Chapter 465.1 - Hidden Aces
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
The dimensional tears in the sky had yet to close, and now countless crevices had appeared in the pitch-black ground. This abnormal scene brought discomfort to everyone. Falling into any crevice or tear would probably have an unknown result.
“Kill that Ladvioka! I want him to be the first Chaos Main God that dies in this Holy War.”
I gave the command to kill as I stood on the top of the bone giant. Just by the action of walking alone, this tremendous bone giant would make a joke out of any attempts to stop it.
Countless ants rushed forward to die, while the Lord of Putrefaction Ladvioka himself was actually retreating. As a Main God, he had already gotten accustomed to staying as far away from any potential danger as possible. It had been more than five thousand years ago in the Holy War from two generations ago that he had last felt such fear that he could die at any moment.
It was precisely because he had suffered in that Holy War from two generations ago that he refused the will of the Chaos Abyss when it summoned him to participate in the previous Holy War. Ladvioka only went at the very end of the previous Holy War to steal some loot and pretend to add to his resume. The result was that the Chaos Abyss started loathing him and demoted his noble title, making Ladvioka become a Demon Lord Main God who was only an Earl. That made him a joke for a while.
Of course, at his power level, not many would dare to laugh at him. Ladvioka himself was also no longer interested in noble titles. The Chaos Abyss had given him everything it could already. If he wanted to progress in power any further, he could only rely on his own stealing, conquering, and personal experience. And since the Chaos Abyss now disliked him, that was probably the main reason why he was so willing to sacrifice anything to obtain this new dimension of Hell.
Perhaps it was also because the cruel Holy War from two generations ago scared him so much that this Demon Lord changed his former way of directly fighting. Instead, Ladvioka began raising his own demon armies and military squadrons.
But right now, all those dangerous magical beasts that he worked so hard to raise were all unable to protect him! The bone giant that would send him to his doom kept approaching ever closer. It seemed to him as if his destruction was coming for him.
“Stop it! Stop it at all costs!”
The furious Demon Lord commanded his cannon fodder to stop the bone giant’s charge. Although his subordinates obeyed this command, they were basically helpless.
The powerful pure white-haired girl with the chained-up body, eyelids sewn shut, and gagged mouth was the Insect Mother who was powerful enough to create an entire dimension belonging to her magical insects. As long as she had a sufficient amount of time, she was even capable of single-handedly destroying an entire dimension by herself. Not even most True Gods were capable of resisting against her. However, she didn’t even have time to utilize the insect swarms that were her greatest power when she was burned into nothing but ash together with her insect servants by the bone giant’s pitch-black flames. Countless magical insects and their magical nests died together with her.
Ladvioka’s magical war elephant squadron that had powerful charge attacks and tremendous bodies, sufficient to make even demons be afraid, were actually shorter than the bone giant’s foot. The fact that the elephants charged forward actually made it even easier for the bone giant to smush them to death like ants.
As for the distorted half-angels that spread plague and death? Ha, their strongest abilities were now worthless in front of an undead magical behemoth like this bone giant. The half-angels didn’t even cause any effective damage before they were vaporized into real corpses by the powerful aura of death around the bone giant.
Just breathing alone could create tornados. Just staring at someone could cause death. Just walking could create canyons. This bone giant, Envy’s incarnation, showed the demons from other planes and the Chaos Abyss just what a real nightmare, a real dimensional destroyer was!
Magical beasts were killed, stomped to death, and burned to death in their hordes. The tremendous bone giant trampled everything that tried to stop it. It was approaching ever closer to Ladvioka’s temporary abyssal fortress. This Demon Lord who had wanted to reobtain the will of the Chaos Abyss’s recognition now saw his worst nightmare right before him.
“How can such a ridiculous thing even exist…”
This bone giant was constructed out of the purest dimensional laws of death, allowing it to bring death upon all of Ladvioka’s demons. Countless souls transformed into energy for this bone giant. And it just so happened that the dimensional laws of this world dictated that the dead were unable to become “truly dead”. No matter if it was the bone giant or the dead souls providing it with energy, they all possessed an endless amount of energy force. Basically, this “Transformer” was a bug-like existence that had a limitless amount of energy. Since the grand blueprint for this bone giant’s design had incredible potential power at the peak, and it now had limitless energy, these two combined thanks to Hell’s dimensional laws to become an “undead perpetual motion machine.” This created a monster that surpassed even the Main Gods in energy level.
The Gods surpassed the mundane mostly because of dimensional laws. In their Divine Kingdoms, they were the administrators who held authority over their own Concepts. Any ordinary powerful individual that wanted to defeat them would first have to think of ideas to seal or weaken the dimensional Concept they possessed, which would return a “God” back to mortal standards.
Since I had already anticipated that Main Gods would come and attack me, of course I made preparations against them. All of Hell was my personal Divine Kingdom, and I possessed plenty of powerful Concepts and dimensional laws.
But in my opinion, directly using dimensional laws to attack was nothing more than a foolish tactic. That was because dimensional laws had their limits. Instead, using dimensional laws to strengthen my greatest advantage—my creations—so that their strengths became even stronger would be the best way to abuse dimensional laws.
And so, I toyed with dimensional laws to the utmost limit, creating this existence that surpassed the dimensional laws. This was all because the Lord of Putrefaction had invaded me with all his power…
“Fine then, let’s just see and compare who has the better hidden aces! Ladvioka, I can understand your fear because what all army commander types fear more than anything are powerful warriors that can ignore numerical advantage and go directly for the commander. But this… is only the beginning… Arise, those that are dead! Fight for your new master.”
Black mist filled this entire world. Hell wasn’t the end of life. Hell was only the beginning of everything.
The pale white biohazard Insect Mother reappeared in the middle of the battlefield. But this time, her sewed eyes were open, and her clear white eyes actually consisted of countless single eyes that created compound eyes. However, her eyes were filled with hatred as she glared at the existence she had just so furiously defended.
Her life-rending magical bees and death mushroom bombs appeared once again. However, this time, they targeted the still “living” demon armies.
It was the same for the distorted half-angels, war elephants, and all the other magical beasts. The moment that they were revived from death, they immediately started charging towards their former master.
“Haha, human-wave tactics? You want to compare with me in full-scale army battles? You want to use human-wave tactics against me, a super undead mage in my home turf of Hell? Ladvioka! Are you an idiot!?”
As long as enough death was caused, an Undead Calamity would be capable of dragging any army into total annihilation. However, something that surprised even me was the fact that I only sped up Ladvioka’s dead subordinate’s revival, but I hadn’t distorted their wills. More than seventy percent of his former subordinates that were revived after death actually directly attacked Ladvioka with all their might even without my influence.
“My new master. If your home was destroyed by him, with your friends and family all sacrificed on the experimental table, and your entire tribe was destroyed for the sole reason that they weren’t ‘suitable’ enough for his experiments, and you yourself were transformed into a weapon of war, you would hate a ‘Creator’ like Ladvioka as well!”
The Insect Mother sent me a soul message about her reasons, although I could infer them even without her message. Quite obviously, Ladvioka was a highly unpopular master. No matter what contracts or other methods to control his subordinates he possessed, they would all become ineffective after his subordinates died once.
As for the relative few that maintained their loyalty to Ladvioka, I directly tossed all their souls into the River Styx, making them leave this battle.
An abnormal scene now appeared in this fight. The undead knights were rushing forward at Ladvioka, and the just deceased demons all crawled up again and joined my side. This was doubtlessly a turning point in the battle.
At this moment, the Demon Lord Ladvioka who had been remaining abnormally silent finally raised his head. The hatred contained within him transformed into corporeal poisonous flames. He suddenly swung a giant battle hammer containing abyssal flames, causing an orange-red firestorm to begin covering the entire world.
In the air above Ladvioka’s battle hammer, the flames transformed into an angry Inferno Demon roaring in the void. It seemed to be roaring and struggling in anger. The next instant, an orange aura began spreading. This seemingly harmless orange wave passed countless warriors, directly igniting the weak who could only watch themselves being burnt to ash. The strong simply imploded suddenly.
“Such a powerful wavelength? The purest fire magic? A forbidden spell?”
That’s right, countless howls and sparks flew together with all the mushroom cloud explosions. No matter if you looked at the large-scale area of effect or the individual attack power, this forbidden spell far surpassed any limits that a mortal could cast.
The Demon Lord had successfully cast a forbidden spell in less than two minutes!
“I never expected that the rumors about Ladvioka formerly being an Inferno Demon were true. His fire magic mastery has probably far surpassed that of any human mage in existence. However, while his fire may look pretty, it’s all meaningless!”
That’s right, it was meaningless. With regards to fights between top-level existences, large-scale AOE forbidden spells wouldn’t have enough attack power against individuals. And, my ace card against Ladvioka was a bone giant Transformer. It would be impossible for Ladvioka to survive if the bone giant got close to him.
The flames from the forbidden spell covered the bone giant’s entire body. However, the flames were then quenched in the next instant. I didn’t even try to move or dodge the attack. While Ladvioka’s death-bringing flames would perhaps easily slay any ordinary giant, there was an absolute difference in energy level that made it difficult to even scratch Envy’s defenses. It would be impossible to even kill my incarnation.
What happened next was also within my expectations. The white snowflakes that fell from the sky helped the warriors who died in the flames just now to obtain new physical bodies. As long as the entirety of Hell’s dimensional laws wasn’t shattered, it would be impossible for the dead to truly die here. Even a forbidden spell would only slightly slow down the undead and demon mob’s attack against Ladvioka.
Considering the fact that many living demons on Ladvioka’s side had just perished to his forbidden spell, the second charge against him would only be even more vicious with more demons that newly joined my side.
But, something unexpected then happened…
The tremendous bone giant suddenly stopped and tilted, almost falling over on the ground.
“What’s going on? The undead being reborn?”
Countless undead souls from the Mountain and Thieves’ Infernos were gathered within the bone giant’s skeleton. They were basically a portable battery for the bone giant. And right now, many of these souls were currently being reborn.
The bone giant itself wouldn’t take much damage from the flames, but those dangerous flames successfully slew the ordinary undead within the bone giant. Although the undead would soon revive, this naturally meant that there would be a short period of insufficient energy, just like a machine that wouldn’t work when there was a temporary power outage. Naturally, this caused the bone giant to stop.
Since the fiercest warrior leading the vanguard suddenly stopped, it became unavoidable that the undead army’s attack became disrupted.
And the next instant, Ladvioka actually opened up a pair of fiery wings on his back, one of the signature characteristics of Inferno Demons. These wings carried his fat and gigantic body into the air.
Perhaps everyone in the world had underestimated this Demon Lord who always kept a low profile. Although Ladvioka had seemingly retreated from the frontlines and adopted an army-based fighting style, he had never abandoned his Inferno Demon foundational instincts. No matter if it was in melee fighting or fire magic, he would still be the strongest Inferno Demon in existence.
A fire-wreathed greatsword suddenly appeared in the air which Ladvioka then grasped in his hands. He then suddenly threw the sword, directly aiming for the bone giant’s heart, the Borealis. As long as the heart was destroyed, even though the Borealis could be revived, this bone giant would collapse on itself and it would be impossible to put it together again in this fight.
“Should I say that it’s to be expected of a Demon Lord Main God? He actually found the weak spot so quickly, but…”
In just a short few minutes, the Demon Lord who had experienced uncountable battles already found the critical point of this battle! Even I now felt that I had previously underestimated Ladvioka. If I had forced him into a physical fight under normal dimensional laws, it was highly likely that I would be on the losing end.
“…But, aren’t you underestimating me too much, Ladvioka!? Turn upside-down, Mountain Inferno!”
I reached out my hand and gathered the shape of the Mountain Inferno within my hands. The blueprint for the mountains covered half the sky, together with a compass and direction symbols.
And as I turned my hand, the compass’s directions started turning around as well. The directions of north and south switched as the entire Mountain Inferno was suddenly turned upside-down. The original sky became the ground, while the ground became the sky.
Gravity changed directions as well. Ladvioka who was flying in the sky suddenly found that he was hurtling himself towards the ground. Countless living or dead were all directly tossed into the “former sky”.
Compared to the other Infernos, the Mountain Inferno’s sky wasn’t high at all. If you flew up high to the very limits of the sky, you would be able to see a ceiling… or more accurately, a second Mountain Inferno constructed out of countless additional mountains.
That Mountain Inferno was an exact mirror copy of all the snow mountains, sword mountains, volcanoes, and so on.
This wasn’t because of my personal interests. Nor would I be capable of modifying the Mountain Inferno on such a large scale after its creation. This was simply a vicious trait of the Mountain Inferno.
“Pride stems from levels and status. Since you all love to climb up, then climb as much as you want. I even remembered to design infighting and obstacles, favorites for those who possess too much Pride. And if any of you actually succeed in reaching the top of the mountain, that means it’s time for you… to start climbing all over again from the very beginning! Ha, did you really think that I would allow any of you to enjoy a relaxing rest?”
Until an individual finished their punishment and achieved salvation, how could the Mountain Inferno’s punishment possibly end? There was no limit to the mountain climbing punishment for the Mountain Inferno of Pride. If someone truly managed to climb to the top, then they would get to enjoy a short moment of respite before the entire world turned upside down and made everyone start over again from the very beginning.
However, that short moment of respite would then become motivation for them to continue climbing yet again. I already expected that once the Mountain Inferno’s design became publicized, I would receive countless praise. This was one of the Inferno designs that I was the proudest of.
And right now, I suddenly activated this mechanism, which became the most despairing nightmare for Ladvioka’s demon armies.
Including Ladvioka himself. All the demon armies dropped down into the new mirror Mountain Inferno, with countless demons burning, freezing, or being impaled and dying. Of course, the most common death was the simplest one of simply being smashed into a meat pie by the impact.
Their just-finished abyssal fortress became completely meaningless. The portion of the Mountain Inferno that was corroded by Ladvioka’s twenty-plus Dimensional Descents was completely replaced by the mirror Mountain Inferno. The denseness of Hades Mist instantly multiplied several times over. Of course, only the demons that still managed to survive could complain about the conditions that suddenly worsened so much for them on the battlefield.
The sudden upside-down change of directions caused the frightfully heavy Ladvioka to suddenly transform into a flying meteor that crashed into the mountains. When he dizzily got up again from a volcano that he had crushed under his body, he then discovered that his armies had almost been completely annihilated. Except for the few that were lucky enough to have wings, the great majority of his demons and dimensional creations had all become dead souls in the River Styx or revived undead that were now mortal enemies with their former master.
When the bone giant stood up again, the only opponent powerful enough for it was now the dark green Demon Lord.
“Ahhh, Roland, you scammer!”
As for a certain unlucky Main God twin brother of mine who just got out of his volcano and jumped up and down in joy too early? He directly fell into yet another volcano. Let’s just pretend that we didn’t see anything.