Meanwhile, Yugong Sacred Sound and Saint Cole left the Central Continent, skimming cloud ridges and landing on the windswept Northern Abyss Continent.
After taking the measure of the Basiloth Empire like hunters reading tracks in fresh snow, they picked a quiet hollow to lay out their next moves.
“The Basiloth Empire’s overall strength is a shade higher than we expected,” Holy Voice said, brow dark as a storm bank.
“Fights at the Law Realm spread like wildfires; keeping civilians untouched is a dream of glass.”
“If we corner them, a desperate beast could trample the fields; we have to ring the people safe before any thunder falls.”
For this campaign, Holy Voice sketched a clean outline, ink-strokes neat on a war map.
She could have summoned elites of the four races and swept Basiloth like a typhoon, if civilian safety weren’t the levee holding the flood.
But the Mizumi Clan can’t afford a bloodstain on silk; better to steep the plan like slow tea and think it through.
“You’re right, Holy Voice. Without civilians to guard, this would cut like a blade through bamboo.”
Saint Cole nodded, mind weighing two to three hundred million lives like a moon-drawn tide in a vast bay.
A war between those of the Law Realm can erase an empire in minutes, like a sandcastle under the rising tide.
If they mishandled this, two or three hundred million wronged souls would climb like black fog over the fields.
That would blot the Mizumi Clan’s name like soot on snow, and bury Holy Voice in a lifetime of stone-heavy guilt.
Neither Holy Voice nor Saint Cole wished a clan war to reap that many lives like autumn scythes in dry wheat.
“Just the two of us won’t settle this,” Holy Voice sighed, the note cool as drizzle on pine.
“Call the Elven Queen and the God King; their roots will steady the earth like old trees.”
“As for the demon realm, with the Former Demon King in Basiloth, let’s not kick that hornets’ nest.”
With the course set, she reached to send word, like loosing a paper crane into mist.
To handle Basiloth, help from three great races would weigh enough on the scales like stones in a river.
“Mm, that’s right… Holy Voice, watch out!”
Saint Cole’s face shifted like thunderclouds rolling, and he cast a guarding ward with the power of law, a dome like clear glass.
Boom!
A brutal force slammed down like a falling mountain, and the ward crazed with fractures, a mirror shattered into a spiderweb of light.
Shock bit cold as ice under the ribs; she hadn’t sensed it at all.
If Saint Cole hadn’t moved in that heartbeat, danger would have swallowed like a pit’s edge.
Her gut tightened like a drumskin in heat; the foe outstripped her by a clear margin.
They struck with the clean decisiveness of a butcher’s blade, leaving no room; the bridge with the Mizumi Clan was burned.
No—ink dried when they injured Yumigawa Sumeragi and the others last time; there’s been nothing to negotiate since.
“Holy Voice, this is bad. We’re surrounded.”
He scanned the horizon like a hawk on a cliff and felt his strength tamped down, a weight on the wings; they’d stepped into an ambush.
“Looks like I got careless,” she said, a wry breeze through grass.
“It’s not your carelessness, it’s your Mizumi Clan’s arrogance—eyes set above all enemies.”
As the words fell, figures stepped from the air like shadows leaving fog, two in the lead bearing Law Realm pressure like mountains moving.
The black-robed middle-aged one breathed thick magic like tar-fog, heavy and pressing on the lungs.
Behind them stood a hundred-strong, even the weakest at peak godhood, a forest of spears bristling in ranks.
“Looks like the Basiloth Empire sent their whole banquet of blades to greet us. I’m flattered,” Saint Cole said, voice dry as sun-bleached bone.
He swept out his mind-sense and found them ringed by giant magic arrays like iron chains in the earth—circles that clamp and limit strength.
Holy Voice felt irritation prick like tight boots on a long road; suppression never sits well on the skin.
Still, neither of them worried much; only Wilsar and Molor were true tigers on this field.
Anything below the Law Realm was straw in the furnace, no matter how tall the pile.
Even shackled, they had several ways to break the cage like keys hidden in sleeves; it would just be a little troublesome.
“Hmph. In a moment you’ll trade that pride for fear,” came the cold snort, sharp as sleet on stone.
Yet Wilsar and Molor themselves tasted grit between their teeth; seeing Holy Voice and Saint Cole in their snare brought no joy, only a dull ache.
The power gap was a canyon; these limiting arrays were a wicker cage for a tiger.
As a Dragon God, Saint Cole stood at the Zenith of the Law Realm, a peak where storms coil.
Holy Voice might be at the early Law Realm, but her sleeves clearly hid knives.
On their side, only Wilsar and Molor were real blades; the rest were reeds that bend more than they hold.
They couldn’t watch Holy Voice summon the Elven Queen and the God King and set the board; that would make them fish on a chopping block.
So they chose the hawk’s dive—strike first while Holy Voice and Saint Cole hadn’t settled their footing.
Yet Holy Voice and Saint Cole walked like dancers between spears, ease cutting through the net, and a bad chill crawled up Wilsar’s spine like ants.
Fortunately, Wilsar had cards up his sleeve, threads to a lifeline; not enough to flip the board, but enough to walk away alive.
Otherwise he’d have whisked his people off like smoke in wind.
His aim today was to weigh this world’s Zenith of the Law Realm against the Inner World’s apex, measuring edges by touch in the dark.
Winning or killing was a mirage over hot stone—unreal and far.
“Perfect. We were wracking our heads for civilian safety, and they delivered themselves like fish leaping into the net,” Holy Voice said, a cool smile like moonlight on water.
“Uncle Saint Cole, Molor is the Mizumi Clan’s prime target. Take Wilsar. I’ll handle Molor.”
As Wilsar’s side readied their charge, Holy Voice drew from the void a rustic staff, sap-scented and old as mossy bark.
Elements breathed around her like a living forest, the power of law weaving a mantle of wind, flame, water, and stone.
“Leave it to me,” Saint Cole answered, calm as deep seas.
He struck first; with the power of law he forged a colossal dragon claw, a storm talon that tore for Wilsar with a rending gale.
“Not good! Scatter to the array nodes and keep the formations alive!”
Steel rang as Wilsar drew his tachi, bracing like a pillar against the dragon’s strike, then barked orders over his shoulder like whips.
“Understood!”
They answered as one and vanished like birds flushed from reeds; the pressure tightened, and Holy Voice and Saint Cole felt the clamps bite a notch deeper.
“Molor, I know you hate the Mizumi Clan, but today we measure their depth,” Wilsar said, arm numb like a struck bell as he shook it out.
“If we can’t match them, we withdraw cleanly—life first, pride later.”
He lifted his tachi again, a silver arc meeting the second surge like a dam facing flood.
“…Fine.”
Molor’s reply was thick with unwilling fire, a fallen king touching his rusted crown.
Even with Wilsar’s help, his strength only held at the early Law Realm, a candle cupped against wind.
As for returning to his peak, hope was thin frost under a rising sun.
