Destination

Arbidis seemed to have no end. Three more months passed in the blink of an eye, and Richard had already consumed his third archlord core while his followers had eaten five or six lesser lords each. After their most recent battle, even Tiramisu’s hardy body was starting to approach its limits while most of his other followers were already at it.

He decided not to advance any further, instead drawing out an enormous spell formation in the middle of the battlefield. Even with his current ability it took him an entire week to create, and he used the cores of 36 lesser devil lords to barely activate it. When a towering planar portal appeared within, showing images of Faust on the other side, all of his followers were dumbstruck.

Manually teleporting to and from Arbidis was borderline impossible. Even the great elven empire had to use an extradivine item to do so, but Richard had just deployed a portal without one. It certainly came at a cost— each lesser devil core was equivalent to a top-tier offering— but that was still significantly cheaper than an extradivine item. One had to remember that the elves had exhausted theirs with two teleportations, losing it forever. As far as spatial laws went, this meant Richard was far beyond any of the spatial mages of the old empire.

Those who had followed Richard from the start of his journey seemed the least fazed, but those like Ironshield and Greyhawk found it difficult to mask their astonishment. It had only been a few years ago that they could still sense Richard’s power, and now there seemed to be no enemy that was his match.

Tiramisu was the first to recover, “Weren’t we supposed to explore the alter world, Master? We haven’t gotten there yet.”

”I’ll be doing the rest on my own, you guys should return,” Richard answered.

“How can we leave you here alone?!” the ogre immediately cried out in protest.

“All of you have reached your limits, you can’t continue.” Threads of astral energy flew out from Richard’s hand, illuminating the area around them. The blue glow revealed dark smoke circling all around each of Richard and his followers, and as they examined it closely they noticed countless minute divine symbols floating about. Some expressions immediately turned grave.

Richard continued calmly, throwing his spatial bracelet to Waterflower, “This is the poison from the devil lords you’ve been eating. If it continues to accumulate, you’ll die in body and soul. You’re done. There’s some rank 2 offerings here, go straight to the Church and offer them. The Eternal Dragon should be able to neutralise the poison in your bodies. Now go, I can’t keep this up forever!”

Realising that they would only be a burden if they stayed behind, Richard’s followers entered the portal one by one. They exhausted their strength to drag the remains of their most recent kill away; if not for the huge storage Richard had gotten from Lithgalen, previous ones would have been impossible to take.

However, not everyone left. The only one amongst them who hadn’t consumed a single core, Nasia stayed behind. With her unparalleled abilities and equipment, even in Arbidis there wasn’t any opponent that had managed to significantly harm her. When Richard told her to go as well, she simply shrugged, “Nope. I’m even better in these environments than you are.”

Richard stared into Nasia’s mask, growing even more curious about her background. However, he knew that any questions would be in vain, simply allowing the portal to wink out as the cores powering it turned into ashen rock. Nodding at her, he turned to continue towards the depths of the battlefield.

……

Three more intense months passed as Richard and Nasia travelled into the depths of the Eternal Battlefield. Their battles grew more intense the deeper they went, and towards the end they were fighting an archlord virtually every day. The laws of Arbidis were strange, and Richard could feel that more powerful devils were being drawn to him as he grew stronger himself. The battlefield itself seemed to place a value on each demon and devil, sending out a corresponding opponent.

Before he set foot in the Arbidis, Richard would never have imagined that he would face off against dozens upon dozens of archlords. He hadn’t even known so many existed, but thinking of just how many levels the abyss and the hells had it was at least fathomable. This place was the final destination of all demons and devils, putting them into a vicious cycle of murder with no rest.

One day, Richard suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked over to the side. A powerful aura had erupted in that direction, and as he approached he could sense that two archlords were engaged in a battle of life and death. Both were injured all over, and from the looks of it this hadn’t been the first day or even week of their fight.

The devil suddenly let out a frenzied cry, his huge blade lighting up in purple flames as it pierced into the demon’s chest. An enraged roar shook the earth, but the exhausted demon slumped to the ground. Richard resumed his journey as he saw this end, but the devil had already noticed him and started rushing over.

Richard sighed, drawing the Judge and waiting silently. Although this archlord was level 35, the battle had clearly been intense and exhausting, dropping its abilities greatly. A single strike cleaved the skull off and ended the battle.

Richard extracted the devil’s core and chomped down almost by instinct, but after some hesitation he put it in his bracelet and continued his journey instead. He had sustained a number of internal injuries and was in dire need of healing, but the poison had also reached a critical mass. Weighing the pros and cons, it was better to just risk continuing his journey.

Fortunately, the slope was starting to level off, giving rise to some hope that he was approaching the end of this bloody plane. He would likely reach the true end of this world in a few more days, arriving at the fabled passage to the alter world. His spirit rejuvenated by this fact, Richard slowed down so he could naturally recover from his injuries along the way.

……

After three more days of walking, Richard and Nasia finally exited the formless boundaries of the Eternal Battlefield. He felt the laws all around changing to welcome the completely new world, the crimson sky replaced by boundless black with bright stars all around. Right ahead of him was a stretch of boundless mountains, with an eye-grabbing vortex at the top that covered almost half the sky. That vortex had a diameter of more than a thousand kilometres, and was emitting pure darkness that tainted its surroundings with an incomparable sense of suppression.

Nasia found herself drawn to the enormous vortex as well, being clearly distracted for the first time since they entered the abyss, “That’s the path to the alter world, the blackness is the energy of the other side.”

Richard slowly recovered from his daze, “I want to study the laws of the alter world, I won’t be going in until I’m more confident. This will take time, you can return to Norland.”

“I’m not leaving. Do you really think it’d be so easy to enter the alter world?”

“What problems can there— Oh,” his face changed as the ground started to shake, one of the distant mountains crumbling away. A dark glow rushed over from the horizon, a humanoid figure that was about three metres tall.

Richard had grown used to fighting beings that were dozens of times his height, but this relatively compact figure was exuding an aura that thoroughly dwarfed any demon or devil archlord! He wore a sinister black coat of armour with a dozen steel spikes all over, and carried a huge axe that was larger than his body. Once he appeared, he immediately dashed forwards.

Richard’s eyes dilated with fear; this was the greatest threat he had felt since he entered Arbidis, and most certainly was the strongest enemy he had ever encountered in his life. The black armour and huge axe seemed to be packed full with the power of laws, making it clear that this was an unequalled existence in Arbidis.

His hair moving without any wind, Richard slowly took out Moonlight. Facing an enemy of such strength, he felt much more at ease with his first sword. However, Nasia suddenly walked ahead of him, “Leave this guy to me. Your enemy is over there.”

Richard followed the direction she had pointed out, his gaze landing on an isolated peak right below the passage. This mountain towered above all others, the summit almost touching the portal into the alter world.

This peak had clearly appeared right now. Richard couldn’t remember seeing such a thing before. As he focused on it, however, he saw a black metal throne, with a languid figure seated on top.