CHAPTER 1 - Prologue
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A rampageous conflict is happening on an extensive golden field. As the golden grains get dyed in dark red blood the war becomes more severe. Amid this war, a man standing far behind is seeing through this and can be seen the annoyance on the man’s face while watching the situation.
Swoosh!
A spear passed through beside the man’s ear. The man who is dressed in an intricate military uniform looks behind and saw the spear that is firmly stuck on the ground. His facial expression is extremely exasperated and oozes a killing intent.
“Commander”
A squire can be seen running toward the man. He had a worried look on his face but feel fear instead when he see the man.
“Commander the state of this fight is distressing. We are slowly getting pushed back and twenty percent of our force has perished.”
“That’s because you are all useless! For you to lose to an army that consists mostly of mercenaries. Just how useless are you?”
“I beg for forgiveness commander but there are some mercenaries who are already Rank 5 Earth Spirit Novice.”
“Is that supposed to be my problem?”
“No, sir”
The squire looks down after he got reprimanded by his commander, ashamed of his troop’s failure. The man grabs the hilt of his sword and pulled it out of its sheath.
“Guess I need to step in to teach this Earth-ranked bastard not to mess with Heaven grade”
The heaven-grade novice jumps into the fray. A soldier who’s just killed his foe notices his approach. The soldier was startled and can be seen on his face the hesitation. But in a mere second, the soldier put his resolve, his sword enfolds a yellow aura around it and he releases a desperate killing intent towards his opponent.
In the blink of an eye, the desperate soldier is already beside the heaven-grade novice and slashing the sword horizontally toward the heaven-grade novice’s right-side neck. As his sword comes closer, the soldier can’t help to smile seeing the turn of events but it quickly died down when he saw his opponent looking down at him.
Clank!
Waking up to the sound of sword collision, the soldier sees his attack failed and gets into an awkward position. Still full of hope the soldier kicks the heaven-grade novice’s right shoulder but the man just steps back to the left to dodge it. The soldier stomp his left foot, put the center of gravity on it, and follow up with a full roundhouse kick. The man leans backward to dodge it. But the soldier is not done and continues the momentum, using his whole body to perform a desperate downward slash.
Suddenly the heaven-grade novice’s sword enfolds an orange aura and cuts his sword in half effortlessly. Shocked, the man tried to stand up again from his ducking position but he felt the imminent danger of his life. Accepting his fate he gathers all his energy into his broken sword. The heaven-grade novice seeing the struggle of his opponent in that situation looks at the soldier contemptingly and then slashes his sword diagonally while keeping track of his soldier’s broken sword. Suddenly a white-reddish liquid flew in front of his face.
“How dare yo…”
He instinctively tried to avoid it and leans his face towards the left but a terrifying energy that spells death stops him from dodging it.
His sword slashed the soldier’s neck and diagonally pass across its right chest essentially cutting the soldier in two and ending his life.
The spit he tried to avoid spattered on his right eye and the broken sword of the soldier slashed through his left cheek up to his ear. As if mocked by the heavens he saw the soldier die while grinning at him with its middle finger.
“How dare you humiliate me like this, you fucking ant!”
Enraged by it he produced a beam of light from his sword and pulverized the maddening head of the soldier.
“You have the option to die peacefully yet you choose to struggle. You fucking ant!”
“Agrhhh”
Wiping the spit in his face he screamed and whacks the soldier’s body until it becomes crushed meat.
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After some time he calms down and contemplates his actions. Seeing how a Rank 7 Heaven Spirit Novice like him almost died, he extremely examines his surroundings to be prepared for any danger that will come. Although their encounter took a short while, the experience he perceived is profound.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He remembers his master’s guidance that he should come out and experience the real world, where life and death judge someone indifferently. Acknowledging his master’s teaching, his competitiveness and curiosity arise. He is curious about how many interesting ants he will find. Seeing an ant struggle before they die is giving him a sadistic feeling.
He called his squire.
“Quickly gather 10 men to form Spear Formation, I will become the spearhead and we will sweep through this dead land”
“Yes, Commander”
The squire ran and quickly gather his allies, while the commander surveys the battlefield and examines the path that will pass by Spear Formation.
“Commander we are ready”
The commander looks at his allies inspecting their fighting capability.
One - Rank 5 Earth Spirit Novice
Four - Rank 4 Human Spirit Novice
Five - Rank 3 Human Spirit Novice
Satisfied he changed his weapon from a sword to a long spear. A burning orange aura envelops it and points it forward.
“Give your all, don’t try to slack if you don’t want to die after this.”
He releases his killing intent and his allies are unknowingly stiffened by his actions.
“Yes, sir”
“Let us sweep this battlefield and be done with this mission”
His aura gathers and surrounds the team.
“Spirit Formation” “Forward!”
“Yaaahh”
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The mercenaries on the battlefield thought that they won. They are winning and their adversaries are in low morale since a quarter of their adversaries’ forces perished.
One who’s looking like a leader surveys the area. He premeditated that if the state of war continues the opponent will retreat which will result in a complete mission of defending this damnable field.
“Finally we can see the end” “Hurry up you bastards and kill them so we can drink later!”
“Yes, boss! We will drink until we die”
Replied his teammates. Then he feels ominous behind his back and what he saw is demise. A terrifying storm swept through the battlefield like cutting grass. Quickly he informs his team.
“Get away!”
His team tried, but there was something that pulls them toward the storm. As a Rank 5 Earth Spirit Novice, he can get away but he will leave his brothers. Resolved, he stayed and face the oncoming death. He look behind and said.
“I guess we will not be able to drink bastards”
But he saw the faces of his brother smiling and ready to fight anything even the God of Death.
“Boss that’s okay we will also drag them to hell so they can’t drink! Hahaha”
“Bastards you are making me cry! Let us teach them how terrifying Bright Reds Mercenary is.”
“Haaaah…”
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The heaven-grade novice is easily sweeping through the battlefield. He is dealing a great extent of damage in front as a spearhead while his team on the tail are the ones who finish off the living survivors. But his worries won’t come off his face, because despite sweeping through the battlefield unhinged. His ten members from the start of formation are now four, he lost three members just from the first mercenary group. He didn’t expect those mercenaries to throw their lives to give time to their leader and deal massive damage to the tail of the formation.
If the situation continues, his life will be in danger again. His emotion to continue is also dying down because of the repeated victory. That’s why after the last group that is in front of him he will call it quits and retreat.
Although his first war was considered a failure, the experience he absorb here is tremendous. Now he knows that fights inside the academy are a far cry if you compare them to this battlefield. Once you fight, there’s danger everywhere the moment you slack off, and far more exhausting to sustain.
As a Heaven Rank talent, one of the genius in the sole empire on this continent. What he needs to focus on now is to return and breakthrough Spirit Realm.
He does not want to bother with this petty achievement in war only those low-grade ants care for them. He only joins this war because this is what his master told him, and he was promised a great opportunity after he returns.
The possibility of his master helping him to breakthrough added this new experience, he can’t help but look forward to the future. Because he knows he can because he can feel in his body the changes and the calling of a new power.
As his next goal is realized, he turns his attention toward the last group of mercenaries.
A shield-bearer comes forward and blocked their path, he is like a sturdy great wall that challenges them. The heaven-grade novice frown because the might of his opponent is a Spirit Neophyte although his talent is grade four, it was still a remarkable opponent.
The shield bearer lowers his center of gravity ready to face the oncoming storm. There is a trace of confidence in his eyes that the victory will be his, the attitude of someone who reaches the Spirit Realm.
Upon seeing this, the notion of competitiveness of the heaven-grade novice arises in his body. He can’t wait to see the result of the battle.
“Aaah”
The heaven-grade novice plunged forward using all his energy gathered on his spear. He faces his enemy with a demeanor to destroy everything in his path.
On the other side, the shield-bearer’s shield shone a bright yellow light stagnant on his own position. As if no one can move him.
Both the opposite side pause their fight as they saw two massive energy collide.
“Gaaah”
The heaven-grade novice grimaced in pain the moment his spear collided the shield. The impact is so strong that he feels like the bones in his arm will break, but he still pushes through and endured it, since the opposite side is in no good condition.
“Puhaak”
The shield-bearer vomit a mouthful of blood, and his whole body is screaming in pain, he feels that if this continues his shield will be punctured and the spear will penetrate his body.
He thought maybe because he reached Spirit Realm he can close the gap between Heaven-grade talent and Earth-grade talent but he is completely wrong. The physical attribute of a Heaven-grade talent is still superior to the Spirit Aura that a Spirit Neophyte has.
The Heaven-grade novice grinned as he saw the shield-bearer struggling, he wanted to thank him as he can’t even experience this kind of battle inside the academy. As he put more strength into his spear, the moment he tried to end the shield-bearer’s life.
A piece of stone suddenly flew and crashes through the shield-bearer’s left leg, because of the tremendous pressure it endured the leg can’t help but broke in two.
“Ack!! Arghhh!”
The shield-bearer grimaced as he slide downward toward the left side, but with his abundant experience in battle, he still manage to misdirect the trajectory of the spear.
The Heaven-grade novice can’t comprehend what happened, but one thing he’s sure of is that the rock is from the enemy side.
Although it may look like it’s the shield-bearer’s disadvantage the end result is still him getting into an awkward position. He is moving forward while his back is facing the enemy, he tried to correct his position but before he could turn around he heard the shield-bearer’s shout.
“Shield-bash!”
The moment Heaven-grade novice heard it, an immense force smashes through his back as he was sent flying. He rolled around the field multiple times before he manage to correct himself.
As he was about to stand up the environment changed, and he found himself in the middle of enemies. All of them look at him like he’s a dead man, although he can’t even feel humiliated because of the suffocating killing intent that stops him from breathing.
He searches for the source of this killing intent but before he could find it, he saw something he couldn’t even believe even after his last breath.