Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich - Chapter 648

Chapter 648: Goal

Although the airships had been retreating for more than five hours, and I slept during that time, all I saw outside was still nothing but white snowy plains. The sunny day didn’t seem like it fitted with the snowy environment. This entire area had been permanently changed by my Forbidden Spell, even to the extent where Eich’s maps would likely be updated. But as for me…

“Ahh, in such weather, it would be best to rest in a warm bed while enjoying the snowy scene and fragrant hot cocoa… while also having fun watching others fight to the death.”

“…If making others angry and being able to taunt could be considered Concepts, you’d definitely already be a Main God by now.”

The battle still wasn’t over. Just ten minutes ago, we had beaten back a wave of inferno dragon attacks. The inferno dragons were still following us from a great distance.

The first wave only had three inferno dragons. However, they were two Immemorial and one Great Immemorial Dragon. The Great Immemorial Dragon was far stronger than Little Red had been before her recent power upgrade. That wasn’t easy to deal with.

Our hired mercenaries were useful here. However, it was far too difficult for our young Black Dragons and Red Dragons to deal with these enemies. It was our airships’ anti-air artillery that forced the inferno dragons to retreat. At the most dangerous moment, even Reyne’s blue dragon descendant concubine personally participated in battle.

This place was now an ice tundra, and the mana in the air was still thin due to the recent Forbidden Spell. Since inferno dragons were of the fire element, this place would be highly uncomfortable for them. Not only that, for since they had only recently teleported to the Mortal Plane, it was likely that they couldn’t even use half of their full power yet.

Those three inferno dragons were probably only the first scout team that caught up to us. They had probably sent a message that would soon gather other inferno dragons here… But, when considering how chaotic and selfish those of the Chaos Faction would always be, it was quite likely that the inferno dragons would act individually rather than in teams to attack us, wanting to hoard all the spoils for themselves, but getting killed because of that.

“Ha. Compared to the true trouble, Donatis, this really isn’t much.”

The only good news was that Donatis hadn’t personally come to hunt us down. Since he was the commander of the demon wave, I had already expected that he would be unable to abandon the demon wave. However, he definitely wouldn’t just take this lying down. It was quite likely that he would try and take revenge somehow.

The conclusion of the Moonwheel Capital battle would be somewhat acceptable to both the Order and Chaos Factions.

It was quite difficult to say who was the actual victor. Judging from the combat results, we had killed an amazing number of demon war slaves, and even saved the elves’ future and inheritance. These elves would all join the Northlands Elven Empire, greatly expanding the Mist Alliance’s foundational power. The vast number of elven artisans, mages, druids, and so on would bring incalculatable wealth.

If you looked at things in that way, we would be the main beneficiaries and victor of this battle. But looking at this from the Chaos Faction’s angle, the demon wave had successfully descended and eradicated the “Elven Empire” in their way. All the Elven Gods had died, including even their Main God. This would be their best beginning ever for any Holy War so far. When comparing overall power levels with the Chaos Faction, they were actually the major winners.

It seemed that the elves were the only loser? But from a certain standpoint, the result of this battle had given the elves their brightest future with the greatest potential ever.

A rich person that had authority would be quite fortunate to have their wealth. However, a poor person who obtained a priceless family treasure would only bring trouble upon themselves, and if that poor person had a rich ancestor who accumulated countless others’ grudges, then rather than worrying every day about your life with that ancestor’s treasure, it would probably be better to throw it away and start all over again.

“At least the elves have broken free from those Elven Gods that I feel so helpless to comment on. This will probably make their lives much better.”

As for the Elven Gods’ deaths… This was a definite. The elves previously had such a magnificent culture and ruled the entire world. Now, the Elven Gods had caused the elves to lose almost everything. Yet, the Elven Gods still ambitiously wanted to rebel and revive the elves’ former glory. The end result was that both the Order and Chaos Gods wanted the Elven Gods to die. Thus, the Elven Gods truly died.

The Elven Gods wanted to be a third party in this eternal war between Order and Chaos. However, they were no third party that did their best to remain neutral. Instead, they constantly played tricks and schemed against both factions. They were a third party that tried to suck up to both factions in order to gain an advantage from playing Order against Chaos. Yet, they didn’t have enough strength and wisdom to pull this off successfully. Since the most powerful existences of both major factions weren’t idiots, it was only natural that the Elven Gods ended up dying.

Even if the Chaos Faction hadn’t invaded from the Moonwheel Capital this time, the Elven Gods still likely wouldn’t have had a happy ending. No matter which of the two major factions ended up attacking them, the other faction would likely happily watch the Elven Gods die. Did the Elven Gods actually think that their fake internal wars would fool anyone?

As long as the Elven Gods didn’t die, both major factions would forever view the elves with hostility, or at least never truly treat the elves as members of their own factions, and with both major factions’ hostility, not having enough power to protect themselves and trying to remain a neutral third party would only lead the Elven Gods to their deaths.

This was the power of major factions. The Elven Gods were quite helpless to change the end, which had been caused by a combination of so many different factors.

Perhaps it was because the Elven Gods had understood this that they had bravely faced their deaths. At least they died quite heroically…

“No, not at all. They all fell into your pitfall. Don’t praise them like that. Moreover, don’t try to whitewash yourself.”

Harloys was quite open-minded about it all. She was currently peeling an apple for me and also sneaking bites for herself, humming while sitting with one leg crossed on top of the other.

Right now, Harloys’ true body was sitting by my bed. That was because I was forced to rest in bed with my current condition. Even a lowly ordinary thief would be able to kill the current me. Some combat strength would be needed to protect me, and she was the strongest combat strength on the airship right now. But… why was she wearing a split skirt dress in such snowy weather, and even crossing her legs! Didn’t she realize that she was revealing her underwear!?

Ahem, I retracted my gaze that kept wandering. Pale white legs, an ample bosom, and so on were all useless. They were nothing more than accessories on a slime figurine, so why would they possibly be nice to look at…? “Please put down that fruit knife; please don’t wave it over my nose! We’re still good friends!”

Ahem, ahem, getting back to the topic, I really hadn’t done much over the past few days. All I did was rush to the forefront of the demon wave, toss out a Forbidden Spell, and immediately run away. Hey, this was the legendary running away right after acting cool, just for the sake of stimulation…

“No, you really accomplished a lot this time. There’s some recent news from when you were asleep. You’re now ranked #7 on the Calamity Rankings. Should I congratulate you?”

“Damn, I improved my ranking yet again? Wasn’t I supposed to be considered quite ‘safe’ now?”

“Safe? How can you possibly be called safe when you tossed out a Forbidden Spell with no apparent negative consequences? Who else could possibly count as a living calamity if not you? In one or two days, it’s likely that all the major countries will blacklist you and be on guard against you. You also need to be careful against assassins, even while you’re in human kingdoms.”

I could only nod, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I understood this even without Harloys’ reminder. It was quite common in both this world and my original world that seemingly ironclad allies would secretly steal weapons and technology from each other, and sabotage such things if they were unable to obtain them.

“Right, I need you to do—”

“I already took care of it. Yongye City has gathered up all those souls. However, things are too sensitive right now, so you shouldn’t activate it quite yet. Still, I think that no matter what you want to do, you should have enough souls now.”

I nodded in complete satisfaction. This time, I was happy to the point where I laughed loudly.

Out of my four chosen powers, the power of death was the bloodiest and cruelest. No matter what reason I had for taking this path, being able to go far down the path of death would absolutely require a sufficient number of corpses and souls as resources.

Before, I mentioned that corpses were no longer necessary at my power level, but if I wanted to construct my own Epic-tier weapon with the Concept of Death, I would require a tremendous number of souls. My sword of death was theoretically the one with the strongest attack power out of my four planned swords. Not only would it require a tremendous number of souls, it would be even better if the souls were filled with the most hopeless and negative emotions possible.

Back when I was in the Chaos Abyss, I had even been tempted to go talk to the oldest demon in existence, The Eldest One, who was the inventor of all death magic. That was because I had no other available options at the time.

There would be no place better to harvest souls than a battlefield. The more powerful the soul, the more powerful the emotions, and the more negative and hopeless the emotions were, the better. Morover, the battlefield, where so many brave warriors’ souls flared to the utmost, was the easiest place to create powerful undead creatures. Many ancient battlefields had thus become eternal places filled with death.

It was unknown how many demon war slaves there had been when my Forbidden Spell descended. Rather than sending their souls back to the River Styx where they would be reincarnated as demons again, it would be much better for me to make use of their souls as resources. However, I would have no time to focus on other tasks while casting a Forbidden Spell. This was why I asked Harloys to help me gather the souls of the dead before the battle began.

It was something that couldn’t see the light of day. Only Harloys was capable of helping me with this. Seeing her current proud expression, she probably harvested quite a significant number of souls.

“Do the two of you realize that your current actions have completely enraged a certain person?”

We were both rather astonished that someone else suddenly entered our room. Harloys instantly shielded me with her body.

I could sense that an astonishing amount of magic power was gathering in Harloys’ hands. If this person dared to take one more step forward, she would be torn apart by explosive magic, even if… even if she was in a way the only family member Harloys had left.

“Didina, you really are quite surprising. It seems that you’re hiding many things.”

Didina smiled, although her smile was rather bitter. “I should probably start talking from the very beginning, about the grand goal that my lover, Karwenz Mist, has.”