Holy Light illuminated my entire world as all darkness was forcibly dispelled. This was my chosen phoenix hunting ground.
The golden Lord of Thunder displayed how he was a top-level existence of both wind and light. Under all the light and shadow, he changed his form, causing his eagle-like head to become sharper as the light he emanated became physical lightning, while his feathers and lower body became distorted light.
He was now an existence who was half physical and half made of light, like no other in the world.
“Damn it, where did you go?”
The eagle of light opened up his wings and shimmered brightly before... completely disappearing.
The Lord of Thunder vanished completely right in front of me, even though I hadn’t blinked.
His aura was still around. He hadn’t left at all. He had simply rotated to my blind spot at an incredibly quick speed.
He wasn’t above me.
He wasn’t to my left.
Everything that I saw was completely dark, yet he was clearly still present. I trusted my instincts; any combat veteran would value their instincts far more than their vision.
“There’s only one explanation for this... He’s fast to the point where he can instantly rotate to my blind spot the instant that I turn my head to look for him.”
“Hmph!”
Cold sweat ran down my spine as I heard a cold harrumph from him. I suddenly sliced the air behind me but hit nothing.
“Hmph!”
This time, the cold harrumph came from in front of me.
Sweat kept dripping down my forehead. Maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew this time. How was I supposed to deal with an enemy that I couldn’t even see?
“...That’s probably what you’re thinking right now, Mr. fried chicken.”
*Clang!*
I swung my sword seemingly randomly, but suddenly made solid contact with a loud clang.
“What!?”
The Lord of Thunder’s voice was filled with incomprehension. He probably had no idea how I managed to locate him.
What made him even more confused was the fact that he was unable to see through my actions despite having clearly read my mind.
“I truly do apologize. I’ve already met too many enemies with the ability of mind-reading.”
Phoenixes were capable of mind-reading and determining good and evil. This wasn’t simply a legend, as it was also a racial talent. However, their mind-reading ability was different from the mind-reading ability of normal living beings.
Phoenixes were existences from another dimension entirely. They were information strings to begin with. Their way of mind-reading was to read the information of others.
Dealing with this type of mind-reading was actually quite simple. All I had to do was make some preparations beforehand, such as wearing some cat clone armor... Ahem, I meant that I was wearing a Harloys clone on myself to confuse his mind-reading.
Of course, I would never explain to my enemy why it was that his mind-reading had misled him. Unlike idiots who wanted to make things harder for themselves in battle, my favorite thing in battle was to watch my enemy die in confusion, with as little information as possible being leaked regarding my abilities.
All the lights in the distance disappeared as even Hell’s Pillar of Holy Light turned off its light for the time being. I then became the only source of light in my personal Hell world.
This was an absolutely necessary condition for completely killing a phoenix and sealing off its indestructible trait.
My group and I all fully understood the true nature of phoenixes due to fighting with and analyzing the phoenix from back then. Phoenixes were creatures born into this world, but they didn’t actually exist in this world. Thus, phoenixes possessed a large number of special abilities. For instance, a phoenix’s physical body in the mortal plane was simply a type of information projection. Although this body was the phoenix’s true body, it wasn’t the phoenix’s entire body.
If you only killed the phoenix’s physical body, the phoenix would still be capable of using its information transmission method to move around in this world and then jump onto a similar creature’s body, becoming reborn.
It was like deleting a banned user’s game account; it would be almost impossible to stop that person from coming back with another account.
Whenever we killed the fire phoenix from back then, as long as a location nearby (the maximum range would be determined by the phoenix’s strength, and even the weakest phoenix could reach a distance of several hundred kilometers) had a single flame, the phoenix would easily be able to project a new physical body and be reborn in that fire.
The reason why it had been impossible to kill the Lord of Thunder even though the Holy Light Faction Gods had hunted him down multiple times was also because light was present everywhere in the mortal plane. Even if the Lord of Thunder was slain at nighttime, he could make use of starlight to resurrect himself.
But if there was no fire/light/corresponding phoenix element nearby at all, the phoenix’s information would soon be lost without a host to contain it. The phoenix would weaken rapidly and start consuming its own information in an effort to maintain its existence. This was the only method with which a phoenix could truly be killed.
Of course, this was something that could only be done in theory as the mortal plane was a plane consisting of the four elements. Since everything in the mortal plane was created as part of a natural cycle, it would normally be impossible to completely eliminate an element from such a large area.
“You’re not the first weak chicken that I’ve killed already. Of course I know about your weakness.”
The Lord of Thunder responded with only furious lightning rather than words.
There was still light in Hell, so the Lord of Thunder did his best to read and understand the fundamentals of the light here, but he discovered that he couldn’t make use of the light here at all, since this wasn’t the same light element that he was so familiar with.
Even the Lord of Thunder wasn’t foolish enough not to try and run away after discovering that the situation was so dire for him. However...
“It’s too late for you now, little chicken. I’ve heard that it doesn’t snow in Hell, but allow me to show you snowfall in Hell regardless.”
I had plenty of time to prepare already. I used my ice sword Northlands during this time to create an inescapable blizzard arena. This forced us into close proximity while also serving to exile what little light element remained here.
Hell’s Pillar of Holy Light had also been assisting me in drawing all the light element away from this place. The only thing that still shone with light here was the Dawn Holy Light sword in my hand.
I took a deep breath. The gigantic lightning bird in front of me was rapidly losing its light, but I still couldn’t underestimate him.
“Now, it will all depend on this to see if I get to eat meat or have soup...”
I was never someone who would do anything for the good of others for no return, nor was I the type to pick fights I didn’t need to. I voluntarily challenged the Lord of Thunder to single combat because phoenixes were filled with treasures!
While Roland took the second-last Devil Lord into his personal Hell world, the battle outside still continued despite the Lord of Thunder’s disappearance. Still, panic began to spread in the devil army as the Lord of Thunder didn’t reappear as time went on.
The human army was still unable to make much progress forward despite this advantage. The devils’ temporary fortresses and defensive blockades became meat grinders that harvested endless amounts of blood from both sides.
The mages’ war puppets had entered the battlefield already. However, the mages discovered to their astonishment that even the incredibly strong adamantite puppets were disadvantaged against the powerful devils.
Even though there was plenty of cannon fire as support, even though there was plenty of magical support as well, and even though the humans had clearly chosen this battlefield, the humans were still unable to make progress forward.
“Why can’t we win even with so many advantages!?”
The reason for this was quite direct and cruel. It was a difference in power level.
Humans and devils had completely different power levels to begin with. Humans’ high-level fighting forces and elite troop types were Gold rank, but such forces in the devil army would only be at the level of a corporal who had only a few subordinate soldiers.
According to Eich’s old power level system, humans had the lowest-rank Iron Bloodline, while adult devils had the highest-level Gold Bloodline, just like demons did. Even though power level assessments weren’t always accurate at determining individual ability, this was still a direct and cruel representation of the tremendous average power level difference.
Devils were capable of using an empty hand to casually grab a human warrior’s heavy iron sword which was swung with full force. A spear that finally managed to strike the devil’s stomach might not even be able to pierce it. Devils were also typically two or three times larger than humans and could easily rip a human apart with their bare hands.
Auland’s mercenaries and scattered forces suffered the most losses of all. They were naval forces to begin with, so they barely had any armor or magically enchanted weapons. They went with the flow to attack the organized devil army, thinking that the enemy had already imploded due to the cannon fire. They thought that this would be an easy battle, but ended up running straight into far more than they could handle.
The mercenaries from the Forest of Dreams were in far better condition, as they knew a lot more just how much the difference was between them and the devils. Thus, they hadn’t tried to forcibly attack. Instead, they simply fought to keep the devils occupied. The Forest of Dreams mercenaries’ many years as Contract Heroes also helped them prepare many random things for battles over the years.
Since everyone knew beforehand that this battle would be against the devils, they prepared coldsteel weapons and coldsteel armor, as coldsteel was a special magical metal that was known to be effective against residents of the lower planes. Just a slightly enchanted coldsteel weapon could cause a devil to break out into boils all over its body on contact.
Despite all this, combat against the devils was still far too cruel for humans. The number of human dead was increasing at a furious pace, while more and more devils recovered from their chaotic state. The humans were now suffering more losses than the devils at a ratio of 3:1, and this gap was only worsening.
Luckily, the mages’ war puppets and summoned creatures were currently acting as the main attack force. They wouldn’t even have anything such as morale, nor was there a need to worry that this type of army would collapse on itself from suffering too many losses.
As the mages in the rear witnessed the combat situation, they decided against getting anywhere close to the devil army. Instead, the mages focused fully on summoning even more cannon fodder and preparing more long-range magic attacks.
Auland’s fleet also started to reload its ammunition after completing its primary mission of helping the mages land and fired cannons in an orderly manner on the devils’ defenses.
However, Auland’s cannon fire could only act as support, as what they could hit was limited by the great distance. Breaking through the devils’ defenses would still require a sacrifice of human infantry lives.
Finally, the archmages from the Mage Country were unable to sit back and watch any longer after more than half of Auland’s land forces (which were actually naval forces) perished. Many high-circle mages all stood up.
The Truth-level archmages led them in forcibly attacking the devils’ defenses. However, devil reinforcements that humans would have never imagined finally arrived at a location that the humans couldn’t see.
The leader of the devils’ reinforcements was an old acquaintance of Roland’s. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say old enemy.

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