927: Chapter 927 – Developing War

Chapter 927 – Developing War

When Shang came out of his Isolation Barrier, the Empress of Death had already cracked her contract for a couple of years.

And sure enough, things had become troublesome.

Since all the contracts had now been broken, the three enemy Empires had banded together and entered a true alliance.

Mages transferred from one Empire to the other just so they could attack from that Empire's border, and all the individual members could just collectively travel across all the Empires without getting attacked.

When Shang had heard about the frontline, he realized that things had become quite troublesome.

The Lightning Manor had transformed their southeastern Zone into one for Mage Lords. They were very sure that the three Empires would collectively attack from that point.

Usually, choosing Ancestral Mages to defend that Zone would be best since the Ancestral Mages from the enemy Empires had been weakened significantly by Shang.

However, they still chose Mage Lords due to one simple reason.

Shang.

Shang was now in the Seventh Realm, and if they wanted a chance to fight the enemy, they needed Shang's help.

Even more, the Lightning Manor had already started preparing for this plan 500 years ago.

Most of the Mid Mage Lords were told to reach the Late Mage Lord Realm.

Many Early Mage Lords were told to fall down into the Initial Mage Lord Realm.

And Initial Mage Lords were told not to break through for a while.

Because of that, there were only less than 200 Early and Mid Mage Lords in the Lightning Manor.

However, there were over a thousand Initial Mage Lords.

Shang would be powerful enough to kill anyone at the Early and Mid Mage Lord Realm, which was why the Lightning Manor didn't need many forces for that Realm.

When Shang came back, the enemy was rapidly advancing with Mid Mage Lords. They expected that Shang wouldn't have broken through yet. 

But then, Shang arrived and made very quick work of several Mid Mage Lords.

Naturally, the enemy Mage Kings realized that they couldn't use Early nor Mid Mage Lords anymore in their attack and switched to the other three levels.

The Initial Mage Lord Realm seemed very troublesome for the enemy since the Lightning Manor had so many of them.

The Peak Mage Lord Realm was always risky, no matter what time. After all, all the Thunders were at that level, which meant that there were around 70 Peak Mage Lords with a fourfold Spirit Sense in the Lightning Manor.

The Thunders were the biggest and most significant force in the war.

Killing a Bolt was like killing a soldier, but killing a Thunder was like killing a commander.

The three Empires were not yet willing to sacrifice all their valuable Peak Mage Lords with fourfold Spirit Senses.

For now, they wanted to see if they could win with fewer casualties by slowly pressuring the Lightning Manor.

So, they mainly attacked with Late Mage Lords.

Due to the danger of accidentally finding a Late Mage Lord with a fourfold Spirit Sense, Shang couldn't actually attack those.

Shang could still kill these Mage Lords, but the enemy would know how powerful their Mage Lord had been, and if they saw Shang killing a Late Mage Lord with a fourfold Spirit Sense, they would realize that Shang had hidden his true power all this while.

And then, they would probably be willing to sacrifice anything just to kill him.

As long as Shang died, the Lightning Emperor would also die.2

After all, without Shang, there wouldn't be an opponent for King Sanctified Death, and as soon as King Sanctified Death became a Mage Emperor, he would kill the Lightning Emperor for killing his father.

Even more, since no rules had been broken and since the Lightning Emperor was generally someone that kept their promises, the Archivist wouldn't be freed.

The Mage Emperors actually didn't want to kill the Lightning Emperor. After all, the Lightning Emperor had been Lucius' second-in-command, and he was a friend to all of them.

However, when he threatened everyone with the Archivist, their goodwill vanished.

Sending a genuine death threat was one of the quickest ways to lose a friend.

The war very quickly entered a stalemate again as Shang conquered one territory after the other. 

No enemy dared to attack him.

The plan of the three Empires was to keep the Lightning Manor busy on all other fronts and then press forward with all their power from the southeastern front.

Like that, they would eventually consume the entire Empire.

But advancing proved to be very difficult.

Luckily, they still managed to kill many Mage Lords.

They weren't gaining a lot of territory, but they still managed to kill many Mage Lords.

As long as things kept developing this way, the Lightning Manor would run low on Mage Lords, and when that moment arrived, they could box Shang in again with four Defender Flags.

And this time, the Lightning Manor wouldn't be able to muster enough manpower to get Shang out.

So, even though the territories weren't switching a lot, the war was still rapidly progressing.

The objective had simply changed.

Even more, the three Empires were using their Defender Flags for Late Mage Lords without holding anything back.

The Judgment Palace and Land and Sky Empire even used their Peak Mage Lord Defender Flags, and to make absolutely sure that nothing would happen to them, they sent in their strongest Mage Lord.

Both Empires had one Peak Mage Lord with a fivefold Spirit Sense at different stages of development.

One of them had already comprehended four level five Concepts, and they would soon comprehend a level six Concept. At that point, they would join the grand tournament and become a Mage King.

The other one had already comprehended a level six Concept, and they could become a Mage King in the next tournament already.

However, that Mage Lord still had around 4,000 years of longevity left, which meant that they had enough time to skip a couple of tournaments.

One thing was clear.

These two Defender Flags were going nowhere.

The Lightning Manor didn't even attempt to destroy them.

The Lightning Manor also had a Peak Mage Lord with a fivefold Spirit Sense, but that one had only comprehended three level five Concepts so far.

So, while he might be able to win against the weaker of the two Mage Lords, the chances weren't great, and losing such a Mage Lord essentially meant losing a Mage King.

No one was willing to risk so much at this point.

pqdm.com