Sovereign of the Ashes

Chapter 1815: Preserving Image at a Real Cost

Jessica was in no hurry to establish her divine tower.

The war in the Arid Expanse Worlds had largely come to an end, and for the time being, Feylis had issued no new combat orders.

Only after properly handing over everything under her charge did Jessica finally approach Lorianne and ask to be relieved of her duties as dean of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring.

Lorianne had always thought highly of Jessica.

After all, she had been the first demigod-level mage to join the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring, and she had always been one of the most diligent among the deans.

Jessica’s resignation and departure had quite an impact on Lorianne. Even so, Lorianne was not the kind of mage who would stand in the way of someone else’s future.

After congratulating Jessica, she gave her a vial of Verdant Spring Potion, which she had personally brewed, as a parting gift.

“This potion should help you better stabilize your breakthrough,” Lorianne explained.

“I heard that you plan to go to Ashenreach and establish your divine tower there. If you ever need anything, you can seek help from Sein of the Divine Tower of Ashes, or come back to the Viridescent Land and find me,” she said to Jessica.

Although Jessica had already advanced to Rank Four and was now, in theory, on the same level as Lorianne, she still showed great respect and gratitude toward her.

She bowed slightly and replied, “Thank you, Tower Master, for your concern. If I ever do run into trouble, I won’t hesitate to trouble you or Master Sein.”

That answer brought a smile to Lorianne’s face.

Law-wielding powerhouses generally shared a much closer relationship with their former tower master than they did with other Magus Civilization powerhouses.

And because of that, cooperation between their divine towers would also be far more reliable than with unrelated divine towers.

At present, the biggest difference between Sein and Lorianne was that the Divine Tower of Ashes had yet to produce a single Rank Four mage of its own.

Sein was not in a hurry about that, but Lorianne kept nagging him to hurry up and find her a grand apprentice.

***

Although the war in the Arid Expanse Worlds had largely ended with Kazaskey’s fall, it still took nearly two hundred years before the entire star domain was finally free of conflict.

During that period, Sein was far from idle.

Aside from escorting Jessica back to Magus World so she could establish her divine tower, he spent most of his time carrying out the various missions assigned to him by Grandmaster Feylis, while also working with all sorts of Magus Alliance powerhouses.

It seemed Feylis truly intended to cultivate him.

Not only did these missions sharpen Sein’s abilities in every respect, but they also allowed him to expand his network within the Magus Civilization.

Through them, Sein also gained a much deeper understanding of how the Magus Alliance operated, as well as the intricate web of interests hidden beneath the surface.

For example, Sein had just learned that the Norvexian Legions led by Celloza were actually aligned with the Alveroth Empire.

Their actions in the Arid Expanse Worlds and the surrounding battlefields were, in truth, part of the Alveroth Empire’s postwar distribution of power and interests.

In the Magus Civilization, it was rare for anyone to act entirely alone.

Behind the conquest of any medium-sized star domain or larger, the influence of multiple factions was almost always intertwined.

Perhaps this was one of the ways balance was maintained.

Only those who understood how to share could go further in the Magus Civilization and Astral Realm.

***

After the war in the Arid Expanse Worlds came to an end, Feylis did not allow Sein much rest. Instead, she sent him to the battlefields of neighboring star domains to make contact with the Magus Civilization legions stationed there.

The medium-sized star domain battlefield closest to Sein and his group was a sector jointly overseen by the Jehannah Kingdom and the Alveroth Empire.

The strongest forces stationed there were likewise at the peak of Rank Six.

However, the situation on that front was somewhat more tense than in the sector where Sein and his group had been operating.

That was because the main enemy there was the Gallant Federation fleet, and rumors said that apocalyptical weapons and special federal fleets with combat power comparable to peak Rank Six beings were also active in the area.

When Sein previously visited that sector on Feylis’ behalf and made contact with the Magus Civilization’s powerhouses there, his main purpose had been to deliver logistical support and replenish their supply of enslaved creatures.

Beyond that, he had also subtly sounded them out on whether they might need support from the forces under Feylis’ command.

The supplies Sein brought, along with the fresh cannon fodder, were met with great enthusiasm and sincere gratitude by the Magus Civilization powerhouses in that sector.

But when it came to his more subtle suggestion of sending in Feylis’ main forces, the Magus Civilization powerhouse responsible for receiving him merely laughed it off and brushed the matter aside.

In recent years, Feylis had certainly made quite a name for herself across the surrounding star domains.

No wonder her old friend Fathis could barely stand to exchange a few words with her now.

Feylis had really gained far too much.

If she kept acting so “arrogantly”, she would have to pay the price sooner or later.

By sending Sein out as a kind of “gift-bearing envoy”, delivering lower-tier cannon fodder and ordinary war resources that she and her own forces no longer needed, Feylis was also trying to build better relations with neighboring war zones and other Magus Civilization powerhouses.

Judging from the results, her efforts seemed to have paid off.

***

Since the end of the Arid Expanse World War, the subsequent battles in which Sein was involved had calmed down considerably.

In reality, however, the struggle between the Magus Civilization and the Gallant Federation across the entire battlefield between top-tier civilizations had not eased at all. On the contrary, it had only grown fiercer and more dangerous!

The reason Sein had not felt the full pressure of the Clash of Civilizations was simply because the sector where he was stationed lay outside the true center of the conflict. It was nowhere near the eye of the storm.

In the 3471st year of the Clash of Civilizations between the Magus Civilization and the Gallant Federation, another alliance overlord fell.

He was killed in a coordinated assault carried out by an overlord-class federal fleet.

The reach of the central battlefield far exceeded that of the peripheral war zone where Sein had been fighting.

Hundreds of millions of combatants from both sides were annihilated together with the overlord in the tidal wave of energy particles unleashed by the battle.

The Magus Civilization still held the advantage in its war against the Gallant Federation.

To kill a single Magus Civilization overlord, the Gallant Federation must have paid an even greater price!

After that overlord’s death, the Magus Civilization publicly claimed that the Gallant Federation’s losses were three times greater than its own!

Whether that was really true could not be verified for the time being.

What was certain, however, was that the Gallant Federation had indeed paid a terrible price for that victory.

During that period, a large number of Erebus-class vessels were sent back to the federation’s rear for repairs.

At the same time, there were also several reports from the frontlines of multiple overlord-class mobile suits suffering severe damage and temporarily losing their combat effectiveness.

Because the Gallant Federation’s overlord-class combat forces operated not as lone entities but as entire formations, it was sometimes impossible to measure their losses with complete precision.

If two-thirds of an overlord-class fleet were destroyed, yet its formation designation still remained intact, should that be counted as battle damage or as casualties?

Once the federation’s overlord-class war fleets were damaged, they were not easily replaced.

Some vessels were simply too difficult to manufacture. In many cases, the only way to maintain a complete overlord-class force was to temporarily merge it with another overlord-class fleet.

However, to preserve its image and keep morale within the federation high, the Gallant Federation deliberately concealed the true scale of its fleet losses.

It even deliberately avoided merging severely damaged fleet formations, allowing them to retain their original independent designations.

This tactic did indeed greatly raise morale among the federation’s lower and middle ranks.

But while it preserved their image, it came at a real cost.