Almond, Lily, and others floated down near the table where their flag was posted.
The open hall past the clouds on the palace was utterly vast, as there were over four hundred tables. Each table indicated a planet of this cosmos, and people who ruled their planets sat at the tables with their respective flags.
Three tables at the very front were particularly fancy and bigger, belonging to the three most powerful forces of this cosmos, and in front of these tables was a platform where a man with folded black wings and demonic horns stood graciously with his hands behind his back, his eyes still and at the front, but somehow, Almond felt like he made eye contact with him, fleeting but real.
As Almond and others sat down at their table, Elder Viktor said, “Where’s Kexell? It’s been over a month since he last visited.”
“He’s gone to do an important thing that needs to be done before breaking through to Immortal-rank,” Almond said, heaving a small sigh. “I hope he succeeds and brings us the good news when the time comes.”
“What about Neo?” Admiral Rudra inquired as he looked at Almond and Lily. “The planet was developing well with him, but then you two took him for something.”
Since Almond killed Neo, Neo’s will became a servant of Almond. However, it was merely a will, so he needed a body to move and do other things.
Almond had created a Spirit Vessel, a body of Spirit Wraith, but without a soul, for Neo’s will to reside in.
As such, planet Earth had transformed under his care, becoming powerful with high magic tech advances.
But Almond and Lily took him a month ago when they went back to the Academy for training and gave their quarterly academy trial, which determined whether they could stay as the Academy’s students or not. They naturally cleared the trial with flying colors.
Aside from that, Almond also wanted to give a proper body to Neo but didn’t want to make Neo a Regalon, so Almond and Lily consulted Big D about creating a proper body that could grow and fill with potential infused by the inhabitant Neo.
“I’ve brought him back in a new body, but he is breaking through to High-Mortal right now. I’ll send him back to the planet once he’s done.”
“I see,” Bianca blinked. “So you decided not to make him a Regalon.”
“Mhmm,” Almond nodded. “Because there are three ways an Arcane Champion can truly die. First, a stronger will of an Arcane Champion can kill another will of an Arcane Champion. Second, when the Arcane Champion decides to give up their desire to live, their will would scatter. Third, when an Arcane Champion’s will reaches the third layer, it’s bound with their material higher life form, and death of the form means death of the will this time.”
“My will broke through to a new stage after we lost, and I also became an Overrider, so I can kill Neo if I want to, but that would be a waste. We can use him to develop our Empire and become more efficient and fast-progressing. He is that much of a strong asset.”
“That’s true,” Arjun nodded with a wry smile. “That bomb he exploded at the end…”
“About that…” Lily said and glanced at Almond.
“Yeah, Neo has a son, and although he is not an Arcane champion, not as of when I checked Neo’s memories, he is a genius of sorts when it comes to technology and magic research, and he has Space and Time elemental masteries. The bomb was the creation of both father and son. Neo had the catalyst to execute an explosion of such a level, while his son designed the execution and machine. It was their plan to use this bomb in case they failed to destroy our base with their armies.”
“Space and Time both?” Julian weakly chuckled. “Lucky bastard.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lily dismissively said. “To become truly strong, one needs way more than just elemental masteries.”
“Indeed, and I’m looking forward to meeting him if he decides to mess with us,” Almond faintly smiled, with a lingering coldness in his eyes. “I hope Zanatriel and Neo’s son both ascend to the second layer as soon as possible.”
“But before that, I am sensing the existence of an Arcane champion here, just my hunch,” Almond looked at the platform. “An Immortal Emperor at that. Many people have strong Wills here, and there’s no way to tell apart an Arcane Champion easily now that we are here.”
“Will we have troubles?” Bianca raised her eyebrows.
“Nope,” Lily shook her head. “According to Big D, Arcane Champions don’t create conflicts with each other because they never truly die without a big difference in Will and Almond’s will is as strong as it can get in the second layer.”
“Yep,” Almond smiled, his eyes sharp. “We may be newly ascendants here, but we don’t need to be afraid.”
“Regalons does not need to fear anyone.”
Suddenly, a distinct pulse of call spread in the hall.
Everyone’s tables had couches and sofas, so people were facing the platform already, but their attention also shifted there as a powerful aura pulsed out from the platform.
Several people arrived and sat at the front tables while a man with pale, shining blue skin and elf ears arrived on the platform, adorning a rather regal robe colored red and golden designs and a waist belt holding two swords.
“Everyone.”
The voice spread quickly and smoothly as everyone heard it, and the man continued.
“We are facing a difficult situation. Hollowstar has targeted us, and the danger is unprecedented. The cosmic trains of Starry Horizon Academy tried to enter this cosmos to evacuate people, but the disastrous Void Titan Leviathan destroyed them.”
“Still, the Supreme Emperors of other cosmoses and the Big Dean of the Academy have occupied Hollowstar’s people and are trying their best so that we only have to deal with the Griminions.”
“As of now, only twenty-nine hours remain before that massive tide is unleashed on this planet, our last stand. If we fight head-on, we’ll be drowned to death due to the sheer number of the enemies.”
The blue-skinned elf’s eyes swept across the hall as he continued, “To prevent that and to successfully stop the tide, we are gathered here.”
“The battlefield is being arranged by the best strategists and formation masters of three ruling forces, and we already have a solid plan to spread out the Griminions once they arrive to kill them with the least casualties on our side. I request you all to cooperate with the arrangements.”
The elf waved his hand as he finished speaking, causing a huge map to appear in the sky.
“The river’s entrance is parted into 100 channels, each one 100 kilometers wide. Within these 100 channels that cover the entire 10,000 kilometers area of the river’s entrance, we have various formations and terrain adjustments for territory spots every 100 kilometers of distance.”
“Immortal Emperors will take the starting territories, prioritizing killing Griminion Emperors while letting the Griminion Kings and the rest go behind the channels for others to deal with.”
“The Griminions will enter these 100 separate channels, and some channels might be inundated with a larger number of Griminion Emperors, but don’t worry. We have Watchers that will watch and track incoming Griminions, so when a channel is threatened with an influx like that, Immortal Emperors from other channels with less traffic can teleport there as reinforcement.”
“Now, the most important part of this meeting. We have to determine the position of every force within these 100 channels. Ten groups will be called every ten minutes for a short meeting to register the number of total powerhouses they have brought here, their ranks, and general combat power. We don’t want to randomly assign your people, so you will create groups consisting of your people according to their Lifeform ranks, and we will register their positions in the 100 channels appropriately during the meeting.”
“Without further ado, let’s start.”
The elf man began calling out names of planets and ruling forces on them as people at the second row of tables walked up and entered a big gate beside the planet, which led to a pocket dimension for the meeting.
“It looks like we’ll have to wait for a while for our turn,” Elder Liang snorted.
Their table was in the very last row, and they were calling groups from the front.
“That’s seven hours because there are 439 tables here,” Lily rolled her eyes. “We don’t need to wait for seven hours here. Let’s go and train or something.”
“Yeah,” Almond nodded. “Let’s return to the planet for a bit to organize the groups and check other things. It’s been a month since Lily and I went there.”
Almond’s eyes flickered as he finished speaking, and a spatial film covered each of them to their skin.
Almond saw a few senses of Immortal Emperors immediately looking over as he executed the sequence of long-distance teleport, but he didn’t stop, and they didn’t interfere as the group vanished.
“Did they just leave?”
“Surely, they must have notified the host before leaving.”
Some snide remarks rang immediately.
At one of the three tables, a girl looking in her twenties wearing a noble dark blue outfit with a handfan in her hand and braided hair glanced at the empty table and said, “Who are those people? If three Immortals and seven High-mortals make up the strongest ten of their force, they should’ve just stayed in their planets’ corner safely. It’s not like Griminions are destroying whole planets.”
Her aura was that of an Immortal-King, and she was the youngest princess of the Gezero Dynasty, the owner of this planet and one of the three ruling forces.
“Miss Leina, you best not look down on him,” a man with gray wolf ears wearing a chest vest over a t-shirt and looking battle-ready said. “He was hot news of the Academy over a year ago, though he suddenly disappeared fast as well, so people forgot about him, but I’ve seen him recently during an academy mission with my faction members.”
“He slaughtered Emperor-rank Monsters like bugs, and he also has some powerful subordinates from what I know.”
“He slaughtered Emperor-rank Monsters?” Leina’s eyebrows raised up. “So he is one of those who have combat power above their ranks, eh? But to kill Emperors while being an Immortal…”
“He was a High Mortal when he slaughtered them.”
“…”
Leina’s interest was piqued. “Do you know anything about his powers and combat arsenal? His Arcane Constitution?”
“No idea, but he has two Ability Trees, and both are insanely powerful given how his stats fluctuate a lot and even go into Immortal Emperor’s territory, not to mention his sword mastery…”
“So you don’t know anything about him? How useless,” Leina side-eyed the wolf-man before turning back to the table. “Well, he is here with his… House of Regalon, eh? We will see their capabilities soon.”