Azure Scepter

Page 186

Originally, Futia had given up all hope, but after hearing the spirit's explanation, a faint glimmer of hope rose in her heart again.

Perhaps, he could even save his own sister...

She turned her head and looked at Trier, who had remained silent, as if seeking help.

Trier noticed Fythia's gaze and shook his head slightly.

—This lie about binding spirits is so clumsy that the only reason Futia believes it is because she hopes it is true.

But at that very moment, a hoarse voice suddenly came from afar: "Don't believe its words, it's a demon! Its language will corrupt you! It is the source of the corruption of the entire Earldom of Bortard!"

Trier turned his head and saw a man bound in chains on the west side of the hall—the same gladiator who had been forced to fight a jumping shark not long ago.

"It is the devil!" Bound Spirit said excitedly, the shackles on her feet clanging as she became agitated. "It is a servant summoned by Count Bortard to carry out his evil plan. The Count wants to sacrifice souls to hell in exchange for the development of his territory!"

“Nonsense, you silver-tongued, pointy-eared monster!” the prisoner roared, his face flushed. “By the light above, I swear I’m telling the truth. Kill this monster now, or it will summon demons.”

The spirit shook its head: "Don't you think your words are too strange? If I really am a devil who corrupts mortals, then why am I chained up? And why are there two people locked up in the prison? Don't you think your lies are too clumsy? The truth is obvious, you are the devil."

The prisoner was clearly not good with words; he was rendered speechless by the spirit's words, but his face turned even redder, and the veins on his forehead bulged.

The spirit turned its head toward Trier.

"Let me tell you the whole story within the limits of magic, but please don't find this account too long."

Her voice was soft, and her gentle Elvish murmur was like the whisper of a siren.

"A few years ago, when I was traveling through the human kingdoms, I happened to encounter a group of cultists who worshipped metamorphosis in the Kingdom of Gorden. The cultists liked to kidnap innocent people in the middle of the night and then perform cruel blood sacrifices. They would peel off the skin of the victims from head to toe, like skinning a deer, and then turn the skin, still stained with human blood, into kites."

“At that time, there were disappearances every day in my area, and new human skin kites would appear every day. But the witches and law enforcement officers were helpless in the face of the unscrupulous cultists, and people were in a state of panic.”

"Out of a simple sense of justice, I decided to help the law enforcement officers catch those cultists. Fortunately, we eventually found the cultists' stronghold, but unfortunately, we were powerless to fight against that powerful evil. Their strength far exceeded my imagination."

"It turned out to be a trap. The cultists were backed by the local lord, who wanted to take the opportunity to wipe out the remaining dissenters with a conscience. In that desperate battle, the law enforcement officers fell one after another in front of me, but the number of enemies only increased. Soon, I was also defeated."

"I thought I would be skinned alive and turned into yet another human-skinned kite, but Count Bortard bought me from the cultists—after that, he imprisoned me in this dark and cold underground, constantly humiliating me, and as time went by, I gradually turned into this monstrous form I am now..."

“That’s utter nonsense!” the prisoner retorted, his voice trembling. “It was you, monster from hell, who seduced the Earl, causing him to betray his duties and promises, and plunging the entire Earldom into the devil’s corruption—everyone, do not be bewitched by this banshee! Only by killing her can the entire Earldom be saved from corruption.”

"Kill me if you will; I can't bear this pain any longer. We're both prisoners bound by chains now, unable to control our own destinies anyway." The spirit's tone was calm as she looked up at Trier again. "So, what is your choice?"

Trier drew his holy sword, the grey blade reflecting his cold, dark eyes, and Count Bortard, who seemed to blend into the darkness behind him in the passageway.

The next instant, the black and red holy flames swept over the reflection on the blade, and Trier lightly swung the hilt, the blade pointing towards the ground.

“The story is well told, but you’re just using it to buy time—you know you can’t handle us, so you’re waiting for Count Bortard to come.”

“I’m advising you to leave.” Bathed in the black and red holy flames, the Bound Spirit retorted neither humbly nor arrogantly, “You’ve completely misunderstood my position, Paladin.”

"When Count Bortard hadn't entered the vicinity of the passage, you were urging us to leave, but after Count Bortard entered the passage, you suddenly started telling stories. Behind this contradictory behavior often lies an unchanging purpose."

Trier turned to look at Count Bortard behind him.

Count Bortard had intended to remain hidden, but after confirming that Trier had already discovered him, he sighed and slowly emerged from the darkness: "You've misunderstood her, Your Grace. There must be some misunderstanding."

"Your Excellency, please stop being so stubborn!" the prisoner pleaded desperately.

Trier shook his head: "You know, a legendary soul is a valuable asset anywhere, even in Hell. This monster wants to take your soul, and everything she did just now was for that purpose—first she tried to distract us, and then she tried to lower our guard."

"Then why don't you just expose me?" Fythea's tone suddenly shifted from its previous gentleness, becoming slightly mocking. At the same time, an indescribable smell of sulfur suddenly filled the air. "Is it because you're afraid?"

—Fodia's sister is indeed a devil, and the large amount of incense burning in the hall is to mask the smell of sulfur on her body.

“Because I’m also waiting for an opportunity for him to be alone—I’m going to kidnap him too.” Trier replied with a smile. “Your misleading statement was untenable from the start, because the prisoner you’re confronting is my informant; he can’t be the devil.”

"Mortals, so what if you see through the conspiracy?" Futia's sister's voice grew increasingly sinister. "In the face of absolute power, wisdom is of little use. My sister, do you even know what a legend is?"

Without uttering a word, Trier added a bit of divine power to the holy flames, and in an instant, the black and red holy flames ignited the walls of the entire hall like a spreading wildfire.

Fythia's sister's speech came to an abrupt halt. After a moment, she gave an unnatural chuckle: "Holy Avenger?"

"Don't hurt her, Your Grace." Count Bortard, abandoning his previous composure, pleaded incoherently, "Don't hurt her, I'll do anything, just don't kill her, I can't lose her. You want to imprison me? I'll surrender, just don't hurt her!"

As he spoke, he threw down the longsword in his hand and raised his hands to cover his head.

Trier nodded in satisfaction.

However, Futia's sister, being too weak, clearly didn't sense the presence of divine power: "The Holy Avenger is just a weapon; we can handle it..."

Before she finished speaking, a thick purple fog suddenly exploded from her body, and then a dozen or so little devils wielding crossbows suddenly sprang out of the smoke and shot at Trier. Almost at the same time, the devil that Fydia's sister had transformed into grabbed Count Bortard's soul and then pulled it sharply towards herself.

"Bang bang bang!"

Trier made no move; he neither dodged nor evaded. The crossbow bolts struck him, exploding in flashes of light, but then all of them slumped to the ground—as a saint, these unenchanted weapons couldn't inflict the slightest harm on him...

The next instant, a ring of orange flames suddenly burst forth from the thick purple fog. Within half a breath, the flames transformed into a circular portal, and then the head of a Deep Hell Demon suddenly emerged from the portal.

"Hmph, you've completed your mission?" the high-ranking demon asked in a deep voice.

“This soul is very heavy. I need some time to open the door, but now a paladin wielding the Holy Avenger is trying to stop me. I need backup.”

“Interesting.” The Demon of the Deep Hell blew a breath, dispelling the thick purple fog, and then it saw Trill with a serious expression.

The Demon of Deep Hell blinked, then his eyelids twitched slightly.

“Uh, this is an unfortunate misunderstanding, Your Excellency Trier…”

Trier smiled and shook his head. He was about to speak when, in the next instant, another crossbow bolt fired by a little devil struck his right ribs...

"Bang!" A burst of fire.

"..." The Deep Hell Demon fell silent. It glanced painfully at the little devil flapping its red fleshy wings, then tried to force a smile.

The next moment, Trier directly activated "True Time Stop" using his divine power.

In an instant, the entire hall was shrouded in silver-gray light, and the next moment, sword light flashed, and then it was all over.

The battle proceeded without any setbacks. Under the influence of divine power, the powerful high-ranking demon was utterly powerless to retaliate. It and the other summoned demons were all cleaved into ashes by the Holy Slash. Count Bortard's soul was forcibly reinserted into his body by Trier, while Fythia's sister was imprisoned by Trier within a sapphire.

When the "True Time Stop" ended, only the blazing black and red holy flames remained in the hall.

“The process of a soul falling into the devil is irreversible.” Trier opened his palm and showed the sapphire in his hand to Fythia.

Dim light refracts at the edge of the gemstone, the deep blue light like a tightly strangled dream, while within the gemstone, a faceless soul desperately crashes against its crystalline surface.

Fytia was silent for a moment, then reached out and opened the deerskin bag at her waist, taking out a black ribbon.

"Although you told me the outcome long ago, I stubbornly refused to believe it." Futia rubbed the ribbon in her hand, her voice bitter. "I really don't want to believe that the sister I've been searching for has turned into a monster..."

“It’s singing to lure you.” Edith’s tone was complicated. “Fodia, I know it’s not a good feeling to be deceived by someone you trust, but I… I understand that feeling.”

Fatiya remained silent.

“So what’s your decision?” Trier asked. “To banish it back to hell, or… well… keep it as a memento?”

Futia smiled bitterly, then resolutely threw the black ribbon in her hand towards the Holy Flame beside her.

"boom!"

The flames surged, and the ribbon was instantly engulfed by the fire. Ashes drifted outwards in the scorching flames.

"Let it be, it's no longer my sister," the elf said dejectedly.

Trier nodded, then smashed the sapphire in his hand, and before the portal closed, threw Fydea's soul back into hell.

That very evening, Trier handed over the heartbroken Count Bortard to the vampire businessman.

Perhaps due to the intense pain, the usually eloquent Count Bortard offered no resistance whatsoever, cooperating with Trier's commands like a puppet.

Upon seeing the vampire industrialist, Count Bortard seemed even more tormented.

"Even you betrayed me, Sommerser? So, you were behind all this? Radiance..."

“I’m just correcting your mistake,” Sommerser said with a smile. “This time, I won’t let you leave me again—never.”

"On the bright side, you not only saved your soul, but you even escaped with your life, so take it easy," the time traveler sincerely comforted him.

Count Bortard's already pale face had turned ashen.

Then, he looked at the vampire industrialist Sommerser: "So, the deal is done?"

“Of course,” Sommerser replied with a smile. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you!”

The next morning, when people discovered that Count Bortard had disappeared, the Asmo army, which Trier had dispatched in advance, had already taken full control of the entire castle.

Because of the Great Hunting Festival, all the officials and nobles of the Earl of Bortard gathered in the castle. So when the Asmo army took over the castle, there was no organized resistance in the entire earldom. Apart from the tense atmosphere inside the castle, everything else was calm and normal. Only the demons that were originally hiding in the crowd had all disappeared.

In a good mood, Trier unusually fulfilled his administrative duties, and under his forceful push, the Great Hunting Festival was not even affected.

It was only then that people realized that the existence of Count Bortard himself seemed to be of little importance.

After that, Trier's planned schedule did not encounter any major setbacks.

With Noy's help, he officially took office as duke in due course. Then he rebuilt the church organization of the southern duchy and redistributed the land titles that no one would inherit. During this time, he also secretly created 12 rings using divine power and the remaining fragments of the souls of the people.

Forging the ring greatly depleted Trier's experience points, but things soon took a turn for the better.

A few weeks ago, Trier made a request to the Holy See of Radiance—he hoped to borrow a relic in the game that could reset alignment and oath status, and now the Holy See has agreed to his request.

Thanks to the relic, Trill was able to reset from the chaotic evil alignment back to lawful good, and his broken oath status was also cleared. In exchange for the relic, Trill, as the only saint in the world who could move freely, went to the Demon Rift region for a stroll.

The situation in the Demon Rift region was not optimistic at first, but Trier's tour of the area directly interrupted the expansion of the rift - before the divine descent, Trier was invincible in the Prime Material Plane.

By killing a large number of demons, Trier finally gathered enough experience points to use the Wish spell to increase all his attributes by 5. So he used the other half of Olius's remaining wealth to use the Wish spell to increase his attributes.

On his way back to the Southern Duchy, Trier made a detour to Gelbo's Forge, atop the crater, where he secretly tossed the ring he had crafted into the dark underworld, thus laying the groundwork for his future plans.

In the time that followed, Trier began to focus intently on tracking down information about the "Planets Walkers," but nothing came of it.

In March of the following year, Trier suddenly received an invitation from Irina, Fythia's mother. Through Fythia, Irina learned that Trier was searching for "Planetwalkers," so she frankly revealed her identity as a Planewalker in a letter and invited Trier to the Shattered Star Isles.

Having extended his lifespan to its limit through conventional means, the legendary elven mage Syldesson had planned to plot against Irina to obtain information about the Planeswalkers. However, with Trier's arrival at the Shattered Star Isles, Syldesson had no choice but to abandon his plan. Nevertheless, he still decided to give it a try and had a frank discussion with Irina.

However, Schilzson's plan failed. After all, for someone without a system, obtaining the Planeswalker's "Spark" is a highly random event, practically a random occurrence, completely beyond human control. But Trier, thanks to the system, directly obtained the quest to become a Planeswalker...

Schilzson was in despair, but eventually came to terms with it. However, after learning of Schilzson's wish, Trier directly taught the elven mage the "Iolem Longevity Technique," and thus, the civil war between the elven mages that had occurred in history was directly averted.

Trill's career path as a Planeswalker was quite complex—he was tasked with transforming the world on a large scale, so he dedicated himself to promoting road repairs and magical education throughout the world.

After several years of arduous promotion, he achieved the legendary advancement of Planeswalker, and also incidentally obtained the prototype of the divine office of "Spell Education"—an office currently held by a certain racial god of the underworld.

Now that all preparations were complete, Trier quietly awaited the divine descent. (The End)

P.S.: I've also fulfilled what I said in my launch message—I didn't abandon the project. However, objectively speaking, the ending might not be the best... Tomorrow I should also write a long summary of my writing experience. Thank you to all the experts for your support along the way QWQ

Finish this testimonial

Dear readers, hello everyone, I'm Tangbaihun.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the readers who have made it this far. As a long-time reader, I know that reading a work that is updated intermittently is not a pleasant experience. To be honest, if this book had not been written by myself, I certainly would not have been able to finish it. Therefore, I must bow deeply to all of you readers to thank you for your understanding, companionship, and support along the way.

For the reasons mentioned above, I don't want to offer any platitudes to appease everyone here, but rather I want to honestly and objectively share my thoughts.

—Now that the novel is finished, sitting in front of the computer, I feel a sense of loss, a feeling mixed with a touch of regret, a sense of emptiness, and a relief that is hard to describe to outsiders. I started writing this book during my first summer after starting graduate school, and with the completion of this book, my graduate studies have also come to an end. But in any case, the book is finished, although the ending is not very satisfactory. But at least it is a story with a beginning and an end, not abandoned. I have, after all, fulfilled my promise in the author's note that I would never abandon the story.

Undoubtedly, this book is not a successful work. I do not want to defend my failure. I admit that this book was poorly written. However, indulging in regret is useless. As the ancients said, "If you miss your target, look for the cause within yourself." Therefore, I would like to systematically sort out the experiences and lessons I have learned in writing this book.

1. Combat effectiveness issue

In summary, the power imbalance was the main culprit behind the book's ultimate collapse. Due to the severe imbalance of power levels, the entire world appeared empty and unreal, and the original narrative perspective and characters lost their meaning. Ultimately, everything became meaningless and frustratingly tug-of-war under the ever-expanding numerical values. It can be said that the power imbalance significantly weakened the book's exciting moments, limited my narrative perspective while writing, and also made the story's rhythm chaotic. It was like a heavy hammer that smashed the entire story to pieces, which manifested itself in the following aspects.

1.1. The enemy's combat strength gradient design is unreasonable.

Ultimately, the reason for the explosive combat power lies in the severely flawed design of the enemy's strength. This is reflected in two aspects: firstly, the apex enemy, Lothaway's combat power, is excessively monstrous; secondly, the enemy's combat power gradation lacks differentiation and hierarchy. As a result, while the overall numerical values ​​make the enemy's strength seem terrifying, in reality, it appears utterly ineffective.

Let's break this down into volumes. In the first half of the first volume, since the story hasn't really unfolded yet and the enemy is still shrouded in mystery, the story seems fairly standard. However, with the appearance of the "dragon" that I added on a whim, the strength of the enemy inevitably has to increase rapidly. After all, someone who can slay a mature dragon can't be too weak.

The direct result of this is that, from a worldview perspective, in order to ensure rationality, everyone's strength must increase accordingly. As a result, in the middle of the first volume, there appeared a bizarre scene where soldiers had an average of 5 professional levels, and full-time professional knights were high-level professionals. At this stage, the result I hope to achieve is to strictly limit the number of legendaries so that the combat power gradient presents a division of demigod - legend - below legend. Under this system, most named characters are at the high-level professional stage, thus achieving an alternative realistic balance.

However, this attempt was doomed to failure from the start. This was primarily because I was writing a D&D-like game, which, in addition to physical attackers, included a large number of spellcasters. As is well known, a spellcaster capable of casting level 9 spells is actually quite terrifying. To maintain the balance of the story, I could only address it from two angles. One was to patch the world-building: the Ork were not good at spellcasting. The other was to lower the intelligence of most spellcasters and cut their spell lists so that they could not choose spells that were tactically better.

Secondly, my categorization severely overlooked the unique characteristics of my story genre. In the Amber series, the system panel and skill point allocation are crucial elements of enjoyment, but this categorization makes leveling up below Legendary level seem dispensable, even rendering the gains from leveling up negligible. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this at the beginning. Instead, I was genuinely proud of my brilliant idea—a perfect combination of realistic interpersonal relationships and the thrill of leveling up… But it soon became clear that this was likely an abnormal discharge in my otherwise smooth-smooth brain. This problem didn't fully surface until after the second volume—from this perspective, Aurelius is truly culpable; this damned dragon completely destroyed the entire book's combat system design…

In Volume Two, based on the aforementioned guiding principles, I quickly produced a large number of incredibly powerful "legacy" items, and the antagonists were directly elevated to legendary status. The Guardians, who were competitors for the legacy, also reached the level of high-ranking professionals. Since they were all high-ranking professionals, I had to spend a lot of time writing about them, which caused the pacing of Volume Two to explode. Of course, this is not the only reason for the failure of Volume Two. To put it bluntly, Volume Two was an extremely unsuccessful product, or even a complete mess. But I will explain the specific reasons for the failure in detail later.

In Volume 3, just as I was proudly planning to develop a combat power structure of "demigod - legend - below legend", a problem finally arose. I suddenly realized that legends are actually key figures in the story and cannot be easily killed before the plot progresses; and for the sake of excitement, the legendary enemies that the mechanical god can kill are completely inconsistent with the creative philosophy I have always pursued. I was completely stumped. How did things turn out like this?

Then another brilliant idea struck me: where in this world are there so many legends that can be refreshed? Hey, the Abyss! But the Abyss clearly has nothing to do with the whole story. So, another brilliant idea struck me: why not just add another clue? Livitt can even be compared to Edith, which is brilliant... Since the demon clue is actually unrelated to what came before, the story development will definitely be very awkward and illogical. To make it work, I used a lot of perspective switching in the third volume, which led to further imbalance in the story. At the same time, this also caused the Silent Whisper to be directly removed from the story and become a secret organization in the background. At this point, the web of contradictions that had been laid out over the two volumes completely shattered.

Because of the introduction of the Abyss Lord, whose combat power is so outrageous, Losevie also has to level up. In terms of the plan, she directly ascends from the protagonist of "Kingmaker" to the commander of "Wrath of Justice". Since this volume is actually in the turning point of the "introduction, development, climax and conclusion", Losevie's strength will rise even further. In the end, Losevie becomes the ultimate ceiling of combat power in this book. To defeat this ceiling, the only way is to use Edith to complete the mechanism kill. This will require nearly 20 chapters of Edith's POV perspective (yes, it is POV writing style).

In this volume, I've started to feel increasingly uneasy. Why is the development of events so contrary to my expectations? Shouldn't the "demigod—legend—below legend" categorization method put everyone at a level of near-impossible power, making combat and interpersonal relationships more realistic? Why does it feel like the combat power of these characters is becoming increasingly exaggerated, and the world is becoming more and more unrealistic? How come such a terrifying monster as the Balrog is portrayed with such low power? Ah, where exactly is the problem? Oh well, I'm writing a wish-fulfillment novel, why worry about all that? Just kill, kill, kill, level up, level up, level up, and that's it. And then, and then that's it. As you may have already noticed, the ultimate result of this writing style is that leveling up isn't satisfying, killing isn't satisfying, and everything collapses under the rapidly inflating numerical values.

A single Holy Slash can shatter half the sky, meteors fly everywhere, and time stands still all around. What's the point of an army of mortals in such a situation? While the army may contain many high-level professionals, in this environment, it would be better for everyone to pray and provide faith points to Trier rather than fight...

After finishing Volume 3, I realized the problem, but it was too late to fix it. In Volume 4, I tried to reduce the strength of the enemies and create more layers, but because of the previous crazy actions, Trir's combat power was practically invincible. In this situation, crushing a larger ant and crushing a smaller one were essentially the same... And since the core objective of "saving the princess" was already complete, I tried to add suspense to maintain the basic interest of the story. However, because Trir's combat power was too invincible, suspense couldn't actually exist. After all, no matter how mysterious the phenomena seemed, they couldn't actually threaten Trir. As for the so-called investigation, it was even more ridiculous. Reasoning and deduction were completely absent; divine magic and spells could solve all the problems directly—so the final result was that Volume 4 was both dragging and boring, and when the narrative trick about time was finally revealed, no one even realized it. (What a failure QWQ)