As he saw it, the Planar Overseer should be one of the Gods or Highgods.
“Those two Gods… one is female, and her appearance is similar to many sculptures that are located throughout that continent. It seems as though she is that ‘Radiant Goddess’ whom they worship. As for that beastman, he looks like the ‘Beastgod’ carvings that exist in the other continent.” Linley understood that these two shouldn’t be Planar Overseers.
In the material planes… there were some churches that didn’t wholly worship any Sovereigns.
For example, in the Yulan Plane, there were those who worshipped the War God, O’Brien. In the Baruch Empire, there were many who worshipped Linley. Anyone who became a Deity would be able to use and enjoy the power of faith. The power of faith would improve one’s soul, and generally speaking, when training, one would be able to train much more quickly.
For example, when meditating on the profound mysteries, if one had a great reserve of faith energy, many profound mysteries that were originally very hard to understand might suddenly become clearer and more relatable.
But of course…
Faith energy was still an outside source of help. In training, one’s own strength was still the most important. For example, although many Sovereigns enjoyed the benefits of almost unlimited amounts of faith energy, in terms of the profound mysteries, they might spend countless years yet still be unable to become Paragons.
“Boss, that Planar Overseer might be a Highgod,” Bebe said.
“That’s possible,” Linley said with a frown. “But I’m worried about something.”
“Worried about what?” Bebe asked, puzzled.
“I’m worried… that the first people who arrived took away the Planar Overseer, acquired some important information from him, and then, to ensure the others wouldn’t gain that information, kill the Planar Overseer.” Linley had a hint of worry in his brows. He had already come at maximum speed.
But the others had been even faster!
“How could those people have moved so quickly? Boss, your speed far surpasses the speed of most Paragons,” Bebe mumbled.
“Most likely, those Paragons were brought by the Sovereigns directly to the teleportation arrays. I’m fast, but I’m far from being as fast as a Sovereign. As for those groups of Highgods, they are probably Highgods who were drawn from the armies stationed around the teleportation arrays.” Linley was just guessing, but he felt quite certain about his guess.
And in reality, it really was as Linley suspected.
Sovereigns cared deeply about the Overgod talismans. Thus, it would be normal for them to bring a Paragon with them in making haste to the teleportation array.
“Rumble…” The teleportation array lit up once more.
Linley glanced at it, frowning. “There really are quite a few people here. Bebe, let’s leave.”
A surge of wind-type divine power swirled around Linley and Bebe. The two transformed into green blurs, instantly disappearing into the horizon. Linley, the other Deities, and the Paragons… none of them noticed that not too far away, amidst the trees, there was that Azure Steelwing Hawk.
As they saw it, that was just a magical beast. They wouldn’t even glance at it.
“Wow, what sort of speed is this? Although that group of people was fast, I could at least still see them move. But those two…” The Azure Steelwing Hawk was completely stunned.
More than ten thousand Highgods had descended. Their awe-inspiring presence as they flew through the air completely terrified the Saint-level experts of the Okerlund Plane. Soon, the news regarding the ‘Descent of the Gods’ quickly spread out. The Radiant Temple was the first to receive this news, and the Radiant Goddess personally ordered that the forces of the Radiant Temple were to pay attention to their behavior, and that they weren’t to offend these mysterious figures.
As for the Radiant Goddess herself, she saw that vast group of experts as well.
Good heavens. She was a God! In a material plane, she was invincible! But every single one of those thousand plus individuals were more powerful than her. Any one of them could annihilate the Radiant Church.
The territory of the Fogdeep continent was too vast, stretching millions of miles… a continent such as this, in the Infernal Realm, was nothing, but it was still thousands of times larger than the Yulan continent. The number of empires, kingdoms, and alliances within the Fogdeep continent came to a frighteningly large figure, and most people would never be able to traverse the entire Fogdeep continent in their entire lives.
At the eastern region of the Fogdeep continent. Atop Mount Liangya, within the Moulin Empire. A new estate had suddenly appeared out of nowhere atop the mountain.
Quite a few of the more intelligent people who lived around Mount Liangya immediately understood… that perhaps even Saints wouldn’t be able to suddenly create a new estate atop the mountain. Immediately, quite a few people began to climb up Mount Liangya, wanting to go meet the mysterious expert within the estate. They hoped to take this person on as their master!
If they could be guided by an expert, their futures would change.
Unfortunately…
The closer they drew to the estate, the more terrifyingly powerful the gravity became. Even the number one expert in the area around Mount Liangya, an expert of the ninth rank who had come in the hopes of taking on a master, found that upon reaching a distance of six hundred meters from the estate, he was unable to advance a single step further. From this, one could imagine how powerful the gravity was!
That expert of the ninth rank immediately sighed, “Such a terrifyingly powerful gravitational technique… this is definitely something that only Deities are capable of!”
Within the estate in Mount Liangya. Linley and Bebe were residing here.
Three full days! Linley could say with confidence that he had thoroughly searched the entire Okerlund Plane!
“I originally thought that Brodie would hide the red caltrop diamond deep in the seas, or deep under the earth. But now, it seems, my guess was wrong.” Linley shook his head. It was easy for him to send his divine sense into the empty air, but the deeper one went into the ground, the harder it became.
When his spirit sense had already stretched to cover the entire plane, not even Linley would be able to make it stretch to more than a million meters into the ground. It was simply too hard.
Linley had spent three days. It could be said that he had inspected every single part of the entire Okerlund Plane!
“Boss, can it be that Brodie really did just transit through here? He intentionally made multiple transits to fool people?” Bebe mumbled.
“Everything is possible! The simplest thing to do right now is to find that Planar Overseer. He definitely knows quite a few things.” Linley had no other options.
“But we don’t know that Planar Overseer.” Bebe’s eyes lit up. “Boss, let’s just ask around and see whose forces were the first to arrive, then go find the leader of that group. Boss, now that you’ve fused four types of divine power, your power should vastly surpass the power of a Paragon. If that Paragon dares to refuse to give you an explanation, then beat the crap out of him or even kill him, then have his subordinates hand the person over. Let’s see if they dare refuse!”
A four-way soul mutation. This had bestowed Linley with a Will greater than a Paragon’s.
In addition, his body was now almost as strong and durable as a Sovereign artifact!
Linley’s material attacks, in the past, had already been a bit more powerful than Magnus’. Now his body had dramatically strengthened, and his divine power had also strengthened tenfold! In terms of material attacks… Linley could absolutely lay claim to being the number one Deity!
“I might have the ability to kill Paragons,” Linley said with a frown. “However, this isn’t the time to reveal my power yet. If I were to pressure them with raw force and make it so that the Paragons of the Okerlund Plane were aware of my power, those Paragons would probably join force
s against me out of fear!”
Paragons were invincible amongst Deities. This was a well-known legend!
But in the face of a never-before-seen four-way Soul Mutate, this legend regarding Paragons had been shattered! If the Paragons knew how powerful Linley was, and that they wouldn’t be able to fight him one-on-one, they would definitely form an alliance to block Linley! By then, the difficulty level for acquiring the red caltrop diamond would rise greatly.
The largest tree in the forest would attract the most wind.
This was a principle that Linley understood.
“Right now, what I need to do is continue to pretend that I am a Paragon. I can’t reveal too much power.” Linley laughed calmly. “Once the red caltrop diamond appears, I can show my power. By then, I would have already acquired the red caltrop diamond. It would be too late for them! I imagine… I’m not the only one searching for that Planar Overseer. The other Paragons are searching as well.”
“Boss, are you saying…?” Bebe understood.
“Join forces! Join forces with the other Paragons and force the Paragon who captured the Planar Overseer to hand him over and give us his information.” Linley’s divine sense was continually scanning the Okerlund Plane, and he immediately reached out directly into the mind of Dunnington. “And Dunnington… is the best person for me to join forces with.”
35
COERCION
The Okerlund Plane. Fogdeep continent’s eastern regions. Within the Wildfang Mountains. Dunnington’s forces from the Infernal Realm were stationed here.
Deep within the Wildfang Mountains, multiple palaces suddenly appeared overnight. Deep within one of the palaces, within a dark, gloomy hall that was lit up by flickering green fire light, there was a single person seated quietly. At this moment, someone walked into the main hall.
“Milord, I’ve already led those five hundred Highgods to do a thorough search of the entire Beastgod continent. We didn’t find even a trace of the red caltrop diamond though,” a muscular, tall, cyan-haired man dressed in a tunic spoke resignedly. As he spoke, he had a sour grimace on his face.
“The Fogdeep continent… I used up Sovereign’s Might and even searched underground, but found nothing.”
Dunnington, covered in a dark green robe, had an unpleasant look on his face. “Neither of these two continents holds it. How about this. You lead that group to the seas to continue searching carefully! Don’t just search deep in watery regions of the seas; even the mud and earth of the seabed needs to be searched thoroughly, until you reach the ends of the plane.”
“Yes, milord.” The cyan-haired man nodded, but by the looks of it, he was still acting in a fairly casual way before Dunnington.
“Milord… we don’t have that many forces. As I see it, quite a few people have already come, and the other forces have already covered the entire Okerlund Plane. When you agreed to help the Chief Sovereign of Destruction… when you brought us over, you should’ve brought some more soldiers,” the cyan-haired man said, worried.
“You worry about your matters. You don’t need to worry about these affairs.” Dunnington frowned.
“Yes.” The cyan-haired man, seeing that Dunnington was unhappy, immediately left, not daring to say anything else.
Dunnington sat there quietly, but he was quite frustrated as well. Upon arriving in the Okerlund Plane, he knew that the situation was terrible! Because there were simply too many Paragons who had come on this trip. How few Paragons did the countless planes of the universe hold? And yet, including Dunnington, nine had come to the Okerlund Plane!
Although there were twenty or thirty people ‘suspected’ of being Paragons…
Quite a few were hidden in remote areas or even hidden within material planes. Not even Sovereigns were able to locate those Paragons. Normally, it would be very rare for two Paragons to meet each other. Three Paragons being in one place was virtually inconceivable. Nine Paragons… it was only because so many Sovereigns were all interested in this matter, that so many Paragons had appeared in one place.
“With so many Paragons… once the red caltrop diamond appears, how could it be easy to acquire?” Dunnington secretly shook his head.
“Dunnington?” a voice suddenly rang out in his mind.
“Eh? Linley?” Dunnington immediately knew who it was and he chatted back through divine sense, “Linley, we haven’t met each other since you became a Paragon, right?”
“I just reached this level recently.” Linley laughed, then asked, “Dunnington, did you find anything out about the red caltrop diamond?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. How about you?” Dunnington asked.
These two supreme Deities were thousands of kilometers away, but were able to chat casually through their divine senses.
“Me? You have eight hundred Highgods under your command but weren’t able to find it. Bebe and I are by ourselves. How are we supposed to?” Linley laughed with pursed lips. Linley didn’t want to reveal the fact that he was a Soul Mutate.
“Linley, I don’t want to criticize you, but given your status in the Four Divine Beasts clan, it wouldn’t be too hard for you to summon a few thousand people from the clan. With a few thousand subordinates, it would be much easier for you to search the Okerlund Plane. But you just came by yourself, with Bebe…” Dunnington sighed.
If one considered Linley as a Paragon, the Okerlund Plane now had nine Paragons present.
But aside from the Paragons themselves, every single force had brought a large group of Highgods, generally at least a thousand or more.
“To lead forces from the Four Divine Beasts clan to the teleportation array would take too long. Those ordinary Highgods also fly much slower than you and me! If I did that, it would probably take me quite a few extra months to get here. During those months, I imagine the rest of you would’ve already found the red caltrop diamond. Of course I wasn’t going to wait, so I led Bebe and came.” Linley laughed.
Dunnington now understood.
The others had ordered for soldiers stationed around the teleportation arrays to assist them, and so hadn’t taken much time at all.
“Enough about that. Dunnington, do you think Brodie actually, truly left the red caltrop diamond in this Okerlund Plane?” Linley asked.
“I really am a bit suspicious, given that Brodie isn’t here in this plane,” Dunnington said. “Now, I want to find the Planar Overseer, but… I wasn’t able to. I imagine that the Planar Overseer should have been taken away by the Paragon of Fire, Ballmer. That’s because he was the first to arrive at the Okerlund Plane,” Dunnington said.
“Ballmer?”
Quite a bit of information regarding Ballmer came to Linley’s mind.
“Dunnington, the information that the Planar Overseer has is extremely important! How about… we join forces and coerce Ballmer to hand over the Planar Overseer. What do you say?” Linley advised.
“Coerce?”
A smile appeared on Dunnington’s face. “Good idea. I’m not confident in being able to act against Ballmer by myself… but if we join forces and pincer attack him, even if Ballmer doesn’t die, he’ll still suffer quite a bit. It wouldn’t be hard for us to exile him. I imagine that Ballmer wouldn’t want to suffer like that for no reason.”
“Fine, then. When should we join forces and go find Ballmer?”
Linley and Dunnington discussed this matter for quite some time.
FOGDEEP CONTINENT. The Biers Mountains.
The Biers Mountains were more than ten thousand kilometers long and hundreds of kilometers wide. They were like a sharp knife that just so happened to separate the Moulin Empire from the Bluemaple Empire. However, in the center of the Biers Mountains, there was an extremely deep gorge known as ‘Divine Punishment’. This gorge actually pierced through the entire Biers Mountains.
The people of the two empires could pass through to the other side through this gorge.
The reason why this place was known as the ‘Divine Punishment Gorge’
was because, according to legend… two gods had battled here, and then, with one astonishing blade chop, carved a path through the entire mountain range, leaving behind this hundred-kilometers-long Divine Punishment Gorge.
But because the gorge connected these two empires, the two empires both set down many soldiers on each side. These two armies would often engage in battles over various problems!
“Rumble…”
The earth was trembling. Hoofsteps rang out unabated. Under the commands of the military officers, the two armies prepared their formations as they stared at each other.
Because these two empires didn’t share any other borders… this gorge was the only place where they did battle. They would even fight over the smallest of problems. The reason they did this was because both empires had subconsciously come to view the battles within the gorge as a place to train their armies. Only soldiers who had seen blood would truly be able to fight.
Every few months or every few years, there would be a major battle. Each time, tens of thousands of casualties would result. This was very normal.
After all, these two empires, even in the vast Fogdeep continent, were two fairly powerful empires, with populations that were in the tens of billions.
“Vanguard battalions, advance!”
A warrior dressed in golden armor was seated high up on the back of a completely black serpent. He gave the order.
The commanding generals of both armies both understood that there was no way the two empires would actually, truly fight each other. This was just a way for them to train their soldiers. But precisely because they wanted to train their soldiers… it made it so that over the course of the struggles, they would swear to surpass the enemy’s side.
Immediately, the two military formations began to wildly charge against each other.
“Swoosh!” “Swoosh!” Arrows filled the skies as the vanguards of each army burst towards each other in a flood. Blood immediately began to fly everywhere, and some of the young ‘chicklets’ who were experiencing war for the first time were so terrified that their legs went soft. Life… death… things were so simple on the battlefield. Only someone who experienced a life-and-death battle would become a true soldier!
Lord of the Mists: Book 8 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 29
