The 102nd camp managed to kill more than they lost, but it wasn’t the end.
Immediately after the death of the invading force of the 103rd camp, the nine peak rank 6s sent by the 102nd tried to return, but before they could, another fireball came, this time targeting them, who were outside the protection of the blue magic wall.
With no time to use any spell in time, they were hit, and all died; not even ashes remained.
In this way, the 102nd camp lost 10 peak rank 6s, while the 103rd camp lost 30 early to mid-rank 6s and a hundred rank 5s.
The commanding officer of the 102nd camp was not satisfied with the result; he could have saved the 10 peak rank 6s if he had been a bit faster. In these sorts of wars, leaders matter a lot; he is a talented commander, but so is the opposition.
Commanding this many troops appropriately is a hard task; there is not that much flexibility. There are only two teams, which makes this war a zero-sum game; one side's loss is the other's win.
The commanding officer assigned the remaining troops to two groups.
The previous grouping was scrapped; well, the new grouping was not that different from the previous grouping, so it can be considered a small change.
One group consisted of pure mortals and rank 0s, and the other comprised rank 5 and 6s.
Pure Mortals and rank 0s were responsible for the blue magic wall, while rank 5 and 6s were responsible for casting fireballs.
As for ranks 4, 3, 2, and 1, they were responsible for taking on the impact when the blue magic wall wasn’t enough to repel all of it.
With this plan, everyone began doing as instructed.
The commanding officer isn’t going to send anyone out; the best way to fight in these regulated battles is just staying in and attacking from the inside; sure, he lost rank 6s, but in the end, the 102nd camp has gained a slight advantage. After all, when it comes to overdrafting, lifespan matters the most; rank 6s' lifespan is the same, whether peak stage or early stage.
Even more so, peak rank 6s are stronger but usually have far less lifespan remaining and cannot really overdraft that much.
On the other hand, early rank 6s are usually young and can overdraft a lot.
By losing 10 peak rank 6s, the 102nd might have lost in a lot of battle strength, but in the long run, they can more than make up for it using over-drafting techniques. As for using other techniques, such as using enemy corpses for casting spells, it cannot be done because the corpses are destroyed and are completely gone.
...
One after another, the 102nd camp threw fireballs and defended against the other side's fireballs. After over 10 rounds, the last of the 103rd group was killed by a fireball cast by the 102nd camp.
They won!
They called it winning, but in truth, the 102nd camp was also nearly destroyed. Out of 1 trillion mortals, only a few billion survived.
As for rank 6s, all died because of overdrafting; they kept drawing on their lifespan regardless of the loss, and all died of old age.
Fortunately for the 102nd camp, they had a slight advantage in over-drafting, so they died after casting the last fireball that completely annihilated the enemy.
The ranks 4-1 nearly all died as a result of taking on so many of the enemy's fireballs. Fortunately, the last few fireballs were only rank 6, so some managed to survive.
Ironically, pure mortals had it best, as billions managed to remain completely safe and sound. They didn’t overdraft and didn’t share any of the burdens from fireballs; they were completely protected.
Of course, only a few billion survived.
The last rank 7 fireball couldn't have been resisted by ranks 1-4 alone, so the commanding officer shared it with pure mortals, which killed many of them.
He didn’t share it equally among all mortals because, after all the tests, it was found that injuring all mortals could be disastrous, as none would be able to retain their abilities to cast spells; it's best to keep some completely safe while using others as meat shields.
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Taking the reward of evolution blood, which wasn’t worth all that much, the commanding officer called for airships to transfer mortals back. Mass teleportation spells for transferring mortals can be bought using emperor contribution points, but the 102nd camp hasn’t spent the precious points for this.
Teleportation spells are unusable here, but they can still be cast in special circumstances using emperor contribution points.
...
Both sides accepted the results, and thus, the 102nd camp was allowed to choose the chaotic battle's arena. The 102nd camp chose the ranked battle arena.
In this one, people of the same rank will be teleported to separate arenas and have to fight until only one person in each rank's arena survives.
The minimum to participate in this one is 10% of all population on each rank below rank 7.
As for rank 7 and above, at least 1 of each rank must be sent there.
The ranked battle arena was attended by all camps who chose it; a total of 29 camps chose this arena.
This battle is held on the 8th day of the first month and lasts for ten days.
To end the battle in ten days, the space within the battle arena of ranked battle is special; the space is initially vast but shrinks gradually, forcing everyone to fight. On the last day, the space shrinks so much that only one can remain.
The last person in each battle receives 100 emperor contribution points and special evolution blood.
...
After preparation, both the 209th and 103rd sent their troops to the ranked war arena.
Nolan was a knight of the 209th north hell of the 557th floor.
The 209th north hell was ruled by a demon duke, but that demon duke was special.
The title "demon duke" implies that the person holding the title is a demon, but it is not actually true. Other species can win the title as long as they kill the last titleholder in an official battle.
Official battles are controlled battles with special rules; both sides must consent to them. Most demon dukes never accept official battles, but some are confident enough to do so; in the case of the former demon duke of the 209th north hell, overconfident.
The current lord of the 209th north hell is actually a human; he transformed the 209th north hell into his own massive empire.
He has created a system that favors humans over other species; he made things as orderly as possible.
Still, in a society with dark elements, making everything truly orderly is hardly possible. People might think and act normally, but all are ruthless and don’t mind killing other people.
The society can function if there are only a few criminals and psychopaths; they only have to detect them and lock them up. But if everyone is a psychopath, the society truly cannot function.
Fortunately, though, species here are all free culture, which means their adaptabilities are very high.
Even though unable to feel any positive emotion, they still usually don’t kill each other for no reason. Sure, they feel no shame, no guilt from killing others, no love for their families, but one doesn’t necessarily need those feelings for living.
In a society filled with psychopaths, incentives must be right. In the 209th hell, for example, the punishment for any crime is death. As for what is a crime, it's breaking any law, no matter how trivial.
The investigations always use mind control spells so nothing will remain hidden.
The 209th North hell is actually more orderly than the average society because only that way is it possible to keep everything together with all the population being sociopaths.
It’s the hell that needs laws, not heaven. In a world covered with light elements, no law is necessary, as nobody would commit anything that harms others anyway.
In any case, even with all those extreme laws, many people still get consumed by their negative emotions and start rampaging; of course, they will be caught and killed publicly to instill fear in others.
As a knight in the 209th North hell, Nolan was responsible for punishing lawbreakers; he was enjoying his job.
He usually tortured everyone they gave him until they died. It was a heavenly job in hell; it was so good that so many envied him.
Every day, torturing people in public and seeing others' fearful eyes toward you; how good can that be? Nolan thought it was so unimaginably good that he didn’t want anything else from life. In some strange sense, he was getting a negative sense of satisfaction from all the negative emotions.
He was a case study. It's possible to create positivity from two negatives; one can imitate positive feelings from a combination of a few negative feelings.
Still, nobody cared to study these, so Nolan didn’t know or care how he was able to feel so satisfied, even though positive feelings were not supposed to be allowed in hell.
That's why, after he suddenly lost his heaven in hell and was brought here, he was so angry that he tried to kill anyone in his sight.
Unfortunately for him, the high-ranking mages stopped him and tortured him as a lesson to others.
Sitting on the other side of the torture chair, he was terrified and fearful, and these negative feelings were also greatly amplified.
They let him go and brought him to this new arena a few days later.
"Yaaa" seeing someone rushing at him with a sword, Nolan took out his own sword and cut him down.
The opponent was just a weak civilian, so he killed him easily.
Looking around, when he saw nobody was there to stop him, he smiled. Now, he can vent his anger over the last few days!
...
Many pure mortals were oppressed when they were transported here, and when they finally were freed, they started to vent all those negative emotions.
The total number of pure mortals brought here was over 20 digits long; it was an unimaginable number. But even such a massive number started to be cut down quickly.
All the blood was quietly collected by the massive war arena formation and brought to a large area under the arena, and it began to be purified for specialized evolution blood.
The evolution blood is actually the essence of innumerable mortals. Most of it will be taken by the immortals, and some of it will be distributed to the mortals as a reward.
...
Ryan looked ahead. According to his estimate, there are at least 40 rank 8s in the rank 8 arena.
Fortunately for him, he came prepared, but unfortunately, everyone else also came prepared.
He sat down and cast "Shadowy Aura" on his body. He intends to hide, waiting for others to fight first.
Rank 8s are much more rational than lower-rank mortals; everyone instantly realized the best way to win is to preserve energy.
So, everyone did the same as Ryan: sitting down and waiting.