Sovereign of the Ashes

The first phase of Magus World’s deployment to Pyreling World ultimately concluded with Sein and the others’ arrivals.

With Grimm and Marcus’ descent, as well as the two space fortresses, Void Eater and the other Pyremperors had virtually no chance of driving them out of their homeplane.

Marcus proved that experience is the best teacher.

Sein had to admit that this seasoned Rank Five knight was unmatched in defense. He had pretty decent strength too.

The core of Marcus’ Cercis Shield Law lay in absorbing the energy of an enemy’s attack and then unleashing it all at once at the perfect moment.

By the time Marcus sprang into action, his shield’s lawful projection had already absorbed the immense energy from Violet Radiance, Blue Lotus, and Void Eater.

When he unleashed that stored power, imbued with traces of the Pyremperors’ own laws, it caught them completely off guard.

There was nothing quite like getting wounded by their own power.

From the center of the Cercis Shield, a long violet spear shot forward.

Watching from a distance, Sein’s trained eye as an alchemist quickly recognized that Marcus’ spear and shield were exceptional equipment—on par with divine artifacts suited for Rank Four and higher beings.

It was every bit as impressive as the magic rod he wielded.

Grimm, too, shone in this battle.

He did not seem like an inexperienced tower master encountering a Rank Four creature for the first time. Even when Void Eater closed in, Grimm remained calm and collected.

His mastery of obliteration magic was already impressive among mages of his rank, but still it was still not enough to overpower a Rank Five powerhouse like Void Eater on its own.

Grimm knew better than to clash with it head-on. He knew that the creature’s main goal was to destroy the spatial vortex behind their group, and that Sein and Marcus were the bigger threats.

It was his first time fighting a battle at the Rank Four, but Grimm played to his strengths and made sure his weaknesses could not be exploited.

He left the main stage to Sein and Marcus, focusing instead on providing support and attacking Void Eater from the side.

His relentless interference left the Rank Five creature visibly seething with frustration.

This was the typical coordination between mages and knights of the same rank in an interplanar war.

In this battle, Sein inadvertently took on the role of a knight. The Verdant Flame Body Tempering technique had given him an extraordinary boost in close combat ability.

Now that Sein had ascended to Rank Four, this boost was beginning to show signs of a qualitative transformation and refinement.

With Grimm and the others leading the charge, the later arrival of Angreas the Kermoine Serpent Emperor Warlock and Murg the Rank Four knight became the final straw that broke Void Eater’s back.

By this point, the Pyremperors understood that driving these invaders would not be easy.

One weakness of the Pyremperors was the lower-tier legions they had hastily assembled. They simply could not stand against the well-prepared elite forces of the Magus Civilization.

An interplanar war was never just a contest of Rank Four and higher beings. The battles between lower-tier armies also played a massive role in shaping the outcome.

When more than a hundred thousand fully armed knights poured out of the Cercis Shield Fortress, the Pyreling World’s lower-tier forces suffered a complete collapse.

Despite the pressure from the higher-ranking Pyrelings, relying on sheer faith alone against such an overwhelming difference in numbers and strength was laughable.

Void Eater and the other Pyremperors would have to summon larger and more elite legions if they hoped to halt the Magus World’s advance.

Clashes between higher-ranking powerhouses always influenced the outcome of the lower-tier battles.

Likewise, the outcomes of those lower-tier clashes could sometimes shift the tide of battles between Rank Four and higher beings.

For deities who embraced the faith system, they could even channel the faith of their lower-tier legions into their own power.

Although the Magus Civilization had yet to fully explore the faith system, Rank Four and higher knights and mages could still receive certain boosts from their lower-tier armies.

For example, if the number of low-ranking mages reached a certain threshold, higher-ranking spellcasters could use arrays or special equipment to perform group spells and unleash extremely powerful elemental attacks that far exceeded their limits.

Sein had only witnessed it a few times but had never tried this himself.

Whether it was his own Divine Tower of Ashes or Lorianne’s Divine Tower of Verdant Spring, neither had enough registered mages to perform a group spell on that level.

“Hey! Don’t run! Fight me if you got balls!” Murg bellowed after finally setting foot in Pyreling World, waving his massive axe at the retreating forms of Void Eater and the other Pyremperors.

His fighting spirit was burning at its peak, but not his opponents. The Pyremperors did not even slow down. They flew straight out of the ruined lava lake region without even looking back, leaving Murg to sigh in disappointment.

Vlad was the last Rank Four powerhouse to enter Pyreling World, and his descent marked the full assembly of the Magus Civilization’s expeditionary force.

In what was once the thriving land of a thousand lakes, countless weak creatures still clung to life among the ruins.

These weak pyro elemental creatures could only watch in terror as one formidable figure after another descended upon their homeplane.

Sein in his demonic form... Marcus, with his Cercis Shield activated... Grimm, radiating elemental power... Angreas, fully transformed into the Kermoine Snake Emperor... Murg in his dark armor... And Vlad, blazing like a living inferno.

None of these six Rank Four or higher powerhouses from Magus World looked remotely friendly!

Four colossal space fortresses, each towering like mountains, exerted an almost crushing psychological pressure on Pyreling World’s native inhabitants.

Sein strongly suspected the Rank Five Pyremperor had chosen to retreat for now after seeing two more massive fortresses passing through the spatial vortex, their heavy frames creaking as they entered the plane.

Of course, Angreas and Murg’s fortresses were far modest in scale compared to Sein and Marcus’ war platforms.

But to creatures that were seeing such constructs for the very first time, they were equally overwhelming.

Thousands of mages from the four divine towers quickly got to work after arriving in Pyreling World.

Magic towers and strong fortress bases began to rise from the ground, while hundreds of war airships and several prism forts took to the skies above this low-level plane.

The steady spread of terrifying, unfamiliar war machines made the remaining natives of the region wish they could burrow even deeper into the ground.

After ordering the lower-tier legions to sweep out any lingering resistance, Sein walked over to Grimm and curiously asked, “How did you manage to enter this world so smoothly and quickly?”

“Oh, that’s thanks to this World Robe,” Grimm replied, pointing to his magic robe.

Sein, still wearing the Faceless Mask, stared at the robe. A mix of astonishment and admiration soon filled his eyes.

He considered asking Grimm about the secrets behind his robe, but understood that such profound knowledge formed the very foundation for Rank Four and higher spellcasters—much like the body-tempering technique and Ashen Flame he mastered—and was not something to be shared lightly.

After thinking for a moment, Sein decided to let the matter rest.