Chapter 297: Boris Von Zar (Patreon)

Boris

So far, in the war between the United Federation of Planets and all the forces under the Primordial Humans faction of gods, the United Federation of Planets was winning, and that reflected badly on Boris Von Zar.

An A rank specializing in tactics, before the mess his gods had made he’d been the leader of the Prime Material’s resistance against the demons, an entire inter-universe warfront, yet a group of C ranks, even with their leader nowhere to be found, had so far handed him his ass.

There just wasn’t much he could do when they hid in another universe only C ranks could enter.

Sure, with the wealth of materials given to him for the war by his angry gods, it wasn’t hard to strengthen the two C rank portals they had to allow B ranks through. But what was the point?

On the other side were two C ranks capable of fighting against the best B ranks he could gain access to while within that other universe, empowered by Law armors. Throwing in B ranks, he was just feeding their force primal energy, and that wouldn’t change until they could find a third way to enter the other universe, something which wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Just finding the portal on the opponent’s home planet, three fourths of the way up the planet’s tallest mountain, had been such a pain, and, sitting on a nearby peak and watching as a whole cadre of mages used a ridiculous amount of wealth to strengthen the portal to allow another B rank through, Boris was now almost positive them coming to this planet had been a trap.

Even without someone assassinating the closest family members and confidants of every B rank he’d sent through, just the lack of System access for every force under the Primordial Humans had caused most of their best B ranks to flee to the inter-dimensional battlefields, while quite a few others had been killed due to the bounties on everyone’s heads. So, even if he got access to a third portal, which at the rate he was going would take several years, he probably wouldn’t have enough truly powerful B ranks to go against whatever third power the enemy force used to defend it.

More important, however, Earth, as the United Federation of Planet’s home world was called, was far too valuable, the amount of natural wonders on the A rank world enough to place it as the fourth or fifth best planet in the Prime Material.

At the moment, it was still protected from discovery by the System, with only the true upper echelons of the Primordial Humans having its coordinates, not even Boris himself knowing exactly where it was, but this could change in an instant if the United Federation of Planets decided to reveal its location, and that was incredibly dangerous.

Gods would fight and kill each other for such a world, and the Primordial Humans’ gods were temporarily without the protections of the Great System Contract when they weren’t on the inter-dimensional battlefields. So, if any of the Primordial Human gods came to Earth—other than the Primordial Sovereign who couldn’t leave his post for longer than a few hours without grave consequences—and the United Federation of Planets revealed the world’s location, the Primordial Humans would lose far more than just their reputation and non-divine forces.

Sighing to himself, Boris checked the soul net for the latest stats on the forces of the Primordial Humans, a tool he’d only have access to for the next three days without returning to the inter-dimensional warfront himself, and, as expected, they weren’t good. In the last day, one more A rank had been killed, this time by another A rank rival, and 5 talented B ranks had met their ends as well, most seemingly killed just for the bounties on their heads.

Then, as had become his daily tradition, he checked the soul net post where the United Federation of Planets had been recording all their own kills and saw the numbers had gone up more than he’d expected.

There were still the 9 A rank deaths, 4 from the Universal Tournament and the remaining 5 reportedly killed by the Mistress of Oaths and Deception before Boris had managed to capture Earth and force the woman to defend the second portal. Then there were the 763 B ranks who’d died in the Heavenly Soul Universe, most killed by the dragon while trying to buy time for the Master of the Eternal Forge’s artifacts to locate the second portal. And there were also the many, many C ranks he’d sent in as well, along with all the victims of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s sniping before he’d managed to lock her down. But now there were 106 new names he didn’t recognize, ranging from B ranks all the way to G, and 105 of them were all described in the same format, exemplified by the first he’d found, ‘random B rank crafter 1 [tricked into suicide]’.

The new death which caught his eye the most, however, was ‘nameless D rank child of the Master of the Eternal Forge [tricked into suicide]’.

The Heavenly Spark Soul King had won the inheritance of the Spirit Smith. And that would change things.

A few moments later, the cadre of mages succeeded again, the portal shifting to become more stable, but this time there was a much larger difference. If Boris’s senses were to be believed, when the portal was done stabilizing, it wouldn’t allow only one B rank to go through, but hundreds.

The United Federation of Planets must have done something on the other side, and that meant they were planning something.

Before he could react, however, a small knife made of purple bone appeared out of nowhere and he had to do everything in his power to dodge.

Then an aura spread out from the universal teleportation platform on the other side of the planet, covering the entire world, and Boris could do nothing about it as he had to put his all into dodging the knife three more times.

Runic arrays appeared everywhere to his senses, forming around every cultivator he’d brought, and Boris felt the magic as the planet was almost instantly reclaimed by its original owner.

The arrays then activated as Boris continued to dodge, and he felt as everyone under him almost instantly died, killed by some kind of time, space, and light element attack, their primal energy and souls flowing toward the portal.

Then, as an incredibly complicated runic array appeared from nowhere around the portal, absorbing the primal energy and souls to power itself, an extremely powerful psychic suppression array appeared in the several hundred kilometers around him and activated.

For a split second, Boris’s mind was slightly rocked, but that split second was all that was needed. The knife he’d been dodging managed to nick his left arm, cutting right through his Empyrean grade A rank robes, and a powerful poison entered into his soul.

As one of the strongest mages in the universe, this was nowhere near enough to kill him—even as a divine grade weapon, the knife was only a knife with no one empowering it—but it did slow him down slightly, and then there were more runes around him.

Boris tried to flee after realizing there was nothing more he could do, to rip through space and escape, but it didn’t work. Somehow, the entire planet was sealed off, and he only received another cut from the knife, deeper this time, for his trouble.

Able to do nothing else but dodge, the knife not letting him flee, the arrays around Boris formed into place, the seal around the planet shrinking down until it only covered around a hundred kilometer radius around the portal with him inside, and dodging became harder and harder, the knife nicking him more and more.

Then he felt a new energy and, as he tried to dodge the knife, a pure white needle appeared in front of him and sped itself right through his heart before coming out the other side.

Natural energy surged in the contained area, interfering with Boris’s ability to gather any external energy, and, as he was distracted by the knife and the needle, a third weapon appeared, a large purple sword, which joined the attack, Boris sensing as a hole closed in the seal around him, one which had just let the Heavenly Spark Soul King fly through.

Slowed down by the poison from the knife, still yet to have healed the stab wound from the needle, and suppressed by the natural energy and runic arrays surrounding him, Boris gathered the most powerful yang lightning he could into his right hand and rushed at the man, holding out his arm to blast the soul lord with his most powerful attack, but then, at the last second, he realized the Heavenly Spark Soul King in his senses was an illusion, formed from faith energy of all things, and the real Heavenly Spark Soul King was behind him.

Trying to turn around, the knife managed to stab into his lower back, flooding his soul with poison, and the needle stabbed through his stomach from the opposite side, digging around to do even more damage instead of flying through, but he managed to get his attack off.

To his stunned senses, however, the seal around them faded and the Heavenly Spark Soul King, with teleportation unblocked, easily dodged his attack, appearing about 200 kilometers to his right.

With two divine artifacts stabbed into him, however, both at least partially specializing in the elements of time and space, Boris couldn’t do the same.

The large purple sword, which had been trying to attack him the entire time, managed to nick one of the cuts the knife had already made, and Boris felt a curse enter into his soul, breaking all his contracts and triggering their punishment conditions, his soul starting to burn.

Runes like those which had appeared around all his subordinates appeared around him as well, flooding him with silvery-gold light, and Boris could do nothing but watch in horror as his soul changed properties, the light reacting with previously inert substances which had somehow gathered into his body over the days he’d spent on Earth to transform his soul into a component to feed the array around the portal, one which he was almost certain would raise the stability of the portal even higher, allowing even an A rank to travel through.

He didn’t see the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s master anywhere, however, nor any other reason for the monster to need such a strong portal. But then he felt a spacetime teleport, the mana signature making it obvious it wasn’t someone coming to save him but the System teleporting something to the area right in front of the Heavenly Spark Soul King, and the last thing he saw before he died was a small one meter tall twelve-floored pagoda, shimmering in rainbow hues and obviously compressed down from its normal size with spatial energy, slowly moving toward the portal.