Read Novel Full Chapter 1525: More Than a Favor
Chapter 1525: More Than a Favor
Leonidas rattled on, praising Orion to the high heavens. Yet, the atmosphere in the cavern grew increasingly dead and silent.
"Hey, say something, would you?" Realizing he was performing a one-man show, Leonidas felt a sudden chill crawl up his spine, as if he were being stared down by some terrifying monster.
"So, you just came here to show off?" The biting words naturally belonged to Alexander, who always loved to play devil’s advocate against him. "Those who hog the spoils for themselves tend to meet a grisly end!"
It was, of course, just a joke meant to get under Leonidas’s skin. Alexander, the Deputy Commander, and Arthas hadn’t participated in this latest invasion. As far as they were concerned, Leonidas had kept the feast all to himself. They could excuse Orion; he was the junior of the group, and it was beneath them to snatch food from the plate of the younger generation. But Leonidas was their peer, and his old friends absolutely had a bone to pick with him.
"Well... I was just dragged along to make up the numbers. I basically got a free ride." Leonidas’s voice was weak, entirely devoid of his usual confidence. He knew he was going to face this kind of interrogation.
"Heh... so you are showing off," Alexander sneered, his tone as relentlessly sharp as his sword. "If Hulk dragged you along, why didn’t he invite the rest of us? Why not bring Dodd along for the free ride? Or are you challenging Dodd’s position? Are you claiming to be Hulk’s true mentor now?"
The cavern fell silent once more. Arthas’s silence felt like a tacit agreement, making Leonidas squirm uncomfortably.
"Ahem... hey, assassin, let’s not go too far!" On this point, Leonidas actually felt genuinely guilty. Because Arthas had been stubbornly guarding the Ever-Burning Volcano, focusing all his energy there, it was Leonidas and Kraken who had been interacting more frequently with Orion in recent years. Leonidas couldn’t help but feel like a cuckoo bird stealing a nest that wasn’t rightfully his.
"Let’s get down to business."
Just as Leonidas was backed into a corner, the Deputy Commander finally spoke up. He acted as their eternal referee, always stepping in when their bickering reached an impasse. The awkward tension had simply been building up to this moment, waiting for the Deputy Commander to personally steer them back on track.
"Ahem... well, as you guys know, conquering an empire is the easy part; holding onto it is the real challenge." Leonidas cleared his throat. "We took the world, but the planar boundary array is an issue. Neither my little brother nor I trust the magical formations left behind by the enemy. Unless the old man personally oversees the boundary array, we just won’t have any peace of mind."
Leonidas slipped in the subtle flattery, praising the Deputy Commander enough to make the corners of the old man’s mustache twitch upward. Even though they were communicating through Demigod phantoms, everyone could picture his smug expression.
"Besides, the method we used for our invasion bypassed the boundary array entirely through a hidden vulnerability," Leonidas continued. "Old man, can you think of a way to patch that flaw?"
He looked toward the Deputy Commander. The old man remained silent, evidently lost in deep thought.
"There’s also a hidden danger in the World of Eldoria. Our little brother is trapped there, so it falls to me to ask the old man to make the trip."
Framing an incredible opportunity as a ’hidden danger’ was a deliberate, emotionally manipulative hook.
"A hidden danger? Do the enemies still have a trump card?" Arthas, who rarely spoke, voiced his concern. "Did Hulk walk into a trap?"
No matter how fiercely Alexander and Leonidas sniped at each other, they all knew the real reason they hadn’t been invited: their hands were tied guarding the Ever-Burning Volcano. Orion hadn’t brought them along because he hadn’t wanted to distract them. Furthermore, even if they hadn’t gotten a slice of the pie, their representatives—Isabella and Makareth—had gorged themselves on the spoils.
"You could say he walked into something," Leonidas mumbled vaguely. He needed to use the sealing temple and The Void to bait the Deputy Commander into investigating; he couldn’t give away the game too early. "Someone—we don’t know who—built a sealing temple in the deepest trenches of the sea. There’s nothing inside but a single throne. But the truly miraculous part is what’s sealed upon that throne: a spatial node leading directly into The Void of the World of Eldoria."
At this point, Leonidas’s voice betrayed a rising, uncontrollable excitement. If the method of advancement Orion had discovered actually worked, it could very well catapult all of them into instant ascension. In a few hundred or thousand years, they might not be as overwhelmingly powerful as Commander Zoble, but they would absolutely be able to obliterate most Demigods in the first or second stages.
"Sit on that throne, and you can perceive an entirely different world," Leonidas pressed on. "The Void is teeming with monsters of every rank, from basic chieftains all the way up to Demigods."
No one interrupted. They all possessed a fundamental understanding of The Void. No matter the world, it would inevitably incubate mystical races adapted to its specific environment. It was an immutable truth of the cosmos: worlds existed to give birth to life.
"You still haven’t explained what happened to Hulk," Arthas noted. As he spoke, his gaze drifted unconsciously toward the spot where Orion’s Demigod phantom slumbered, his concern evident.
"The little brother is perfectly fine. Through a series of tests, he stumbled upon an earth-shattering opportunity," Leonidas explained. "He extended the roots of the Divine Kingdom’s World Tree through the spatial node and straight into The Void. Then, he seized the chance to perform a parasitic grafting onto that world’s World Tree. Right now, our little brother is evolving by the second. His power is skyrocketing with every passing moment."
Leonidas was thrilled, acting as if he were the one receiving the massive power boost.
The cavern fell silent once more, but this time, the quiet was completely different. It bred a palpable sense of anticipation and urgency. The Deputy Commander, Arthas, and Alexander were all entities who had been allocated a World Dragon. If this method truly worked, it was only a matter of time before they possessed their own Divine Kingdoms and cultivated their very own World Trees.
"Old man, the little brother told me that since he’s already divided up the cake, he didn’t have the face to come ask you for a favor," Leonidas continued. "His intention is to share his experiences and the sealing temple with you, and in return, ask you to head over and tinker with that boundary array."
Leonidas was being incredibly sly, pushing all the responsibility and ideas onto Orion. Of course, since Orion was the one spearheading the World of Eldoria campaign, there wasn’t technically anything wrong with phrasing it that way.
"Oh, and according to the little brother, that sealing temple is the key. It’s crucial for sealing the spatial node and masking the aura of the World Tree," Leonidas added. "He said that you, and the magical factions backing you, would definitely be interested."
Without realizing it, Leonidas, Alexander, and Arthas had all shifted their focus entirely onto the Deputy Commander. They were all waiting for his verdict. Orion’s success meant they had a massive chance at success, too. As long as they were pointed in the right direction and continued refining their invasion methods, they would eventually find the perfect stage to showcase their own power.
"Hulk’s vision is far broader than yours. He’s absolutely right; the sealing temple is the most critical element of all this." After a long silence, the Deputy Commander’s deep, aged voice finally resonated through the cavern, confirming Orion’s hypothesis—while casually stepping on Leonidas’s ego in the process.