Chapter 593 A Desperate Escape?
As barriers of various colors sprang to life in front of him, Daneel simply said to Drakos, "Begin."
They had already discussed everything beforehand so that the time that might need to be spent here, after arriving at the scene, would be minimal.
As the Ancient Dragon began casting spell after spell without saying a word, Daneel felt a slight ache on his forehead where his Mageroot was due to the sudden deployment of all the high-tier spells, while he thought back to everything that had just happened.
He had to admit that even he was surprised that there had been no problems so far.
Wasn't this supposed to be the man touted to be the one most adept in scheming back during the Empire?
Yet, now, both of them were manipulating him easily?
Daneel took a deep breath and erased these thoughts, as he knew that they were dangerous.
He still felt that it was wise not to underestimate this enemy, so he decided to be as cautious as possible even though everything pointed to the third phase progressing smoothly, too.
The second phase had had two objectives:
Set up a foundation in the minds of the Black Raven citizens, so that it would help him later when the time came to take over the Kingdom.
Ensure that he entered the Kingdom of Axelor without facing any obstruction, so that he could take Arnold by surprise and get here before him.
With both of them fulfilled, he found himself here: ready to begin the third phase, where, by the end, the goal was to have the parts of the Grand Inheritance in hand, while also becoming capable of breaking the third seal by openly taking control of the Black Raven Kingdom.
This was easily the hardest part, but Daneel was confident in the many preparations he had made.
Just as a loud rumbling began to be heard all around him, Daneel received a message from the system.
[Data analyzed. The best town which matches all the parameters given by host is called 'Azmar', and it is located 46 kilometers east of host's location.]
"Alright. Deploy the module, and let me know when the optimal result has been achieved."
[Affirmative. Module deployed. Standing by to receive results.]
Feeling glad that there were no problems in deploying this all-important module, Daneel allowed himself a smile.
Almost all of Daneel's preparations had been to counter the worst case scenarios, such as that Arnold might have prepared beforehand for this, and that he might be facing a lot of difficulties if he wanted to just waltz out with the parts of the Grand Inheritance.
After seeing the performance of the Empire Spirit so far, though, Daneel had been hoping that these might not come to be.
Yet, the next moment, it became clear that that wasn't the case.
Bang!
As soon as Daneel had arrived at this location, he had deployed a Champion-level anti-teleportation barrier to slow those who would be coming here.
Now, that broke apart instantly, as two men burst onto the scene with livid expressions on their faces.
The moment they did, the various barriers around the area that Daneel had been trying to breach doubled, which made it obvious that Arnold had planned for this beforehand.
This became even more apparent as soon as a confident voice thundered around where Daneel was standing.
"Drakos, how have you been? Knowing you, you must have entered a voluntary bond with this kid, even though we were warned by the Emperor to never let that happen as that could lead to us being blackmailed, and used. And did you two really think that I wouldn't think of this? True, it was at the bottom of my list of possible reasons behind your nonsensical actions. But that was only because I had already taken a lot of steps to prevent something like this from happening. Why do you think the signal of those two parts was allowed to be freely detected by all, in the first place? It was to trap fools like you who overestimate yourselves. Give up. I'm enough to deal with you. Sure, you are a formation master who can dismantle the trapping formations I placed around this place. But that doesn't mean you have any hope of leaving this Kingdom alive."
This speech would have been impressive, if Daneel hadn't heard Arnold screaming in that way just a few seconds before.
Remembering that made him want to laugh, and because he didn't care what this guy thought, anyway, he allowed himself to.
As Arnold saw the King of Lanthanor laugh out loud, he grit his teeth, before taking a deep breath and getting back the smile on his face.
Yes, it had definitely been a scare, and he had shouted like that without caring for the dignity that he was supposed to possess.
That had always been a problem even during the Empire. And there hadn't even been anything much he could do to fix it.
As he was someone who was used to letting his emotions run wild, which was something that had always helped him in everything he did, he had often seen other ministers talk about his 'uncouth' behavior behind his back.
Most of them did end up getting in egregious situations such as being blamed for things they didn't do, or finding out that their wives had been swept away without them even catching a whiff of it, but except for satisfying Arnold, this didn't change much.
After all, even his scheming behavior, and his ruthlessness which let him survive no matter what the odds were were a result of his singular emotion of wanting, no, needing to come out on top and thwart any and all who wished to see him dead.
These memories had all rushed into his head…because the last time he had been shocked in this way-by seeing someone defying his expectations and acting in a way that seemed foolish, had been when the Emperor had chased him down and captured him.
Yet, as he saw the King continue to laugh, all these thoughts vanished and were replaced by all-consuming anger.
He had already seen all the spells deployed by the Dragon after arriving here. They were attempts to breach all the protective formations around the pieces of the Grand Inheritance, and, in fact, they would have been successful if Arnold hadn't arrived at the scene and personally activated the rest by casting Hero-level spells.
He had had to resort to this crude method, as although he had many formations that he could use after breaking the second seal, the materials needed to implement them weren't present in this age.
He wasn't a formation master like Drakos who could freely edit and create new formations after taking into account what was present.
The damn seals were like glowing, imaginary walls inside his own head, which irked him to no end. The worst part was that he could even see the information present behind each, but if he even tried to use something, or refer to something from the third seal, for instance, he would feel a crippling pain throughout his consciousness which would leave him with no other option but to stop his attempt.
Still, he was confident that he could stop them from leaving his Kingdom, because the most important point: the border, had been reinforced with almost all the resources he could get his hands on.
Besides, it wasn't like he would stand aside and watch, either. He had already prepared a lot of devastating attacks, and all that remained was to see whether there was a chance of the kid surrendering after seeing that he had no way to leave, even though he had marched in so boldly.
So, despite the anger which tempted him to just attack and get this over with, he said, "It's futile! Just give up. Drakos, you must have seen by now that you chose wrong. Maybe you liked this kid because he is like the Emperor in some ways. But it's clear he's arrogant, and his arrogance will now result in his death. Urge him to give up, and I'll guarantee that both of you will live."
In his mind, Arnold was imagining an Alliance with even Lanthanor and Eldinor under him, and at that point, there would be no question at all regarding whether he could break through the third seal.
Yet…that disappeared when the rumbling that had been present until now rose to a different level.
Initially, it had looked as if it was coming due to the side-effects of the spells cast by Drakos.
However, at this moment, the truth became clear.
His 'old friend' detected it, too, and spoke out with alarm.
"He was just using those spells to cover the real one! His objective is to carry away the whole thing!"
Even as the last word left the 'Black Raven's mouth, a gigantic block of earth slowly began to rise up into the air, accompanied by the King who shot a smile at them.
Till now, he had been standing on the ground right above where the lab, and the pieces of the Grand Inheritance were.
If he succeeded…he would be able to take away the entire thing, including the formations, so that he could crack them later at his leisure.
Yet, Arnold didn't panic too much.
He had expected that something like this might be on the cards, as, after all, the Ancient Dragon was renowned to be one of the few experts who reached the peak in formation design.
If anyone could perform a feat such as this, to condense all the formation materials into a small area in order to take them away, then it would be him.
So, he just shook his head and said, "Just start attacking. I guess there will be no surrenders today, after all."
With a nod, the 'Black Raven' started conjuring a ball of darkness between his hands, which was one of his iconic attacks.
Meanwhile, Arnold lazily conjured a similar ball, but this one was of light, and as it reached the size of a fist, he threw it in the direction of the King, who was still concentrating on the large 20-meter cube of earth he was extracting from the ground.
In response, Hero-level barriers rose up, which effectively stopped the attacks, but made sweat appear on the forehead of the King, who didn't look all that calm now.
Arnold was puzzled as he saw this. What could the rest of the plan be? What could he hope to achieve by doing this?
It was like an enemy coming into a Kingdom to steal gold, only to find that all the gold was locked in a safe. Still, instead of giving up, it was as if the enemy had lugged that safe on his back, and was hoping to run away even though he knew that there was an army waiting behind him, along with experts targeting him from the front, who wouldn't give him a moment of breathing time.
Shrugging and thinking that it might just be one last, desperate ploy, Arnold just continued shooting attack after attack with the aim of tiring down the King and making him fall to the ground, alive, so that he could at least hope to torture him and bring him to his side, if that was possible.
Soon, the King succeeded in extracting the block of earth, and he began to fly in a specific direction, as if he still hoped to somehow escape.
Shaking his head, Arnold only nodded at his 'friend', and they began to follow, still continuously shooting attacks.
It was also becoming apparent that the King would soon reach his limit. His brow was covered with sweat, and he had an expression of pain on his face as he kept conjuring barrier after barrier to protect himself.
Right now, if anyone could see this sight of a man carrying away a huge block of earth while being chased by two men who kept shooting balls of darkness and light at him, they would definitely have found it quite odd.
Only, no one could witness it, a there was an anti-eavesdropping spell present that was mainly to prevent anyone from the Big 4 from seeing, and finding out that they had failed horribly in their 'mission' of keeping Empire Spirits in their pedestals.
A minute later, it began to get more and more apparent that the King really had no where to go. He couldn't teleport, as Arnold had already deployed multiple anti-teleportation formations, so all that there was to be done was to try and leave Axelor with that huge clump of earth.
That wouldn't be happening today.
Soon, the King of Lanthanor finally came to a halt in a random place in the air, panting with exhaustion while looking at the two Empire Spirits chasing him with an indecipherable expression on his face.
Seeing this, Arnold smirked and said, "I see you may have finally come to your senses. Give up, unless you want to cease being a Mage, as your Mageroot will be destroyed after all this effort you're putting it up to."
The words didn't bring any change in the expression of the King.
It only made him focus on the cube of earth where the pieces of the Grand Inheritance were present, safely protected by the numerous formations that were still in effect, before he began casting the spells to try and break them again.
Huh? Had he gone mad?
Why would he try that again especially when it looked like he had no endurance to even run any farther?
Arnold was going to ask the same but gloat, but the words got stuck in his throat as he saw something that made his eyes pop.
Had the power of the spells…just doubled, in front of his eyes?
No! It couldn't be possible!
Rubbing them, he hoped that he would see something different, but what he did witness made him drop his jaw in utter, mind-shattering disbelief.
The power of the spells had…shot up again.
As he watched, this repeated once, twice, and then thrice, before finally stopping when a 5x amplified version of the same spell that Drakos had cast before began to make quick work of the formations protecting the pieces of Grand Inheritance.
He had sworn that he would retain his dignity no matter what more happened, but at this moment he couldn't help but sputter, and then scream.
"No…this spell…this goddamn spell…even if you have it, you're not in your Kingdom! How are you doing this? How?! HOW??!!"