Holy light lit up the entire world as all darkness was forcefully dispelled. This was the phoenix hunting ground that I had chosen.
The golden Lord of Thunder showed off his abilities as an existence at the pinnacle of wind and light. In a flash of light, he changed his form yet again. His eagle-like head became even sharper, and the light that flowed out transformed into physical lightning. Meanwhile, his wings and lower body transformed into twisted light.
It was likely that there wouldn't be a second existence like this in the entire world that was half physical and half light.
"Damn it. Where did he go? "
The eagle of light spread its wings. There was a flash, and then … nothing was left.
I hadn't even blinked, yet the Lord of Thunder had vanished without a trace in front of me.
His might was still there. He hadn't left. He had simply moved at an incredibly high speed to my blind spot.
Nothing above me.
Nothing to my left.
Everything within my field of vision was pitch-black. However, the Lord of Thunder was clearly still here. I trusted my instincts. For a true veteran of the battlefield, instincts were far more trustworthy than sight.
"There's only one explanation … He's so fast that he's able to move to another spot the instant I look in his direction."
"Hmph!"
Cold sweat appeared on my back as a cold snort echoed in my ears. I viciously swung my sword, but there was nothing there either.
"Hmph!"
This time, the cold snort came from where I had been looking earlier.
Sweat was dripping down my forehead. I had probably been too careless this time. How was I supposed to deal with an opponent that I couldn't even lock onto with my eyes?
"… That's probably what you're thinking, Mr. Roasted Chicken."
* Clang! *
I seemed to randomly swing my sword, but there was a clear clang as my sword finally hit something.
"Eh?"
The Lord of Thunder's surprised voice revealed his confusion. He probably couldn't understand how I had managed to simultaneously see where he was.
What was even more incomprehensible was that even though he could read my mind, he was unable to see my actions.
"I apologize. I've already met far too many opponents that can read minds."
Phoenixes were capable of distinguishing between good and evil, as well as reading minds. This wasn't just a legend. This was a natural talent of their species. However, this was completely different from the mind reading of spiritual creatures.
They were creatures from another plane, and they themselves were a stream of information. Observing other individuals was equivalent to reading other individuals' information.
In that case, it would actually be quite easy to deal with Harloys. All Harloys needed to do was make some preparations beforehand, such as adding on additional cat clone armor pieces … cough cough, I meant using Harloys' clones to mess with Harloys's thoughts.
Of course, I wouldn't explain to him how he had made such a mistake. Unlike that bastard who only cared about the thrill of battle, what I loved the most was to see my opponent die without even realizing it. The more information about me was leaked, the better.
At this moment, the lights in the distance were dimming. The Tower of Holy Light in the Hades had extinguished its own light. In this area, I had become the only source of light.
And this was also necessary to completely seal off the phoenix's immortality.
My battle with the phoenix from back in the day, as well as my analysis of the phoenix's materials, allowed me to clearly see the true nature of phoenixes. Phoenixes were creatures of this world, but didn't exist in this world. That was why phoenixes had many special privileges. For instance, their physical bodies in the mortal plane were actually nothing more than a projection of their entire information stream. Although that was their main body, it wasn't their entire body.
Simply killing their main body would allow them to use their own methods to move around in this world and then jump onto other similar objects to be reborn.
It was just like deleting a client. It would be impossible to delete a server.
The Fire Phoenix was killed, but as long as it was in the vicinity (based on the size and strength of its main body), the weakest would be several hundred kilometers away. As long as there were flames in the vicinity, it would be easy to project a new physical body and be reborn from the flames.
The foundational reason why the Duke of Thunder hadn't died despite being hunted down by the Holy Light Faction Gods was because there was light everywhere in the mortal plane. Even if he was killed at night, he could still be reborn using starlight.
And if there wasn't even a speck of light in the surroundings, the information stream without a vessel would rapidly flow away. The Duke of Thunder would naturally enter a weakened state, gradually consuming his main body in order to maintain his existence.
Of course, this was only possible in theory. After all, the mortal plane was an Elemental Plane composed of many different elements. Since everything was in a natural cycle, how could it be possible to eliminate any one element?
"You're no longer the first weakling I've killed. How could I not know your weaknesses?"
My words received no response, but the Duke of Thunder's thunderous roars expressed his anger.
Although this place was filled with Hades, there was still light here. The Duke of Thunder did his best to understand the principles of light here, but discovered nothing. This wasn't the light element that he was familiar with at all.
It would be quite foolish of me to still not notice that something was wrong with the situation and retreat first. But …
"It's too late, little chicken. I heard that it doesn't snow in Hell, so let me treat you to some spring snow."
I had more than enough time. I used my Northlands Ice Magic Sword, and a snowstorm covered the arena. Not only did this limit the distance between us, it also drove away all the remaining light element.
Thanks to the Tower of Salvation in the Hades, all the light element here had been extracted. The only thing that was still glowing was my Dawn holy sword.
I took a deep breath. The lightning bird before me was fading away, but it still couldn't be underestimated.
"I've prepared so much, so it all depends on this one …"
That's right, I had never been a good person who would sacrifice myself for others. Nor would I forcefully stand out and challenge the Duke of Thunder to a duel. That was all because every part of a phoenix's body was a treasure!
…
…
Even though Roland brought the only remaining Devil Lord into his personal Hell world, the battle didn't stop there. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The Duke of Thunder's disappearance and the fact that he hadn't reappeared for so long caused panic to spread amongst the devils.
But even so, the human allied army was still unable to advance. The temporary defenses and fortresses had already become meat harvesters that were harvesting the blood of both sides.
The mages' war puppets had already entered the battlefield. However, they discovered to their astonishment that even the incredibly strong diamond puppets were at a disadvantage against the powerful devils.
Even though cannon fire was incessantly coming from behind, and even though magic support had never stopped, and even though they had chosen this battlefield of their own volition, they were still unable to advance.
"Even though we have so many advantages, why can't we win!?"
The reason? It was quite direct and cruel. The difference in power level.
From the very start, both sides' individual power levels weren't on the same level. The humans' top-level combat strength, elite troops, and existences that could obtain a Gold evaluation would be nothing more than a common soldier with a few servants in the devil faction.
According to Aichy's usual evaluation, humans had the lowest-level Black Iron Bloodline. Meanwhile, adult devils had the highest-level Gold Bloodline, just like demons. Even if the evaluation wasn't accurate, the tremendous difference in power level was being displayed in a cruel manner.
A devil casually grabbed a steel greatsword that slashed at full power. A spear that finally managed to pierce the devil's abdomen with great difficulty was unable to even pierce through the devil's scales. Meanwhile, an enemy that was two or three times as tall as the devil would easily split the devil's upper and lower body in half with a simple grab.
The Ottoman mercenaries and mercenaries suffered the greatest casualties. Since they were naval forces, they didn't have any armor or enchanted weapons to begin with. They only attacked the organized devil army because the enemy army had already been utterly defeated by the cannon fire. All they needed to do was attack the enemy while they were down, and they instantly ran into an iron wall.
The Forest of Dreams' mercenaries fared better. They clearly understood the difference in power level between the two sides, so they didn't try to forcefully attack. Instead, they chose to keep the devils busy. Meanwhile, the Forest of Dreams' mercenaries had all sorts of equipment prepared over the years as Contract Heroes.
Since they knew that they would be fighting against the devils, they had long since prepared Coldsteel weapons and armor that were especially effective against creatures from the lower planes. These magical metal weapons only needed to be slightly enchanted, and just touching them would cause the devils to blister.
Even so, the lower planes' combat strength was still far too cruel for the humans. More and more devils were recovering from the chaos, and the human side's casualty ratio was already more than three to one. This would only continue increasing.
Fortunately, the Mage Country's war puppets and summoned beasts were the main fighting force right now. The devils didn't have anything like Morale Seeds, so they didn't need to worry about too many casualties causing their main force to collapse.
The mages in the rear saw this and gave up on trying to get close to the devil army. They focused on summoning even more cannon fodder and preparing even more long-range attack spells.
The Ottoman battleships that had completed their first round of attacks reloaded their ammunition and began attacking the devils' defensive line in an orderly fashion.
However, supporting attacks were still just supporting attacks. If they were too far away, their attack range would be limited. In order to break through the devils' defensive line, they would still need to sacrifice their own infantry.
Finally, when the Ottoman battleships had lost more than half of their naval forces, the Mage Country's archmages were no longer able to watch this any longer. Numerous high-level mages stood up.
They began to forcefully attack the devils' defensive line under the leadership of the Emblematic Truth level archmages. Meanwhile, the devils' unimaginable reinforcements finally arrived from a blind spot in their vision.
The leader of these reinforcements was an old acquaintance of Roland's. Or, more accurately, an old enemy.
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