Daevic
As the other commanders and Savan discussed strategy, Daevic Stormborn didn’t pay much attention, mostly because he was frustrated.
The War of the Chosen was supposed to have been challenging, the first real test in Daevic’s life. He was supposed to have been able to practice command as the general of an army, to face off against the most talented youngsters in the universe on battlefields where his own personal strength wouldn’t be enough to overpower everyone.
And he had so been looking forward to it.
Instead, however, he’d been forced into the position of commander in an army so full of religious zealots they’d easily overpowered everyone they’d faced with little effort, and that snake Savan was the general instead of him.
Winning wasn’t even fun. With the entire army full of zealots who’d sacrificed their potential just to maximize their power at E rank, everything was treated so seriously. For example, two rounds ago, Daevic had found himself up against Krysta La’Vordi, the only other demi-god besides his sister born in their generation, but he hadn’t been able to fight her.
Savan had forced him to team up with the other commanders to chase her down, hunting her like a beast, yet she’d managed to run from them for over four hours.
The woman had already had a Law Scarab while at E rank, which was insane. And, had Daevic managed to fight her alone, she might have been an actual challenge, able to, for the first time in his life, force him to fight with his full power against someone of the same generation.
One of two children of Thunderstrike Taravan, the A rank emperor of the third most powerful human empire in the universe, and Bellessia, goddess of marriage and motherhood, Daevic was a natural born talent, skilled enough that he’d managed to raise five Law Pupae to high grade—one each from the elements of wind, fire, water, life, and death—and one to peak grade, the Law of Thunderstrike. Like his sister, he had four Mythic grade uniquenesses, a strong soul Fabled grade race, and the Empyrean grade Primordial Titan bloodline. But, while they both practiced one of the six supreme cultivation techniques of the universe, Stormlord Rebirth, Daevic’s two Legendary grade classes were Thunderstrike Warrior and Thunderstrike Summoner, making him a full combatant, while his sister was a priest and a crafter, her classes Hellwater’s Favored and Thundercraft Smith.
His twin couldn’t fight him, and he hadn’t been able to even challenge Krysta La’Vordi, so his last chance to have a good fight at E rank would be against one of the three heathen leaders of planet Earth during this battle, one of whom had reportedly even somehow killed a B rank without higher rank help.
But it was pretty obvious this wouldn’t happen.
The whole reason all the zealots had sacrificed themselves was so they could participate in this upcoming battle, the people of Earth having betrayed the Prime Material Universe for power, so there was no chance he’d get to fight one of their leaders one on one.
“Daevic, please pay attention. This is important.” Amalia, Daevic’s twin, sent to him over a telepathic bond created by their law armors, and Daevic quickly started going over in his mind what had been said over the last twenty minutes or so since the army had arrived on their muster point for the stage, a large room floating in space with normal range artificial gravity.
He learned where the five portals on one side of the room led, how the five battlefields all appeared to be spatially linked, and the fact Savan and the others suspected the battlefields of this round were based on the principles behind another of the six supreme cultivation techniques, Cosmic Cycle of the Five Elements, a suspicion Daevic felt was almost certain.
The five elements of fire, earth, metal, water, and life, when connected by the element of space, could make a continuous—and more importantly lossless—cycle of energy, with each previous element empowering the next to the point all elements were greatly strengthened. And each of these five elements was nearly perfectly represented by the five battlefield environments of flaming hellscape, desert, city, glacier, and forest.
There were two important features of the five element cycle, however, which would almost certainly be involved in any stage of the War of the Chosen based on its principles. First, when the five elements were connected, energy of any of the elements could be converted to energy of the next element in the cycle—fire to earth, earth to metal, metal to water, water to life, and life to fire—and then that energy could be converted to the next element, and then the next. This was the source of the most common battle technique of those who trained in the Cosmic Cycle of the Five Elements, having mana of all five elements, but then converting all of it to whatever one element best suited any given skill. Second, was how the five elements didn’t only empower each other, but could be used to destroy other elements instead. Life could bring destruction to earth, fire destruction to metal, earth destruction to water, metal destruction to life, and water destruction to fire.
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Given the way the stage was set up and the knowledge from divine forces their army had access to, it was almost certain there were mechanisms on the battlefields of this stage to combine the power of the environments in two or three consecutive battlefields to cause utter destruction in a third or fourth, such as using the power of the city and glacier environments to empower the forest environment to somehow cause utter ruin to the desert.
This would be one of the keys to this stage, quite a bit cooler than any of the mechanics of the War of the Chosen’s last several rounds, but what really had Daevic excited was the other main mechanic of the stage, how they could only send one member of the army in at a time.
It seemed he might actually get to fight one of Earth’s three leaders after all.
“The main issue is how to know what is going on in each battlefield.” Savan, a tall handsome man with dark skin, long purple dreadlocks, and bright electric green eyes looked around at the commanders under him, his features as always contrasting unfavorably with the plain and rather easily forgettable appearances of close descendants of the Primordial Sovereign like Daevic and his sister. “The divine domain of hellwater has virtually no affinity with space and no sensing abilities which can travel between battlefields, while the divine domains of storm, smithing, revelry, and twilight flame are the same. Finally, while the divine domains of judgement and hunting provide the right types of sensing abilities, we only have a few paladins from those domains, no scouts, so they don’t have the right skills.
“What other options do we have?”
“The sensing skills provided by the matrimony domain should be able to pass through the portals.” One of the commanders, Teresa, a mage from the force directly under Daevic’s mother, spoke up. “It will take a lot of energy and the combined power of multiple priests, while only giving the number and gender of those in each environment, but it should work.”
“Good. Set up what you need now.” Savan gave his assent. “Then we’ll just have to send one scout into each of the battlefields and let our law armors do their work.”
The law armors made by Amalia and the priests of their second uncle, the Master of the Eternal Forge, allowed for telepathy anywhere within a galaxy cluster, so getting information once people were within the battlefields would not be difficult. The issue was going to be before then, and that would be the time Daevic might be able to fight one or two of the enemy powers on his own.
“So, the last main issue is how to deal with the enemy powers.” Savan looked over everyone again. “As we’ve discussed before, the biggest issue will be the Heavenly Spark Soul King. First, any battlefield he is in is an automatic loss. Due to some deals he’s made with foreign gods and his own extreme level of talent, he could probably kill all of us by himself if we didn’t have our law armors. Second, we can’t just ignore him. As a complete crafter, if there are ways of manipulating this stage, our reports indicate he’ll figure them out before Lady Amalia or any of our crafters, so, once we find which battlefield they send him to, we’ll have to take over the two battlefields adjacent to his in the cycle to keep him from causing destruction. Finally, third, no matter what we do, his presence will influence most of the other battlefields as well.
“Li Mila, Isaiah Kent, Irena Krol, and possibly others in their force all have the ability to share his qi, mana, and psyforce, which he regenerates at a ridiculous speed due to the effects of always being in his Territory. So, due to his presence, we must end all battles early. And, most troublesome of all, he has an extremely high grade sensory domain which should be large enough to cover all the battlefields at once. Thus, once he’s been deployed, the entire enemy force will know exactly what is going on throughout every battlefield for the rest of the stage.”
Savan took a second before continuing, probably only Daevic having a high enough Aura stat to tell the man was frustrated and not just pausing for effect. “While the average effective Luck stat of our force is significantly higher than theirs, the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s effective Luck stat is roughly four times our best, so he has a bit of a personal advantage. More important than that, however, is that he is the MVP of the entire War of the Chosen, so aspects of the final stage have been set to give him a heavy advantage.”
“What about the taking turns sending out one soldier at a time part of the round’s rules?” one of the other commanders, a prince of the second most powerful human empire, asked. “That doesn’t seem to give personal advantage to the Heavenly Spark Soul King, and it certainly doesn’t help our force given our higher average power.”
“The MVP of our force also gets some personal advantages.” Savan looked over at Daevic, but hid his emotions well, again probably only Daevic feeling his true level of frustration. “And it looks like Lord Daevic will now finally get his wish of a good one-on-one fight.”
* * *
A few minutes later, the priests of matrimony were ready and sensed a male from the other side enter into the hellfire battlefield, but, instead of sending out Daevic, Savan sent in one of the army’s more average paladins to identify who the male was, and the paladin died before thirty seconds were up, stabbed through by a spear covered in the energy of pure fiery destruction.