Weakness

The Tsunami Legion's garrison was not far from the imperial palace.

With Ceres's strength, there was naturally no way Locke and Bolton's conflict could escape his notice.

Now that Bolton had been killed by Locke, and Ceres had neither sent Locke a voice transmission nor appeared in person, it meant that he did not care about the matter.

To Ceres, the most important thing was gathering more Power of Faith for the Overgod and receiving the Overgod's reward.

Even the Temple of Light had been allowed to grow because Ceres had discovered that having an opposing force could generate more Power of Faith among the nation's people.

Of course, if the Temple of Light grew too powerful and caused the amount of Power of Faith Ceres collected to decrease, he would certainly act personally and wipe out the Temple of Light completely.

After learning Ceres's attitude toward the matter, Locke flew into the air as immense magical power erupted from his body.

Boom!

The pressure brought by Saint-level magical power was carefully contained by Locke within the Tsunami Legion's garrison.

The powerful pressure made the soldiers lower their heads unconsciously, not daring to look directly at Locke.

"Everyone, I am Locke, His Majesty Ceres's newly appointed commander of the Fifth Legion."

"Bolton, the former commander of the Fifth Legion, refused to accept His Majesty Ceres's arrangement and challenged me. He has now been killed by me."

"Is there anyone among you who still doubts my appointment as commander of the Fifth Legion?"

"If so, you may step forward as Bolton did. I will give you the opportunity to challenge me."

Only then did the Tsunami Legion's soldiers understand why Commander Bolton had fought this newly arrived Saint-level Expert today.

It turned out that someone else had taken his position, so he had wanted to win it back through force.

Such things were not uncommon in the Frost Snow Empire.

Especially in the military.

After all, apart from the majority of commoners, the Frost Snow Empire's legions also contained some children of noble families.

Compared to commoners, noble children possessed Battle Qi Manuals and inherited martial techniques.

These noble children began far ahead of commoners, and after entering the army, they held positions no lower than company commander.

The original company commander would then challenge the new one in full view of everyone, just as Commander Bolton had done.

If they won, the defeated noble children would naturally be too ashamed to remain in the unit.

If they lost, then their skills were inferior. Even the soldiers under their command would be unlikely to continue following them.

People died on the battlefield!

Given a choice, everyone preferred to fight behind the strong. That greatly increased their chances of survival.

Everyone had witnessed Bolton's battle with Locke firsthand.

Lord Locke's strength was indeed far above Lord Bolton's.

Moreover, after defeating Lord Bolton, Lord Locke had not dealt a heavy blow.

Instead, Lord Bolton had been unable to accept his defeat. After being defeated by Lord Locke, he had launched a sneak attack on him, and that was why Lord Locke had killed him.

There was one thing Bolton had not been wrong about.

The Tsunami Legion's soldiers had almost all been personally selected by him from several other legions. They were true men!

Not all of them, perhaps, but most Tsunami Legion soldiers admired fair fights.

Bolton's sneak attack after losing had already greatly disappointed the soldiers who witnessed it.

Under such circumstances, how could they step forward to oppose Locke becoming commander of the Tsunami Legion?

All of this had been within Locke's expectations.

Because if he had been one of the soldiers standing below, he too would have remained silent before possessing sufficient strength.

"It seems that everyone in the Fifth Legion is different from the former commander, Bolton. None of you have any objection to my appointment as commander of the Fifth Legion."

"In that case, prepare for the expedition!"

"In three days, you will march out with me!"

"Yes, Lord Locke!"

After returning to the commander's tent of the Tsunami Legion, Locke waved the guards away.

Sitting in the tiger-skin chair at the center of the tent, Locke closed his eyes in thought.

The injuries within his body slowly recovered under the effects of Water Therapy.

At the current rate of recovery, he would be fully healed in about three days.

For experts above the Saint level, laws were everything.

If your comprehension of the Profound Mysteries of Laws surpassed your enemy's, you could easily expel the laws they had driven into your body, allowing your injuries to heal quickly.

But if your Profound Mysteries of Laws were inferior to your enemy's and you could not expel the laws within your body, your body would continue to be damaged by those laws. You would have no choice but to spend more time and strength recovering from your injuries.

The Saint level was still manageable. The Profound Mysteries of Laws everyone mastered came from heaven and earth, and with enough battle qi or magical power, the laws within the body could gradually be worn away.

But upon reaching the god level, everyone's power of laws had grown to a certain extent. The power of laws inflicted into an enemy's body could remain there for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.

As a result, if a God-level Expert was injured and lacked the strength to dispel the power of laws within their body, they would continue to suffer its destruction.

Thus, some severely injured God-level Experts needed hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to recover.

There were even those whose injuries failed to improve after tens of thousands of years, only for them to die from their severe wounds.

"I was careless..."

Thinking back on his battle with Bolton, Locke still felt a lingering fear even now.

If he had not trained as a warrior alongside his main path over the years and raised his warrior level to level nine, Bolton's sneak attack might have killed him.

"I'm a Saint Domain mage. It will probably take another five years for my warrior level to break through to the Saint Domain."

"The Profound Mystery of Illusionary Fog that I've comprehended is not among the most outstanding Water Law Profound Mysteries in either attack or defense."

"If I want to improve my ability to survive, I still have to start with illusions."

"Hmm, Phantom Clone is quite good for evasion."

"However, I'm not a warrior who specializes in close combat. It's fine if my Mental Strength can react in time, but if the enemy's attack speed exceeds the reaction range of my Mental Strength perception, then there's nothing I can do."

"So, in the time ahead, aside from continuing to cultivate battle qi and raising my warrior level to the Saint Domain as quickly as possible, I also need to find a way to improve Phantom Clone."

"For now, the direction of improvement will be to have it activate automatically the moment it senses an attack, like those passive skills in games from my previous life..."

"Furthermore, according to the intelligence I received from His Majesty Ceres, this time, when I lead the Tsunami Legion to campaign against the Temple of Light, our opponents will be the two Saint Domain experts who killed the commander of the Fifth Legion more than twenty years ago..."