As Ace made his way towards the Stellar River, Lomax hurried back to his Augusta Clan's camp.
Because of the fact that once one entered the Planar Battlefield, they couldn't exit until the end – after 1000 years – many experts wouldn't choose to enter until much later on, but because of their father's orders, Lomax and several of his more powerful siblings as well as hundreds of six and seven-star fiends of their clan had been forced to enter from the beginning.
Right now, their clan had set up camp deep within the territory of their half of the Battlefield.
Upon returning, Lomax relayed the details of his meeting with Ace, and many couldn't help but sigh. Although in an intense Planar War like this was shaping up to become, Paragons would be the true Apex predators, Invincible Commanders were a close second. As such, their disappointment was no surprise at Ace's rejection. Still, when looking at the two men in the centre of the room, any disappointment they once felt quickly faded.
The man on the left was Magnus – the best friend of Armundel Augusta, the oldest son of the Chief Sovereign of Light. As for the man on the right, he was Clementine – the head emissary of Augusta.
What made both Magnus and Clementine so special was that they were both Paragons – Magnus of the Edict of Fate and Clementine of the Laws of Light.
After passing on the news of Ace's response to their request, Lomax asked Clementine what he wanted to do next.
Although both men were paragons, because Clementine was the direct Emissary of Augusta, he was the one ultimately in charge of their movements.
Clementine replied that he and Magnus had no interest in wandering the battlefield for now; they would likely only make a move when the final battle began, as requested by Lord Augusta.
Between now and then, Lomax and the others were free to do as they pleased but were to only disturb them if they received news of an enemy paragon making an appearance.
As for Ace, although they were curious about the heaven-defying genius that managed to turn the Augusta Clan on its head, that's all it was: curiosity. To paragons, all those below the paragon stage were ants, even Invincible Commanders – they were just slightly larger ants.
The arrogance of a paragon even stretched over to their views of Sovereigns. In their eyes, a Sovereign should be feared and respected because of their power, but there were no feelings of reverence or true admiration. At the end of the day, they didn't become a Sovereign by relying on their own skill and talent; they were just lucky to have gotten their hands on a Sovereign Spark.
That was even more so for Sovereigns like Augusta, who, despite being able to rely on the faith of a Sovereign, still hadn't become a Paragon. As such, as impressive as Ace was, unless he became a paragon, he wouldn't be worth befriending – regardless of the fact that they knew more about his connection to Augusta than most others.
As for Ace himself, he had no idea what was going on back at the Augusta Clan's main camp, not that he'd care either way. As much as the two paragons looked down on him, he looked down on them even more.
Still, his focus was placed on his journey to the central region of the battlefield.
Although he didn't exactly broadcast his position, he didn't exactly bother to do anything to hide it either.
He casually strolled through the Planar Battlefield, crossing hundreds of meters with each step – his glaive dancing in his hands as he pondered over the wonders over his glaivesmanship, very slowly refining it.
It was right then that a shadow appeared to his rear, making a dash for his back, sword in hand.
Just as the shadow entered attacking range, Ace's glaive moved as though it had a mind of its own; his [Armament] coated blade pierced through the chest of the man to his rear before he could even react.
Ace's attack wasn't enough to kill the man. In fact, rather than pain, he appeared to be more in shock than anything else.
Considering how Ace, a Full God, was carrying a commander's badge, the only plausible explanation was that he was an expert who had reached the pinnacle of the path of a Supreme Genius. The man knew that any Supreme Genius who had reached such a level would likely be affiliated with a major force, one who would never let such a talent venture out on his own.
The man assumed that there must be other experts from Ace's faction nearby, just waiting to ambush anyone who dared to take Ace on.
As such, the moment he found Ace, he'd conducted his own counter surveillance, silently moving through the surrounding area, looking for any signs of anyone else, but no matter how diligently he searched, he couldn't find anyone. Even so, he patiently waited several hours, hoping for the rest of Ace's party to reveal themselves. Still, he found nothing.
In the end, the allure of killing such a talent was too much to resist, especially as a Supreme Genius like that would likely have no small amount of treasures on their body.
As far as he was concerned, even if there were others lurking in the shadows, as long as he killed Ace before they could react and then hurry to escape with his spoils, they wouldn't be able to stop him.
Unfortunately, even though he had guessed correctly that Ace was a Supreme Genius, how could he have known that Ace was travelling on his own precisely because he didn't need backup?
After quickly defeating him, Ace went on to question him, finding out that, aside from being greedy for his treasures, the man had actually devised quite an ingenious plan with a partner.
Both he and his partner joined different sides – him the side of the Divine Light Plane, and his partner the side of the Divine Darkness Plane. They would both then proceed to ambush the experts on their own respective sides, killing and stealing as many badges as they could, then trading them with the other's gains at the end of the War. Unfortunately, he just happened to pick the wrong first target.
Still, that was just a minor blip on the road to the Stellar River for Ace. Ace spent the next couple of months casually making his way to his destination whilst practising his glaivesmanship undisturbed.
When he arrived, his eyes couldn't help but widen.
The Stellar River was extremely long. According to the descriptions on the map, the entire Planar Battlefield was divided into two, and it was over a million kilometres in length. There was no way one would be able to see to the end of it with the naked eye.
Still, the thing that really captured his attention was the structural makeup of the "river."
At a glance, it seemed incomparably enchanting. But after taking a closer look, he discovered that the brilliance wasn't generated from 'river water'. Rather, it was from countless spatial tears. The Stellar River was filled with countless spatial tears layered atop one another so densely that they formed a thick, dense "river".
Just looking at it, Ace could sense that it was like two smaller planes were joined together, and the Stellar River was the line at which the juncture was made.
Some juncture points were safe, but others were wild and formed of extremely dangerous chaotic tears.
Ace three of the members of his group were soul mutates, as were two of the members of Linley's – he had met more than his fair share of soul mutates. In fact, after his latest breakthrough in terms of his Viz clan bloodline was concerned, he could be considered a pseudo-soul-mutate. Although he had effectively given up his chance at comprehending the Laws of Light, he could still use the fused Divine Essence of Fire and Light; as such, he understood better than most that unless one was a soul mutate, fusing two elements was impossible.
It was because of that that he could understand how incredible the Planar Battlefield was.
Unlike the Seven Elemental Divine Planes or the Four Upper Realms, the two sides of the two Planar Battlefield didn't have a specific element or Edict they were formed of. They were more like Material Planes in that sense, only thousands upon thousands of times more stable.
Still, it had to be understood that Material Planes weren't formed of a specific Law or Edict; they were more like an amalgamation of all 11 forces of nature, but it was for that reason that it should be impossible for two Material Planes to fuse together – there were too many working parts.
And yet, the four Overgods had chosen an ingenious method of connecting the two planes together using the fabric of chaotic space to connect them.
Ace spread his [Observation] infused Godrealm over the Stellar River, and as he did, his eyes glazed over as he was inundated with wave after wave of insights.
The bottleneck keeping him from becoming a legendary paragon began to loosen, and he could feel that he was only moments away from achieving a breakthrough, but just as he was about to take that step, he was awoken from his enlightened state by the killing intent of two top commanders.
------------------------------------------
Please check out and support my new novel - A Tale of Pride!
-------------------------------------------
Story Complete!
Currently 73 chapters ahead!
Head over to the P atreon if you wish to read to the end uninterrupted!
P.atreon.com/AceInCoilingDragon