This Planar Battlefield, however, was different from all the previous ones.
More than a thousand calendrical eras had passed since the Planar Battlefield first came into existence.
The Planar War, held once every trillion years, had already been fought over eight million times.
If a plane achieved ten consecutive victories in the Planar War, the Sovereigns of that element would each receive an additional portion of Will as a reward.
Yet after more than eight million Planar Wars, only two planes had ever successfully achieved ten consecutive victories.
The first was the Netherworld.
Chief Sovereign Locke had guessed from the very beginning that consecutive victories might carry special significance, and under his arrangements, the Netherworld became the first plane to achieve ten straight victories.
The second plane to accomplish this was the Light Divine Plane.
It was said that in order to obtain that victory, the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta had owed the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff an enormous favor.
This Planar War was another crucial milestone in the Light Divine Plane's attempt to achieve a second set of ten consecutive victories.
Everyone still remembered that after obtaining the additional portion of Will from his first ten-win streak, the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta had attempted to elevate himself into the ranks of the Edicts Chief Sovereigns by relying on his offensive Overgod artifact.
Unfortunately...
His attempt had been rejected by the Destruction Chief Sovereign Wodred.
At the time, Wodred had come very close to stating outright that, aside from possessing an Overgod artifact, the minimum qualification for becoming an Edicts Chief Sovereign was to be a Paragon.
In other words, one needed the equivalent of two additional portions of Will compared to an ordinary Law Chief Sovereign.
Although...
The Light Chief Sovereign Augusta had in fact already met the requirement Wodred mentioned.
After all, he still possessed an additional portion of Will borrowed from the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff.
However...
The moment the Light Chief Sovereign exposed that extra portion of Will...
Both the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff and the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta would inevitably become targets of hostility from the other Sovereigns.
If Augusta and Orloff had openly admitted from the very beginning that one was merely the other's divine clone, then the other Sovereigns might not have thought much of it.
After all...
The original trigger for the Sovereign War had been Orloff secretly mentioning to all the Sovereigns that refining another Sovereign spark would increase a Sovereign's strength tenfold.
Although...
After the Death Chief Sovereign exposed him, Orloff offered an explanation, and the other Sovereigns accepted it.
But if the truth were suddenly revealed now...
Then Orloff's original motive would clearly not have been as innocent as he had claimed.
Furthermore...
Over all these years, from the moment the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff began protecting the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta because he owed him a favor...
To the point where Orloff later gathered the Sovereign Armies of the Celestial Realm's Sovereigns to help Augusta secure his second streak of ten victories...
That alone would be enough to prove that Orloff and Augusta had been treating all the Sovereigns like fools.
After all...
Back then, the Death Chief Sovereign had merely established the Sovereign Covenant, forbidding High Sovereigns from casually slaughtering lower-ranking Sovereigns.
She had never forbidden Sovereigns from possessing additional Sovereign divine clones.
Back then...
If the Lightning Chief Sovereign Hurley had openly challenged the Earth Chief Sovereign, killed him, and become the Chief Sovereign of two elements...
The Death Chief Sovereign wouldn't even have spared him a second glance.
Instead...
Unable to guarantee victory against another Chief Sovereign, Hurley sneaked into the Earth Divine Plane, ambushed an Earth Sovereign, killed him, and instantly refined his Sovereign spark, gaining an additional Earth Sovereign divine clone.
Without question...
That had already violated the Sovereign Covenant established by the Death Chief Sovereign.
Whether to uphold the "order" Locke wished to establish...
Or to maintain her own authority...
The Lightning Chief Sovereign Hurley had been doomed to die.
At the same time...
The Four Edicts Chief Sovereigns used that opportunity to show the other Sovereigns what true power meant, completely establishing their own prestige.
To be honest...
Had Locke not existed, whether the relationship between the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta and the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff was exposed or not would have made little difference to the other Sovereigns.
After all...
At that time, Orloff's strength already surpassed that of the other three Edicts Chief Sovereigns.
Even if the other Sovereigns knew the truth...
They would simply pretend not to know.
Just as with the incident where the Azure Dragon Sovereign sprayed blood all over the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta's face.
Everyone had witnessed it.
But aside from the Four Edicts Chief Sovereigns and Chief Sovereign Locke...
Who actually dared admit they had seen Augusta's humiliation?
Who dared acknowledge it?
But now...
With Chief Sovereign Locke, an existence who had already surpassed the Sovereign realm, suppressing everything...
How could the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff and the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta dare expose their relationship?
Indeed...
The two of them now possessed a complete set of Overgod artifacts.
But just as divine artifacts before Sovereigns...
Only an Overgod could truly unleash the full power of an Overgod artifact.
A Deity wielding a Sovereign artifact would still be slapped to death by a Sovereign.
Likewise...
Could a Sovereign wielding an Overgod artifact withstand a single strike from an Overgod?
Both Orloff and Augusta still remembered the overwhelming gulf between themselves and the Overgod when they completed an Overgod Mission.
Thus...
Unless they encountered a true life-or-death crisis...
Neither Augusta nor Orloff dared expose the relationship between them.
This Planar War represented the Light Divine Plane's attempt to achieve its second streak of ten consecutive victories.
If the Light Divine Plane succeeded this time...
Then every existing Light Sovereign would thereafter stand one rank above Sovereigns of every other element.
A Light Lesser Sovereign would be equivalent to an Intermediate Sovereign of another element.
A Light Intermediate Sovereign would be equivalent to another element's Chief Sovereign.
And the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta...
Would become equivalent to an Edicts Chief Sovereign!
Being forced to stand one rank lower than someone else for no reason...
Aside from the Light Sovereigns themselves, no other Sovereign would willingly accept such an outcome.
"Gentlemen..."
"What do you think?"
"Will Lord Augusta succeed this time?"
Soon, the Sovereigns gathered above the Planar Battlefield within the spatial turbulence.
After dividing themselves into their respective camps, one Sovereign spoke.
"I estimate Lord Augusta has a very high chance of success."
Another Sovereign replied.
"After all, to secure victory in this Planar War, Lord Augusta even killed the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns in exchange for Lord Tia, the Wind Chief Sovereign's, support."
"And once Lord Tia stands on Lord Augusta's side, the Sovereigns of the Wind Divine Plane will naturally join the Light Divine Plane in this Planar War."
"Together with the Celestial Realm..."
"The Light Divine Plane's side will field forces from three planes."
"At a minimum, they'll possess sixteen Sovereign Armies."
"Hiss..."
Hearing this, quite a few Sovereigns inhaled sharply.
In previous Planar Wars, each side had generally consisted of the Sovereign Armies of a single plane, supported by numerous Commander-level experts.
But in the magical universe today...
The number of Sovereigns of each element had never been fully restored.
Some elements had five Sovereigns.
Others had six.
Thus...
Under normal circumstances, each side in a Planar War fielded only five or six Sovereign Armies.
A single faction possessing no fewer than sixteen Sovereign Armies...
None of the Sovereigns had ever witnessed such a thing before.
Even during the Netherworld's first attempt at securing ten consecutive victories against the Celestial Realm...
The combined number of Sovereign Armies and Angel Legions on both sides had only reached roughly this level.
During the Light Divine Plane's previous attempt to secure its second streak of ten victories...
Several Sovereigns had dispatched their own Sovereign Armies and Sovereign Emissaries to stop them.
At that time...
The Light Divine Plane's opponent had been the Wind Divine Plane.
Together, they had assembled nine Sovereign Armies and eight Sovereign Emissaries wielding Sovereign artifacts.
Unfortunately...
The intervention of the Celestial Realm ultimately resulted in the Wind Divine Plane's defeat.
Yet before the current Planar War had even begun...
It had already been confirmed that the Light Divine Plane alone would field at least sixteen Sovereign Armies!
More than a thousand calendrical eras had passed.
By now, magical battle formations were no longer exclusive to Locke's armies.
Through their connection to the Laws of the universe via their Sovereign sparks, every Sovereign could become a grandmaster of magical formations given sufficient time.
As a result...
Every Sovereign Army now possessed magical battle formations personally left behind by its Sovereign.
Furthermore...
Because true formation grandmasters remained exceedingly rare, many Sovereigns had even created magical battle formations that required no expertise in formations to deploy.
Although such formations lacked the flexibility of those personally directed by a formation grandmaster...
The power they could unleash remained formidable.
Overall...
In today's Planar Battlefield, a single thousand-man battalion could already withstand several attacks from a Prefect-level expert.
Their combined attacks likewise posed a genuine threat to Prefect-level experts.
Should a Prefect become surrounded by a force of ten thousand soldiers...
Even they would struggle to escape unscathed.
After all...
The Planar Battlefield was very different from the Divine Planes or Higher Planes.
The weakest soldiers entering the Planar Battlefield were all experts at the level of Five Star Fiends.
Six Star Fiends...
Seven Star Fiends...
Here, they were nothing more than ordinary soldiers.
Only Prefect-level experts qualified to serve as Commanders.
However...
In the current era, unless they possessed Sovereign artifacts, ordinary Prefect-level experts actually contributed very little during the final decisive battle of the Planar War.
"Heh."
"You've only talked about the Sovereign Armies on the Light Divine Plane's side."
"But you haven't counted the Sovereign Armies of the Water Divine Plane, their opponent this time."
After the previous Sovereign finished speaking about Augusta's forces, another Sovereign laughed.
"Everyone knows that this time, the Light Divine Plane's opponent is the Water Divine Plane."
"At present, the Water Divine Plane possesses only five Sovereign Armies."
"But don't forget..."
"The husband of Lady Levlenxia, the Water Chief Sovereign..."
"Is Lord Loran."
"..."
The moment those words were spoken...
Silence fell over the assembled Sovereigns.
That's right.
Whether the Light Divine Plane achieved its second streak of ten victories had nothing to do with them.
Everything depended upon that one individual.
If that Lord chose not to interfere...
Then the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta might truly become the first Law Chief Sovereign since that Lord to ascend into the ranks of the Edicts Chief Sovereigns.
However...
If that Lord had no intention of allowing Augusta to advance...
The Sovereigns of Locke's lineage alone could field five Sovereign Armies.
If the Netherworld's six Sovereigns also contributed their six Sovereign Armies...
Then the Water Divine Plane's side could likewise assemble sixteen Sovereign Armies.
The numbers would be equal.
But in terms of unity...
The Water Divine Plane's side would undoubtedly be far more cohesive.
After all...
Even if the Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff and the Wind Chief Sovereign Tia strongly supported the Light Chief Sovereign Augusta...
The Sovereigns under them, together with their Sovereign Armies, might not genuinely wish to help Augusta.
Without explicit orders from their Sovereigns...
How much of their true strength those Sovereign Armies would display remained an open question.
Although the Planar Battlefield was famously a gigantic meat grinder...
The fiercest fighting always occurred during the final battle upon the Stellar River.
If both sides were determined to win...
The resulting war would inevitably become unimaginably brutal.
On the other hand...
If one side lacked the resolve to resist...
They merely needed to yield a little and refrain from contesting the bridge spanning the Stellar River.
Victory in the Planar War was determined by whether one side successfully crossed the bridge and invaded the opposing camp.
Once the bridge was occupied...
Victory had already been decided.
Normally...
The Sovereigns had no intention of forcing their soldiers to fight to the bitter end.
Of course...
If during battle a soldier lost either their Soldier Medallion or Commander Medallion...
And failed to recover another one before the war ended...
Then unfortunately...
The Overgod's decree could not be challenged even by Sovereigns.
Any Commander or soldier without a medallion would be personally executed by their own Sovereign.
That Sovereign's remark instantly destroyed everyone's interest in continuing the discussion.
Damn it!
What a conversation killer.
...
"Father."
Inside the Nether Sovereign's Palace, Locke slowly opened his eyes.
"It's An'an."
Seeing Loran respectfully saluting below him, Locke smiled.
"What is it?"
"Judging by your expression..."
"You seem rather troubled."
"Care to tell me what's bothering you?"
"Heh..."
"You saw right through me, Father."
Loran shrugged, walked up the steps behind Locke, and began gently massaging his shoulders.
"I watched you grow up."
"What could you possibly hide from me?"
"I suppose that's true..."
"Father, in this Planar War..."
"Levlenxia's Water Divine Plane is facing the Light Divine Plane."
"And judging from the situation after the previous Planar War..."
"The Light Divine Plane, having already achieved nine consecutive victories, will undoubtedly commit a tremendous amount of military strength this time."
"If we don't intervene..."
"The Water Divine Plane may suffer extremely heavy losses during this Planar War."
"I've come to ask your advice."
"Should our lineage send several Sovereign Armies to reinforce the Water Divine Plane?"
(End of Chapter)
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