Sovereign of the Ashes

“Your Majesty, are we really going to help those Bouldraks?” asked a Rank Five Phantom Crow as it landed inside the open-air black hall where the Phantom Crow King was.

The Phantom Crows had always been known for bloodlust and brutality—not for lending a hand, let alone sending an army into someone else’s war.

For as long as the Rank Five Phantom Crow could remember, their king had never bothered with anything as tedious or thankless as helping others.

Even with the Bouldrak King reluctantly offering two microplanes as payment, it still felt out of character for their king to take on such a request.

“Fool. Of course, we are not doing it just to help. I could not care less about that law contract I signed with the Bouldrak King. With a bit of tainted blood, its binding power is barely worth worrying about,” the Phantom Crow King croaked.

“When the teleportation channels are in place, you and Gray Feather will move in and seize the portal nodes. We’re going to use Bouldrak World as a staging ground to attack Submerged Wave World.”

The Phantom Crow King then cackled intoxicatedly, “The souls of elementals are nothing compared to the ones that belong to creatures of flesh and blood.”

Inside the shadowy hall, sharp caws echoed as other Rank Four and above Phantom Crows voiced their excitement.

***

In the fifth year of the war, Sein led part of the half-beastman legions out of Boubor Plane and made his way to Bouldrak World.

Originally, Eugene had suggested that Sein lead his forces to the last untouched microplane to start a new offensive, but Sein declined.

He had not come to these battlefields for a vacation, and definitely not here to do charity work for the half-beastmen.

The fighting in Bouldrak World was fiercer and more dangerous, but that also meant more opportunities and potential rewards.

Besides, Tourmaline had been getting bored in Beastmen World, so she decided to join Sein this time.

As soon as Sein arrived in Bouldrak World, he could immediately sense how much weaker the planar laws felt here.

“The planar suppression in this world is pretty weak now. Looks like the half-beastmen have been doing a decent job these past few years. I heard the guardian and one of the Rank Four beings here took a rather bad hit,” Sein remarked.

Behind him, Tourmaline lumbered forward, her gaze drifting over the landscape with curiosity.

Bouldrak World, rich in geo elemental energy, was not exactly suited to her nature.

She would have been in a much better mood if this had been a hydro elemental plane.

Still, Tourmaline, who had rarely left Magus World and remained endlessly curious about the many planes beyond it, did not seem to mind.

Since the war was still raging, she stayed in her original dragon turtle form instead of taking on her usual disguise.

This was her way of saying: Sein, I’ll protect you!

Sein’s sharp awareness of the reduced planar suppression was further proof of how much his understanding of law power had grown.

Since becoming a demigod, Sein had not been able to receive much guidance in this area from Master Lorianne.

Though he had not fully grasped how far he had come, he had already made remarkable progress.

After all, the next step after demigodhood was Rank Four.

Bouldrak World’s weaker planar suppression was partly due to its naturally less restrictive laws, which allowed Rank Four and higher beings to act freely.

It was a stark contrast to Boubor World, where even demigods were pushing the upper limits of what the plane could tolerate.

Here, Sein could finally breathe a little easier.

As Sein and Tourmaline stepped onto the battlefield, their presence did not go unnoticed.

Far away, in Beastmen World and even Magus World, the powerhouses who had been observing the war stirred slightly.

Kampas, the God of Beastmen and the dominant force of Beastmen Plane, paused when its gaze fell on Tourmaline’s massive turtle form.

Kampas knew her father, and they had been pretty good friends.

From that angle, Kampas was something like Tourmaline’s uncle.

The fierce interplanar war in Bouldrak World did not slow down just because Sein and Tourmaline had arrived.

The geo elementals of the plane continued to fight with unshakable tenacity against the never-ending wave of half-beastman troops.

By the time Sein crossed into the Obsidian Range, a vast and jagged mountain range, the region had already been turned into a literal field of bloody pulp.

Bouldrak World had few native creatures of flesh and blood, so most of the gore coating this meat-grinder of a battlefield came from the half-beastmen.

Even so, these heavy losses did not dampen their morale.

As far as Sein knew, two of Eugene’s ten children on this battlefield had already fallen.

But Eugene had no time to mourn for their deaths.

Since arriving on Bouldrak, he had poured everything into his fight against the Bouldrak King.

Only in rare moments between clashes did a shadow of grief flicker through his eyes.

***

In the fourth month after Sein arrived in Bouldrak World, a violent spatial turbulence erupted in the sky.

A dark vortex, wrapped in thick black mist, spun high above the clouds.

A wave of unease and pressure immediately settled in the hearts of every creature in Bouldrak World.

“What is going on?” Sein muttered, his gaze drawn toward the distant sky.

At the moment, the battlefield where he stood was quite far from the black mist and vortex, so he could only vaguely sense that something was off.

Tourmaline was near him but had not joined the fight among the Rank Four and above powerhouses.

Eugene did not treat her like just another Rank Four combatant on the field.

He genuinely saw Sein and Tourmaline as friends, so he always made sure to discuss any combat arrangements with them beforehand.

His years of experience traveling throughout the Magus Alliance had made Eugene fully aware of who actually held sway within it.

In response to the sudden emergence of the pitch-black vortex, the half-beastman legions moved quickly.

A wave of half-beastman powerhouses flew toward the location of the vortex.

Beneath that swirling mass of darkness, even the least sensitive half-beastman could feel the overwhelming surge of elemental energy.

Not knowing exactly what was happening, most of the half-beastmen, acting under orders from their commanders, charged toward the energy crystal hub directly beneath the vortex, aiming to destroy it.

Apparently, the geo elemental creatures of Bouldrak Plane had secretly set up the entire structure at some point.

The crystal hub had been hollowed out from within a massive mountain, which explained why the half-beastman forces had not discovered it earlier.

This also showed just how unpolished the half-beastman legions were in terms of equipment and warfare methods.

If this had been a Magus World Army, with at least one space fortress overlooking the main battlefield, the enemy could not have managed to hide so many crystals undetected underground or among the mountains.

As the half-beastman legion advanced, the elemental creatures of Bouldrak World responded with more ferocity than ever before.

The sudden change in events raised even more suspicions, and many of the half-beastman powerhouses could sense that something felt dangerously wrong.

“Mangius, go check out the situation over there,” Eugene ordered, directing his words toward the Drunken Panda Immortal, who happened to be the closest to the vortex at the time.