Chapter 1098: Synchronised Strike
The battlefield spanned miles, a chaotic storm of blood, magic, and clashing powers. The ground quaked beneath the thunder of battle as the natives of Iohodis clashed with the invading Infernal Devils and their wyvern-mounted riders, while the Vanguards of Triffid tore through the natives’ ranks, aiming to make them a part of Triffid’s ever-growing forest.
The air reeked of sulphur, filled with the crackle of magic and pierced by the screams of the dying.
Thousands of infernal beasts charged the spirit lines, spewing fire that scorched the earth, while above, the skies blazed with elemental energy as cultivators streaked through like shooting stars, their weapons cleaving through devils with various techniques and mystic arts.
Arrows of law energy rained from above, burning craters into the earth, only to be answered by radiant elven arrows that felled wyverns from the sky.
The battles on the ground were just as messy, with ice spikes erupting to impale infernal beasts, while firestorms and lightning strikes tore across the battlefield, claiming the lives of both Spirits and Devils.
Cultivators unleashed earthquakes, tsunamis, and raging storms, each elemental onslaught consuming dozens from both sides at once.
The Vanguards of Triffid rampaged mindlessly across the field, their plant-like bodies smashing through spirit formations as roots and tendrils burst from the ground, coiling around their foes and crushing them.
But the Spirits struck back with fierce elemental spells, piercing their bark-like armour and shattering the corrupted wood that made up their bodies.
The battlefield was a storm of unending destruction with no respite in sight. Flashes of light, bursts of energy, and the crack of splintering wood and bone filled the air, while the ground trembled beneath every clash.
More Vanguards emerged, tearing through the soil and hurling themselves into the fight, while infernal beasts met flying spirits in the sky, turning the air above into a tempest of claws, fire, and violent magic.
High above it all, the Elder Spirits had already resolved their course: they would force the Infernal Archdevils to act decisively, and soon.
Half of the Elders charged forward, slicing through the ranks of Devils and wildly unleashing attacks that made the battlefield shudder.
The Infernal Devils had no means to withstand the overwhelming might of the Transcendents. With each sweep of an Elder Spirit’s power, thousands of Epics were cut down like leaves in the wind, hundreds of Legendries crumpled, and even Sovereigns were vaporised by the dozens.
They held nothing back.
This wasn’t the typical slow escalation where weaker ranks fought first, gradually giving way to stronger forces as the battle unfolded.
Not this time.
In less than fifteen minutes, the Spirits’ Superior Sovereigns and Transcendents were already deep in the fray, cutting straight through Infernal lines.
The Archdevils had no room to hesitate. They couldn’t stand by and watch their armies be torn apart.
If they allowed the Elders to rampage freely, the Spirits would overwhelm everything in their path. And what use were generals without an army left to command?
Then, the Elder Spirit leading the charge from Tír Síorghlas revealed his Superior Transcendent power, lifting a colossal orb of multi-elemental energy above his head.
The Archdevils saw it and immediately understood that if that struck, even an Inferior Transcendent could be annihilated outright. And if it hit the ground, tens of thousands of their soldiers would perish in an instant.
They couldn’t afford the risk.
Bursting out from their concealed vantage points, the Archdevils charged straight at the Elder Spirits, weapons drawn, law energies roused.
But as if they had been waiting for this precise moment, the Elder Spirits all turned in perfect unison, each one aligned exactly with the incoming surprise attacks.
Their weapons were already unsheathed, spells cast, and skills triggered with precision. The sky trembled as aerial mines ignited around the advancing Archdevils, immediately followed by missiles infused with both divinity and destruction energy, streaking in from the rear.
Crimson and silver explosions erupted across the battlefield, tearing open space itself and scattering destruction in every direction.
In that single, precisely timed detonation, several Inferior Transcendent Devils dropped from the sky, lifeless.
The Elder Spirits didn’t waste time on lesser threats and quickly shifted their focus to the remaining Transcendents.
What the Archdevils failed to notice—lost in the confusion—was the reason the Spirits had responded with such impossible timing.
A faint light-blue glow emanated from each Elder Spirit’s left eye, radiating the unmistakable signature of time energy.
Far below, Arthur’s left eye glowed with that same blue hue as he quietly spoke.
|¬Pseudo-Authority of Time: Shared Memories of the Future¬|
It was through this shared vision that Arthur had coordinated their opening strike with perfect clarity.
The Spirits’ synchronised attacks, enhanced by Arthur’s divinity and destructive missile barrage, shattered the Infernal Devils’ formations and left them in complete disarray.
As the Infernal Archdevils tried to recover, Arthur snapped his fingers, summoning over a hundred meteors he’d prepared over weeks, each marked with gravity laws and warped through Cosmic Gates.
Some meteors were accelerated by time energy or cloaked in invisibility, forcing the Devils to waste precious seconds evading or intercepting them. Arthur then redirected several meteors mid-flight, crashing them into targets at impossible angles, while triggering premature detonations on others to scatter deadly fragments.
The chaos dismantled the Devils’ countermeasures before they could even be deployed.
After deactivating his Pseudo-Authorities, Arthur exhaled deeply, drained by the immense magic expenditure.
Just then, Evan, who was standing nearby, held out a potion bottle and asked,
"It’s my turn, right?"
Arthur turned, took the bottle, and drank, but paused after the first sip.
"Why does it taste like strawberries?"
"My personal blend. Normal potions are too bitter for my liking," Evan replied with a casual shrug.
Arthur just shook his head and finished the rest. Now wasn’t the time to argue about potion flavours.
Once he’d emptied the bottle, he finally answered Evan’s question.
"Yeah. It’s your turn."
Receiving that answer, Evan nodded and kicked off the ground. When he’d gained about a hundred meters of distance from Arthur, he wrapped his fist in flames and punched the ground, triggering a massive explosion.
The instant the dust cloud rose and concealed him, he activated Lethe, spread his wings, and launched himself into the dense forest using them for a boost.
Undetected by anyone on the battlefield, Evan moved through several predetermined positions, placing the divinity bombs Arthur had created.
At each site, he carved into the ground and dropped a bomb in, and at one such location, he noticed a nearby devil turning toward the noise, confused by the sudden appearance of a hole.
"What it t—GupK!!"
Evan struck the devil’s neck with the side of his palm, and before they could even manage a proper gasp, he snapped their neck and dumped the body into the same pit as the bomb, covering it up immediately afterwards.
He then pulled out a tablet from his inventory, ticked a spot on the map, and began searching for the next closest target.
Arthur and Charisse had combined their future-sight abilities to pinpoint the optimal locations for placing these bombs, each one potentially as devastating to the devils as a nuclear bomb was for regular humans.
’Instead of nuclear radiation, they’re getting hit with divinity radiation...’
Evan moved on to the next location, and upon landing, he used Elemental Skewer to impale the hearts of every devil present. He then casually walked through the field of corpses, dug another hole, and placed the next bomb inside.
Once finished, he looked over the bodies scattered around him and shook his head with a sigh.
’All these kills, and not even a single level.’
Evan clicked his tongue as he thought about the fact that he still hadn’t reached Level 800, despite being so close to it.
And the reason, if one really thought about it, was ridiculously simple.
Level, as a numerical value, reflected the calibre of one’s existence. As a person’s Level increased, so did every one of their physical and spiritual parameters.
But those gains didn’t just materialise from nowhere. They came from EXP accumulation, the same thing that caused Levels to rise in the first place.
There were three core components that made up ’EXP’: the existential records of the defeated existence, their soul power, and a portion of the residual energy left in their corpse.
In essence, residual energy, soul power (which was itself a form of energy), and existential records, which would ultimately be converted into energy.
The records functioned as a determinant for which specific stats the EXP would enhance the most. For example, if someone killed an opponent whose strength stat was exceptionally high, they would gain more stat levels in strength than in any other stat. That was simply how the process worked.
And now, there was Evan, currently at Level 799.
Despite being Level 799, Evan’s base stats were already comparable to someone at Level 840.
Since rising in Level necessitated a corresponding rise in one’s stats, Evan’s advancement from Level 799 to 800, and thus stepping into a new Existence Level, would bring both a quantitative and qualitative leap in his stats.
However, because his current parameters already matched those far above Level 800, the energy needed to push them even higher had increased significantly.
For Evan to receive the stat boost rightfully due to him upon surpassing Level 800, he now required far more energy than usual.
Specifically, he needed the equivalent of the energy it would normally take for someone at Level 840 to achieve a significant stat increase, perhaps enough to climb 10 or even 15 levels higher.
That was what Evan needed just to pass Level 800.
The energy gained from EXP would be channelled into his body, enhancing his cells to boost his Health, Strength, Agility, and Durability. A portion of that energy would also be absorbed by his dragon heart, increasing its capacity and the quality of energy it could store.
But as previously mentioned, due to the already elevated level of that dragon heart, it now took far more energy to push it any higher.
That was why, despite having slaughtered thousands of infernal devils, monsters, and devil dragons over the last two months, Evan still hadn’t reached level 800.
He simply hadn’t killed enough to gather the level of EXP that a Level 840 would need to level up multiple times.
And this was taking into account the fact that Evan levelled up several times faster than normal. That alone was enough to show just how much EXP was required at these levels, and why, on future Aidos, where there was a severe shortage of high-level beings to kill for EXP, many Sovereigns and Legendries remained stuck at the same level for decades, even centuries.
’Oh well... I’m slowly filling up the bar. Level 800 isn’t as far off as it used to be.’
Evan shook his head, brushing aside the thoughts about his levelling dilemma, and turned his focus back to planting the remaining bombs throughout the forest, his sword dismembering any devils that crossed his path.
After finishing, he activated his Chain Lightning skill, deliberately triggering the trap magic circles the devils had scattered across the forest. This set off a chain reaction of explosions that rippled throughout the area.
One by one, the detonations drew closer to the planted divinity bombs, until the forest erupted in a nuclear-scale blaze of pure divinity, wiping out thousands of devils in an instant.