967 From Heaven To Hell
Haedon turned his focus to humans and began to select some precious resources and reinforcements he could send there with minimum risk.
In the current situation, even that minimum risk entailed hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Still, he had to make a choice.
Would he rather have millions, if not tens of millions of deaths on his side and finish off the humans or would he pick a way to kill humans without any deaths on his side?
For decades, he followed the latter. Now, after witnessing the death and destruction in Blood Province, Haedon was finally willing to stomach the more brutal option.
But before he could even finish his arrangement, a piece of news reached the capital.
The fairies were back again.
And this time, they came prepared.
Abyss Emperor glanced in the direction of Spirit Province and the world seemed to turn still.
The next moment, he appeared millions of miles away from the capital and at the border of the Spirit Province.
Standing in front of him in the sky was the despicable Fairy Emperor. Without another word, he began a flurry of attacks. The two moved far from the battlefield and fought at full power.
On the other hand, the abyssals in the fortress, especially, the psychics started their attack again.
The formations started sucking in the precious materials and lit up. A wave of psychic power from the formations enveloped the fairies and dragged them into illusions, just like before.
…But something strange happened.
Except for a few thousand, all the fairy soldiers remained unaffected.
“Wha—”
“Are the formations even working?”
“Do it again!”
The formations were turned off and activated once again. Some abyssals even volunteered to test the functioning and proved with their own state that the formations were indeed working.
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“Charge!”
Following the roaring command of the Fairy general, the millions of soldiers shot forward. The sky lit up as elemental attacks rained down. Space twisted and gravity fluctuated violently.
The world dimmed for a moment before everything exploded.
The fortress was hit hard and the first barrier of defense cracked apart. The Sovereign fairies continued to attack the barriers.
The Sovereign psychic abyssals that were supposed to keep them in check were ineffective.
The only resistance these Sovereigns faced were telekinetics. But without the cooperation of the psychics, they couldn’t stop the onslaught of fairies.
As a result, the famed fortress was quickly losing its barriers.
“What’s happening?!”
“We can’t pull them into illusions!”
“Stop them!”
The psychics were bleeding from their eyes, nose, and ears. They’re already trying their best and even overloading their bodies. Yet, their enemies were barely affected.
As if…they’re immune to their attacks.
Other paths’ abyssal Sovereigns quickly rushed to the fairies and slowed them down.
The abyssals used their full advantage as defenders and utilized all the faculties of the fortress.
Yet, many of these advantages were lost as psychics and illusion formations were rendered ineffective.
Whatever fight the abyssals put up only delayed the inevitable.
Exactly two days and nights later, the final barrier of the fortress broke and the fairies stormed in.
The psychics, terrible at close combat, were butchered like sheep. The telekinetics were tired from the continuous war for the past two days. But at least, they took down at least one fairy with them.
In just a few hours, the fortress was filled with corpses.
“You…you spend the blessing of a soulster, even if it’s only a strand like death strand, are you crazy?” Abyss Emperor stopped fighting as he looked at his enemy in disbelief.
“It’s the Zions. If I want to buy it, I have to spend a quarter of my empire and still, no one would sell it to me.” Fairy Emperor swallowed the blood rising to his mouth and said.
“…Crazy. Crazy. Death strand then. Blessing of a Soulster now. This is a painful cost even for Zions. Their development would stall for at least five years.”
“He doesn’t care.” Fairy Emperor shook his head with a wry smile. “For a one-time use item, he…never mind. Haedon, I respect you. What you’ve done for your race, I cannot even imagine doing for mine. But you can’t win this war. Just escape with your family and live in hiding. He didn’t just prepare this…”
Haedon was surprised by his enemy’s ‘respect’ but his attention was immediately drawn by the next statement.
“What do you mean ‘not just this?'” An ominous premonition rose in the Abyss Emperor’s mind and the pressure around him grew heavy enough to crush entire moons.
“Haa~” Fairy Emperor sighed and raised his sword.
Through the next month, Haedon understood exactly what the Fairy Emperor meant.
Spirit Province fell and was utterly destroyed.
Mist Province was invaded next. Like its predecessors, it too managed to hold off the fairies’ assault.
But once again, the fairies used a precious one-time resource and reversed the situation.
Mist Province was gone in a week. Sky Province followed in its footsteps in one more week. Dragon Province, Valor Province, and Honor Province fell in the next four weeks.
The biggest blow was Harmony Province—the province with the strongest fortifications.
The fairies used a small wisp of Rank 5 Celestial Space Awakener.
The formidable fortress was torn apart into scrapes of metal.
“You! Beast! This is against the Kingdom’s and Duchy’s law! You’ll all be confined for five hundred years! Worse, half of you will be slaughtered!” Abyss Emperor roared with red eyes.
Fairy Emperor was bleeding from head to toe. But he kept drinking a precious liquid that allowed him to keep Haedon occupied. Still, with Haedon growing crazy with the fall of each province, it had been getting harder.
“I know it’s illegal,” Fairy Emperor raised his arms and prepared another attack. “We all do!”
“Then why—”
“I have no choice. Even if half of my race gets slaughtered and we get confined for five hundred years, we’re promised protection from the Providence Trial by the Zions.”
“You fool! Once my race is dead, you’re useless to them!” Haedon roared his lungs out.
As the attacks of the two emperors collided, space cracked apart and a bright explosion filled the sky, pushing the two back for miles.
“I know. But there’s no other choice.” Fairy Emperor took another gulp of the precious liquid and yelled. “My race already lost many soldiers. We have no choice surviving the Providence Trial. Even if we withdraw now, we’ll be slaughtered to extinction after the trial. The only way we have out is to end you all!”
“….Dammit Zions!” Haedon’s roar shook the sky.
In a faraway distance, a figure unnoticed by either Emperor watched the fight with an amused expression. “Pathetic. You’re too weak to end abyssals and we had to burn our pockets to help you out. Even after all this, are you really expecting us to pay another price to secure you from the Providence Trial? Jai Empire would be better off without abyssals and fairies.”
The Zion envoy knew his race would also be punished for their involvement. But most of the blame would fall onto Fairies.
And it’s not 50% of race, but 99%.
For breaking rules and using borrowed items far beyond their power range, Fairies would be killed to near extinction. Only a few hundred million of them would survive.
And no, there’s no confinement. They’d be forced to participate in the Providence Trial. And naturally, they’d lose. And be slaughtered to extinction.
The law was there precisely to prevent cases of a higher civilization using a lower civilization as mercenaries to kill another lower civilization.
The Zions would also get heavy punishment. But the Emperor recently claimed that the Matriarch was ‘favored’ by a guest in the Prince’s Palace. So, the punishment would be reduced to a bearable level even though it’d still hurt.
“Mad Emperor…mad emperor.” The envoy muttered. This was totally unnecessary. They could kill the abyssals slowly in a few decades without breaking any law. But the Emperor didn’t listen.
It’s useless to cry about it now. The line has already been crossed. Now, he’d have to ensure the complete destruction of abyssals.
The Duchy’s law enforcement was ‘paid’ enough to delay the investigation for a few months. The fairies would’ve to finish everything in two months.
There were no surprises.
Facing Fairies that received Zions’ help that went beyond the lawful limit, the Abyssals were crushed.
In another month, fifteen more provinces fell.
Twenty-five of the fifty provinces were down by this point and the Fairy army was just one more province away from the capital.
If the capital falls, it’s all over.
Under such circumstances, the Abyss Emperor returned to the capital for one night for recuperation.
It’s one of the few precious nights he got.
Staring into the sky, he thought hard about a decision and finally sighed.
“So be it.”