Chapter 453 - Four Elemental Towers
“We deny Order...”
The hurtling meteors didn’t only bring our reinforcements. Breaking the Cycle of Reincarnation and having so many Order Gods betray the Order Faction on such a large-scale basis obviously antagonized the Source of Order completely. It was impossible for the Source of Order to let these traitors go so easily. Otherwise, the Order that it emphasized so much would lose all basic authority.
“We reject Chaos...”
The distorted void brought even more messengers of despair. More avengers from the Chaos Abyss had arrived, as the will of the Chaos Abyss’s angry roars shook the entire Chaos Abyss itself. Countless demons despaired as they were devoured by the Abyss itself.
The River Styx’s direction being changed would be a critical blow against the Chaos Faction. The Chaos Abyss would lose more than anyone. Even though the River Styx wouldn’t dry up so quickly in such a short time, there would be a huge decrease in the production of new demons, the main fighting force for the Chaos Faction. Top-level combat strength would also be permanently decreased every time a top-level individual died. Even if the will of the Chaos Abyss succeeded in luring high-quality souls into the Abyss, the effectiveness would be much lowered without the River Styx’s support. With the Chaos Faction’s typical way of thinking, it would be inconceivable for them to simply let go of someone who earned such a deep grudge with them.
Not long after the Hell Faction’s Gods arrived, new Gods arrived to chase us down in Hell. But since Ayer had cut off this new plane from all the other planes, these Gods hunting us down would need to mentally prepare themselves to be unable to return anytime in the near future even if they completed their masters’ orders.
“...We shall create a Hell for the sake of mortal lives!”
More accurately, even if these Gods that just arrived defeated us here, they would likely be embroiled in decades or even centuries of warring here afterwards.
Meteors and distorted dimensional tears brought even more hunters from the two major factions. There weren’t many that came to hunt us down, since any lower-ranked Gods would be meaningless against the Hell Faction. So, every one of these new Gods that arrived were major personages.
A white-robed old man arrived. He had a white beard that reached all the way to the ground, along with a kind and smiling expression. Rather than calling him a mage, he looked more like an old man that you’d commonly find living next door.
He was actually the Order Main God Kalumandas. His Divine Concepts included Wisdom, Libraries, Courage, Dawn, Sculptures, Craftsmanship, and so on. He was one of the most ancient former humans who had ascended to Godhood, ancient to the point where not a single individual remembered how he had ascended. It was said that Kalumandas was the only survivor of his prehistoric culture.
If the Source of Order still had feelings, I felt that it would be hysterical right now. Even I didn’t expect that it would send out yet another Order Main God to come and hunt me down, and that the Main God would actually be Kalumandas, the God of Wisdom.
Kalumandas was one of the very few Gods who the mages would worship, although the mages’ belief would still be rather lacking. The mages would worship a God basically only to not fall into the River Styx after death. Still, the fact that Kalumandas had witches and mages’ recognition was a good indication of his wisdom and open-mindedness. I truly didn’t expect that Kalumandas would come to hunt me down. No, I should correct myself by saying that I truly didn’t expect the Source of Order to send yet another Main God here to hunt me down.
That was because the Order Faction only had five Main God level existences left after Ayer and Anslo’s betrayals. Since Kalumandas apparently descended here in his true body, how would the remaining four Order Main Gods possibly fight against the Chaos Faction that still had more than ten Chaos Main Gods?
Logically speaking, since the Source of Order would only mechanically calculate benefits vs. losses, it should have allowed itself to take this hit and wait until later for an opportunity to strike.
But soon, when I saw two more demon Chaos Main Gods walked out of the distorted void, and how they even greeted Kalumandas in a friendly fashion, I understood everything that must have happened.
“We actually forced the Source of Order and the Chaos Abyss to directly negotiate with each other in order to deal with us? It seems that we’ve done a good job here...”
Obviously, the Source of Order was able to accept the loss of one Order Main God since the Chaos Faction sent another two Chaos Main Gods here, as none of these Main Gods would be returning anytime soon no matter what the result was. However, to have forced the Chaos Abyss... no, Cynthia to voluntarily accept such a bad deal, she must have been truly furious.
I didn’t know how successfully Ayer completed his task of completely changing the flow of the entire River Styx (very unlikely), but only changing the flow of part of the River Styx to here would successfully destroy Cynthia’s dream of being able to revive in this Holy War. It was only natural that she would be completely infuriated.
These two new abyssal visitors stunk of sulfur. Obviously, they were residents of the lower planes. It was quite easy to identify them based on their physical characteristics with how few Chaos Main Gods there were.
The first was a large, rotting piece of meat with disgusting green fur and a stench that reminded me of a garbage disposal site. All sorts of strange decaying and rotting stenches covered his entire body. Although he was clearly a Demon Lord, it was impossible to identify anything on his body that resembled a face or limbs. It was even impossible to see any eyes on his body from which he could see others.
“Gaar, the Murky Nightmare. He’s a Demon Lord who doesn’t have a noble title, as well as the Demon Lord who’s the closest to being truly undying. He was originally a common bloody byproduct of demons’ internal warring, an amalgamation of half-dead demons and corpses, but he somehow managed to survive... Nobody knows how Garr successfully became one of the strongest demons in existence. Similarly, nobody knows just how to kill him. In fact, nobody even knows if Gaar is capable of speech or if Gaar is truly alive.”
Of course, I knew about who Gaar was. Gaar was the living definition of Chaos’ evolution, yet he was loathed by the will of the Chaos Abyss to the point where he didn’t even have a noble title. In fact, even his name of Gaar was just an onomatopoeia that represented disgust.
At least the other Demon Lord was far more pleasing to look at when compared to Gaar.
He had just an ordinary demon’s appearance. His demon wings, horns, and gray-black body were quite muscular. His arms and legs all appeared ordinary. He had a normal greatsword on his back. Yet, I was unable to identify him instantly. Fortunately, Little Tias was acquainted with all the Chaos Main Gods.
“Sophocles the Deceiver. He’s the most difficult Demon Lord to understand. He loves to lure mortal heroes and powerful individuals into becoming fallen. His favorite hobby is to arrange the most ironic tragedies of fate. I’ve always felt that he’s more befitting of the title ‘Lord of Lies’ than I am.”
Alright then, that made it easy to identify this Demon Lord. Sophocles the Deceiver, who was also known to be skilled at art and music, would definitely rank in the top three in the mortal plane for how much damage he caused and how many people hated him.
Sophocles’ most famous accomplishment was how he managed to establish a church in the mortal plane which worshipped his own incarnation to the point where even his incarnation was declared as a God. A Demon Lord successfully passed himself off as an Order God and even fooled several other True Gods into allying with him? This was something that caused the Order Faction to greatly lose face. Even today, Sophocles and his believers were one of the top mortal enemies of the Gods’ Churches.
But, considering the fact that demons weren’t truly able to use the power of belief to strengthen themselves, all this could accomplish was to let him have some fun. Working so hard and spending so many resources all for the sake of fun? Should I say that it was to be expected of a Demon Lord?
I never expected that such a dangerous existence would actually have such an “ordinary” appearance. But, when considering the fact that he was capable of even deceiving True Gods, perhaps this type of appearance was more suitable for his “deeds”.
And now, a total of five Chaos Main Gods had arrived at this battlefield of Hell!
Considering how arrogant and unwilling to listen to orders that Chaos Main Gods typically were, plus how selfish they would be in not wanting to take any personal risks without benefits, sending five of the Chaos Main Gods here was pretty much the full extent of Cynthia’s power. On top of that, she probably had to pay a hefty price to the Chaos Main Gods for all this.
“In that case, the scale of the Holy War in the mortal plane will be greatly diminished? That’s truly wonderful news... No, I can’t be happy so early. It’s not even time for the Gods to personally descend in the mortal plane. To the ordinary humans, just the low-level demons are already their worst nightmare.”
Although I was facing the expected reprisal of the Chaos and Order Factions, even though I was facing two Order Main Gods and five Chaos Main Gods, I wasn’t nervous or panicking right now at all. Rather, the feelings welling up within me were delight and excitement.
“This is exactly what I wanted. If we couldn’t even attract the Chaos and Order Factions’ attention and enmity, what worth would there be for our hard work and sacrifices...?” My enemies’ strength only made me delighted. This wasn’t because I was insane at all. We had all worked so hard to prepare for this moment, sacrificing so much along the way. How could we possibly be afraid of powerful opponents? Rather, since our enemies viewed us with such importance and enmity, this was the best proof that we were on the correct path.
Currently, the Chaos War God was right before me, yet he was forced back by silver chains. Four towers were now raising together, along with new dimensional walls that represented the birth of an entirely new world.
That’s right, there were now four towers. Three additional towers were rising next to the tall silver tower that I and Wumianzhe were standing on. The forbidden spell of Creation by the Four Elements was now fully activated.
The white tower was the amalgamation of ice. This tower represented all the life in Hell. At the top of the tower was a statue of a Goddess which contained the former Water Elemental Goddess Aylos’ soul crystal at the core. A white glow spread out which illuminated the residents of this new world, keeping all the dead residents of this world forever alive.
The black tower was the amalgamation of death and undeath. This tower represented all the souls in Hell. At the top of the tower was a crystal skull within Ayer’s corpse. Ayer’s black soul crystal was glowing ominously and powering this world with death magic.
The gold tower was the amalgamation of Holy Light. This tower represented the concept of Time in Hell. This was the only pure light in this world. Although the power of Holy Light was still gathering, Estrada’s soul crystal was glowing with a light that represented salvation in a sculpture of a lantern-bearer.
Only the silver tower under my feet had yet to be activated, so it appeared rather dim. But of course, this tower represented the final foundational fourth element for creating my world – Law, which also represented Space.
When using Creation by the Four Elements, these Four Elemental Towers would be the most critical foundational core. Every change would be controlled by these towers. And even in the ancient creation myths, the Four Elemental Towers had appeared as well in a form that people didn’t know about.
“These are my version of the Elemental Thrones in the Elemental Planes! Eich was truly and ridiculously powerful to have constructed such things. But, for me, these will become the strongest mage tower in the entire world!”
That’s right, the Four Elemental Thrones which would give birth to new Elemental Gods were no natural byproducts at all. They were relics left behind from Eich’s creation of the world. They were a part of Creation by the Four Elements, and also acted as the balance mechanism for the four elements in the mortal plane of Eich and the Four Elemental Planes.
How Elemental Gods were able to use Elemental Thrones to manipulate the power of an entire Elemental Plane was actually quite similar to how mages controlled the power of their mage towers. And right now, these Four Elemental Towers were just like natural mage towers that would provide me with an endless amount of power! How could I possibly be afraid of any opponent with their assistance!