Chapter 1425: Opening Battle

There were tens of thousands of soldiers at the front—werewolves, vampires, and even slave soldiers made up of humans and some other races. These slave fighters were strong, but they were neither armored nor did they hold any weapons. All of them seemed to be in despair in the face of this sinkhole.

As the bugle sounded, the Evernight army moved forward slowly, pushing the sacrifices forward with their sharp spears. The front lines pushed and squeezed, but in the end, they still couldn’t avoid the fate of falling down into the hole.

Every time a person fell down, the sparse flames at the bottom of the pit would burst into a pillar of flames to engulf the victims. Although the blaze was surging wildly, the embers at the bottom of the pit were weakening at a visible pace. By the time the last batch of sacrifices had fallen in, the black flames shot into the sky and died out entirely.

All the spectating Evernight experts heaved a sigh of relief, looking delighted. A marquis said, “Your Majesty Klaus, I’ll go and scout the path ahead!”

One of his peers said, “Marquis Turam, you’re a bit too weak. Leave the dangerous work to me!”

“I should be the one!”

“Me!”

The demonkin fought amongst one another to be the first to enter the new world’s gates. The inner world might be dangerous, but the first expert to enter would surely leave his family name in the annals of history. Hence, the experts weren’t willing to give way.

Amidst the endless quarrel, the Eternal Flame said, “Lord Leeroy, do you have anyone who wants to charge in first?”

The arachne grand duke was standing a bit farther away at first, maintaining a humble posture. He was a bit surprised to hear the Eternal Flame’s words. “Our race’s experts will be honored to!”

Since the Eternal Flame had said so, the other experts had no choice but to stop fighting and watch an arachne marquis jump into the pit.

He flew back out moments later. Ignoring the black flames on his body, he cried out, “The gate to the inner world! I crossed it!”

He paused for a moment. All eyes fell upon him, waiting eagerly for information about the other world. The marquis, however, became a bit hesitant and uncertain. “I saw the purest of darkness! That... might be the darkness origins!”

The darkness origins!

The crowd broke into a commotion.

The Eternal Flame’s pale fire also flickered briefly; he was apparently excited as well.

Unable to hold back any longer, the demonkin experts charged into the doorway to the inner world. The Eternal Flame calmly ordered the Evernight alliance to set up defenses around the sinkhole, then slowly moved inward to the gate.

It was at this time that a flash of silvery-white appeared in the distance and a disturbance broke out in the peripheral troops. The Eternal Flame moved swiftly in the direction of the silvery light.

In the blink of an eye, countless Imperial airsh.i.p.s appeared from the clouds and began charging toward the sinkhole.

The Eternal Flame shot into the sky with a snort.

He came to a sudden stop halfway through and slowly turned around. There, he saw the Pointer Monarch step out calmly into the air. “Klaus, where do you think you’re going?”

The Eternal Flame pointed a plume of fire toward the disorderly armies below. “We can fight, but only the Evernight races will be affected by our battle right now. Your troops will soon join the fray. Are you sure you want to go there?”

The Pointer Monarch said, “Where else? Did you want to just sit by and watch? Or do you want to do it in the new world?”

That was, of course, impossible. The Eternal Flame was in charge of overseeing the Blacksun Valley. How could he leave everything just for a human heavenly monarch? Even if this person was the Pointer Monarch.

The Eternal Flame’s fire flickered. “Very well, let’s fight here then!”

The Empire’s warsh.i.p.s charged straight into the battlefield and landed practically next to the Evernight formation. They poured down frantic gunfire to suppress the enemy attacks, all the while unleashing soldiers onto the ground.

The Imperial soldiers charged straight at the enemy army, killing their way in amidst the confusion. This threw the battlefield into utter chaos.

The Eternal Flame’s raging blaze ascended to the sky, almost like a pale sun as it unleashed rings of fire that swept out in all directions. The Pointer Monarch’s figure flickered unpredictably, appearing above, below, to the front, and to the rear.

The Pointer Monarch simply drifted about like an immortal, always passing through the flame rings at the right moment. He would only block the attack when there was absolutely no way to avoid it.

Upon contact with the Pointer Monarch, the flames there would brighten significantly, while the other areas would dim down. Apparently, this attack could focus all of its power on a small area. This did well to supplement the low attack power of area of effect attacks.

The Eternal Flame’s attack seemed endless, almost as though there was no bottom to his demonic energy, yet the Pointer Monarch’s fighting style remained the same. With a flip of his hand, the heavenly monarch produced a sinister-looking gatling gun. The weapon roared as a torrential stream of bullets poured toward the Eternal Flame. The blast caused the pale flame to flicker wildly like a candle in the wind.

“The Tempest!” The Eternal Flame wasn’t too surprised to find this magnum in the Pointer Monarch’s hands. “As expected, Qianye joined you humans.”

“He has always been a human, why would he need to join us?” the Pointer Monarch replied.

A voice erupted from the distance, “Return the Tempest!”

The Lightless Monarch Medanzo stepped into the battlefield, hoping to join the fight against the Pointer Monarch.

Before he could take a second step, however, the surrounding space rippled as a man walked out from nowhere. This person was in the prime of his life and clad in an Imperial marshal’s uniform. However, his aura wasn’t that outstanding at all; he felt more like an unknown divine champion than anything.

“Lightless Monarch, don’t be in a rush to leave. And also, the Tempest isn’t related to the vampire race, is it?”

Medanzo was startled as he recalled a certain person, but he also found it hard to believe. “Human Emperor? Why are you here?”

The Radiant Emperor replied calmly, “Why can’t I be here? There is no emperor on the battlefield, only a heavenly monarch.”

Medanzo snorted. “You just entered the heavenly monarch rank, yet you dare challenge me? Quite bold!”

The Radiant Emperor replied, “It’s precisely because I just broke through that you’re a good opponent for me.”

The implied meaning behind these words was that the Lightless Monarch would no longer be a match once the Radiant Emperor had consolidated his realm. Medanzo never expected this inconspicuous human emperor would have such a sharp tongue. He drew his sword with an ashen expression and slashed a beam of dark violet flames toward the Emperor.

A cold gleam appeared in the Radiant Emperor’s hands as Teia left its sheath. With a gentle swing, the Emperor scattered the sanguine flames and launched a counterattack at Medanzo.

The Lightless Monarch thought he could easily suppress the Radiant Emperor by relying on the techniques he had acc.u.mulated over the centuries. At most, the result would be a drawn-out battle that was common between experts of their level. Who would’ve thought this quiet emperor would be so skilled in swordsmanship? In the blink of an eye, he had forced Medanzo’s back against a corner until he could do nothing else but defend.

The fight between Medanzo and the Radiant Emperor looked even more intense than the other fight. In truth, though, the Eternal Flame and the Pointer Monarch had both drawn their Grand Magnums, so the stakes were much higher.

With four peak experts fighting up in the air, just the shockwaves alone were enough to turn an area thousands of meters around them into a death zone. Soldiers from either faction who were swept into the fire didn’t even have a corpse left.

These elites were all suicide soldiers!

Death and destruction rained down wherever the shockwaves from the battle passed by. The Evernight army’s casualties far surpassed the Empire’s. The Eternal Flame had already realized the enemy’s strategy.

Yet, it was too late to change locations at this point. The Pointer Monarch wasn’t easy to handle, and both parties were already using Grand Magnums. The slightest misstep would loosen the Eternal Flame’s grip on the battlefield, so he had no choice but to focus on contending with the opponent.

Even dukes were intimidated by the current situation and didn’t dare interfere in the fight. They all dived down into the sinkhole and fought their way into the inner world.

The Empire’s divine champions also followed suit. Apparently, a battlefield would begin once they were all inside.

The great dark monarchs and princes—who were debating whether they should help—changed their minds and turned toward the new world. The ordinary soldiers on the ground had suffered over fifty percent casualties, so there was no way to save them now. The gate to the inner world required more sacrifices to maintain, so they didn’t think too much of the death of a hundred thousand soldiers.

The situation in the air changed subtly over time as the Eternal Flame started to gain the upper hand.

The Sable Blessing was one level higher than the Tempest, to begin with. As a demonkin weapon, the Eternal Flame could not be more familiar with wielding it. The Pointer Monarch had whipped out the Tempest despite the drain because he needed to extend his attack range.

The greatest negative factor was still the environment. Firstly, the new world exerted a suppression on heavenly monarchs and great dark monarchs. Now that the gateway to the inner world had opened, the darkness origins on the other side seemed to have sensed the origin power of the heavenly monarchs. The purer one’s daybreak attribute, the more he would be affected, and it would take some time to acclimatize to this pressure.

Medanzo was still holding out despite being suppressed by the Radiant Emperor. The latter had to pay attention to the laws here since it was his first time fighting in this environment. As such, he wasn’t able to defeat the opponent immediately.

The two parties thus fell into a deadlock.

It wasn’t uncommon for a fight between heavenly monarchs and great dark monarchs to last several days. After the battle reached a stable point, both sides became fairly patient.

The Evernight faction still had several great dark monarchs in reserve, while the human side had yet to show their Prince Greensun.

Even though the Evernight faction held the advantage in high-ranking fighting power, a successful ambush from Zhang Boqian would badly injure or even kill any one of them. No one wanted to take this chance.

The Empire had quietly sent two heavenly monarchs into this battle, and there was at least one more waiting for an opportunity. Even the Emperor himself had joined the fight. This was a rather generous lineup, to say the least.

In this short span of time, the stormy winds and raging flames plunged the entire Blacksun Valley into an infernal state. Breaks and cuts appeared everywhere in the extremely hard soil of the region. The fight was truly terrifying.

Just as the fight was at its peak, the Radiant Emperor suddenly retracted his blade and pulled back. At the same time, several floating mirrors appeared in the air and engulfed the Lightless Monarch.