Awakened, that was death itself.
Domain Expansion: False World!
BZZZ!
Higher-leveled than all of them as Seraphina didn’t want to send her strongest A Rank Subordinates, Pandora activated her domain and within a millisecond was able to drag every single one of them into an illusion.
It wouldn’t last, but it was enough.
Puck didn’t even have to act as Dante did the rest. Stepping through the shadows and with his dagger, the A Rank Assassin moved like a phantom as he slit the throats of 4 of the 6 Witches in quick succession before the others broke out of the illusion!
4 dead, 2 still alive.
But Puck was on standby.
BAM... BAM...
2 arrows was all it took.
Headshot!
One shot, two kills.
She killed 2 Witches with 1 arrow.
And just like that, an elite vanguard squad that was sent by the High Priestess of the Demoness Sect was annihilated.
With Lilith hiding it, it took 2 hours before Seraphina discovered the truth that her squad was slaughtered. Incensed, the High Priestess crashed out in a violent manner, venting by slaughtering 3 of her subordinates in a fit of rage.
Seraphina always had anger issues, and pushed by the pressure of Dreadmoor stalking her, she was even more irritable in the past few weeks.
After that though, she no longer took Dreadmoor’s provocation quietly.
She lost her mind completely.
After 3 weeks of suppressing her pride and letting them harass her silently, Seraphina Duskveil finally decided to ignore the consequences and go all out.
On the same day that the first elite team were ambushed and killed, Seraphina sent out 7 more elite teams quietly into the forest to gather resources, 7 teams with at least 4 high-ranking Witches in each team.
Lilith was only able to pinpoint 2 of the teams, leading to 2 more brutal ambush and wipe-outs, but the rest were able to escape into the forest.
They didn’t survive past a single day though, every single one of them. And none of them were able to return to the Fate Realm with resources.
Afterall, their objective of coming out was as clear as day; the goal was to get resources, especially qi crystals to keep Ravenhelm running. And food too.
Having thought of this ahead of time in the past 3 weeks, under Sir Alfred’s approval, Elena predicted Seraphina’s reactions and stationed secret observation teams in every single resource-rich zone of the Midnight Forest.
She was thorough, stationing teams from the biggest to the smallest resource zone and this did the magic.
Their only job was to observe 24/7 and if they saw a group of Witches suddenly emerge, they alert her.
Using this format, Elena got information about the other Witch teams in mere hours after they appeared and they slaughtered all 7 teams, dealing a lot of damage to the Demoness Sect in the process.
Seraphina lost her mind again when she got the news, throwing another fit of rage in her secondary dimension and destroying a lot of things in anger.
She wanted to murder Sir Alfred for pushing her to the wall, at the same time she wanted to strangle Samson for daring to stop her from fighting. But she knew that neither of her two wishes were easy to achieve.
Both were S Rank Sovereigns just like her.
In the end, she decided to come out herself, leading to another face-off between the middle-aged Demon and her.
Actually, it was a 3-way faceoff as Samson watched from the side. His presence was beginning to irritate Seraphina.
And though she tried her best to emotionally blackmail him to change his mind, she couldn’t, Sir Alfred’s stance remained the same.
Seraphina was so angry that she couldn’t think, but by the time she returned to Ravenhelm, calmness returned.
And with calmness came clarity.
She had always been emotionally volatile, but in the end, she was a veteran and extremely talented Witch who climbed the steps of power all the way from Level 1 to the peak of power at Level 100.
Despite her flaws, she was an experienced combatant and Awakened.
Her gray eyes gleamed coldly. ’Desperate times calls for desperate measures’.
Seraphina conducted a large-scale ritual.
