Chapter 92: Sword of Order
“Blade Form.”
Following my orders, a black cat starts to change its form. The Gold Slime, following the blueprint I made, starts to reforge its own physique.
A few seconds later, a black-color two-handed sword appears before me. That is an extraordinarily normal looking military weapon. There is not a single elegant carving or ornament on it. It is as simple as the inferior goods that the city guards carry around with them. There are indentations all over the blade, giving a feeling as though it could break at any moment. Even so, an inconceivable killing aura emerges from it, similar to that from a veteran who have went through hundreds of battle, making one feel terror just by looking at it.
【Pale Justice (Imitation)】
【Two-handed Sword
Attack Power: 5-15. Tier: Superior
Prerequisite: Strength 12+
Special Ability: None】
【Man-made Magic Sword: This sword is transmogrified by Harloys. Even though she doesn’t feel pain and don’t fear breakage in this form, it is better to not to pit her against weapons which are 2 tiers higher. Also, treat her nicer, otherwise if she were to suddenly liquefy in the middle of a fight…】
【Elemental Control (Basic): Augment all magic damage by 25%. The blade will carry 5 point of a chosen elemental damage with it (Current Element: Ice)】
I have found the true Pale Justice sword but due to certain reasons, I am unable to retrieve it at this moment. Right now, I had Harloys imitate the true product and the only special effect of increasing magic damage originates from Harloys’s soul. Rather than saying that it is a magic sword, one might as well call it a magic staff. Furthermore, it is still the rare highest grade magic staff that augments the effects of all magic spells.
To say the truth, this imitation is an insult to Harloys’s identity as the Queen of Banshees. However, with the 【Soul Gemstone of Pale Justice】, it is an entirely different matter.
After lodging the Soul Gemstone within, a pale Holy Light shrouds the entire blade and the pitch black magic sword turns into a silver-colored sacred sword.
【Pale Justice (Imitation)】
【Attack Power: 15-20. Tier: Epic (Lower)】
【Two-handed Sword, Prerequisite: Strength 12+, Holy Knight Job】
【Man-made Magic Sword: This sword is transmogrified by Harloys. Being a Epic-tier sacred sword, as long as it isn’t SemiGod Equipment, feel free to cross swords with any other weapons. However, due to the Soul Gemstone being incompatible, the sword is in a process of disintegration. Within 2999 seconds (50 minutes), it will be broke down and Blade Form cannot be activate for half an hour afterwards.】
【Elemental Control (Intermediate): Augment all magic damage by 35%. The blade will carry 15 point of a chosen elemental damage with it (Current Element: Ice)】
【High Tier Sacred Flames: Deal additional 20 Silver Inferno damage to Chaos lifeforms. To normal lifeforms, deal additional 5 Silver Inferno damage.】
【High Tier Courage: Immunity to fear-related magic that are below 9-circles. The wielder will always be in a state of high morale.】
【High Tier Protection from Evil: The damage dealt from Chaos lifeforms will be reduced by 10 points.】
Sacred Flames, Courage and Protection from Evil, they are all abilities that a typical sacred sword would possess. This is also the effects that the soul of Holy Knight Kane carries. Its effects might not be as good against normal people and the upper limit of its damage barely reaches the lower limit of the damage of Roland Sacred Sword. However, if the target of its blade are Chaos lifeforms like Demons and Undeads, then it would be comparable to a Legend-tier godly weapon.
Of course, other than natural-born Chaos lifeforms, it works just like the Incantation of Law: Judgement spell, those who are found to be using the Power of Chaos by the Holy Knight’s Detect Evil will be viewed as a being of Chaos by the sacred sword.
This includes the innocent Elemental Mages, the slightly guilty Demon Mages and the completely guilty Necromancers, Dark Mages, Witches, Banshees… For a significant period of time in history, the Mages had been warring with the Churches of Gods both on the surface and in the shadows. The Witch Hunt and Wizard Hunt had caused a commotion for several centuries. The Holy Knights who can use their will to gain immunity to magic possess significant natural magic resistance and there are job advancements that are specially directed to kill Mages. Naturally, it can be understood why they had poor relationship.
At this moment, I can’t help but be thankful for the deep resentment against beings of Chaos that this sword possesses. The moment I stepped into the hall of the royal family’s Astrology Platform, the Mages immediately focus all of their firepower on Diana and me, who were standing in the front.
Since we are aiming to crush the Celestial Tower who mainly comprise spellcasters so naturally, we would use Holy Knights to tank the front lines.
To a Mage, the standard tactic when dealing with a Holy Knights who have high magic resistance but low mobility is to summon pawns. Then, while the pawns are blocking the opponent, the Mage would use an elegant spell to wipe him out.
TL: Just realised pawns would be a good substitute for cannon fodder, I think I will alternate between the two.
As for the common long-range control kiting tactic, due to the high magic resistance of Holy Knights, it is easy for the Holy Knights to resist the attacks and charge forth to kill the Mage, so it is falling out of times.
To me who can’t be more familiar with this tactic, I charged straight ahead into the barrier of pawns without any hesitation.
The reason? The pawns that Mages summon are normally lifeforms from foreign worlds such as the Undeads from the Death Dimensions, Elemental Lifeforms from the Elemental Dimension and lower-tier Demons and Devils from the Lower Realm. No matter which one it is, they all share the common trait of being members of the Chaos Faction.
“Detect Evil!” “Detect Evil!”
2 Holy Knights used Detect Evil simultaneously and under the effects of the large AOE Divine Art, red light representing the presence of Chaos shrouds the entire group of Mages, as well as the Undeads, Demons and Elemental Lifeforms in front of us.
The Titan Body reduces 5 damage from each attack whereas the High Tier Protection From Evil reduces 10 damage from each attack. Adding into the equation a heavy armor with outstanding physical defense, I became an outstanding tank against these beings of Chaos. Most of the time, the primary job of a Holy Knights, with their outstanding magic resistance, weak mobility and weak offense, is to serve as a good tank.
“Sin-Splitting Strike!”
After ignoring the attacks from the pawns, I am not that far off from the Mages anymore. Swinging my sword, the Mage who just summoned two Skeleton Soldiers was cut into two before he could make a sound. Just like that, I took the first blood.
When their companion fell, the rest of the Mage immediately directs the first wave of their offensive magic spells towards me. In an instant, Fireballs and Ice Arrows flew around in the air while Acid Arrow and Heat Rays were shot from all around the room. The Mystical Arts came rushing towards me like an relentless river.
But when a slim figure came blocking them in front of me, no matter how colorful and dangerous the spells are, she blocked them all completely without saying a single word.
“Are they dead?”
When the fog from the ice and thick smoke from the flames scatter and the brown-skinned Elf Knight appears, to their astonishment, unharmed, she had already rushed to the stairway to the second level and many spellcasters were lying in her trail.
“It is fortunate that Dark Elf Holy Knights are exclusive to only that bunch in Liu Huang Mountain City, otherwise this would really be bullying the spell-casting jobs.”
Before their fall, the Dark Elves were known as their Light ELves and they were high nobles of the great Elf Kingdom, possessing, at minimum, Bronze Bloodline. Physically, their stats weren’t that much stronger than the white slate humans. As a Warrior class, their Strength and Stamina were lacking even in comparison to humans but no one dared to say that they were unworthy of being termed as a Bronze Race. That is because of their Race Talent.
Magic Immunity Skin. That is the Race Talent that all Dark Elves possess. In reality, its prowess is frighteningly scary. Based on the power rank of the ones possessing the ability, the effects and damage of magic will be reduced and this reduction is rather significant. Magic arts whose effects are significantly mitigated by this ability includes those of Druids, Banshees, Witches and so on (including Holy Light). The only one thing that cannot be mitigated is the Divine Art of a Priest that contains God Power.
This is also why the top echelons of the Dark Elf society are all Priestesses of Lorci. Under most situations, only lowly males would choose to become Mages. Even those who learn the barbaric martial arts (as known among the Dark Elves) have a higher standing than the Mages.
A Legend Holy Knight who has an unbelievable level of resistance to magic + Magic resistant skin + The Silver Avenger which also has the effect of Protection from Evil. When the hall of the first floor is filled with Apprentice Mages who have yet to learn higher circle magics, Diana’s charge is like bashing through eggs with a rail train. I can already see the ending.
“Sin-Splitting Strike.”
Despite using just simple and inelegant moves, she managed to get a head per slash steadily. During the time when I was still carefully avoiding those magic in the air and the wolf and bear-transmogrified Druids, Diana has already slaughtered to and fro multiple times.
From her look of astonishment, it seems that she is quite surprised by how weak her enemies are as well. At the start, she was shocked by the sight of the overwhelming quantity of spellcasters.
In the past, even when they were facing the Mages who were perfect countered by them, the enemy’s creativity in coming up with new tricks continuously caused the Dark Elves to suffer quite a great deal. Now, being able to reap 1, or even 2 to 3 heads per slash feels quite unreal to her.
“Cough. This is the Surface, you can’t expect all Mages to be of the level of Lich Roland.”
In the human society, being of Legend rank will make you a prominent power of a region at the very least. To use her full strength to bully a rookie is indeed a little shameful, but for Diana who grew up in the Underground World, she doesn’t possess the so-called ‘dignity of the powerful’. Seeing so many Mages, she was deeply afraid that she might be killed in an instant by a powerful spell prepared by the enemy if she were to move a single step slower, so she went all out from the start and killed a dozen on them in an instant. The result of it is that the main army behind who are only a few second late in entering the tower are only left with leftovers.
At this moment, the summoned pawns came into frontal contact with the Knights and the Gentlemen. The Knights engaged a group of them seriously whereas the Gentlemen began clearing the whole field immediately.
Regardless of whether it is the two giant wolves under Beifeng or Casio’s Bone Bow, they are the explosive offensive ability of a Gold-rank, allowing them to sweep the whole field. Before Krose could even prepare her first large AOE Lightning Strikes, the entire field has already been cleared.
Out of consideration, they even left a skeleton soldier which was at the brink of disintegration for her…
Looking at Reyne who is flustered from just dealing with a low level skeleton soldier, I shake my head helplessly. Needless to talk about ascending through the power ranks, she is far from even being a passable Warrior. Even if she were to rise through the usage of the external System, but experience and skills cannot be forged in a single day. Then, hearing the alarms sounding out loudly, I know that I didn’t have the time to be thinking about such matters at this point.
“The same goes for the second floor. Diana and I will be the vanguard. Hurry.”
From the look of the blueprint we just obtained, the Astrology Platform is a building with only 3 floors. The first floor is used to keep books, information and daily necessities and serves mainly as a museum. The second floor is the residential area of workers whereas the third floor is where the different kinds of telescopes are kept.
The targets we are hunting for, the upper echelons of the Celestial Tower, are most probably in the second floor.
This time, we met with trouble the moment we reached the second floor.
The 2 giant metal magic statue furnishings immediately activates and all of the decorative armor and statues start to come to life. At the same time, sharp spikes traps and lightning traps appear on the floor. After leaving the main hall where normal people can enter freely, the Celestial Tower, considering their bad reputation as well as the countless enemies that they have made, restructured this place to serve as their fortress.
One of the giant metal magic statue got blocked by Diana but being made of superior steel, the magic statue is impenetrable by physical weapons and possesses unparalleled strength. They aren’t something that I could fight face on against in my current state.
“It can’t be helped. I will have to use my trump card. Sword of Order!”
It is still a little forced for me to use this Race Talent with my current strength. With a large amount of stamina and Holy Light surging out of me, I feel the world spinning around me. However, with a slight flicker of my finger, a golden lightning ray strike through the wall and clashes violently onto the physical body of the giant metal magic statue.
That is a strike from a tangible sword made out of pure crystallization of Holy Light. With its might, there’s nothing that it cannot destroy. The next moment, the sword of light explodes to deal a second damage. Even the metal magic statue which could easily subdue Gold-rank melee combatants begins to stagger before it collapses downwards.
“Kacha!” A gaping hole has been opened in the back of the metal magic statue and dark smoke starts to pour out there. Diana stares at me in shock. As a Legend-rank, she has yet to finish dealing with the magic statue and yet I, who isn’t even Silver-rank, has already managed to destroy it.
But, I shake my head in response. Man-made magic statues are the favored guards for Mage Towers because of their resilience. This metal magic statue is obviously a superior quality good, it is impossible for it to be destroyed so easily.
Although it is severely injured, looking from how the gears below its metal skin is still spinning and the radiant spiritual light shrouding it, it is still far from being broken down.
But, how could I possibly allow it breathing space for it to regain its momentum.
I have already jumped on the body of the magic statue, picked up my other two-handed sword and stabbed it in, twisting the sword inside its body.
Where did the sword come from? It is summoned from my Race Talent Sword of Order.
【Race Talent: Sword of Order: Summon a weapon forged by the Power of Order and deal damage to an enemy through a physical collision and an explosion. Afterwards, the weapon will continue to exist for an additional minute per summoner LV. The tier of the weapon will be decided by the power rank of the caster.】
【Weapon of Holy Light: Arbiter of Holy Light】
【Attack Power: 10-15, Tier: Elite】
【Two-handed sword. Prerequisites: Strength 12+, Holy Knight Job. Duration: 22 minutes】
【Crystallisation of Holy Light: Increase the effects of Holy Light by 50%, recovery rate of Holy Light by 100% and an additional 10 Holy Inferno damage will be dealt during an attack】
【Intermediate Tier Protection from Evil: The damage dealt from Chaos lifeforms will be reduced by 6 points.】
This Race Talent which I can only use once per day allows me to summon a Sword of Holy Light/ Sword of Law of acceptable quality. At the very least, the buffs to Holy Light is really attractive but it is a pity it can only be sustained for 20 minutes now, which insufficient for my usage.
Through infusing a large amount of Holy Light into the magic statue, the invasion of a foreign energy caused a conflict in its original power system, resulting in it twitching for a moment before it is done in.
Judging from how I was awarded 200 Fate Points, the metal magic statue’s absolute prowess is definitely above mine.
Lacking explosive power remains as one of the fatal weakness of a Holy Knight. On the other side, despite Diana dealing massive wounds on the body of the magic statue that black smoke is arising from it, she is still stuck in a stalemate with it. Only when Krose came with a series of consecutive lightning strike did the metal magic statue, who has weak resistance to lightning, finally slumps.
But the next moment, the activated traps pose yet another trouble to us. I finally know what our party lack, obviously, a thief. These darn consecutive traps, you can’t expect me to barge through all of it in hope that my physical body would be able to withstand them.
In the end, using summoned lifeforms to scout the path, we eventually got through the traps section. However, as we were delayed significantly, by the time we managed to clean up the second floor and head towards the third, the Celestial Tower Auland Empire Branch Head Lamos’s Eye has already disappeared in a Dimension Gate.
The enemies of the second and third floors were slightly harder to deal with. However, given the time we took to reach the inner regions, those who had double identities in the Celestial Tower were already gone, assuming their other identity, causing the strongest power left behind to guard the tower to be 2 Gold-rank Mages who posed no threat whatsoever to our party.
When we finally swept the battlefield and tally the amount of casualties among the enemies, I realised that the result is better than expected.
“Yet another unlucky fellow who got stuck in a wall after failing to pass through the Dimension Gate. For a spell like Dimension Gate which even novice Mages only have 1% probability of failure, to actually witness over a dozen of high-rank Mage triggering that possibility, looks like the rumors that the Celestial Tower has been cursed by the God of Fate is true.”
At the same time, I, who should had been enraged from my opponents getting away, picked up a report that left me overjoyed.
“… For his great ambitions, in order to expand the influence of the Auland Empire, we have decided to help the 5th son of the old Emperor, Darsos, to the throne. In order to prevent him from burning the bridges after our assistance, we have left behind evidence of him killing his father and his siblings. That is… What is unexpected is that Darsos actually didn’t kill his father. I don’t think that he would just let him off, there must be some kind of secret behind it… As expected, after helping Darsos raid the ambassadors of Solo Federations, through some coincidence, we actually found out the final secret of Auland Empire. Perhaps, we can use this as a chip to extort him.”
“Killing his father and his siblings, such a ruthless character. Heh, this is just the intelligence I need. Darsos, perhaps, we can have a good chat.”
——————
“Perhaps, it is about time for us to have a good chat.”
The morning of the next day, news of fire breaking out and destroying the royal family’s Astrology Platform spread across the entire city. The spies of the royal family quickly reported the news to Darsos’s confidant.
Hermit who was still groggy from being woken up suddenly, after hearing such explosive news, immediately pulls himself together.
“You don’t intend to suppress them with force?”
“From the moment their scouts are noticed, it took less than 2 hours for them to track them down and reach the Astrology Platform. Based on the corpses we found in the rubble, there are at least 4 Legends in their forces. Not only are they ruthless, they also have the power to back it up. Since they have displayed sufficient strength, then we could at least have a talk. Besides…”
“Un?”
“My men didn’t find the corpse of the mysterious Celestial Tower head. Perhaps, he got away.”
“That would be troublesome. That fellow knows quite a bit of things.”
“Un, there is no need us to foolishly wait for him to come knocking in order to kill him. Just put him on the blacklist across the country to distance ourselves from him.”
“Aren’t you afraid that he might spill the beans?”
“So what if he spills them, will there be anyone who would trust him? Even if someone does, there is only one remaining son of the previous Emperor. Do they expect me to step down?”
“Heh. Right, has the old fellow given in yet?”
“No, the old fellow is still impressively stubborn as always. I will go and try again today.”
After a while, when the flower pot on the ledge is shifted, a mechanism activates and a secret passageway leading to the underground chamber appears.
“Right, why don’t we organise a ball in your name. We can invite all of the foreign guests and the children of nobility, it wouldn’t be too striking that way.”
“Heh, you are probably just taking this opportunity to hunt them down. Fine, we shall fix it on the next week…”
When Darsos lifts a lamp to lead the way down the pitch black stairs, he didn’t expect that a black mouse would come following him.
“Hehe, looks like searching for tidbits here paid off. This secret, it I sold it to that generous Rolande, how much would I earn?”
For those who don’t remember, Demon Mages are Mages who control Demons. I guess why they say they aren’t really guilty is because 1) They aren’t bending any laws of nature (unlike Necromancers) 2) They control Demons, but that doesn’t mean that they belong to the Chaos Faction. (I remember translating it somewhere around Kakajil but can’t recall exactly)
Leaving it here just for reference
Power Ranking: (For Weapons, Weakest -> Strongest)
Normal -> Superior -> Elite -> Epic -> Legend -> SemiGod -> God
Power Ranking: (Weakest -> Strongest)
Iron Bloodline -> Bronze Body -> Silver Dignity -> Golden Will -> Respected Legend -> World Saint -> Immortal Myth -> Indestructible SemiGod
I don’t know if I’m using inconceivable and some synonyms of it correctly (I doubt so, that’s why I’m writing this :X) But anyway, I’m using inconceivable to mean something unexplainable, there is no basis for its happening, e.g, the part on Pale Justice, even though the blade looks ever so simple, it is unimaginable that it would be emitting such strong killing intent.
Anyway, grammar error no. 2, I haven’t really been checking on my usage of which and that. For those who are unaware, there is a difference in usage between the two. (I apologise if I made mistakes previously, and I think I will probably keep making them haha) For those curious, a very simple explanation between the difference of the two can be found .