If Lord Locke were to send this Sovereign Army to join the Netherworld side, then even with Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff receiving assistance from Light Chief Sovereign Augusta's two armies, they would have no chance of victory.
Immediately, Locke smiled at Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff before turning toward Death Chief Sovereign.
"Death Chief Sovereign, I still have a Sovereign Army under my command. I wonder if you're willing to pay the price of a favor in exchange for me using this Sovereign Army to support the Netherworld?"
This was Locke's response to Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff.
Since Orloff had used a "favor" to persuade Light Chief Sovereign Augusta to dispatch his Sovereign Army and Angel Army, Locke could likewise ask Death Chief Sovereign for a "favor" in order to assist her.
As soon as Locke spoke, all the Sovereigns immediately understood his attitude.
The smile on Orloff's face froze, while Augusta's complexion turned deathly pale.
Lord Locke and Death Chief Sovereign were husband and wife. They even had children together. Every Sovereign knew this.
If Locke wished to help Death Chief Sovereign, it only required a single word from her.
Yet Locke deliberately demanded a favor from Death Chief Sovereign.
How could the Sovereigns not understand that this was Locke mocking Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff?
Originally, everyone had been behaving properly, using only their own plane's Sovereign Armies in the Planar Battlefield.
Even the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns had their armies join their respective Divine Planes instead of combining them to help a single plane.
So what? Did Fate Chief Sovereign Orloff think he was clever enough to steal a victory with just one favor?
Now things were different.
Lord Locke had personally brought his Sovereign Army into the battle.
...
Within the Planar Battlefield, the stability of space was more than one hundred times greater than that of the Four Higher Planes.
Any lifeform selected to participate in a Planar War possessed at least Highgod-level strength, even ordinary soldiers.
For the other Sovereign Armies, selecting participants required careful screening.
But for the Locke Sovereign Army, there was no need for that.
Because the first requirement for joining the Locke Sovereign Army was to possess at least Highgod-level strength.
Furthermore, what the other Sovereigns envied the most about Locke's army was the enormous number of Grand Magic Formation Masters.
Every Grand Magic Formation Master could lead the soldiers under them to establish magical battle formations capable of threatening Seven Star Fiends.
People like Figueroa and Ceres could even threaten Prefect-level experts.
At this point in time, calling Locke's Sovereign Army the strongest Sovereign Army was no exaggeration.
A single Locke Army was at minimum equivalent to three Sovereign Armies belonging to other Sovereigns.
If Locke's Sovereign Army participated in the Planar Battlefield, it could practically be said that whichever side it joined would win with absolute certainty.
"Haha, while I'm not particularly interested in whatever happens after ten consecutive victories in the Planar Battlefield, I dislike even more the idea that such a change, one that will bring negative consequences to the Sovereigns, should be obtained by someone like that."
"The price of one favor is something I can afford!"
As Death Chief Sovereign's words fell, all the Sovereigns understood that the outcome of this Planar War no longer contained any suspense.
After receiving Death Chief Sovereign's approval, Locke chuckled and spread his divine sense into the Netherworld, instructing Oakes to gather the soldiers at Flamebone Island.
In only ten years, several hundred thousand soldiers of the Locke Army had assembled. After receiving their Commander badges and soldier badges before the portal at Flamebone Island, they immediately entered the Planar Battlefield.
This time, including Oakes himself, six Commanders from the Locke Sovereign Army entered the battlefield, along with more than thirty Seven Star Fiends and over twenty Grand Magic Formation Masters capable of establishing large-scale magical battle formations.
From the portal to the Stellar River, the Locke Army required only five days.
During these ten years, the Celestial Realm side had desperately tried to secure victory before the Locke Army entered the battlefield.
At the very least, they wanted to seize one bridge over the Stellar River and force this Planar War into a draw.
Since the appearance of the Planar Battlefield, it had opened fewer than twenty times.
Thus, aside from Locke, the other Sovereigns were still largely guessing many of its rules.
They didn't know that for the ten-win streak, even if the ninth battle ended in a draw, the streak would still be considered broken.
The reason Locke knew so much was because these rules had been summarized by later generations of Sovereigns after eight or nine million Planar Wars over more than a thousand kalpas.
Had he not possessed memories of Coiling Dragon, Locke might have regarded the Planar Battlefield with the same indifference as the previous Sovereigns.
The importance current Sovereigns attached to the Planar Battlefield came from two reasons.
Firstly, Locke had explained that the Planar Battlefield was one of the methods by which Sovereigns maintained the stability of the universe.
Secondly, they had confidence in Locke.
Over the years, although Locke had established rules that all Sovereigns were forced to obey, everyone gradually discovered that Sovereigns with responsibilities and things to do possessed far better temperaments than those who previously had nothing to occupy themselves with.
Although lifeforms within the Coiling Dragon universe escaped the limits of lifespan once they reached the Saint-level, the mind did not.
The Planar Battlefield was a meat grinder.
Every time it opened, everyone knew that entering it meant a ninety percent chance of death.
Yet why did so many people still participate?
The answer was simple.
These people had already grown tired of remaining at their current levels.
They desperately wished to break through and experience a different life.
Thus, they entered the Planar Battlefield and used the threat of death to force themselves forward.
If they won, survived, and broke through, then they could ascend to a higher level and enjoy hundreds of millions of years of glory.
If they lost, failed, and died—
Then so be it.
It wasn't just the Sovereigns who didn't value the lives of those who voluntarily joined the Planar Battlefield.
Those participants themselves also never cared much about their own lives.
The Sovereigns were no different.
If they had nothing to do and no sense of responsibility, becoming Sovereigns would actually leave them with less freedom than ordinary Deities.
They too would create disturbances to stimulate themselves and remind themselves that they were still alive.
...
As expected, after the Netherworld soldiers withstood the assault of the Celestial Realm's five Sovereign Armies along with Light Chief Sovereign Augusta's Sovereign Army and Angel Army, the arrival of the Locke Sovereign Army immediately turned the tide and launched a counterattack.
This also allowed the Sovereigns to witness for the first time the terrifying power of magical battle formations.
Especially in large-scale army warfare such as the Planar Battlefield, the massive magical battle formations established by Grand Magic Formation Masters were practically unstoppable.
Gods fell before them, and Buddhas fell before them.
No army could emerge unscathed from the attacks of those large formations.
In particular, with the Prefect-level experts all tied down by opponents of equal rank, the magical battle formations of the Locke Army easily tore through the Celestial Realm's defenses.
Divine bodies exploded one after another in midair.
Their divine sparks fell into the Stellar River and were swept away by spatial turbulence, disappearing to unknown destinations.
In less than three months, the three Sovereign Armies guarding the bridge on the Celestial Realm's side had been nearly slaughtered by the Locke Army.
They had no choice but to retreat back to their base camp, allowing the Netherworld to occupy one bridge.
After losing one bridge, the Celestial Realm concentrated all of its remaining forces on the other bridge, barely managing to resist the Netherworld's attacks.
Of course, the primary reason was that the bridge over the Stellar River had limited width, preventing both sides from deploying all of their troops simultaneously.
After all, aside from the bridge connecting both camps, the only alternative was the terrifying Stellar River formed from spatial turbulence.
Anyone swept into it would surely die unless they possessed a Sovereign-grade material defense artifact.
Under such circumstances, four Sovereign Armies fighting upon a single bridge was already the limit.
However, while the Netherworld side could only deploy two Sovereign Armies, the Celestial Realm side only had two Sovereign Armies remaining.
With defeat already certain, Light Chief Sovereign Augusta no longer sent his Angel Army into battle.
Unlike Sovereign Armies, which could be rebuilt within a thousand years so long as a Sovereign wished to recruit people, the Angel Army represented Augusta's painstaking savings accumulated one angel at a time over countless years.
Even losing a single Six-Winged Angel would cause him pain for quite some time.
After another month of slaughter, the two remaining Sovereign Armies of the Celestial Realm suffered devastating casualties and could no longer resist the Netherworld's offensive.
In the end, the Netherworld seized the bridge and successfully claimed victory in this Planar War.
Buzz!
At the moment the Netherworld achieved victory, the Laws of the Universe descended within the spatial turbulence.
Immediately, the five Death Sovereigns were enveloped by the Laws.
When the Laws finally dispersed, joy appeared in the eyes of the Death Sovereigns.
The other Sovereigns looked at them with envy.
These were the Laws of the Universe!
Finally, one curious Sovereign asked Death Chief Sovereign:
"Death Chief Sovereign, would we be fortunate enough to learn what reward is granted for ten consecutive victories in the Planar Battlefield?"
"Of course. It's not some great secret."
Death Chief Sovereign had no intention of concealing it.
After all, she wasn't the only Sovereign who had received the gift of the Laws.
"The reward for ten consecutive victories in the Planar Battlefield is one portion of Will."
"In terms of strength, it is equivalent to the Will bestowed upon a Paragon, increasing a Sovereign's power by ten times."
Death Chief Sovereign's answer filled all the Sovereigns with incomparable envy.
Every Sovereign had cultivated independently from Demigod to Highgod.
Naturally, they all knew that every descent of the Laws signified a leap in realm and an increase of more than tenfold in strength.
Who could have imagined that even at the Sovereign level, the value contained within the descent of the Laws had not diminished in the slightest?
(End of Chapter)
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