Sovereign of the Ashes

After spending a week in St. Pilantes City, familiarizing himself with its unique atmosphere, Sein continued westward.

The dominant species in Faeloria were humanoid creatures, much like in the Magus World.

At first glance, the Faelorian humans closely resembled those of the Magus World.

However, their body structure and fundamental essence differed significantly.

This was entirely natural—different planes and civilizations inevitably gave rise to distinct evolutionary paths.

It was impossible for two planes within the Astral Realm to produce identical beings.

For example, humans in the Magus World had four tail vertebrae arranged in an inverted triangular shape beneath the spine.

Faelorian humans, on the other hand, lacked this feature and instead possessed two trapezoidal hip bones.

Beyond skeletal differences, the two worlds’ inhabitants also varied in other aspects such as blood type, hair pigmentation, and cellular structures.

In Sein’s assessment, the evolutionary level of Faelorian creatures was overall inferior to that of the Magus World.

In a top-tier civilization like the Magus World, Rank One knights and mages could live for a thousand years, Rank Two for three thousand, and Rank Three for up to ten thousand years.

In contrast, in Faeloria, the theoretical lifespan of most Transcendent Beings was limited to just three hundred years.

Legendary Beings had a maximum lifespan of a thousand years, while Epic Beings could live up to three thousand years.

This stark disparity in lifespan indicated that Faeloria’s lower-tier combatants were nowhere near the level of those in the Magus World.

That said, Faeloria was not without long-lived species.

For instance, dragons in Faeloria far outlived humans, and other non-human races had widely varying lifespans—some exceeding that of humans, while others were shorter-lived.

After leaving the San Auster Empire, Sein entered territory largely controlled by the Justice League and the Wings of Nature.

As a neutral camp, the Wings of Nature maintained a complex relationship with both sides—some of its deities leaned toward the Dark Alliance, while others favored the Justice League.

Overall, however, the Justice League had more allies among neutral deities.

Unlike the Dark Alliance, which often resorted to extremes, the Justice League’s gods and major temples operated with restraint.

In the Justice League’s faith-governed territories, cases like Lou, the half-undead girl, and her elder brother were almost unheard of.

When it came to choosing a target, Sein had spent over a decade deliberating and analyzing their potential opponents before finally deciding to strike within the Wings of Nature’s territory.

The reasoning was simple: the deities aligned with the Wings of Nature were more numerous, diverse, and generally operated with a less rigid structure compared to other factions.

A massive canyon named Feymous soon came into view.

Feymous stretched across the border between the Dark Alliance and the Justice League’s territories.

However, the northern part of the canyon fell under the domain of the Wings of Nature.

Moreover, the canyon’s harsh terrain meant that only a few native creatures lived there. The primary inhabitants were a group of low-intelligence Gray-headed Apes.

These creatures worshiped a totem pole that represented the God of Brute Force.

While the “God of Brute Force” might sound formidable, this deity was an insignificant presence in Faeloria.

It lacked the status to establish a temple, and its followers were primarily limited to the Gray-headed Apes scattered across the canyon.

Rather than calling it the God of Brute Force, it would be more accurate to refer to it as the “God of the Gray-headed Apes”.

Aside from the God of Brute Force in Feymous Canyon, Sein had identified two other potential targets over the past decade.

These were lesser deities unqualified to erect temples on the continent and whose influence was confined to a specific region.

In Sein’s words, they were “weakened versions” of true deities.

Even so, the other two native gods were not as high on Sein’s priority list as the God of Brute Force.

The Feymous Canyon’s ideal location allowed Sein and the Spider Queen to make a swift exit after achieving their objective, minimizing the risk of immediate detection by other deities and religious forces.

Whether they chose to slip directly into Dark Alliance territory or linger within the Justice League’s domain, they would have ample cover to conceal their movements.

Sein followed the turbulent winds and headed directly north—straight into the heart of the Wings of Nature’s domain.

***

Months later, Sein arrived at the outskirts of Feymous Canyon, more than satisfied with his choice.

The actual terrain of the canyon was even more treacherous and bizarre than the intelligence he had gathered beforehand.

At its deepest points, the canyon plunged nearly two thousand meters—and this was just the outer section. If it was already this treacherous, the depths of this canyon were likely even more unpredictable.

For battles between lower-tier creatures, such perilous terrain meant strong defensive advantages but challenging offensives.

For clashes between Rank Four and above, such landscapes could sometimes become nothing more than a massive cage.

Moreover, the steep walls on either side of the canyon could largely suppress the energy fluctuations of high-level battles, making it an ideal place for a swift and decisive strike.

As long as the Spider Queen moved fast enough, she had a real chance of taking down the God of Brute Force before the other deities of this plane could react.

Ambushing a native Rank Four god in a foreign plane?

Even if it was only a weakened version, this was not a battle an ordinary person could even begin to imagine.

Excited yet wary, Sein asked the Spider Queen with a hint of concern, “You’re really ready with the divine spider silk, right? If things go south, you need to pull me back to the Magus World immediately.”

“Relax. Although you haven’t marked two hundred planar nodes yet, if we have a corpse of a native god, we can use it as a reference point to lock onto this world’s coordinates,” Lorthisra said.

“If things get bad, I’ll pull you out fast,” she assured.

In any world, Rank Four creatures were beings of immense power, their very existence deeply intertwined with the planar laws.

Because of this, they could be used as space-time coordinate markers.

However, this would not work with creatures below Rank Four, and not just any Rank Four creature could serve as a reference.

For instance, an Astral Realm wanderer—a deity who had been away from their homeplane for too long—would gradually lose the trace of origin energy in them, making them unreliable as a coordinate marker.

There were other restrictions as well, but the most significant was that only a handful of civilizations had ever mastered the technology to capture space-time coordinates.

Among them, only Magus World, as a top-tier civilization, had developed such an extraordinary technique.

Many foreign planes that had been invaded and conquered by the Magus Civilization in recent times had fallen precisely because their native Rank Four or above beings had inadvertently revealed fragments of their life essence or exposed traces of their law power—ultimately leading to their downfall.

Although Sein and Yuri were merely Rank Three, their combined strength was enough to stand toe-to-toe with a demigod.

Since their target was a weakened version of a foreign god, they definitely could assist in this battle.

Thus, both of them were included in the battle formation.

Sein was setting up a special spell array along the perimeter of Feymous Canyon as per the Spider Queen’s instructions.

He couldn’t help but ask, “Do you think the God of Brute Force will really take the bait?”

Lorthisra smirked. She was at least seventy percent certain.