Year 30, Day 29
I don't have much to say except that I am feeling the limits of my spiritual root intensely.
No matter the amount of spiritual energy, and no matter the richness of this world, I have already reached the limits of what my body can offer.
I had already felt it at the advanced stage, and it has become even more apparent now that I am at the peak of the Nascent Soul.
Seriously, I spent nearly seven years consolidating my cultivation base at the absolute peak of the Nascent Soul.
It's almost as much time as it took me to go from the beginner stage to the pinnacle!
I'm going to inquire within the sect; perhaps they have something that could help me break through this bottleneck.
...
The room plunged into silence with Shindaran's announcement.
As the old draconian recalled the memories of the past with sadness, Isabella and Sylvera felt chills all over their bodies.
"Hey Isa, we agree that even the weakest of true dragons is at least a superior existence, right?" said the saint with a soul transmission.
The high priestess didn't respond and merely nodded in affirmation, while Sylvera swallowed hard.
...
Forty kilometers north, Liam's eyes sharpened as he suddenly covered the entire plane with his spiritual sense, inspecting every detail in a matter of milliseconds.
The beings of this world were far too weak to even realize the terrifying existence watching them, and they continued their lives peacefully.
Liam remained indifferent to these weak beings and quickly found an anomaly in the center of the plane, where the concentration of spiritual energy had not yet diminished much.
Nevertheless, seeing that there was no superior existence, he quickly withdrew his spiritual sense and returned to the discussion, while only Karl Vandome's incarnation noticed something but said nothing.
...
At the edge of the Polaris system, in a gigantic rank 10 formation covering millions of kilometers.
Hundreds of demi-planes orbited harmoniously around an artificial sun. Among all these rank 1 worlds, a few rare planes stood out significantly.
One of them was shrouded in a dense fog, which allowed those inside to see outside but blocked the spiritual sense and sight of those outside.
Above Alandal, Liam's true body suddenly opened his eyes.
"Adler, get to the shuttle right away, I hope you have a good excuse!" a voice suddenly roared in his head, and the young man sighed.
He already knew this was going to happen when he had deployed his spiritual sense, but he could already feel the headache coming.
Fortunately, he could say his action was legitimate.
"At least, I didn't directly interfere with that world, so I should be able to get away with it."
...
"Let me tell you exactly what happened years ago," said the old man calmly, while the two rank 5s nodded.
"It all started when the blood demons left our system over a thousand years ago. Their bodies were much more resilient than average, and even their rank 4s could travel between worlds, which granted them easy domination over this solar system. They killed anyone they wanted to strengthen themselves. But similarly, when they left, there were few intermediate existences still alive in the system, not to mention superior existences."
"About two hundred years after their departure, a giant fire dragon on pilgrimage, Lord Ignis, entered the system. You may not know, but every time a direct male descendant enhances his bloodline towards that of a giant dragon, he must spread his bloodline across a few different worlds. It's an inherent duty of the race, to ensure dragons do not go extinct. After all, with their powerful bloodline, it is very complicated for dragons to reproduce. In fact, it is more likely that one of his direct descendants becomes a true dragon than a dragon couple successfully conceiving a true dragon offspring."
He took a deep breath while the two listened quietly to the old man.
"Anyway, I digress. Back to the facts, Lord Ignis was very happy to come across a well-developed solar system like the Polaris system and began spreading his bloodline in the most powerful inner worlds. While everything was going well for us and Lord Ignis was busy spreading his bloodline in the inner worlds, a new threat had emerged in the outer worlds and spread unnoticed very quickly through the outer and middle worlds."
"Five hundred years later, he finally reached his quota. There were dozens of drakes and hundreds of wyverns. Counting mixed dragons and draconians created by other direct descendants, we were nearly 20,000. Nevertheless, it was already too late. Our enemy was very discreet and had carefully avoided us. When they revealed themselves to us, they were already millions."
The old man was out of breath, and his eyes were bloodshot as rage surged in his heart.
"Hundreds of different races had allied against us. Even particularly weak races like goblins and kobolds had hundreds of intermediate existences."
The two rank 5s frowned. For a lower race like goblins and kobolds, having a few intermediate existences was already an achievement in itself.
In Alandal alone, there were only about fifty Novarians of rank 4, and this was entirely due to the cultivation and breathing techniques adapted to this race that the Lord of the Four Elements had provided.
While Golden Core cultivators and magi were abundant, there were actually no spiritual warriors, demonstrating the poor inherent talent of this race.
"Nevertheless, it was as if they had mutated," continued the old man. "While we could easily discern their original race, they had changed. They were taller, more slender, with red eyes and sharp canines, while various organs had grown on their bodies. Some had snake pupils, others scales or tails."
"Nevertheless, they had still greatly underestimated us. When they invaded Wyséris, the main dragon world, we responded quickly and effectively. Even though it was 1 against 100, the power of dragons was not to be taken lightly. As the war lasted for nearly a month, we had almost gained the upper hand. Lord Ignis was personally fighting against the ten enemy leaders and managed to kill the nine weaker ones at the cost of severe injuries, while he struggled against the last one; a pinnacle rank 7. Even though he would have crushed him under normal circumstances, he had been too injured and only had a slight advantage."
Finally, tears welled up in the old man's eyes.
"I don't know what despicable method the last leader used, but all their rank 5 and 6 existences suddenly withered in the middle of the battle. Shortly after, he killed Lord Ignis with a force he had never demonstrated before and unleashed it on our intermediate existences. He stayed for only a few seconds before disappearing, but it was enough to turn the tide of the war."
He paused briefly and struggled to catch his breath.
"When the dust settled, only a few thousand of our weakest troops remained, scattered across the planet, while they still had many rank 4s. At the time, I survived by a miracle with a handful of rank 4s. We quickly regrouped the survivors and decided to flee the planet aboard an artifact ship."
This time, he was crying profusely and clutching his seat tightly, reducing the armrest to powder.
"For nearly three hundred years, those bastards hid like rats, and I thought choosing a declining world would be enough to hide us, but the arrival of this strange fleet disrupted everything, and they resurfaced. At first, they were rather discreet, but now they don't even hide. It's now only a matter of time before they find us."
...
"That's why I used my spiritual sense on the plane. Since the world's will died, nothing prevents existences above rank 4 from entering. Although my army is strong, it is still far from being able to face a vampire progenitor, even if he is a weakened superior existence."
Liam stood before the group of teachers in the school shuttle, all of whom scrutinized him with stern gazes.
The silence lasted for a while before Mr. Idder sighed.
"Well, since Mr. Adler didn't directly interfere with the war and was only concerned about his people, I suppose a warning will suffice." The other teachers nodded.
After all, none of them really wanted to penalize one of the school's best students for such a minor offense.
"Nevertheless!" said Mr. Idder with a serious look. "This must not happen again. Each world was evaluated and assigned to the team we found most appropriate, both in terms of difficulty and the benefits you could gain from the expedition. We are not delusional enough to send first-year students to face superior existences."
Liam put his hands on his hips and smiled slightly.
"Don't worry, sir, it won't happen again!"
...
The river of time flows quickly, and suddenly, nearly three months had passed.
The Great Army of Alandal seemed to have taken the draconians under its wing and was gradually integrating them into its ranks.
At the same time, they had discovered how Shindaran had managed to hide his presence from the detector through a concealment method. Nevertheless, no matter how hard the engineers of the Great Army racked their brains, they couldn't solve the problem, exposing a flaw in their supposedly airtight blockade.
The only positive point was that they were almost sure that only a few people could master such a good concealment technique, so it didn't really hinder their plan.
On the other hand, after learning about the existence of a group with at least one superior existence, the war council had become much more cautious in its operations.
The student armies, however, had not slowed down in the least. On the contrary, they were advancing even slightly faster, but they moved in much larger groups.
Like a swarm of locusts, they razed everything in their path.
All resources were directly harvested and distributed among the students: rare minerals, spiritual plants... even stone and wood were not spared. Only the rare spiritual veins were left alone.
After all, they didn't want to hasten the collapse of the world. Nevertheless, their location was noted, and the veins evaluated, ready for quick and efficient harvesting when they left this world.
The monster groups were either destroyed or assimilated, while the spiritual beasts were directly slaughtered.
As for the villages, those who voluntarily surrendered were often captured and their population dispersed in the various worlds that wished to take them in, while the others were mercilessly killed.
In fact, most of the ordinary and even superior class students were happy to welcome a group of civilized and powerful beings, willing to spend thousands of faith points to brainwash them, while the other students had already established a semblance of status quo in their world that they did not want to disrupt anytime soon.
Nevertheless, even though everything seemed to be going well, the atmosphere in the war council was becoming increasingly tense.
...
James and Alice stood hand in hand above one of the relay outposts, looking at the magnificent volcanic landscape and the fissures in the sky, visibly larger than when they had arrived.
Their relationship had developed a lot, and honestly, they were almost a couple already.
Despite everything, Liam's expression was dark as he observed the landscape.
As a commander of the Great Army, he was well aware of the problems they were facing.
At present, they already occupied 75% of this world and had perfectly encircled the center of the plane, spending enormous amounts of material just to gain some low-level resources and weak slaves.
Despite this, they still hadn't found any trace of the technological invaders or the vampires, which worried the high command.
The council had decided and had abandoned the other territories outside the portals and spiritual veins, concentrating all the armies on the encirclement.
After all, there was nothing living or valuable left there.
For two weeks, they had stopped advancing and were content to consolidate their position, and every day, troops and material arrived at the front line.
Even so, no one was naive enough to think that the movement of more than 150,000 men could be hidden from their enemies.
What they were sure of was that their mysterious enemy was preparing to receive them.
Anyone with some knowledge of the situation could tell: it was simply the calm before the storm; a storm of unknown magnitude approaching ever closer.