Sovereign of the Ashes

With a muffled grunt, Sein, half of his body paralyzed, plummeted from mid-air toward the ground.

The force behind Sein’s recent attack was tremendous, but the Rank Two Garth’s counterattack was equally formidable.

The intensity of the dense electric light easily surpassed 2,000 points, swiftly destroying all of Sein’s magic shields in the blink of an eye.

If it was not for Sein’s extraordinary constitution and the protection provided by a layer of verdant flames, a strike of this magnitude could have reduced an ordinary Rank One mage to ashes.

Apart from Bloodline Warlocks, all mages were glass cannons.

Although Sein’s body tempering experiment had somewhat mitigated this issue, it did not grant him invincibility on a chaotic battlefield.

With half of his body paralyzed, Sein found himself in a predicament.

Although the Rank Two Garth was likely in no better condition, the battlefield remained unpredictable.

As a sensible mage, Sein should have avoided such a risky move.

Yet, he had a compelling reason for his actions.

At this moment, Sein had already achieved partial elementalization in one of his palms, setting the stage for groundbreaking experiments in his laboratory after the battle—a milestone that promised to elevate him to Rank Two.

It was no wonder knights were driven to push their limits on the battlefield, diving into life-and-death situations to achieve breakthroughs in their life levels.

These breakthroughs were undeniably efficient, albeit at a potentially high cost—their lives.

However, Sein was not yet ready to pay that price, thanks to the Viridescent Seed he always carried.

Yuri swooped in once more, shielding Sein from looming threats.

Alongside the Burning Flame Unit she piloted, three normal-sized mechas, all under her remote control, formed a protective circle around Sein.

Even Jeremy was rushing toward Sein.

From the corner of his eye, Sein watched Jeremy dispatch a Garth, blue blood splattering his cheek from the creature he had just vanquished.

Rumble!

A barrage of fierce energy beams from the Burning Flame Unit above targeted the green-skinned Garth that had been knocked to the ground by Sein.

Without its protective electric shield, the green-skinned Garth’s skin offered scant protection.

The relentless barrage of energy beams left it incapacitated for quite some time.

When it finally managed to rise from a crater of debris, the paralyzing effects on Sein had almost worn off.

Sein removed the cork of a vial of red magic potion and quickly poured its content into his mouth.

His gaze, icy and focused, locked onto the green-skinned Garth not far from him.

Unlike Sein, the green-skinned Garth had no access to healing potions.

The civilization in Thunderfall World was underdeveloped, even though its native creatures possessed innate electro elemental affinity.

All of them were mere passive evolutionary creatures, common and unremarkable within the Astral Realm.

“GAAAARTH!” A hoarse cry erupted from the green-skinned Rank Two Garth.

Both Sein and its skin were scorched—the Garth’s by verdant flame, and Sein’s by electrocution.

After a brief roar, the Garth regained some strength and lunged at Sein once more.

Electricity could be seen dancing across its skin, as the creature approached Sein with astonishing speed.

Facing this renewed assault from the Rank Two Garth, Sein sneered.

Hoot, hoot!

A series of hoots came from behind Sein.

Suddenly, a pair of powerful claws gripped Sein’s shoulders.

As the Rank Two Garth watched in anger, Sein was swiftly lifted off the ground and carried back into the sky, covering some distance in an instant.

It was Sev the owl who had rescued Sein from the battlefield.

Having already gathered the most important data, Sein was not foolish enough to continue fighting at close quarters.

As a mage, it was only fitting that he concluded the battle in the manner befitting his profession.

After consuming another potion to replenish his mana, Sein raised his Verdant Flame Heart Rod once more and began chanting in mid-air.

The quick incantation concluded in mere moments, and dozens of green eyes appeared in the sky above the battlefield.

The Verdant Flame Eye Mask on Sein’s face pulsed, causing a surge of elemental fluctuation around him.

Dozens more Verdant Flame Eyes materialized alongside the existing ones.

Over a hundred of these magical eyes now encircled the green-skinned Garth below.

After a brief, oppressive silence, beams of blinding green light rained down on the area.

The Verdant Flame Eye was the strongest and most extensive area-of-effect spell Sein wielded.

It could devastate a broad area or pinpoint a precise location.

Over decades of research, Sein had refined this spell repeatedly, making Verdant Flame Eye not only his signature but also his favorite masterpiece.

Each Verdant Flame Eye unleashed more than ten beams in every volley.

The vast plain before Sein was quickly transformed into a cratered landscape by his magic spell.

The beams struck not only the green-skinned Garth but also numerous native creatures of Thunderfall World.

Two unfortunate enslaved creatures from the Magus World were also caught in the onslaught, struck by the potent rays of the Verdant Flame Eye, and met a grim fate.

None of the knights participating in the battle could match the killing speed of a mage like Sein.

While most mages cast spells from the safety of the rear, Sein alone charged to the front lines. His attacks rained down like mortars on the enemy, resulting in a devastating toll.

Meanwhile, as the green-skinned Rank Two Garth was bombarded by hundreds, perhaps even thousands of the Verdant Flame Eye beams, Sein, having refocused, began chanting again.

This time, he was preparing to unleash the Radiant Heart spell.

At that moment, Yuri maneuvered her mecha above the area devastated by the Verdant Flame Eye spell.

A black cannon barrel emerged from the mecha’s chest, where a swirling and intensifying red-orange ball of energy beam was gathering.

Just as Sein’s Radiant Heart beam shot out from the tip of his Verdant Flame Heart Rod, Yuri’s mecha main cannon had already fired.

BOOM!

***

The melee involving over a hundred thousand creatures on the plains west of the Thunder Marsh lasted three days.

After the Thunderfall World creatures left behind more than seventy thousand corpses, the remnants of their army finally retreated southwest.

On the Magus World’s side, more than half of their enslaved creatures were dead.

The knight troops also suffered considerable injuries, though not critically so.

Swoosh!

A blaze of verdant flame shot from the tip of Sein’s magic rod, striking a Rank One Garth that was sneaking up behind a knight.

The creature, already heavily injured, collapsed under the force of Sein’s spell, unable to rise again.

After dealing with his adversary, the knight turned around. With a powerful swing of his massive dual black axes, he cleanly cleaved the sneaking Garth into two.

Perhaps due to the Garths’ small size, many knights struggled to control their strength on the battlefield, frequently resulting in Garth corpses being split in two, leaving only very few intact on the field.

After dispatching the creature, the axe-wielding knight flashed a smile toward Sein.

At that moment, the sun was setting in the west, casting long shadows over a landscape littered with corpses and filled with the pervasive smell of blood.

In the distance, as the last of the Garths retreated, Sein walked over to a twenty-meter-tall Thunder Beast lying in a corner of the battlefield, still breathing weakly.