City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Flying Fortress

Richard had no need for the energy absorbing trees, while the Everlasting Rampart could not block the abyssal man’s sword. Only the endless energy core actually had any use for him, capable of creating a floating stronghold that he could use in the future. Once he made his choice, all of the timeforce he had accumulated faded back into light and returned to the mighty current of time. This stumped him; the complete skeleton was worth a rank 1 blessing and he had an entire fifty top-tier offerings that should have been equivalent to four rank 2s. However, the will of the Eternal Dragon had already departed, leaving him forced to accept this reality. Still, the old dragon had always been fair, which simply meant that this endless energy core was well beyond a rank 1 blessing.

The core was currently in a silver metal case, and he could hardly believe that the cylinder that was only a metre wide and three across could actually move an entire continent. The ceremony hadn’t yet given him an answer to how he would deal with the man in Arbidis, but as he turned to leave two motes of timeforce apparated from the void and merged into his body.

Both contained information of the highest value— the first was that the sacrifice of a rank 1 offering and his existing wealth of divine grace had brought his authority in Faust up once more. In addition, his title finally reached the zenith of those worshipping the Eternal Dragon, the Lord of Time. The reward for this was a small fraction of the laws of time, bringing him a huge step forward in his analysis of the foundational laws of existence.

As he left the Church and teleported back to the Archeron island, he suddenly felt a large amount of energy converge in the void. A shiver ran down his spine as streams of timeforce converged from all around, the Rainbow of the Moons glowing brightly as their radiance covered the entire island. Things shook as it slowly separated from its original orbit, rising towards the skies.

The island floated higher and higher, quickly crossing even the second tier and settling right on top of Faust itself. This was the only island to be located even higher than the Church! The landmass itself continued to expand, and the shrine at the peak grew into a vast palace that was no smaller than the church building below.

Richard immediately blinked over. The shrine was the control centre for the island, and now that it was in the first layer he expected it to have some control of Faust itself. It certainly looked more magnificent at first glance, and the most striking difference was that the offering altar in the middle had transformed to look exactly the same as the one in the Church. At the back was a tall desk with an obelisk rising out of the centre, topped by a large, glowing crystal. Three smaller ones stood at each side, and there was a scroll floating atop each.

Richard first examined the small obelisk, finding the expected information that they were special zones. The number available had doubled, and with each one having grown to a thousand kilometres across they could all approach the size of a large kingdom. He then walked to the large one in the centre, heart throbbing as he touched the crystal on top.

“Activate Faust?” a pleasant yet mechanical voice rang out in his mind, leaving him breathless for a moment.

“Yes,” he said almost subconsciously, but the crystal flickered a few times before the voice rang out once more, “Insufficient energy. Please replenish, or add an energy core.”

Energy core? His thoughts moved to the endless energy core he had just obtained with a sacrifice, a strange feeling enveloping him. Had the old dragon known this would happen?

“How do I replenish the energy?” he asked, receiving a flood of information in return. He scanned through it all quickly, gasping as he verified that the core could indeed be used for Faust. He had been to many strange places at this point, exploring places considered taboo even for epic beings, but the truth that this information revealed was still something he could never have expected. Faust’s true form was not a city, but a flying fortress!

The City of Miracles had an unknown origin, having been on Norland long before humans explored the middle-north of it. Even the Eternal Dragon had no information on who built it or why it had appeared on this plane, but it had extracted the energy core long ago and marked it as a powerful blessing. The fortress had a number of powerful capabilities, but the one that enticed Richard the most was that it could suppress a plane’s laws! Even powerful planes like heaven or the abyss would have their laws eliminated, forced to conform to the foundational laws of the world itself.

This was the perfect tool to fight that man with! Richard knew that a good portion of that man’s power came from the plane itself, and if that could be suppressed this would be a battle on equal footing. At that point, he couldn’t make any more excuses for failure.

He immediately decided to activate Faust when the time came, steering the fortress towards the abyss. However, it alone could not guarantee success. The man on the throne seemed to be a child of Arbidis itself, and even without the plane’s power was still a frightening opponent. His strength, speed, and equipment were unparalleled, and a small advantage in terms of magic and tactical proficiency wouldn’t give Richard enough of an edge when his laws weren’t nearly on the same level.

He quickly summoned Nasia, passing an orb of light to her that contained a miniature image of Faust.

“Ooh, what’s this? It looks quite amazing!” she chuckled.

He smiled, “Rights to the island, and control over all of Faust.”

She whistled, “You could actually do that? Terrific! But… why do I feel like you’re giving this to me so you can shirk your responsibilities again?”

“Err…” Richard’s smile instantly froze, and despite opening his mouth repeatedly he couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. He eventually admitted, “I plan to go around for a while, making some preparations for the final battle.”

“Final battle? As if!” Nasia shrugged, grabbing the ball of light from his hand and merging it into her body.

“F… Nasia…” he looked at her and muttered.

“What? Any other annoyance to give me?”

“When will you show me your face?” he asked.

“My face? Sure! Come back alive from the alter world, and I’ll remove my mask for you,” she answered directly.

Richard hadn’t expected her to accept, but he nodded and allowed her to leave. Staring at the Rainbow of the Moons nearby, he began to inspect the state of his various territories and private planes.

The Archerons currently had a terrifying army, with over a million soldiers in Norland which included a thousand rune knights. A third of those thousand were grade 2 set knights, while a full fifty were grade 3! Already level 17, that last set could easily suppress most saints in battle.

Another million soldiers had been amassed across his various planes, of which 100,000 night elves in the Forest Plane were core elites. His will transcended the crystal walls of Norland to connect to the broodmother’s clone and the Golden World Tree, but before he could do so he was stunned by a number of changes to the plane.

Emerald City was no longer a military stronghold with limited scope, but instead a true city with almost a million residents. Most of those citizens were from Faelor, and dozens of small towns were scattered all around the city to support it in various ways. Surrounding the Golden World Tree and the broodmother’s clone were another belt of nearly a hundred towns, though these ones were more appropriately called villages instead. Living in these villages were the night elves!

Richard was surprised at the sight, humming with interest. While the night elves had been built upon the evernight elves that Tzu had led to the Forest Plane, they were still drones and behaved as such. However, these night elves had actual males and females, children and elderly. There were even several infants that had just been born, looking completely like a natural race and not a set of combat drones made by a broodmother.

Just what on earth had happened here? He decided to visit the Forest Plane himself, figuring out just how the night elves had proliferated as an actual species. Was this some sort of result of the evernight elves being enhanced? The question could only be answered by the broodmother’s clone, so he quickly arrived at Emerald City and blinked into the distance.