?873 Silent Oath
In space, the elven figure made of light was becoming smaller and smaller. Yet as its size decreased, the shape of the figure became more and more distinct. The entity that Pelvailin had believed was a broken 'law' started to regain a hint of sentience both due to its gradual recovery, as well as the fact that it sensed a threat to its existence.
Space seemed to be cracking around it as its size decreased. Clearly, its existence could not be supported in this place. Yet, conveniently, it sensed a deity's domain encompassing a planet nearby. With no real thoughts developed as of yet, the figure of light acted on instincts and moved within the domain, finally allowing the space in the vicinity to rest.
Of course, now the pressure of its existence was being borne by the deities' domain. But, as of yet, it did not have enough intelligence to worry about such things.
At the altar, the situation was becoming more and more chaotic. Just as the deformed zealot was unable to harm Lex, Lex seemed unable to harm the statue. There was a massive well of divine energy contained within which it was using to defend itself, and the divine energy kept increasing instead of decreasing as time went by!
Lex did not need a thorough investigation to figure out that the increasing divinity came from the blood of the Marzu hanging behind the statue.
Lex's eyes narrowed as he reconsidered his plan. Although he could see the weakness of the statue due to his ability to peer at the laws that made it up, the shield of divine energy prevented any of his attacks from reaching the statue itself.
This was also the reason he attacked the statue instead of the zealot. As much as he enjoyed frustrating him, a single hit had been enough for him to analyze the fact that the zealot was also under the protection of this unusual divine energy. Although he was not impervious to damage, he would heal almost instantly after sustaining an attack!
Whatever ritual was taking place was already underway, and he had to disrupt it somehow!
"I found them!" Z exclaimed. While Lex had been beating the statue, Z was looking for the other survivors from the fort. But even if he found them, Z could not go rescue them for it was Lex's ability that prevented him from freezing as well.
His call attracted Lex's attention, but it also attracted that of the zealot. Fueled by a blinding fury, the zealot hurled his scythe at Z, strengthened by his divine might. But if Lex were not confident in protecting him, he would never have separated!
Lex had put up invisible shields using Imperial Shield all around Z, protecting him from any attack. The scythe broke through a couple of them, but was eventually unable to reach the Innworker!
The zealot let out a savage, frustrated howl at failing once again. He wanted nothing more than to cleanse these heretics but his power was insufficient. Driven mad, the zealot decided to do something even more crazy!
His figure vanished and he appeared in the distance, above the countless demons, and began killing them in droves.
Lex approached Z and stood beside him and watched the actions of the far off zealot.
"Lesson three of thwarting your enemies' plans: you need a thorough understanding of your enemies actions, and what motivated them to begin with! That zealot is somehow generating divine energy through the death of countless beings. I believe that when the zealot arrived on this planet, he was probably very weak, without any cultivation of his own. That is also why he never acted against anyone before. He was silently using you to kill as many as possible, so that he could harvest as much energy as possible.
"Whatever ceremony he has started also requires an immense amount of divine energy, so he's killing all the demons himself. He's hoping to speed up the ceremony, and use its effects to kill us. So now, my question to you is, how do we complete our objective and simulatenously stop the enemy?"
Z did not hesitate in answering.
"Our first priority is saving our allies. We can send them to the Inn, and then find a way to disrupt the ceremony at its foundation: the statue!"
"Hmm, you're right. But you're also wrong," said Lex as he grabbed onto the youth and rushed towards their previous allies. "If you're feeling extremely gracious, one way is to send all the demons here to the Inn as well. With no beings to kill, his plan will fail on its own. But I'm not so keen on sending the very demons who were hunting you down to the Inn. Since this entire planet is full of enemies, with only a few remaining allies, there's a much simpler solution. Rescue the allies, then destroy the entire planet!"
Just as Lex finished his words, he summoned another one of Pelvailians missiles. He did not know why the previous one had not delivered its devastation yet, although he was quite sure it would eventually erupt. That did not mean, however, that he could not just use another missile! Whether it tore up space or not would not matter if he targeted the planet itself, right?
Z, who was up until now focusing on Lex's words, suddenly trembled. He made a silent oath to never miss a day of work in his life.
"Of course, you can also take advantage of a few uncertain elements as well," Lex said as he suddenly turned his head and looked to his left. In that direction, a new group had just been teleported over from somewhere on the planet, and within that group Lex sensed multiple powerful beings!
A single glance was enough to tell Lex that there were over a dozen devils amongst that group, and they all looked like they were struggling against the suppression of the deities' aura.