Read Novel Full Chapter 1706 A Pit for the Gods
Chapter 1706 A Pit for the Gods
"So how do you mean to play it from here?" Commander asked it idly, taking small bites of his heart. Orion was the lord of Blackstone City; everything had to turn on his will.
This raid had been only a probe, both sides trying to gauge the gap in strength between them. With the probe done, the fights to come—top-tier and rank-and-file alike—had a rough baseline now on both sides.
"Open the dream-gate all the way. Give our allies and vassal races the largest number of descent slots we can manage." Orion lifted his head toward the Wishing Tree, its fruit thickening on the branches—the whip he'd drive them all with. "Then open the Wishing Tree's trade rights. That's a fortune nobody can turn down. Before the Boundless Expanse's Sovereign wakes, I want everyone pushing my borders out as far as they'll go."
"Last—I want the two of you to put the word out, all the way: the Mirage Void holds twelve Divine Mantles. Abyss or Hell, I'll turn no one away. If we can't dodge the storm, we make the Boundless Expanse the eye of it." Orion was calm, not so much as lifting an eyelid as he laid it out, as if all of it sat already inside the plan. "The bigger and messier the spectacle, the more Sovereigns we shake awake. Only with them in the game do we stand a chance. The one Divine Mantle in the Boundless Expanse Sovereign's hand—that won't go far enough to split."
Kaidric stared at Orion, a brow ticking. Just hearing it, he could picture the vast feast of slaughter about to open here. Those old monsters tucked away across every world—how rabid would they go at word of twelve Divine Mantles surfacing? Every road's strong converging, carving each other up over a Mantle.
"That—uh—the handful of us, can we actually hold the room?" Kaidric's throat worked with difficulty, his voice trembling a touch. "I'm not turning yellow, I'm just a little spooked, straight up. Forget the rest—the Abyss and Hell alone can pour in no end of fifth- and sixth-stage demigods. You know what those two planes turn out. Wolf-hearted and dog-lunged is the kind version—treacherous, snake-mean, every one of them out for himself. Get too many of them here, none of them taking orders, and it's nothing but more trouble."
Kaidric reckoned his own streak ran mad enough—see a thing, do it—but next to the Orion in front of him, he felt he didn't have nearly the crazy in him.
"Doesn't matter. As long as they still want to move inside Blackstone City's territory, still want the shelter and the great might the Titanion Realm's Will of the Realm lends them, they fall under my heel." Orion was sure of it. On his own ground, in his own Divine Kingdom, with the Will of the Realm behind him, he could pin anyone down. "And if they decide Blackstone City doesn't suit them, then out they go. Once they're past the bounds of Blackstone City's territory—you figure the Mirage Void's strong let invaders like that walk?"
It was one of two doors, no third. The Titanion Realm or the Mirage Void. Pick the Titanion Realm, and you joined the scramble for the Mantles together. Pick the Mirage Void, win or lose, you walked away with nothing. Anyone who wasn't a fool, anyone with the smallest designs on a Divine Mantle, couldn't side with the Mirage Void—because as word of the twelve Mantles spread, more and more of the strong would join the feast, and those who'd thrown in with the Mirage Void by then would draw a reckoning down not only on themselves but very likely on the powers backing them, too.
Granted, the Mirage Void might cut its losses—toss out a few Mantles and sit the mountain watching the tigers fight. Then again, would the strong who landed those Mantles hand them over willingly? Not a chance. In their shoes Orion wouldn't give one up either—he'd sink out of sight instead and let the rest kill each other.
"If I've read it right, you're digging a great pit for everyone—you want to bury the apex powers in it." Kaidric's breath came faster and faster; he could feel the seat under him heating up. Blackstone City was going to be no good place in the years ahead. It might well be the grave of countless apex powers.
Orion fixed Kaidric with a cold eye, and a violent killing intent broke from his gaze and rolled over heaven and earth like a toppling mountain, a tidal sea. Under that stare Kaidric was dragged into the sanctum of the spirit, and what he faced there was an Orion who stood on a sea of golden lotuses with the blue sky on his back, wind and rain and thunder and lightning wheeling about him. The four forces of earth, fire, wind, and water took shape in Orion's hands and became chains, one after another, and he looked down on Kaidric like a god. In that moment Kaidric felt his own smallness—felt the Orion before him grown vast enough to blot out the sky, felt a single breath of his could swat him out.
"He's one of us. He's your own kinsman." Just as Kaidric thought he was about to be wiped out, Commander's voice sounded in the sanctum and bought his life back.
Outside, Orion turned his head and ended the stare, looking instead to Commander. Unlike Kaidric, Commander met Orion's eyes easy and unbothered, a smile on him that mixed a little gladness with a little thrill.
"I think it's a fine plan of yours. They want a Divine Mantle, let them fill the pit with their lives. Once it's full, whoever's still breathing has earned the right to take one." Commander dropped Orion and let his gaze settle on the Wishing Tree. He could see that, in no small part, Orion had set this trap with the Wishing Tree in mind. The more of the strong who died in Blackstone City and across the Boundless Expanse, the more World Essence the Wishing Tree drank, and the faster it grew.
"You two really mean to play it this big?" Kaidric understood Orion well enough—it wasn't that the man had meant murder against him, only that what Orion was setting in motion ran so big that not a whisper of it could leak.
"Sure, we play. It falls apart, worst case we cut and run—spend some time asleep and bank back what we lost." Commander said it freely, and it doubled as a quiet declaration of where he stood to Orion. When a thing can't be done, best to roll up the bedding and run together, even if it means abandoning house and home.
"And if we pull it off?" Commander went on. "You've got a Divine Mantle. I've got a Divine Mantle. He's got a Divine Mantle."
He'd started out light, all couldn't-care-less. By the time that last line landed—you've got a Divine Mantle—Kaidric could hear his own heart slamming against his ribs. The rush of it, set against the unease of the crisis before and the death Orion had just held over him, hit harder, dug in deeper.
"All right. I'll go mad with the two of you." Kaidric was in. Commander's picture of the golden future had sold him.
"Then the next order of business is the borders. We sit back and let the situation turn." Orion became a streak of light and melted into the Wishing Tree, where he could draw faster growth and bank his depth quicker.
Commander and Kaidric traded a glance, put out the fire, and both settled into sleep beneath the Wishing Tree, eyes closed.