Archmage Hill

People were astonished to discover that the first batch of Undead to arrive were all at the Archmage and Great Knight levels.

Though these Undead were somewhat unruly and made a mess of everything, the hundred thousand professionals led by Great Knights became a super tornado that swept through the entire Northern Frontier.

Before Edward in the capital could even react, the war in the Northern Frontier had already been decided.

William directly raised the royal banner and declared that Edward had murdered his father and betrayed the kingdom, that the Church of Nobility and Sovereignty was the mastermind, and that the foolish Charles was an accomplice.

Many minor nobles who had originally intended to bet on Edward immediately behaved themselves.

There were simply too many Undead.

Falan told Hill that several Legendary Archmages and Legendary Knights of Salar were currently remaining neutral.

After all, there were indeed suspicious circumstances surrounding the old king's death. None of the Legendaries wanted to openly support someone suspected of patricide. And between the two gods, at least for now, the God of Space-Time placed very few demands on his followers.

After all, the nature of his followers had been laid bare over this period.

A considerable number of Undead showed signs of Chaotic Neutral Alignment and Chaotic Good, yet they had not lost their divine favor.

But he deeply detested evil. Many claimed to have seen Lawful Evil Alignment Undead suffer divine punishment, struck dead by lightning. When they reappeared much later, they had already become neutral.

Hill silently thought, The punishment for a Red Name seems pretty severe.

After occupying the entire Northern Frontier, William's army halted to rest and reorganize, showing no signs of taking the initiative to attack.

Onlookers all suspected that he was waiting for high-level reinforcements.

After all, besides Charles and Ramsden, several Sky Knights and Magi in the capital stood on the side of the Noble Church.

Moreover, the Noble Temple in Salar's capital had not only a Legendary cardinal in red, but also a Legendary Holy Knight stationed there.

Hill understood very well that the players had no high-level fighters at the moment. They could only seize this time to level up and grind quests.

Time was what mattered most to William. The longer Edward delayed, the more advantageous it was for him.

Yet what no one expected was that Edward's army had been organized for a month and still had not set out.

He claimed that he would personally lead the expedition and support Ramsden from the rear, yet he simply would not depart.

Adrian suspiciously theorized that Edward wanted to wait for the high-level members of the Space-Time Temple to arrive. Once they and the Legendaries of the Noble Temple were mutually crippled, he, the king, would be able to sit secure on his throne.

Falan also felt that this idea made sense.

Hill, however, felt that preparing to discard the millstone donkey before the battle had even begun was a little too early!

The higher-ups of the Noble Church were nearly driven mad with rage. Under their frantic urging, Edward finally made his demand: he wanted them to get Helen out, stop Charles, and preferably place Charles under house arrest.

The Noble Church had originally been unwilling to abandon a Sky Knight from their own camp, but Edward's actions had left them in despair.

Adrian told Hill almost excitedly that the Noble Church's higher-ups had probably wanted to simply kill Helen, but Edward firmly refused to give her up and had even threatened the church to protect her.

Only then did people realize that these two had somehow gotten together.

Ever since his eldest son Ramsden displayed talent as a Knight, Edward had not taken another mistress. The outside world had thought it was to appease his son. No one had expected it was because of his sister-in-law.

Edward's wife nearly went mad. She ordered Ramsden not to intervene in this matter. If the Noble Church wanted to control Charles, it could only step in itself.

When Hill first heard this news, he nearly laughed himself senseless.

Edward, who loved beauty over his kingdom, and Helen, the devastating beauty who could topple a nation—what a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately, he could only enjoy this amusement alone.

Adrian merely assumed that Hill was taking pleasure in Edward splitting with and turning against the only son he could rely on at such a life-or-death moment.

He also felt that such a reason made all the elaborate conspiracies he had come up with seem rather foolish.

But no matter what, Edward and Charles had offended all the nobles of Salar.

Charles was a Sky Knight, yet after holding Helen captive for so long, he had still failed to get the truth from her. Both he and his subordinates, who had offered him no help whatsoever, had been toyed with by a woman. With such an outcome, it was impossible for anyone to continue supporting Charles.

As for Edward, the nobles actually did not care that he had obtained the throne through schemes and tricks. After all, power struggles between nobles were inherently mixed with bloodshed. People would only mock Charles for his incompetence.

But no matter how sinister the schemes or ugly the struggle, they had to remain hidden in the shadows. All the public could see was a dignified and honorable façade.

Although the arrogant and hot-tempered Charles seemed incompetent, he had at least held to a noble's bottom line. Every so often, he even allowed the women to appear in public, telling people that he would not harm women.

Edward, however, tore away even that last shred of decency in front of the church. He had thoroughly trampled all of Salar's dignity into the mud.

The church would not keep Salar's king's secrets. Salar was about to provide the whole world with a joke.

Salar's king could be cunning, despicable, and shameless, but he could not become universally acknowledged as stupid. If people thought only of this joke whenever Salar was mentioned in the future, how could Salar's nobles go on living?

Falan believed that if the Noble Church were not blocking the way now, all of Salar would be eagerly welcoming William's arrival.

The longer things dragged on, the fewer nobles would be willing to join the war. The Noble Church saw this very clearly, so it ultimately abandoned Charles.

In the end, the Noble Church dispatched three archbishops and imprisoned Charles.

After settling Helen, Edward finally set out with his sluggish army. By then, another half month had passed.

Hill felt that after sweeping through the entire Northern Frontier with their quests, most of the later hundred thousand players should have advanced to the Great Knight level.

Among the first batch of players, those especially capable of grinding quests should have advanced to the Sky Knight level by now.

Gaining one rank in two months was already extremely difficult for a game.

Unless the Noble Church deployed Legendary Holy Knights and cardinals in red, it no longer had any hope of winning this war.

And William, who ultimately won the war, would become a legend of this continent. The name of the God of Space-Time would certainly be praised by even more people.

His divine power would surely experience a tremendous surge.

The Noble Church would definitely deploy Legendaries, but after so much time, Hill believed William should have become Legendary as well. After all, he had heard that William still spent an hour every day meeting with the Undead. Without enough benefits, how could he have kept it up?

And it was obvious how much fame a war involving over a hundred thousand people would bring this game in that other world. Hill was certain that if it were him, he would also spend time trying it out.

Hill eagerly anticipated how many players would come when William arrived in the capital for his coronation ceremony.

And now, the only thing Hill could do was enter seclusion and advance to Archmage.

As for Falan and Adrian, they could continue watching the battlefield! The players would surely bring them an extraordinary experience.

Falan probably would not encounter anything this thrilling in his more than sixty years of life.

When nobles' intrigues met players who had completely let themselves loose, there would surely be many wonderful stories.

Hill slowly opened his eyes. He felt earth, wood, and water elements wildly pouring into his body.

After a month, he had finally become an Archmage.

He could feel his body's attraction to the elements. It was as though he were in deep meditation every moment.

When Adrian had first become an Archmage, he definitely had not possessed such powerful attraction.

For a Mage, this was truly a rare talent. But for a Sorcerer, if one could not fully understand and memorize every piece of flesh and blood in one's body before hastily transforming into an Elemental Body, only failure awaited in the future.

Even if one could swiftly reach the Magus level, one would either remain a Magus forever, or rapidly advance all the way to Legendary, then completely lose oneself and become a creature of one's own bloodline.

So from this moment on, Hill had to suppress himself at every moment, measure his flesh-and-blood body inch by inch, and strive not to become an Earth Bear unable to restrain its instincts.

The moment Hill became an Archmage, he sensed the uncontainable excitement of the Elemental Sprites that had formed pacts with him. The Earth Elemental chieftain even advanced a rank instantly.

If not for the players' arrival, Hill, who specialized in summoning, could practically have swept across the entire Western Frontier.

Unfortunately, because Devils existed, every high-level Mage and Priest was adept at using Banishment Spells.

It was just that Archmages did not possess sufficient soul strength, so they could only cast Banishment Spells one at a time. Few Archmages could handle a mass summoner like Hill.

But Magi could directly connect to the Elemental World. No matter how many were summoned, they could send them all back together.

But at least while Hill remained in his Mage Tower, he no longer needed to fear even Legendaries. If he could only rely on Falan's protection before, now Hill could finally hold his head high and say that he could protect himself.

Hill summoned Liszt and asked what new information had emerged during this period.

Sure enough, just as Hill had expected, Edward had barely finished delivering a high-sounding declaration of punitive war before dozens of Sky Knights and Archmages suddenly appeared and overwhelmed him. William did not even show his face.

The several archbishops sent by the Noble Church were all sitting in luxurious tents erected at the rear, holding down the fort.

Yet the Church of the God of Space-Time had actually sent dozens of archbishop-level Priests to lead an enormous group of bishops and Priests.

This Priest legion, composed of over ten thousand bishops standing behind the army and casting healing spells, caused Edward's army to collapse from the very beginning.

They suffered almost no casualties. After the Undead charged them a few times, the hundred-thousand-strong army was completely scattered.