Book 9, Chapter 96
Impeccable
Up in the sky, the battle of epics finally began. Three faces formed around Richard, shooting out destructive lights from the three different law systems that converged right behind the elven lines. The orbs of light combined into a dark grey that quickly shrank and dimmed, instantly bringing a look of horror upon the druid’s face as he realised what it was.
A black hole!
Although it was a few hundred metres from the ground, the black hole would be completed in mere seconds. These things had no impact on epic beings, but there were tens of thousands of elven troops underneath! This was the essence of the entire empire; if this black hole formed, Lithgalen was done for!
This was the ultimate destructive ability. Even in the heyday of the elven empire, only two rulers had ever mastered it, and their mere presence had ensured that no other race had dared to harm them in their prime. The druid roared and steadied his shaking hands, sending a beam of green light towards the black hole to try and neutralise it.
However, as he poured his energy into the beam, the druid found that it was much harder than expected. This only meant one thing; Richard’s laws were far beyond his own, needing much more of his own power to neutralise.
Of course, Richard didn’t plan to let things be so easy. A rainbow tetrahedron suddenly covered the black hole with a wave of his hand, slowly rotating around it. The black hole’s creation was slowed down to the point it would take three to five minutes to finish, but the druid was shocked to find that all of his attacks were blocked. He immediately understood that this was a ticking bomb; if he failed to get past the barrier in time, his troops would be dead.
And yet, even strengthening his light beam severalfold, the druid found that he couldn’t do any damage at all. He started sweating as he realised that the laws of this tetrahedron were just as advanced as the black hole, which meant he would need enormous amounts of energy to break it with brute force. There were dozens of different laws here, forming their own miniature system. Even if he went all out, there was no guarantee that he would be able to break this in time. Unable to give up on his soldiers, he found himself trapped.
The Emperor discovered this problem as well, but he seemed entirely unafraid as he unsheathed a crystal sword and flew towards Richard. His body was shining with all sorts of divine artefacts and equipment, more than ten different kinds of laws protecting him! Not all of those laws came from himself, in fact he only knew a handful of them, but they still contributed to his total power in battle.
“You will pay for your crimes!” he shouted as he charged and slashed down.
For his part, Richard just parried him off with Moonlight while continuing to summon a few jade shamans and blood inquisitors. Only when the Book of Destruction was empty did he return it to his waist, focusing on the battle seriously.
This might have been a battle between two epic beings, but the total range they affected was very small. Those more than a hundred metres away couldn’t even feel their auras. The elves were a race dedicated to the pursuit of elegance, and this held true for their epic beings as well. Their goal wasn’t absolute power, but absolute control; they chose to focus all of their energy in extremely small regions, amplifying their abilities within.
Richard continued using his exquisite swordplay just like in the fight with Casir, blocking the Emperor’s offensive and dismantling the laws supporting it. Seeing this, the Emperor sneered. There were a dozen different laws protecting him right now, and cracking even one was difficult. He couldn’t help but laugh, “If you can crack my barriers, you’ve won!”
However, this laughter was quickly stopped halfway. Richard suddenly sent out a few strands of energy that wrapped around the first of the barriers, disassembling the laws that governed it!
This battle of epic beings didn’t look all that special to spectators, less fierce even than the fight between the legends down below, but that was only because they were fighting on the field of laws instead of pure might.
The Emperor wasn’t all that stronger than Prince Casir, but he’d still been confident in himself because of the divine artefacts passed down the royal line. Every piece of equipment on his body was a divine item from the old empire, his sword almost breaking that limit. Even if Norlanders were rich, he hadn’t heard of a single human empire with equivalent equipment. He hadn’t at all expected Richard to have the terrifying strength to tangle the druid with a black hole, but he had still been fairly confident in stalling until that problem was solved.
After all, how would a few minutes be a problem?
He couldn’t have been more wrong. His frozen knights were falling down repeatedly, and there were already less than a thousand left in the field of death. Lyren was bathed in blood, struggling harder and harder with every enemy he killed. Even in the skies, where they held four-to-two advantage with the legends, his four princes were actually losing to Greyhawk and Waterflower!
Greyhawk was fighting like the standard legendary mage, constantly blinking around, strengthening his ally, cursing his opponents, and bombarding them with high-level magic. It was all textbook, but his casting speed and barrier penetration were just frightening. He routinely managed to slow some of the princes down by as much as 30%, giving Waterflower the chance to slash at them and retreat.
The mage couldn’t seem more ordinary, barely dodging every attack, so three of the princes soon chose to focus on him first while leaving the other to keep Waterflower busy. This was an impeccable tactic, but implementing it posed a few small problems. The first was that Greyhawk just refused to make a mistake under the siege; no matter how close things got, he was never hit once. The lone prince left to fend off Waterflower eventually slipped, screaming in pain as her sword slashed into him.
The Shepherd of Eternal Rest no longer suited Waterflower’s might, but the girl refused to give up on it. The sword wasn’t even legendary, so it couldn’t sustain the might of ember essence either. Richard could only resign himself to giving her two stacks of Lifesbane, bringing her killing power to barely acceptable levels.
That is, barely acceptable levels in his eyes. The wounded prince watched in horror as the slash on his leg erupted, cutting deep into the bone until it was almost torn off! Waterflower was freed up as he retreated, which meant the three others no longer had a chance to trap Greyhawk. The battle situation quickly devolved, with the woman cutting into the elves every chance she got. Things would still be reversed instantly if Greyhawk made a single mistake, but that situation seemed to be a distant possibility compared to the death of the four princes.