Chapter 670
Two goddesses lend their support, reaping the spoils of war!
Hector let out a roar of shock and rage, his withered hands flailing frantically as he tried to mobilize the remaining power of the Kingdom of All Laws to build a final defense.
But it was too late.
There was no earth-shattering momentum, no dazzling brilliance.
Only a simple, unadorned sword light, seemingly transcending time and space, ignored all the magical defenses in between, and struck directly on the surface of that dark blue eyeball.
"Snap!"
A soft yet chilling cracking sound rang out.
Hector's prized Arcane Eye instantly exploded with countless spiderweb-like cracks.
He was struck dumb, his body flying backward like a kite with a broken string, his breath instantly becoming extremely weak.
A legendary artifact is the core of a legendary powerhouse's strength, an extension of their soul and rules.
Damage to a physical object is equivalent to damage to one's foundation. In severe cases, it can lead to a decline in one's spiritual realm, leaving no hope of advancing any further in life. In milder cases, it can result in a significant loss of vitality, requiring years or even decades of recuperation.
"I...I give up!!!"
Hector no longer cared about saving face or fulfilling his mission.
He desperately tried to retract his damaged domain and pull the cracked arcane eye back into his body.
He was scared, he was really scared.
He had no doubt that if that terrifying, damaged artifact projection were to strike again, his Arcane Eye would be completely shattered.
At that point, he will lose not only his power, but also his life.
Almost at the same time Hector conceded defeat, the outcome of Sirona's battle was also decided.
"Roar--!!!"
A roar, more magnificent than any previous dragon's cry, resounded from the deepest part of the dragon kingdom.
The golden dragon's might domain shone with an extreme intensity.
At the center of the domain, space twisted violently, and the phantom of an unimaginably enormous dragon slowly emerged.
The dragon's entire body was covered in chaotic-colored scales, its head and horns were rugged, and its eyes seemed to hold the rising and falling of the sun, moon and stars.
It was merely a phantom, simply existing there, yet it caused the entire sub-dimensional space to groan in unbearable agony.
The Primordial Dragon!
Even if it is just a tiny projection of bloodline, or even just the manifestation of rules triggered by the dragon's crown, its status is high enough to crush the bloodline of all magical beasts.
"Waaaaah—!"
The enormous ancient siren phantom behind Sirona couldn't even utter a complete wail before the supreme ancestral dragon's might. It burst like a shattered bubble, turning into specks of pale blue light that dissipated into the air.
Sirona herself let out a painful groan, and the mysterious deep-sea aura around her completely dissipated. The trident in her hand clattered to the ground.
She knelt on one knee, her face ashen, her whole body trembling uncontrollably—an absolute suppression and fear on both the level of bloodline and soul.
Looking at the phantom of the progenitor dragon high above the Dragon Kingdom, and then at Cohen sitting in the shadows in the distance.
Finally, he slowly lowered his head:
"I... admit defeat."
His voice was hoarse and filled with bitterness.
Even the favored ones of the deep sea are stripped of their courage to fight before the supreme being who is the true source of their bloodline.
Nactus didn't want to give up, but he didn't even have a chance to speak.
Endless shadows had long since swallowed up his cemetery of the dead.
He himself lay stiffly on the earth, which was soaked in shadow, like a real corpse.
The realm where shadows descended was like the deepest swamp, stripping him of his sight, hearing, touch... stripping him of all connection with the outside world, and even slowly eroding his vitality and soul.
He tried to struggle, to summon his last bit of magic, but all his efforts were in vain, like stones sinking into the sea.
He was like a drowning person who had fallen into the coldest part of the ocean, too weak to even call for help.
A complete and utter defeat, a defeat without a doubt.
He didn't even have time to force out more of the opponent's methods before he was completely suppressed by this supreme shadow rule, losing all ability to resist.
Finally, there is the central arena, the battlefield between Bahurst and Cohen's true form.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang—!!!"
The sounds of flesh colliding, as dense as a storm, continued to resound wildly.
Two figures, resembling ferocious humanoid beasts, engaged in the most primitive, violent, and brutal close-quarters combat on the dark gold arena, which had long since been altered beyond recognition.
Baherst, covered in blood.
His dark gold tattoos and armor were now covered with cracks and dents.
Blood, mixed with sweat, flowed down his bulging muscles.
The fists, covered in iron-scaled gauntlets, had torn and bleeding knuckles, revealing even the bare white bone fragments.
He was panting heavily, like a wounded and trapped beast. The fighting spirit burning in his single eye did not diminish at all; on the contrary, it burned even more intensely due to the stimulation of pain and blood.
"Roar!!!"
He let out another beastly roar, ignoring the cracking sounds of his bones breaking, and gathered his last strength. His right leg, like a battering ram, swept fiercely towards Cohen's waist and abdomen with a whistling sound.
Cohen was not entirely unharmed either.
There were also many bruises and small wounds on the skin.
But his eyes remained calm as a deep pool. Faced with Baherst's desperate kick, he simply turned slightly to the side, his left hand forming a palm, and pressed down seemingly lightly.
"Crack!"
A clear sound of bone cracking rang out.
Baherst grunted, his sweeping leg abruptly halted, and he lost his balance.
"Thump—!!!"
With a deafening roar, Baherst's massive, towering body was sent flying backward as if he had been struck head-on by a charging dragon.
He crashed heavily onto the edge of the ring hundreds of meters away, smashing a deep, human-shaped crater into the hard, dark gold ground.
He struggled, trying to support himself with his arms. But as soon as he exerted force, he experienced a violent spasm and weakness.
He tried three times, but in the end, he fell back into the pit helplessly.
Bachster coughed up a few mouthfuls of blood, then grinned, revealing a smile stained with blood:
What exactly are you?
With each word he spoke, a heart-wrenching pain shot through his chest, but he still stared intently at Cohen, his eyes filled with a fervent thirst for knowledge and resentment. "What power... is inside your body?"
Why...why...even with so much...dragon hybrid blood...in my veins...can I still...not beat you?!
Cohen looked at him quietly, then bent down, leaned close to Baherst's ear, and whispered a short sentence.
Baherst's eyes widened suddenly, his pupils reflecting an incredulous shock, followed by a sense of relief and realization, and finally, a complex emotion.
He let out a long breath, his voice becoming much calmer:
“So…that’s how it is…” Baherst murmured softly. Then, he looked at Cohen, forced a smile that was both awkward and genuine:
"Now that you have won the battle, Mr. Gnus will surely honor the bet and no longer interfere in the matter of the succession to the Eastern Empire."
This battle with you taught me a lot, and I hope we'll have the chance to fight again in the future.
Cohen straightened up, glanced at him calmly, and nodded slightly.
Raising his head, his gaze seemed to pierce through the blood-red secondary plane, looking towards the primary plane, towards the avatars of the gods high in the sky, and towards the hundreds of thousands of spectators on the plain.
The crimson waning moon still hangs high in the sky.
The land was desolate and in ruins.
Hector slumped to the ground, clutching his head, his breath weak and feeble. The cracks in the Arcane Eye were a horrifying sight.
Sirona knelt on one knee, head bowed, long hair disheveled, having lost all will to fight.
Naxos lay motionless in the shadows, like a corpse.
Baherst fell into the deep pit; though defeated, a fire still shone in his eyes.
Four legendary figures, some severely injured, some surrendered, some were suppressed, and some collapsed from exhaustion.
Cohen Corleone, single-handedly, simultaneously unleashed three legendary domains, suppressing three peak legendary figures respectively, with his main body personally defeating the fourth.
The whole process was swift, efficient, and even carried a despairing calmness.
This massive battle, which captivated all forces across the continent and even drew the personal witness of several divine incarnations, was a legendary affair...
The curtain has officially fallen.
The winner is Cohen Corleone.
The outcome of the bet was already a foregone conclusion.
The entire duel, from beginning to end, lasted no more than half an hourglass.
Above Florence, the enormous projected image slowly faded away after the vast divine power of Ares, the god of war, was withdrawn.
The blood moon and the desolate landscape faded, revealing the azure sky and drifting white clouds once more.
But the primary plane remained deathly silent. Too fast.
It ended too quickly.
The hundreds of thousands of spectators probably imagined the battle might end quickly, even before it began, when Cohen made that astonishing bet.
After all, it was four legendary figures who had been famous for a long time and whose fame shook the continent, besieging a newly promoted "new" legend.
The stark disparity in strength seems to point to a swift and inevitable victory.
However, reality presented a completely different answer than anyone imagined.
It was indeed a swift victory.
But the victor was not any of the legendary figures they had envisioned, nor was it the seemingly larger and more powerful side.
Instead, it was Cohen Corleone who stepped into the blood-red arena alone, and was privately discussed and even secretly mocked for "overestimating himself."
Only half an hourglass.
With overwhelming force, he demonstrated to the entire continent, to all the spectators, and even to the high and mighty gods what absolute power and mind-blowing combat art truly meant.
One person, three legendary fields.
Four battlefields, complete suppression.
Hector's "Land of Laws," with its almost unsolvable rules of replication, is as fragile as a child's sandcastle in the face of the violent "Unlimited Blade Works."
Sirona's "Tidal Surge," the deep-sea power originating from the ancient sea monsters, was like a mouse seeing a cat before the dragon's might, which originated from the source of her bloodline. It didn't even have the courage to resist.
Nactus's "Cemetery of the Dead," with its chilling power of death and shadow, was instantly swallowed up by Cohen's more ultimate "Descent of Shadows," like a drop of water flowing into the ocean.
Finally, Palestine, known as "Ironscale" for its physical strength and brutal fighting style, was brought to the ground by Cohen's primal fists in the face of his equally terrifying physical power.
This...this is simply unbelievable!
Even a saint could never win so easily and effortlessly against these four legendary peaks who each had different methods and endless trump cards.
How could a legend, chosen by Roosevelt Harper, Drummond Quinn, and Gnus Tang—demigods at the pinnacle of human power—to represent them in such a high-stakes gamble, possibly have no trump cards or be an ordinary player?
Hector's Arcane Eye is said to be able to copy and reflect most legendary spells, and even briefly glimpse the threads of law.
Sirina's Siren Song and Deep Sea Summoning are enough to make even the strongest of the same level lose their composure and perish at the bottom of the sea.
Narctos came from the Black Tomb. Who knows how many terrifying undead and demons are sealed within his skeletal staff?
Who knows if he has prepared a forbidden evil spell that would lead to mutual destruction?
The Palestinians possess multiple dragon bloodlines flowing within them, and once they go completely berserk, the power they unleash is enough to tear mountains apart!
Yet these four powerful figures, who would be enough to intimidate any region, didn't even have a chance to use their trump cards in front of Cohen Corleone.
They couldn't even mount a decent resistance before being completely suppressed and swiftly defeated one by one.
This completely overturned their understanding of power.
On the high platform, Roosevelt Harper swayed slightly, needing to grip the armrests of his chair tightly to maintain his balance.
The smugness and scheming in his eyes had vanished without a trace, leaving only bottomless fear and regret.
It seemed that only now did he truly realize what kind of existence the Imperial Noble House, which had been passed down for ten thousand years, had provoked.
Gnus Tang, the demigod from the Eastern Region, whose face was usually calm and composed, was now filled with solemnity.
He glanced intently at the direction where the crimson sub-plane had disappeared, then at Roosevelt beside him, whose face was ashen. His lips were pressed into a tight line, and Drummond Quinn's face was equally horribly gloomy.
High in the sky, even the gods fell into a brief silence.
The towering figure of Ares, the god of war, which was always shrouded in crimson light, seemed to sway slightly.
After a long while, the results of the battle were slowly announced:
"This duel..."
His voice paused for a moment, as if even this god, whose divine duty was to fight, needed some time to process what he had just witnessed.
"...Cohen Corleone wins."
With this announcement, the entrance to the Crimson Sub-Dimension rippled once more.
Five figures stepped out of the ripples one after another.
Cohen's gaze swept calmly across the silent plain, and all the noise on the plain subsided eerily the moment his gaze fell upon it.
Hundreds of thousands of eyes were focused on him alone.
"Gentlemen."
He spoke, his gaze sweeping over Roosevelt, Gnus, and Drummond, finally lingering for a moment on the blurry black shadow of the grave:
"Start fulfilling your bets now."
As soon as he finished speaking, the plain was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The air seemed to freeze completely at that moment.
Cohen's words, which left no room for negotiation, were like a bucket of ice water poured on the hearts of the important figures on the high platform.
Show no mercy.
Having just stepped onto the blood-red arena, with the dust of battle still clinging to him, and without giving anyone time to catch their breath or react, he forcefully demanded the wager as the victor.
This swift and even somewhat cruel coercion jolted the onlookers from their shock, followed by an even deeper chill of fear.
An immense, mountain-like pressure weighed heavily on the shoulders of Roosevelt Harper, Gnus Don, and Drummond Quinn.
Roosevelt's face quickly changed from deathly pale to a sickly flush.
A wager...yes, a wager. A wager made in person, witnessed by the God of War, and watched by all the gods and hundreds of thousands of people.
But back then... how could he have imagined losing?
He thought it was just a formality, a performance where four legendary masters easily crushed a naive and arrogant newcomer.
The conditions he agreed to included: permanent mining rights to several large, incredibly productive magic crystal mines; absolute control over several large, inter-empire trading companies that controlled key trade routes and had tentacles extending across multiple empires; and complete rule over those alien races that the Central Empire's Noble Council had conquered and enslaved at great expense and sacrifice of countless elites, possessing special talents or bloodlines, and capable of providing a continuous supply of slave soldiers, special craftsmen, and even sacrificial materials…
Which of these is not the lifeblood of the Central Empire's House of Nobles?
Which of these is not the core asset and power foundation that he has managed to firmly grasp in his hands over thousands of years?
These elements together constitute the enviable vast treasure trove of the House of Nobles, their most important trump card and capital for rising to power and even plotting hegemony in the inevitable, more brutal struggle for supremacy among nations in the future!
Once it's all handed over... it would be nothing short of a disaster for the entire House of Lords, a disaster that could shake the House of Lords' position!
Drummond Quinn, standing next to him, had an equally somber expression.
The islands he promised contained rare magical metal veins, abundant elemental crystals, and even legendary ancient magical plants that had long since disappeared.
Each island is an important reserve and strategic foothold for the Southern Empire's development over the next few centuries.
If we were to hand over everything, it would be tantamount to giving away nearly a thousand years of maritime development achievements of the Southern Empire, the accumulation and hope that countless ancestors had gained with their blood and lives.
In comparison, Gnus Tang looked slightly better, but he was by no means relaxed.
His promise was that he would no longer interfere in the succession struggle within the Eastern Empire.
On the surface, this is just a promise of "not interfering," which doesn't seem as "painful" as a real cession of resources.
But Prince Xiazuo, standing beside him, trembling slightly, clearly demonstrated the weight of this promise with his desperate eyes.
The reason Xia Zuo was able to stand out in the brutal struggle for succession, and to gather the power of the first in line of succession, was because of this demigod superhuman who promised to protect their lineage and one of the guardians of the Eastern Empire—Genus Tang!
Without Gnus's support...
Xia Zuo dared not imagine how much loyalty would remain among the nobles, generals, and officials who had attached themselves to him.
Which side will those wavering fence-sitters lean towards?
His years of hard work, countless efforts, and even his life and fortune may all vanish with this promise from Gernus!
This seemingly "minor" promise was absolutely a fatal blow to Xia Zuo!
Almost simultaneously, Roosevelt, Drummond, and even Gnus (for the sake of the pale-faced Shazo behind him) all moved their lips slightly, their brains working frantically, trying to find any possible excuse, even if it was just to delay for a while.
however.
Before they could even gather their thoughts, high above, the figure shrouded in endless light and warmth, like a sun on earth—the God of Light, Aetheril—slowly spoke:
"One hour."
Aetherel's voice carried clearly to every corner, without the slightest emotional fluctuation, only an unquestionable, divine authority.
"Pay the bet immediately, or I will personally descend upon your capital."
He personally descended upon the capital!
These few simple words almost froze the blood of Roosevelt and his two companions, as well as all the people from the factions behind them.
Even a wisp of the God of Light's wrath is enough to wipe a prosperous imperial capital off the map!
Even a demigod is nothing more than a slightly larger ant in the face of a true god's wrath!
Almost at the same time that the mythical voice of the God of Light fell, Daphne, the Ice Goddess on the other side, also slowly raised her eyes.
No superfluous words were uttered, only cold syllables escaped from her perfect lips:
"Deliver immediately."
The two deities, one of light and the other of ice, were surprisingly consistent and unusually ruthless in their insistence on fulfilling the bet!
This is not a discussion, nor is it advice.
This is an ultimatum, a sword of divine punishment hanging over their heads that could fall at any moment!
Light and Frost, the two elemental gods' cold ultimatum, shattered their last shred of hope and illusion of procrastination.
The will of the gods, especially one expressed in such a public and explicit manner, cannot be disobeyed or even hesitated upon.
The deathly silence lasted only a short time.
Roosevelt Harper trembled as he fumbled in his pocket for a mithril seal engraved with the coat of arms of the Central Empire’s House of Nobility, along with a thick stack of contract scrolls.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath as if gathering his last bit of courage, then suddenly opened them, raised the seal, and infused it with the demigod magic power within him and a trace of the aura representing the authority of the guardian of the Noble Academy. The seal emitted a faint but steady light.
He then faced the void and began to read aloud and confirm the stakes one by one—the coordinates of the magic crystal vein and the mining permission runes, the equity contract code of the trading company, the list of soul contracts and control keys of the enslaved alien races…
With each line he read out, a corresponding light shone from the scroll in his hand, and a stream of magical light containing the contract information pierced through space, speeding towards the distant capital of the Central Empire.
The target is Empress Shanes Klein, who is based in the capital! (End of Chapter)