After all, Locke's sights had never once been limited by Sovereign sparks.
If not for people like Ryan and Rockpeak killing the captains of the Sovereign Army under the Infernal Realm's Bloodridge Sovereign, Pash, Locke likely would not have decided so quickly to hunt down a Fate Lesser Sovereign and seize a Sovereign spark to become a Sovereign himself.
Other living beings pursued Sovereign sparks because they had already reached the end of their paths. Only Sovereign sparks could allow their strength to undergo a leap in power.
Locke was different. Even without a Sovereign spark, Locke's strength could still rise step by step until he became a Sovereign, or even an existence surpassing Sovereigns.
Take Locke now for example. Even if he no longer possessed the Fate Lesser Sovereign spark, relying solely on the power of fused Laws, both his Fate divine clone and Water divine clone would still possess the power of Laws Chief Sovereigns.
Furthermore, Locke's original body had now become a Lower Deity of Space. Combined with a body whose toughness had reached the level of a Sovereign artifact, the additional portion of Will bestowed by the breakthrough in fused Laws, and the physical strength brought by the Emperor River bloodline, even Locke's original body had strength surpassing that of Intermediate Sovereigns within the Coiling Dragon Universe.
Both Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Death knew that this was far from Locke's limit.
Only other people, using petty minds to judge a gentleman's heart, believed Locke would choose shortcuts and thus guarded the Water Sovereign sparks with extreme vigilance.
One wondered whether they would blush in embarrassment after seeing Locke's current display.
…
Among Deities, a tenfold gap in power was enough for one side to instantly kill the other.
The strength of Sovereigns was far beyond that of Deities. Between Sovereigns, a hundredfold difference in power was required for one side to instantly kill the other.
A tenfold difference merely allowed the stronger Sovereign to injure the weaker one.
That was exactly the situation between Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Orloff.
In terms of true strength, the fused Laws of Water and Fate made Locke ten times stronger than the Chief Sovereign of Fate.
Under such circumstances, every one of Locke's attacks was capable of inflicting considerable damage upon Orloff.
Although Sovereign power possessed extremely strong regenerative abilities, the frequency and intensity of Locke's attacks exceeded the restorative speed of Orloff's Sovereign power.
If no other Sovereigns intervened, Locke estimated that in less than three days, he would be able to kill the Chief Sovereign of Fate.
Within the Light Divine Plane, Augusta's face was deathly pale. Even the armrests of the divine throne beneath him had been crushed by his grip.
But he had no way—and no courage—to go out and help Orloff.
As the clone separated from Orloff, Augusta had inherited all of Orloff's negative personality traits and emotions.
Even though Augusta knew that if he entered the spatial turbulence now and merged with Orloff, their strength would rise another level, Augusta still did not dare step even half a foot into the spatial turbulence and expose his identity by merging with Orloff.
However, Augusta soon relaxed slightly.
This was because his divine sense had also detected the Chief Sovereign of Life and the Chief Sovereign of Destruction entering the spatial turbulence.
At a time like this, there was no way these two Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts had entered the spatial turbulence to help Sovereign Locke attack his original body.
Then what they intended to do by entering the spatial turbulence at this moment was obvious.
…
"Sovereign Locke, Sovereign Orloff."
After arriving within the spatial turbulence, before the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, could attack Locke, the Chief Sovereign of Life, Wawaya, spoke first.
"I wonder what misunderstanding exists between the two of you to cause such a fierce battle."
"If you do not mind, could you tell us about it?"
"After all, I am also quite interested in the reason capable of causing two Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts to fight like this."
Upon hearing the Chief Sovereign of Life's words, the emotions of the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, instantly stabilized. He merely followed behind Locke and Orloff alongside Wawaya, temporarily refraining from making a move.
Previously, what the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, had been thinking was that the Chief Sovereign of Fate could not be allowed to die. Otherwise, if the next Fate Chief Sovereign were not a Paragon, the prestige of the Four Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts as the strongest Sovereigns would inevitably suffer.
But now, Wordred had also been reminded by the Chief Sovereign of Life's words.
They still did not understand why Sovereign Locke and Sovereign Orloff were fighting.
If Orloff had violated some rule, then helping him would simply make them accomplices.
Upon hearing Wawaya's question, Augusta within the Light Divine Plane cursed inwardly.
If those two Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts wanted to save him, then they should just make a move already. What was the point of asking all these useless questions?
Couldn't they see that his original body had already been beaten to the point of coughing blood by Sovereign Locke?
With such a disparity in strength, how could his original body possibly spare any attention to explain why he was fighting Sovereign Locke?
At present, the battle between Locke and Orloff still consisted merely of clashes between fused Laws and Will. Neither side had yet used any decisive killing techniques.
Locke was not using them because he felt there was no need to reveal more.
Orloff was not using them because he intended to reserve them for blocking Locke's stronger techniques once Locke revealed them.
If he carelessly exposed a flaw by using a stronger technique first, he might lose even faster.
Under such circumstances, Orloff naturally had to devote all his focus toward Locke, not daring to divide his attention in the slightest.
Thus, although he heard Wawaya's question, he did not have the spare mental capacity to answer.
Locke, however, did not have such concerns.
Seeing that the Chief Sovereigns of Life and Destruction had not attacked indiscriminately upon arriving, but had instead first asked about the reason for the battle, Locke actually felt somewhat gratified.
At the very least, despite harboring their own thoughts, the Chief Sovereign of Life, Wawaya, and the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, still respected the rules fairly well.
Thus, Locke did not put on a cold face toward the two Chief Sovereigns of the Edicts.
The other Sovereigns also became energized.
They too wanted to know what exactly had caused Sovereign Locke and Sovereign Orloff to start fighting.
"Lady Wawaya, Lord Wordred."
"In the Sovereign Pact established by the Chief Sovereign of Death, it was clearly stated that high-ranking Sovereigns are not permitted to attack lower-ranking Sovereigns without cause."
"Argenis, formerly a Sovereign Emissary under the Nine Nether Sovereign of the Netherworld, led the soldiers of the Nine Nether Army into degenerating into pirates after the Nine Nether Sovereign's death, throwing the Netherworld's Nethersea region into chaos."
"The Sovereign Army under my command launched a suppression campaign against the pirate forces led by the Nine Nether Pirates because of their countless crimes and the instability they brought to the living beings of the Nethersea."
"After several tens of millions of years, we finally managed to eradicate all pirate forces within the Nethersea."
"But just as Argenis was about to be killed by a Commander of my Sovereign Army, he was swept away into the spatial turbulence."
"After learning of this from the Commander under my command, I used Argenis's aura remaining on my subordinate and employed the Edicts of Fate to search for his whereabouts. Unexpectedly, I discovered Argenis within the estate of the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Lord Orloff."
"During my conversation with Lord Orloff, Argenis also agreed to allow me to retrieve the Sovereign artifact in his possession."
"But when I extracted the Sovereign artifact from Argenis's body, the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Lord Orloff, immediately attacked me. If I did not possess some degree of strength myself, I likely would already have died beneath Lord Orloff's hands."
"If I remember correctly, my current Sovereign rank is still at the third tier among Sovereigns, among the ranks of the Laws Chief Sovereigns."
"Lord Orloff, as a highest-tier Edicts Chief Sovereign, attacking me—a third-tier Laws Chief Sovereign—has already violated the Sovereign Pact established by the Chief Sovereign of Death."
"Lady Wawaya, Lord Wordred, now that you've arrived, are you here to help me subdue this Sovereign who violated the Sovereign Pact?"
When the other Sovereigns heard Sovereign Locke revealing this information, they had initially thought it was some major matter.
But unexpectedly, the reason for the battle between Sovereign Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Fate, Orloff, was merely the handling of a deceased Sovereign's Sovereign Emissary.
As for Locke's claim that the Chief Sovereign of Fate attacked first, most of them were inclined to believe it.
However, they did not completely believe it either.
Sovereign Locke had suddenly revealed such terrifying power. If he had secretly harbored resentment over the previous small schemes of the Chief Sovereign of Fate, it was also possible that Locke had suddenly attacked Orloff himself.
After all, they had only spread their divine senses throughout the spatial turbulence earlier. None of them had secretly listened in within the Celestial Realm to discover what exactly had transpired between Sovereign Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Fate.
Of course, based on the actions displayed by Sovereign Locke and the Chief Sovereign of Fate when the Celestial Realm's space shattered and they entered the spatial turbulence, it did indeed appear as though the Chief Sovereign of Fate had attacked Sovereign Locke first, only for Sovereign Locke to block the attack.
Even the Chief Sovereign of Life, Wawaya, and the Chief Sovereign of Destruction, Wordred, felt that if it were Orloff, then attacking Sovereign Locke during a private meeting was entirely possible.
After all, every previous move against Sovereign Locke had been led by the Chief Sovereign of Fate.
However, even they had not expected that the Chief Sovereign of Fate's reason for attacking would actually be because Sovereign Locke had seized the Sovereign artifact of a deceased Sovereign's Sovereign Emissary.
"Lord Orloff, how do you answer Sovereign Locke's accusations?"
The Chief Sovereign of Life, Wawaya, questioned Orloff.
At this moment, Locke also cooperatively slowed his attacks somewhat, giving the Chief Sovereign of Fate a brief opportunity to breathe, almost perfectly balancing the damage inflicted upon Orloff with the recovery speed of his Sovereign power.
The Chief Sovereign of Fate looked deeply at Locke.
He had to admit that attacking Sovereign Locke this time was the greatest mistake he had made in countless years.
Before making his move, Orloff had never intended to kill Locke. He had merely believed that the gray flame Locke had extracted from Argenis's soul might be related to the creature born within the spatial turbulence.
Originally, in Orloff's expectations, his true strength was a hundred times greater than Sovereign Locke's. If Sovereign Locke had tactfully stepped aside, Orloff had only intended to seize Bloodshadow Flame.
After all, Sovereign Locke was different from the other Sovereigns.
(End of Chapter)
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