Sovereign of the Ashes

The Divine Tower of Dark Flame was a structure dominated by black and gray tones, starkly contrasting with the vibrant and lively Divine Tower of Verdant Spring, which also had the beautiful Jewel Sea nearby.

The Divine Tower of Dark Flame gave off a far more somber impression, reflecting the Tower Master’s apparent lack of interest in decorating his divine tower.

Knights and mages hurriedly moved in and out of the tower.

The Divine Tower of Dark Flame’s interplanar war had already raged for twelve years.

In addition to its own registered mages, numerous external mages and knights had joined the conflict.

This region, still part of the Ylli Knight Alliance’s territory, boasted an abundance of knightly manpower.

Although no knightly orders were officially involved in the war, many ranked knights had joined the war under employment contracts.

The Divine Tower of Dark Flame was invading a plane known as Gumo.

The name was not given by the divine tower mages—it was named by the plane’s native creatures.

While the name might sound ordinary, the Gumo Plane was anything but ordinary.

This low-level plane was rich in the rare metal substance known as Mecran Dark Metal. Other than that, the Gumo Plane was also abundant in other resources and wealth.

In terms of overall value, the development potential of this plane was nearly three times that of the low-level Verdant Wilderness World!

Yes, it was that valuable.

For such a resource-rich low-level plane to be targeted by only one divine tower for development begged the question—was the Tower Master of Dark Flame exceptionally confident or just incredibly arrogant?

The rich resources of the plane naturally gave rise to powerful dominant biological groups.

The Gumo Plane boasted three Rank Four creatures, each belonging to a different native species.

Among these were the Guran Lizardmen, humanoid beings with lizard-like heads who controlled half of the Gumo Plane’s surface.

The Guran Lizardmen worshipped the Guran Lizard God, their revered totem and deity.

The Moknu, another native species that occupied the other half of the Gumo Plane’s surface, were unique beings. While they resembled humans in appearance, their pitch-black skin and rare silver-colored blood set them apart.

Unlike the Guran Lizardmen, the Moknu did not believe in gods and outright rejected the very notion of deities.

Instead, the Moknu worshipped their ancestors, with their spiritual leader being the high priest of their ancestral land, a Rank Four entity.

The name Gumo Plane itself was derived from its two dominant races—Guran Lizardmen and Moknu.

Before the arrival of the Magus Civilization’s invading armies, these two races frequently clashed in their struggle for dominance over the surface territories of the plane.

However, due to their closely matched strengths and the mediation of the guardian, their conflicts never escalated into a full-scale world war.

Now, with the arrival of the more powerful Magus Civilization, hungry for the rich resources of the Gumo Plane, the dynamic had shifted.

The once-bitter rivals had united to resist the invaders, demonstrating a surprising level of unity when faced with a common external threat.

Another notable native race of the Gumo Plane was the Goul Groundworms, a species that primarily inhabited the underground.

In terms of sheer population and territorial control, the Goul Groundworms could arguably be considered the true masters of the Gumo Plane.

The underground of the Gumo Plane was just as rich in resources as its surface.

Many of the rare metal veins that had attracted the Magus Civilization’s invasion armies lay hidden deep beneath the plane’s surface.

Unfortunately, the Goul Groundworms had a major weakness—they were highly sensitive to sunlight.

The Gumo Plane, with its three suns, created a challenging environment for these creatures.

Before the Magus Civilization’s arrival, the Goul Groundworms, which possessed only primitive intelligence, had little reason to interact with the surface-dwelling Guran Lizardmen and Moknu.

Despite their limited intelligence, the Goul Groundworms leveraged their massive population and the wealth of rare underground minerals to produce a Rank Four creature of their own—the Goul Groundworm King.

This massive beast could burrow through the ground effortlessly and was capable of triggering large-scale volcanic eruptions and lava flows.

The invading legions of the Divine Tower of Dark Flame were on the verge of encircling and overwhelming the main forces of the Guran Lizardmen and the Moknu.

Even the powerful Tower Master of Dark Flame had managed to suppress the two native Rank Four creatures.

However, the tide of the war shifted with the sudden intervention of the Goul Groundworm King.

Leading countless groundworms, ranging from one to ten meters in length, the king’s arrival shattered the momentum of the Divine Tower of Dark Flame’s forces.

The Tower Master of Dark Flame demonstrated his formidable strength by holding his ground against three Rank Four creatures simultaneously.

He was an exceptionally powerful Rank Five mage, and Sein was convinced that his power exceeded that of Thunder, the Rank Five knight whom Sein had encountered during the Thunderfall World War.

At that time, Thunder required assistance to deal with two native Rank Four creatures from Thunderfall World.

Of course, that battle had been particularly challenging because Thunder was determined to capture his opponents alive.

In contrast, the Tower Master of Dark Flame silently resisted the counterattacks of three native Rank Four creatures on his own, all while contending with the additional disadvantage of planar suppression.

Sein could not help but wonder why the Divine Tower of Dark Flame had not invited other divine towers or knightly orders from the Magus World to conquer Gumo Plane collaboratively.

Nonetheless, Sein felt a deep sense of respect for the tower master’s sheer strength.

***

“My apologies. At the tower master’s request, the Divine Tower of Dark Flame has suspended the sale of all resources from this tower during the interplanar war,” a young mage in a black robe explained to Sein at the front desk.

He continued, “Only knights and mages who have accepted employment with the Divine Tower of Dark Flame and signed a contract to participate in the war can access resources from this tower and the rare materials of Gumo World at a discounted price.”

This rule struck Sein as strange but somewhat understandable.

With the war in the Gumo World clearly at a stalemate, the Divine Tower of Dark Flame had to find ways to attract more troops and forces to bolster its efforts.

However, this semi-coercive sales policy would undoubtedly tarnish the reputation of the Divine Tower of Dark Flame.

If Master Lorianne had been in charge, she would never have implemented such a peculiar restriction in her divine tower during an interplanar war.

If she could not handle the burden alone, she would have immediately called upon her seniors, friends, and peers of equal rank to join the effort and share the spoils of war.

Could it be that the Tower Master of Dark Flame lacks even a single ally of similar rank?

Or is he simply unwilling to share the profits of the Gumo World campaign?

Without dwelling on the matter further, Sein asked with a slight frown, “What’s the shortest contract term for joining the war?”

“Five years,” the young black-robed mage replied.