A Condition

In Vance City, beacons of war were lit up all around the city. For the God Equipment, as well as for greater power and for absolute authority, the experts who were usually noble and reticent were currently all involved in the chaos.

Kings, gentlemen, scholars, saints, and even powerful hermits; in this moment, they were all slaughtering one another as though a bunch of mad dogs.

On the other side, due to the assassination of Lorci's High Priestess, more than twenty Matriarchs had brought their whole army and started to collect fresh blood. However, the most confusing thing of them all was the disappearance of the one who had been at the core of the problems, the Beastman Sovereign Shou.

I didn't think that Nuya Shou who had been with the Scepter for extended periods of time could resist its temptation. After a month with it, his soul already belonged to the Scepter. Not to mention, the whispers of the Demons lingered in his ears. There was no way he could let go of it, and the mastermind controlling him from the back wouldn't allow it anyway. At most, he could only be viewing the situation by the side, waiting for an opportune moment to strike and win himself the greatest benefits.

At this moment, due to the unexpected situation of the Queen of Banshees killing Kajah, the situation was developing out of my control.

The deaths of those fellows fighting over the Scepter weren't pitiable. After all, they themselves allowed greed to blind them. Since they wanted to obtain the God Equipment, they should have been mentally prepared for the possibility of death… Besides, there were too many powerful figures and experts vying over the Scepter. With Saints all over the place, I couldn't interfere even if I wanted to.

But I couldn't ignore the Dark Elves.

Victoria came back in a while right after she went out. There was no need to collect the troops left behind by the Syfan Matriarch. All of the Warriors and those following the party had been torn apart by the other Matriarch to serve as fresh blood tributes to appease Lorci's anger.

Even so, they still found the tributes insufficient.

Chaos was something contagious and resentment was something inheritable. The Dark Elves would choose to sacrifice those of the other tribes first to appease Lorci's anger with bloodshed. When they really began their slaughter, the hatred that had been accumulating in Vance for many years would explode all at once. The ending would surely be a genocide and a destructive riot.

In my hands, there was indeed an ace that was able to suppress them…

[God Equipment: Origin of Codex]

[Faith In Law: 557/99999 (The belief from 1000 people in a week allows it to increase by 1 point every week, and the cap is 50 points every month. When the points reach the maximum, it will automatically replicate a SemiGod Equipment, Scattered Page of Codex.]

[Effect 1: The Land of Law (Passive): In the heart of the city where it is placed, the entire city will become a Land of Law and in the area where it's effect is active, Enforcers can wield the Power of Law.]

[Effect 2: Great Judgement (Active): Requires 100 Faith in Law to activate, and consumes 1 point every minute after the activation. After the user activates it, everyone in the city will be hit with a Legend-rank Judgement Spell and be judged for their actions in the last 3 hours. If guilty, their freedom will be restricted and debuffs such as intangible cuffs and weapon seal will be inflicted on them. In the Great Judgement, the effects of the enforcer's Incantation of Law will be multiplied several folds and their power ranking will be increased by 1. (Requirements for usage: The laws in the city are in chaos, criminals are doing as they please and the city is on the verge of destruction) ]

[Effect 3: All is equal in the face of Law: Demarcates a zone and lowers the rank and stats of people within the zone to be of equal to the level as the user. Duration: 10 seconds. Requires 1 Faith in Law to activate.]

[Effect 4: Sinners will be Judged (Active): Activate Great Judgement towards a single target, cleansing him of all his sins through the judgement. Requirement: The target must be willing to undergo judgement.]

Seems very strong? But it still wasn't insufficient. In Eich, God Equipment tended to have God Energy and God Soul embedded within. This codex may represent the origin of the Power of Law, but without the support of a God of Law, it was slightly inferior to other God Equipment. Of course, it was still much stronger than any other SemiGod Equipment.

The rumours of Eternal Night Scepter had become quite outrageous. Other than the nonsense I made up, there was a rumour that the secret and fragmented soul of an Ancient Malevolent God was hidden within and Emperor Yongye was the only one to decipher it. Even worse, some claimed that the soul of Emperor Yongye was within and he would choose the most suitable person to be his successor… Fine, I finally understood what it meant for a rumour to became more convincing the more it spread. In the face of greed, people would try to correct any logical flaws in their mind.

Now that Vance was on the brink of destruction, the conditions for 'Great Judgement' had been fulfilled. It seemed like we could replicate the quick actions taken in Chrome City previously where the city was cleaned by over hundred temporary Legends during the Judgement.

But I didn't want to do that.

The situation may seem similar, but in actuality, it was entirely different. The Chrome City, which only had a few Legends, was different from Vance, which had over twenty Dark Elf Matriarchs and powerful accompanying guards. If we were to try to suppress them coldly like we did back then in Chrome City, we might not win even if we had an additional 300 temporary Legends in our force. At the very least, half of our forces would be wiped in the battle. Besides, this was the dumbest course of action that we could take.

Why? War was always born from politics. When considering whether to fight a war, we had to remain practical and take various interests into account. It might feel good to lower our blades on them, but if we were to kill over 20 Elf Matriarchs in one go, we would forge an irreconcilable grudge with the underground Elves as well as Lorci. This intervention which only could result in hatred towards us was really not worth doing.

It may seem to be a dead knot, giving us only the choice of either watching the city being wiped clean or to suppress them with bloodshed. However, it was my specialty to turn a cruel war upside down into a farce, reversing tragedy with comedy.

"Stop struggling and enter!!"

"No, I'm the noblest Queen of Banshees, not your pet! Keep away that milky-white substance from me! You vile disciple, ****, sex fiend, old bachelor…"

"Hehe, continue scolding as you please, your mouth is the only thing formidable about you now anyway. Wait until you enter, I'll make sure that you feel so much pleasure that you will feel like dying from it! Wahahahahhaa!!"

"Noooooooooo!! Pervert, I was your mentor!"

"It's because you were my mentor that there is joy in doing so! Wahaha, resistance is futile. This is my territory, no one will save you no matter how you scream. Just surrender and serve me."

"MASTER!!" Hasty footsteps could be heard from the back. Then, the door opened and the anxious Elisa lifted the broom she was holding behind her back and smacked it violently onto my brain, pulling my rationality back from my excitement.

Only viewing the situation within the room did the panting Elisa calm down.

The lewd scene that she was expecting didn't appear. She only saw a certain someone holding two test tubes and mixing the contents of the two together, seemingly trying to experiment with it. At this moment, she looked innocently at me.

"Why did you hit me?"

"That… I'm sorry, Master. It was just that I happened to overhear your conversation and I thought that you were…"

"I'm doing serious work right now. Wait, I had cast an Isolation Magic here, how did you hear anything? It couldn't be that you installed a hearing device here?!"

"Hehe, let's not pursue a woman's secret." The young lady blinked her eyes in embarrassment and the mischievous look she had on her face with her tongue stuck out was extremely cute. Being able to find her true self after breaking through into the Legend realm was a good thing, but…

"Secret you head! Don't act cute at a time like this!" At this moment, Elisa suddenly seemed to be attracted to the butterfly knot on her tail and lowered her head, trying her best to feign ignorance. I started to reflect on whether I was too forgiving towards these juniors.

However, thinking about what we were going to face and the heavy responsibility that was about to be entrusted to her, I suddenly lost my interest in pursuing the matter.

"Forget it. Your arrival was timely, there are some things that I wanted to brief you about first. After my plan activates and everything is successful, I'm afraid that there won't be much time left for us to interact."

The inauspicious meaning of the words made Elisa nervous.

"Master?"

But before briefing her, I looked towards the struggling Harloys in the bottle and hesitated for a brief moment. In a certain sense, my plan would strike a fatal blow into the core of the Order Gods, so it should be aligned to her goals. If I could get her to help, the success rate of the plan would be increased significantly.

Don't underestimate Harloys just because she was caught so easily. Actually, I think of her as the hardest to deal with of all the Undead Lords. Knowledge equalled power and wisdom. In the face of 'The Omniscient One' Harloys, who had gone through countless eras, Margaret and I weren't even qualified to address ourselves as apprentices before her.

The reason why we were able to successfully capture Harloys, 90% had to be attributed to her suicidal action.

If she hadn't become too complacent after obtaining a body with a God's Bloodline and immediately ran out to find me when the synchronization of her soul with her physical body wasn't completed yet, causing her to not even possess a third of the power she had when she was at the peak of her strength; if Adam, one of the strongest Warriors in the world, didn't manage to catch her, a Mage who was helpless in close combat, by surprise; if not for my assistance in restricting her movement, it definitely wouldn't be an easy task to get hold of her.

To say the truth, Adam and I had good teamwork and we had long attained the level where 1 + 1 = 3. With Adam serving as the main fighter and my support, I had the confidence to make even an Avatar of a Spellcaster class God kneel and submit to us.

The fact that I was able to catch Harloys made me so happy that I got engrossed into playing my part and spouted some indecent lines which caused Elisa to come barging in.

"Just give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can always silence her."

Thus, I started talking.

"All of this began with an agreement. That was back when I was still Emperor Yongye. By the River Styx, I made an agreement with Death God Ayer…"

The plan wasn't very long nor complicated, it took only ten minutes for me to finish my piece. However, Harloys stopped me in my tracks multiple times to plead me to strengthen the Anti-Eavesdropping Barrier and Anti-Spying Magic. After the end of my story, the Queen of Banshees in the bottle seemed to have malfunctioned and could only repeatedly mutter the same few words as though she was a psycho:

"I didn't hear anything, haha, nothing at all."

"Hee hee, as expected of my disciple, really playing it big this time. Should I feel sentimental upon seeing my disciple being on the verge of surpassing me?"

"Wait, something is wrong. Why are you telling me this? Are you trying to find a reason to get rid of me? However, if this plan succeeds, it seems that my vengeance will also be complete and there will be no reason for me to live. Should I rejoice?"

Elisa, after listening to the entire story solemnly, fell into silence.

"Master, to sacrifice so much, is it worth it?"

"Un, of course it's worth it. There won't be any rewards if we don't sacrifice something in return. If we don't change anything, all that awaits this world is destruction and calamity. Personally, I think that there's still a lot of things in this world worth living for."

Elisa lowered her head and became even more depressed.

"Selfish."

"I don't deny it."

"Bastard!"

"True, sometimes I do find that I'm a bastard."

"Pervert."

"I would have to deny that. I don't have the conditions to be perverted. Just look at me, I'm so poor that only bones remain…"

However, the motion of Elisa raising her head stopped my words. Her widened eyes stared fixedly at me, but the cold face she put on usually was replaced with a wretched face full of tears, not a trace of her usually dignified appearance.

Looking at the silent flow of tears, an ache in my chest made me lower my head helplessly. Just like before, I carefully wiped the tears off the crybaby.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't need an apology…"

"I'm really sorry."

"…You villain, I said don't apologize… Wuuuuu!"

My rare sincere apology was like a trigger, plunging this Legend-rank back into the times of her childhood, where she would just sit there, paralyzed, crying without a care.

Cajoling little children had never been my expertise. I panicked. But very quickly, Elisa stopped and with tearful face, she spoke of her request.

"…Fine, I'm willing to bear everything, but you must accept one condition to repay me."

A condition? This was something that should not be accepted at all costs. Who knew what the other party would request of you. What if she requested for you to solo a Demon Prince? However, looking at the sobbing girl, I somehow nodded in response to her request.

"Fine, as long as it doesn't go against my principle, no matter what condition you lay out, I shall agree to it."

Looking at her nodding her head, I heaved a sigh of relief. However, somehow, the ache in my heart worsened. Thus…

"Master?"

Hugging the young lady lightly, I felt her familiar warmth and smell and I felt that my heartbeat which had stopped seemingly start beating again. I felt comforted.

Undead may not have body warmth, but my rare gentleness made Elisa raise her head to stare at me.

"Just for a moment."

"Un." It felt as though we had returned to the past, when she would happily look for reasons during thunderstorms to dive into that body that wasn't warm but yet comforting. Despite having grown up, the girl took a half a step forward and allowed me to hug her tighter as she quietly made her wish.

"… Even now, is it still only kinship? Big Brother Rolo, Master Roland, the next time we meet, I shall become a good woman that you will be unable to ignore."

"Cough cough, this was really touching, but have you two forgotten that there is a third party here? Looks like it's another teacher-student relationship, seems like it really is in our heritage. Back then, if Cecily hadn't fallen in love with that Wood Elf bitch, I wouldn't have hardened my determination to kill her. Now that I think about it, Cecily's techniques were truly incredible. It was truly a pity that I did not retrieve her soul to make a doll."

Without any hesitation, Harloys revealed her dark history as a lesbian while playing the role of an excessive third party. The usually thick-skinned Elisa, upon recalling the tears and laughter from a moment ago, lowered her head in embarrassment and quickly pushed me away. In that instant, the air stilled.

"No one would treat you as a mute if you remained quiet." Displeased, I glared at the soul inside the bottle. Upon seeing the delighted expression on the soul, I immediately knew that she had already made her decision.

"Un, as expected of my disciple, playing quite a big game there. I shall help you, but you must let me go first. Kajah's physical body can still be used after stapling it together. After all, you know of my strength. The reason why I failed this time was because of my carelessness. If I were to help you, the success rate of your plan woöö be much higher."

I shook my head. Then, I lifted another bottle up and look at it with a smile. The bottle was filled with a thick white-colored transparent fluid. I opened the bottle and heartlessly pour it into the bottle with Harloys's soul.

"That are two separate matters. What I need the most right now are countless numbers of 'Child of Greed'. You should just obediently merge with the main body of Greed."

Yes, that bottle of disgusting fluid was the main body of Greed and not that 'special secretion'. My plan to turn this tragedy into a comedy was to reenact the play of the nude city. I didn't believe that the Dark Elf Matriarchs could continue on their rampage that way. Without their weapons and clothes, I doubted if they still possess sufficient strength to go against my Enforcers.

However, it would take a long period of preparation before my plan could get into action if I were to only use the main body of Greed to clone the Children of Greed. Furthermore, this would potentially end in a great loss for me as well, and that would affect my future plans greatly.

The original plan of using 'Great Judgement' and Adam's presence to intimidate the Dark Elves would result in great losses on our side, and given the many negative aftereffects it would bring about afterward, it couldn't be called an ideal solution. However, Harloys's sudden appearance offered me an additional choice.

No one was able to compete with the Banshees, who wielded the talent of 'possessing physical bodies', in controlling other people's physical body. The Queen of Banshees Harloys, despite having ablutomania1 which prevented her from using any physical bodies other than those of female Elf royalty, her unparalleled ability in controlling physical bodies allowed her to rapidly clone Child of Greed immediately after possessing the main body of Greed. It was also an easy task for her to control over ten thousand clones and limit the attacks to the enemies. 

"No, disgusting!! This thing is weird, the vitality of this soulless physical body is shockingly high! It has too great an attraction towards my soul, I'm afraid that I would be unable to leave the body after possessing it! How could I help you if that happens?!"

The reasoning of the Queen of Banshees' sounded convincing, but I already had it all planned out.

"Rest easy, this is one of my prided creations, Greed of the Seven Deadly Sins. Its potential hasn't been unleashed yet. Later, I shall help you fuse a bit of Kajah's God Bloodline into it, allowing it to evolve into a complete body. I ensure that you will be very energetic, making you so happy that you won't even think about possessing other bodies. It should be best for the main body to retain human shape, right? Do you prefer a loli physique or a young mature lady2 physique? Forget it, since a fluid being is able to transmogrify, I shall just add all of it in."

"Your Seven Deadly Sins? This Slime is your Undead Creation?!?!?! SAVE ME!!! SOMEONE IS KILLING THEIR MENTOR! Bastard, have you forgotten what Pride did back then? You still dare to create Undead even after that?!"

It was impossible for her calls for help to leak out anyway, so I ignored it and continued with my work.

Un, young mature woman, mature woman, teenage girl, old lady… Wait, old lady seems to be a bit too strong a taste, I better delete it. Then, the hairstyle, hair colour and clothes… It felt like playing a gal-game. Hehe, I felt quite excited.

"You disloyal disciple, I was blind to accept you back then. My greatest regret in my life was to teach you Undead Creation, look at what kind of monsters you built! This time, you are even using me as an ingredient for it. What's this? Why is my colour changing, why would a soul have color?"

Continuing to ignore her, it was about time for the complete product to appear.

"I, I am melting? Why would a soul melt? What have you done? Death God above, why did you allow me to meet you, why would the perfectly normal Undead Creation turn into something like that in your hands!"

"** Maid costume, fallen angel maid costume, beast-ear maid costume, standard English maid costume, robot teenage girl maid costume, extremely short H maid costume! AHHHH, my creative juices are burning!!"

"Stop doing weird stuff to my body, you bastard maid fetish… So warm, so comfortable. Wait, it couldn't be, how can Undead have feelings? What did you do?!"

"Hehe, are you happy? Proud? You are going to be my greatest creation. Let me think about what other maid costumes there are… Right, angel maid costume! Completely natural wings and the feeling of the flesh and feathers are completely identical! Perfect!!"

Looking at her motivated master, Elisa knew that she couldn't stop him. After solemnly expressing her sympathy towards the Dark Elves, whom misfortune was going to fall on, and Harloys, who deserved to burn on a stake for over 10 times, she closed the door and left.

She still needed some time to organize the information she just got hold of. At the same time…

"Hmph, I'm not just a silly woman who will just wait obediently. You want to use the family card to dump me? Dream on!" Elisa also had her own schemes and she had already started taking actions.

---------------

In the slums beside the mines not too far from Vance, an eerie blood-red altar had been constructed on the chilly cliff where the Dragon Queen almost died.

The locals there had become the tributes on the altar.

"Don't!!"

"That's my child!!"

In the face of the heartless thugs, the workers of the mine tried to retaliate but their actions were destined to end in vain. That's because those thugs were once their protectors and the master of this mine, the personal guards of the Beastman Sovereign!

The single-eyed Lion King looked at the cries of despair below. The citizens who he once protected were being sent to their doom. The Beastman Sovereign, reputed to be close with his people, looked at such a sight without a single expression on his face.

But, among the crowd, a stubborn Goblin male rushed out and shouted towards the Beastman Sovereign.

"Why!! Lord Lion King!! We pay your taxes and my nephew even died for you!! Why…"

He couldn't continue his words. He had been forced to the ground by some soldiers carrying the insignia of a single eye. That soldier looked up towards the Lion King, as though asking for the opinion of their superior.

On other days, to win the favor of his army, Shou Nuya would take good care of the family of his soldiers, but now…

Ignoring the questioning look from his subordinate, the Lion King looked on without a single change in his expressions. The old soldier stuffed the mouth of the Goblin and carried him to the altar. Bringing his blade down, a head rolled down and fresh blood splattered on the floor.

"Haha, you traitor. I shall patiently wait for the day where you get abandoned by your people. You… You actually turned to the Demons!"

This was the howling of an ex-ally. At this moment, the Dragon Queen only retained sufficient strength to howl. Her severely injured body was tied to the top of the altar. She was to be served as a super high-tier tribute.

There was no way the knowledgeable her would be unable to identify that this eerie blood-colored altar was a Dimension Gate leading to the lower realm where Demons live.

"You came."

Shou ignored his ex-ally. The only thing in his sight was his new ally who just arrived.

"Ainsterna Eduar, the Spatial Distortion leading to Sulfur Mountain City has been prepared. Is your army ready yet?"

The ones who walked out from the Dimension Gate wasn't just the bald and plump Ainsterna, but those who were Shou's enemy for a long time as well.

"Of course. However, correcting a point, from today onwards, they are your army. I'm allied with Sulfur Mountain City and you're the mutual enemy of us. If you fail, hehe, you know it."

"Hehe, cunning Devils. Betting on both sides again? Then, if Sulfur Mountain City is to be destroyed, then you will be my ally?"

"Hehe, as long as there are enough profits, we can be the allies of anyone, even if it is those foolish Demons whose heads are filled with muscles."

Ainsterna laughed, laughed to the point that the fat on his belly was trembling. He looked like a gleeful merchant who just finalized a big deal.

"Hehe, haven't we been allies in the Underground Alliance all along? Actually, I had a good impression of that Wumianzhe. He was exactly like a natural Devil Lord, but it was a pity that the new City Lord of Sulfur Mountain City was also a human. The Underground World only needs one 'human' Underground Autarch. Having a second would be too dangerous."

The two Underground Autarchs with their own plots smiled as the other Underground Autarch who was treated as a tribute cursed them. The cries of despair that accompanied the tributes at their moment of death could be heard, even from the far distance.