Clash
"Welcome, my lords." As soon as they stepped out of the hall, they saw a pretty woman standing there waiting for them.
"Take us to the barracks." Now that Rog and the others had arrived, they naturally had to greet the people in charge of their side first. They could also obtain some detailed intelligence.
"Please follow me, my lords." Led by the pretty attendant, they soon came upon a large military camp. As soon as they arrived, soldiers came over to ask their identities.
When the soldier learned that Rog was a Prefect of the Infernal Realm, he went inside to report. Before long, an old man in green armor emerged, with two long green eyebrows.
"Oh? You must be Rog, the new Lord of Tianhua Prefecture. If I didn't still have a clone in the Infernal Realm, I really wouldn't have known you challenged Makkenzie." The old man appeared to be one of the people in charge of their side's camp.
"My name is Remy Gaius. I am Sovereign Qifeng's Emissary," the old man quickly introduced himself.
The expedition had been launched because Sovereign Qifeng had come into conflict with another Sovereign of the Lightning Element. Thus, the people in charge of both camps were the Emissaries of those two Sovereigns. The more Commanders from other planes who joined their side, the better their chances of victory.
If they won, Sovereign Qifeng would surely be pleased and generous with rewards of Sovereign's Might. If they lost, they would surely have a headache on their hands. Though the Sovereign couldn't possibly kill them over a defeat, he certainly wouldn't treat them kindly either.
Being a Sovereign's Emissary had its benefits, but it certainly had its drawbacks too.
In expeditions like this one, which involved their own Sovereign, or in a Planar War when it was their Sovereign's side's turn, other Prefects and Commanders might be able to decide whether to participate according to their own preferences. They, however, had to obey the Sovereign's orders.
One could say that becoming a Sovereign's Emissary meant lowering one's proud head and becoming a Sovereign's servant. That was also why many powerful Commanders disdained becoming Sovereign's Emissaries.
"Mr. Remy, you should have heard at least something about the top Commanders who came in this time, shouldn't you?" After all, the expedition had been underway for quite some time, so they should have gathered intelligence on some of the powerful enemy Commanders.
"Haha, don't worry about that. None of the Commanders who came in this time are Paragon High-Gods. The strongest on our side is Lord Odris. As for the enemy..." Before long, Rog had learned a great deal from him.
Just as Rog had expected, nearly invincible Commanders like Hemus and Benfield had mostly stayed away this time. That was only natural. Since they couldn't exchange their gains for Sovereign Artifacts, they didn't care about that little bit of Sovereign's Might.
"Colin, Gu Rory, Haidisi, you can decide for yourselves. Will you stay here and cultivate slowly until the final battle, or go straight out and fight other experts?" Rog looked at the people behind him. Because of the expedition's unusual rules, the fighting between Seven-Star Fiends before the final battle was the bloodiest, while Commanders almost always stopped short of fighting in earnest.
"My lord, since we've come, there's no reason to back down now." Haidisi's gaze was firm, and the others beside her voiced their agreement.
"We feel the same." Although Colin and his companion no longer hoped to obtain Sovereign's Might, fighting experts from other Divine Planes was exactly what they were looking forward to.
"All right, then follow me." Rog said no more and led them into the Aoqi Plane's "mist zone."
Anyone with the strength of a Commander could travel through the Aoqi Plane in relative safety. In fact, the vast majority of Commanders stayed in the barracks. Even those who entered the mist zone usually wouldn't fight with all their might when they encountered another Commander-level figure.
The reason was simple: the rewards for fighting another Commander were too meager!
The rules of the Planar Battlefield were-
One hundred Soldier Badges could be exchanged for one drop of Sovereign's Might,
While 100,000 Soldier Medallions or ten Commander Medallions could be exchanged for a Sovereign Artifact. And Commander Medallions couldn't be exchanged for Sovereign's Might! But what were the rules of the expedition?
A Commander Medallion couldn't be exchanged for a Sovereign Artifact at all. It was worth only one drop of Sovereign's Might!
Killing a Commander earned just that one drop of Sovereign's Might. The danger was immense, and it was easy to end up losing out!
After all, a decisive battle between Commanders might itself require a drop of Sovereign's Might. After all that effort, the best outcome would be breaking even. What was the point?
For that reason, even when Commanders encountered one another during the expedition, their clashes were generally no more than sparring matches, and they wouldn't fight in earnest. The rewards were simply too meager. No matter how crazy a Commander was, they wouldn't fight someone to the death for a single drop of Sovereign's Might. But if they ran into an old enemy, that was another matter. Even without a worthwhile reward, they would fight to the death!
The Seven-Star Fiends under their command, however, often fought until only one person remained. The battles were brutal.
The Planar Battlefield was where Commanders truly fought one another to the death. In this expedition, only the final battle would be as brutal.
The Aoqi Plane's terrain was distributed in a peculiar way, with its northern and southern halves almost mirroring each other. Apart from the paths along three routes, which were free of mist, the vast majority of the plane lay within the mist zone.
In the mist zone, not only was vision obstructed, but the range of divine sense was also drastically reduced. Even a Highgod could probe only a few hundred meters or so.
"This peculiar binding force really is terrifying." Rog tested the strength of the spatial binding in the Aoqi Plane. Space here was far more stable than in the Infernal Realm; even if Seven-Star Fiends exerted all their strength, they would struggle to tear spatial rifts.
Rog chose a direction at random and headed into the mist zone ahead. They encountered few people along the way, and from the auras of their badges, they could tell that those they did meet were on their side. But every one of them was aloof, and even when they spotted Rog's group, they gave them a wide berth, seemingly unwilling to say much.
"It really is desolate." Rog looked around. Underfoot, there was mostly black sand, gravel, and clods of earth, with only the occasional patch of weeds. In the sky, the sun was blood-red, casting dim light and shadows.
Rog had originally thought the barracks had deliberately been placed in a desolate area, but now it seemed that everywhere was much the same.
He was beginning to understand why the Sovereigns had chosen this plane as a battlefield. A harsh environment meant fewer naturally occurring life forms. If so many experts fought all out on a Material Plane, how could those fragile lives withstand it?
After traveling for about three days, they finally encountered their first enemy squad. It consisted of seven people, led by a young man with a single cyan horn.
A squad that dared enter the mist zone was almost certain to be led by a Commander. There ought to be a Commander-level figure among them!
"They're all enemies." After confirming the other side's identity through their badges, the two groups immediately rushed toward each other and met.
The young man with the cyan horn was probably the Commander of the enemy squad, though Rog hadn't seen him mentioned in the intelligence. The one-horned man walked over with a smile.
"Everyone, which of you is the Commander-level expert?" the young man asked pleasantly, smiling. "I am Bainite, from the Divine Wind Plane."
Rog looked at him and replied, "I'm Rog, a Prefect of the Infernal Realm."
Bainite smiled faintly. "Rog, since we've met, are you willing to fight us?"
"Yes." Rog looked at Bainite and readily agreed. The so-called fight meant that equal numbers of Seven-Star Fiends under each side's command would battle, while Prefects and their counterparts would spar only after the Seven-Star Fiends had finished fighting.
"Good," Bainite said with a smile. "Neither of us will intervene. We'll each send out six people. They all need the other side's badges, so let them decide life and death among themselves."
Rog nodded, then looked at the people behind him. "Whoever wants to fight first, step forward." Rog currently had eight people under him, two more than the other side, so two of them couldn't take part this time.
"Let us go first," Haidisi said. There happened to be six people from her family, just enough to face the enemy's six.
"We have no objection." Seeing this, Colin and his companion stepped back a few paces. There was plenty of time, and there was no need to rush into a fight.
"A group battle or individual fights?" one of the enemy Seven-Star Fiends asked.
"A group battle!" Haidisi answered.
"Good."
The twelve Seven-Star Fiend-level experts on the two sides then began a spectacular battle.
Rog and Bainite merely watched the fight. Bainite didn't care at all whether his subordinates lived or died, while Rog paid a little extra attention to Haidisi, nothing more.
Although the Commanders on both sides generally had an unspoken understanding not to interfere in fights between their Seven-Star Fiends, the other side would probably make an exception in special circumstances.
"Wind-Sand World!" Three of Bainite's people cultivated the Laws of Wind, and two of them had fused the profound mystery of Wind Space, allowing them to use techniques that trapped their enemies.
"Deep Sea Space!" On Rog's side, Haidisi unexpectedly had a powerful domain technique of her own. Her ability to control the battlefield matched that of both opponents combined, showing that her own strength was indeed considerable.
"Raging Lightning!"
"Wrath of the Earth!"
All twelve were Seven-Star Fiend experts, and each had different methods. Haidisi's side in particular clearly worked together more closely. One Seven-Star Fiend skilled in the Laws of Lightning had considerable physical attack power, while a cultivator of the Laws of the Earth on Bainite's side also had formidable offensive power, injuring three enemies in succession...