Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After carefully studying the situation, Grimm’s eyes lit up under the Mask of Truth. He pulled himself together. Through a series of dimensional manipulation, he landed on top of a towering boulder on the lands of the Shadow World.

The boulder was hundreds of meters in height. Years of humid conditions and corrosive flesh-vegetation had made the giant boulder round and smooth with no sharp edges; like a pebblestone that had been washed away under the riverbed.

Standing at the peak of the giant boulder, the panoramic view of all four directions as well as the open sky came into view.

The location where the Void Fortress of the sorcerer world had descended upon was on the lighter region of the Shadow World. The lights came mainly from the realm’s sun which had never set. There was always a constant brightness, but it was not scorching hot. In general, it felt like a cloudy day in the sorcerer world.

The sky was dark and gloomy over where Grimm was standing on up till the Camphroagate Trees and the deeper shadow worlds. The light source came exclusively from the world’s fire crystals that were abundantly scattered around and from some strange plants. The lights were dimmed and scattered. The sky was always somber.

This group of Amonros which were overshadowing the sun was coming in from the lighter regions of the Shadow World. They appeared like a group of dark clouds after being shone upon by the faint lights faraway.

Oik! Oik! Oik!

As the dark clouds drew closer, their squeals grew even more intense, and the feeling of them being unstoppable as if they would annihilate anyone who stood in their path grew even stronger, as if a torrent was about to come crashing down.

At one glance, one would have thought that the fearless Amonro army was carrying out an assault. But in actual fact…

Grimm stood at the peak of the boulder as he silently looked at the sky.

The battalion of Amonros flew overhead imposingly. They did not care to stop for a tiny ‘bug’ like Grimm. They were persistently trying to fly into the deeper regions of the shadow world.

Behind them, there were five Voidships and thousands of demon-hunter legions and slave monsters giving chase. The demon-hunters were like vicious cheetahs hunting a fawn. Their fangs were out and claws were sharpened. They were in pursuit.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Suddenly, the five Voidships started to shoot their incinerating cannons again. Within the dark red energy beams, the ‘invincible’ group of Amonros ahead exploded into mists of blood. Hundreds of Amonros and their torn bodies fell off, but the flock of Amonros dared not stop. They flew even more frantically toward the deeper regions.

From time to time, within the legion of Bright Sorcerers, a group of ten or more sorcerers would cast spells and lay down magical arrays to launch a volley of powerful energy attacks.

In a short while, the two parties that were in chase flew overhead Grimm by hundreds of meters into the distance.

So, the imposing ‘invincibility’ of the Amonro legion was actually them fleeing in terror from the legion of Demon Hunters that were giving chase. They were trying their hardest to escape and flee. They were merely ‘invincible’ in crushing anyone who blocked their escape route.

It’s quite ironic if you think about it!

“Hahaha! Master Grimm, it looks like the main battleground over at the sorcerer world is finishing up, the sorcerers are now trying to establish a permanent base.” The Myna strut its feathers as it said smugly.

“Yeah.”

Grimm replied softly. The intense surge of magical energy had slightly messed up his long, blond hair. His eyes were absolutely calm under the white-grayish spiral patterns of his Mask of Truth. Swish! His body turned into a moving light as he continued on his flight toward the Void Fortress.

The stench of blood filled the land and sky. Each corner of the battlefield composed the sad, trivial notes of the neverending sufferings of the world.

The agonizing cries of the lands of the shadow world had stopped. As he came closer to the Void Fortress, the torn bodies that silently laid across the land became more dense.

There were some Demon Hunters among the dense mountain of corpses. There were also some from the slave monster legions. But a huge number of them were low-level Amonro corpses.

Within the hills of corpses, there were patches of craters that were ’empty’. They looked like they were caused by the incineration cannons from the Voidships of the main battleground, like some kind of strong energy impact had made the craters.

None of the corpses surrounding these giant craters were complete. It was a terrible sight.

‘Huh?’

Grimm saw some mechanical marionettes that were leaping around the bodies. These mechanical marionettes were thorough and refined in their work. Other than the worker-ant level mechanical marionettes that could be found everywhere, there were also quite a number of high-level marionettes among them that were doing their missions.

These mechanical marionettes were probably collecting the spoils of war. They were very agile. They could jump tens of meters and were quite capable of gliding in the air.

“So it seems that the fortress had something powerful up its sleeve. This lowly world could never draw out the full strength of the Demon Hunter’s expedition.”

Grimm mumbled to himself.

These mechanical marionettes were the main fodders of the sorcerer’s battle conquests in ancient times.

Following the advancement of the sorcerer civilization, the mechanical marionettes were gradually replaced by the ‘cheaper and cost effective’ legions of Soul Slaves, which became the more convenient and faster choice of cannon fodder.

However, that did not mean that the mechanical drones had completely lost their value and position in the sorcerers’ civilization today.

Contrary to that!

As far as Grimm knows, underneath the Tree of Life of the Holy Tower of the Seven Ring, in the Ants’ Nest Square alone, there was a department buying up the mechanical marionettes without limit in exchange for sorcerer’s essence.

The mechanical marionettes had found a place in history as highly advanced strategic commodities.

Meaning to say that the sorcerer world seemed to be hoarding all the strategic resources that they had plundered. Naturally that would include the mechanical marionettes, which form part of the strategic resources as well.

From the archives, Grimm learnt that among the different worlds that were conquered by the sorcerers, some of them were not enslaved nor plundered, but they were ruled by sorcerers’ tokens instead.

Apparently, they were making exaggerated profits through price arbitration among the different commodities to hoard all kinds of strategic resources as well as developing facilities and benefits for the Demon Hunters.

Now, only god knows how many more mechanical marionettes were stored within the holy towers in the various reaches of the sorcerer world, yet no one had ever heard of where these drones ended up in.

It was as if each tower was a bottomless pit, sucking in the mechanical drones from the sorcerers’ world without a trace.

Even at the battlegrounds of different worlds at this moment.

The Void Fortress still had ample supplies mechanical marionettes of this kind, yet the battlefield command still chose the legions of Soul Slaves and put the lives of Demon Hunters in the front line instead of using what were originally intended as ‘cannon fodder’—the mechanical marionettes to lead the charge and break through the field of traps first.

Was it a mistake in judgement by the great necromancers and the Stigmata Sorcerers?

In the eyes of a lowly being, Grimm couldn’t help but make such deductions.

However…

He made a self-deprecating smile.

The visions of any lowly beings are short-sighted. Perhaps the biggest difference in wisdom between a real sorcerer and his apprentice was in the comprehension of this particular point.

Perhaps when Grimm had stood to the level of a real sorcerer, and when he had reached the farsightedness that comes with that level would he understand some of it.

How could the slave monster legions and the demon hunters become ‘cannon fodder’ for the mechanical marionettes, which were the real cannon fodder?

Buzz….

A mechanical marionette, tens of meters in height, with its two eyes which could discern simple decisions was carefully pulling out a severely wounded and unconscious sorcerer from the bodies. It gently carried him up and flew rapidly toward the Void Fortress to seek aid.

Other than collecting the spoils of war, it seems that the highest priorities of these drones were to rescue any surviving demon-hunters and collect their bodies if they had perished.

Across the faraway skies, the Void Fortress of the sorcerer world which was made out of blood-red metals spanned tens of thousands of meters in length, floating above the skies without a care. It was exerting lifting pressures that were naked to the eyes, as if provoking the entire shadow world to declare war as it continued its oppression.

Countless tiny black spots were flying in and out of this gigantic structure, conducting various kinds of missions.

At this moment, the first battle that raged between the sorcerer’s world and the shadow world concluded with a decisive victory by the sorcerer world.

The Void Fortress that was floating carefreely in the sky, with its enormous size, shall become the strongest operating base of the demon-hunters that were conquering the foreign world.

As long as it had not departed from this world, nor destroyed, all of the Demon Hunters and Voidships shall enjoy the continuous replenishment of the sorcerer world’s principal will, enchanted Sorcerer Barriers, a solid and unfaltering backup, and the faith of the Sorcerer Will!

At the same time, as the Demon Hunters crushed more of the Amonros’ hopes, their research on the various kinds of specimens became clearer; they became more familiar with the world, and they had more understanding in their research on the Amonros.

They would fully experience the terror from a far more advanced civilization.

From now onward, the Demon Hunter shall use this Void Fortress as their core base and wage a war that would last decades, even centuries, to determine the sovereignty of the world at all costs. They would not stop until they had reached the goals of their conquest.