"I've always wanted to have a proper talk with you, Sovereign Locke."
"Unfortunately, I never found a suitable opportunity all these years."
"Now that Sovereign Locke has come personally, there are some doubts regarding cultivation in my heart that I would like to discuss with you. Perhaps we may even discover the possibility of advancing further through each other."
After pushing the filled teacup toward Locke, the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Orloff, smiled as he looked at Locke, waiting for his response.
Locke did not refuse the tea poured by Orloff. He raised it and lightly took a sip before placing the teacup back onto the stone table.
"Lord Orloff has already cultivated the Edicts of Fate to the Paragon level. On the path of the Edicts, you already stand at the very peak."
"How could someone like me possibly help Lord Orloff discover the possibility of progressing even further?"
"Sovereign Locke is too modest."
Seeing that Locke had not directly refused, the smile on Orloff's face became a little more sincere.
"I am a Paragon of the Edicts of Fate, but isn't Sovereign Locke the same?"
"And to be honest, Sovereign Locke may laugh at me for this, but my final step toward becoming a Paragon of the Edicts of Fate was ultimately achieved through relying upon the enormous power of faith I gathered."
"Sovereign Locke, I suspect you had already reached the Paragon level even before the rest of us became Paragons, correct?"
"And not merely as a Paragon of the Edicts of Fate, but also a Paragon of the Laws of Water."
"For countless years, I, Orloff, have never truly admired anyone. But Sovereign Locke is absolutely the person I admire the most."
Argenis stood outside the pavilion like an ant, listening to the conversation between the two Chief Sovereigns.
And the contents of their discussion filled his heart with shock.
Paragon.
Argenis was not unfamiliar with this title.
No—not just Argenis. It should be said that nearly every expert at the level of a Six Star Fiend or above was familiar with it.
This term was said to have been coined by the lofty Sovereigns themselves.
Within the Fiend Castles of the Infernal Realm, the Fiend Castles of the Netherworld, the Celestial Castles of the Celestial Realm, the Elven Castles of the Life Realm, as well as within the publicly acknowledged organizations that defined strength throughout the Seven Divine Planes, all possessed descriptions regarding Paragons.
And within all those castles, there were only three identical statements concerning Paragons.
It was precisely those three statements that caused the Deities of the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes to both revere and fear Paragons.
The first statement was the ultimate pursuit of all Deities.
A Paragon was someone who had completely fused all the Profound Mysteries of one set of Laws, or someone who had completely comprehended one set of Edicts.
The second statement represented the strength of a Paragon.
A Paragon could ignore Sovereign projections. If one wished to kill a Paragon, a Sovereign had to personally take action.
The final statement described the status of a Paragon.
Paragons stood at the absolute pinnacle of Laws and Edicts. Even Sovereigns had to treat Paragons as equals.
From the words exchanged by the two Chief Sovereigns, Argenis learned that the two Chief Sovereigns before him were both Paragons.
Furthermore, the Sovereign Locke personally invited in by Lord Orloff through a spatial tear was not only a Paragon of the Edicts of Fate, but also a Paragon of the Laws of Water.
A dual-element Paragon...
Argenis's teeth nearly ached from envy.
He himself had spent tens of millions of years cultivating before finally comprehending ninety percent of the Edicts of Destruction, becoming an expert at the level of a Prefect and earning the favor of the Nine Nether Sovereign, eventually becoming the Nine Nether Sovereign's Sovereign Emissary.
Yet over the following tens of millions of years, he had failed to make even the slightest further progress in the Edicts of Destruction.
But then look at this Sovereign Locke...
Sometimes, the difference between people was greater than the difference between people and pigs.
"To receive Lord Orloff's admiration truly leaves me overwhelmed by undeserved honor."
Although the Chief Sovereign of Fate was clearly flattering him, Locke remained unmoved.
"Lord Orloff, the reason I came to see you this time concerns this Sovereign Emissary formerly under the Nine Nether Sovereign."
"For now, let us first settle matters concerning this former Sovereign Emissary before discussing anything else."
Before obtaining Bloodshadow Flame, Locke had no intention of agreeing to anything proposed by the Chief Sovereign of Fate.
Hearing Locke speak so directly, the smile on Orloff's face stiffened slightly.
Meanwhile, Argenis nearly felt his heart leap out from his chest in fright.
Long ago, after losing contact with the Nine Nether Sovereign, Argenis had guessed that perhaps he and the soldiers of the Nine Nether Army had all been abandoned by their Sovereign.
No matter how bold Argenis was, he had never dared imagine that a Sovereign could actually fall.
But when the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Lord Orloff, appeared before him, he finally understood that he and the others had not been abandoned by their Sovereign Lord.
Rather, their Sovereign Lord had already been slain during the previous Sovereign War.
During the first Sovereign War, three Laws Chief Sovereigns, nine Intermediate Sovereigns, and twenty-one Lesser Sovereigns had fallen.
The Nine Nether Sovereign had been one of those nine fallen Intermediate Sovereigns.
In the end, Argenis agreed to come to the Celestial Realm and become a Sovereign Emissary under Lord Orloff.
However, Argenis never expected that immediately after becoming Lord Orloff's Sovereign Emissary, another Sovereign would arrive, saying he wished to discuss how to handle him.
Suddenly, Argenis recalled the army that had surrounded the pirates within the Nethersea.
Could it be that army belonged to this Sovereign Locke?
Thinking about it carefully, though, it wasn't impossible.
After all, that army had simply been too elite.
Not only were all of them Highgods, they also possessed formations capable of coordinated attacks, as well as magical battle formations that enhanced offensive power.
Argenis could imagine that if that army had not merely appeared within the Nethersea, but instead participated in another Planar War, that Sovereign Army would absolutely change the future combat style of all major powers.
Once formations for coordinated attacks became publicly known, then in the future, experts at the level of Five Star and Six Star Fiends could potentially be killed through sufficient numbers of Highgods alone.
Only experts above the level of Seven Star Fiends would remain capable of altering high-level battlefields.
As for the very highest-level battles, those would still require experts at the Prefect level to suppress the battlefield.
Magical battle formations indeed possessed considerable might, but their cumbersome nature also determined that in battles at the Prefect level, such formations were merely targets.
Of course, if the number of magical battle formations was large enough, it was not impossible to rely on numerical superiority in attacks to surround and kill experts at the Prefect level and obtain victory.
"Argenis?"
Hearing Locke's words, Orloff frowned slightly.
The reason he had noticed Argenis in the first place was because when the spatial vortex in the spatial turbulence had been accidentally ruptured by the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, creating a passage to a material plane, Orloff had unintentionally sensed a trace of Argenis's aura.
Afterward, through that trace of soul aura, the Chief Sovereign of Fate located Argenis within a certain material plane.
Out of curiosity, Orloff directly descended a Sovereign projection into that material plane and thus learned of Argenis's past.
The Chief Sovereign of Fate speculated that Argenis's aura appearing within the spatial turbulence must have some unknown connection to the creature that had caused the spatial vortex. Thus, he invited Argenis to the Celestial Realm to become his Sovereign Emissary.
That way, Orloff could observe Argenis and see whether he might discover traces of that unknown creature through him.
However, before the Chief Sovereign of Fate could begin his investigation, he sensed someone tracing Argenis's aura through the Edicts of Fate.
After sensing that aura of the Edicts of Fate, the Chief Sovereign of Fate understood that he was not the only Sovereign paying attention to Argenis.
At the very least, even now, Orloff still believed that Sovereign Locke, like himself, intended to use Argenis to locate the creature that had vanished within the spatial vortex.
Thus, the Chief Sovereign of Fate said to Locke:
"Sovereign Locke, since the two of us both discovered Argenis, then we can completely cooperate."
"I already tested it before. I was unable to sense the aura of that creature from Argenis."
"If Sovereign Locke can locate that creature from the spatial vortex through Argenis, then I can relinquish ownership of that creature. However, Sovereign Locke must also swear upon the name of the Overgods that you will provide me with enough essence blood from that creature for my research."
Locke froze.
Only now did he realize that the Chief Sovereign of Fate had never discovered the abnormality surrounding Bloodshadow Flame on Argenis.
The reason Orloff valued Argenis was because he believed Argenis was connected to the creature within the spatial vortex that Locke himself had fabricated?
The corner of Locke's mouth twitched upward slightly before he hurriedly suppressed it.
He couldn't laugh.
No matter how funny something was, he absolutely couldn't laugh.
He was professionally trained.
Unless he truly couldn't hold it in.
Mm. Locke's original body within the Netherworld, as well as the Chief Sovereign of Death—who had learned Orloff's words through Locke's original body—could no longer hold it in and burst into loud laughter.
"Hahaha! Hahahaha…"
"That fellow Orloff actually believes a creature could be born within the spatial turbulence. That's simply too hilarious."
"However…"
After laughing for a while, the Chief Sovereign of Death shook her head and sighed.
"Perhaps this is simply the difference in experience between us and Orloff."
"The three of us Chief Sovereigns were all the first lifeforms born within the Higher Planes. We've never seen elemental vortices before."
"So even when a spatial vortex appeared within the spatial turbulence, we had no idea what might exist within it."
"But Orloff, who rose from a material plane, was able to recall the elemental vortices formed when magical beasts advanced within material planes. From the similarity between the two, he inferred that either a creature or treasure was being born within."
"In terms of experience and knowledge, Orloff truly surpasses us by quite a bit."
Only after hearing the Chief Sovereign of Death say this did Locke finally realize why the other three Chief Sovereigns had not immediately destroyed the spatial vortex formed by his absorption of spatial energy.
It was because of the Chief Sovereign of Fate's speculation.
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