Every second, this Fate Sovereign felt as though he might be beaten to death by Chief Sovereign Redding right then and there.
When he finally felt himself reaching his limit, the Lesser Fate Sovereign had no choice but to throw dignity aside and cry out at the top of his lungs.
"Ihalo, save me!"
Hearing his plea, the Fate Sovereign named Ihalo—who was currently besieging Violetthorn Sovereign's husband alongside the Fire Sovereign—glanced at the Destruction Sovereign who was on the verge of death, then at the Fire Sovereign watching him like a tiger eyeing its prey.
In the end, he made his choice.
He pretended not to hear it.
At the moment his opponent called for help, Redding's assault slowed slightly.
Though Redding was confident he was the strongest among Lesser Sovereigns, facing two Sovereigns of the same rank at once still required caution. The slightest mistake could overturn everything.
But what neither Redding nor the Fate Sovereign had expected was that Ihalo, the Fate Sovereign besieging Violetthorn Sovereign's husband, acted as if he had heard nothing at all.
He didn't even respond.
"Hahaha!"
Redding burst into loud laughter.
"I told you already—you lot are nothing but clowns!"
"You won't even save your own ally when he's in danger, and people like you became Sovereigns?"
"If word of this got out, it'd be the joke of the ages!"
As he mocked him, Redding's attacks continued without pause.
Meanwhile, his opponent had no choice but to start cursing Ihalo outright.
Unfortunately, faced with the near-certain chance of obtaining a Destruction Sovereign spark, Ihalo simply played dead and ignored him completely.
Gradually, under Redding's relentless assault, the Fate Sovereign began to beg for mercy.
"Chief Sovereign Redding, please spare me! If you let me go this once, I swear by the Overgod that I will pledge allegiance to the Four Divine Beasts!"
"This…"
Redding hesitated.
Recruit this Fate Sovereign into the Four Divine Beasts' faction?
"No—!"
At that very moment, while Redding was still wavering, Violetthorn Sovereign's husband finally gave out.
His divine body was blasted apart by Ihalo and the Fire Sovereign.
He died on the spot.
The moment Violetthorn Sovereign sensed her husband's soul aura vanish, she let out a shrill, grief-stricken scream.
Enduring the attacks of two Intermediate Sovereigns head-on, she forcibly broke away from her battlefield and sped toward this one.
Seeing Violetthorn Sovereign rushing over, both Ihalo and the Fire Sovereign reached out at once, each trying to seize the Destruction Sovereign spark and flee.
Boom!
Their Sovereign's power collided.
Ihalo forced back the Fire Sovereign's power and snatched the Lesser Destruction Sovereign spark into his hand.
Then he turned to flee back toward the Celestial Realm.
"Don't think of escaping!"
Redding froze for a moment when he saw Violetthorn Sovereign's husband die.
His purpose in intervening this time had been to recruit Violetthorn Sovereign and her husband into the Four Divine Beasts' faction, completing their pantheon.
Now that the husband was dead, how could he possibly still recruit them?
And if he let this man escape, Redding wouldn't even have the face to bring up the matter to Violetthorn Sovereign.
"ROAR!"
Abandoning the Fate Sovereign he had nearly killed, Redding moved to intercept Ihalo.
A phantom Azure Dragon appeared behind him and let out a thunderous dragon roar toward the space ahead.
This was the Azure Dragon clan's innate divine ability—
Dragon Roar!
Under the effect of Redding's innate ability, the flow of time in that section of space abruptly slowed to an extreme degree.
Whether it was Fate Sovereign Ihalo or the Fire Sovereign who had failed to obtain the spark, their movements became slow motion in the divine senses of all observing Sovereigns.
As a true divine beast, the effect of Redding's innate ability was at least ten times stronger than what Linley would one day display.
Not only was the duration far longer, but the extent to which time itself was slowed was on an entirely different level.
Even if Linley had been tempered by the Azure Dragon Chief Sovereign's blood essence and undergone the ancestral baptism that elevated his bloodline purity close to that of second-generation divine beast descendants like Gaiseric, he was still not a true divine beast.
Naturally, he could never bring out the full power of the divine beast's innate ability.
In the Coiling Dragon universe, the slightest difference in level often meant a tenfold, hundredfold, or even thousandfold gap.
Like Saint-level peak versus Lesser.
Or quasi-Paragon versus true Paragon.
While the two Sovereigns were trapped in Redding's slowed-time field, Violetthorn Sovereign arrived.
"Die!"
Faced with the enemy who had killed her husband, Violetthorn Sovereign no longer cared about any Sovereign Pact.
All she wanted was revenge.
Slash!
The longsword in her hand swept out in a long streak of sword-light, cleaving the Fire Sovereign in two with a single strike.
The difference in power between a Intermediate Sovereign and a Lesser Sovereign allowed her to kill him instantly.
His Sovereign spark was blasted deep into the spatial turbulence by the force of the attack and vanished from sight.
Then Violetthorn Sovereign charged into the area affected by Redding's innate ability and, in the "slow motion" visible to the watching Sovereigns, shredded Fate Sovereign Ihalo into countless fragments in a single instant.
When Redding's innate ability finally ended, Ihalo's body was immediately annihilated by the spatial turbulence.
Only his Fate Sovereign spark and the Lesser Destruction Sovereign spark he had stolen from Violetthorn Sovereign's husband remained.
Redding had long been prepared.
Using his willpower, he forcibly suppressed the surrounding spatial turbulence, preventing the two Sovereign sparks from being swept away.
Without sparing the two sparks even a glance, Violetthorn Sovereign immediately turned and pursued the Fate Sovereign who had already fled toward the Celestial Realm.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The moment Violetthorn Sovereign left, just as Redding was about to collect the two Sovereign sparks, he was struck by over a dozen attacks at once.
In an instant, Sovereigns from nearly every Divine Plane and Higher Plane tore through space, all rushing toward the two Sovereign sparks.
Intermediate Sovereigns and Chief Sovereigns could not attack Redding without cause.
But the Lesser Sovereigns under their command had no such restriction.
Thus, the scene before them erupted.
"Big Brother!"
Seeing Redding blasted away, Eres, Nimo, and Bowen immediately tore open a spatial crack from Hell and entered the spatial turbulence to regroup with him.
Once the Four Divine Beasts had assembled, the other Sovereigns all retreated far away, unwilling to provoke them.
After all, when united, the Four Divine Beasts were considered to be at the Chief Sovereign tier.
If anyone continued attacking them, it would be regarded as a direct challenge to a Chief Sovereign.
At that point, the Four Divine Beasts could kill them without consequence.
Then, more than a dozen Lesser Sovereigns instantly began fighting over the two Sovereign sparks.
No—
not just Lesser Sovereigns.
Even the Intermediate Sovereigns could no longer hold back.
Fortunately, everyone still retained some sense of reason.
They only fought opponents of the same rank.
No one had expected that the fuse igniting the first large-scale Sovereign melee would not be Orloff's revelation—
but rather the two Lesser Sovereign sparks lying right before them.
For a time, battle could be seen everywhere within the spatial turbulence.
Thankfully, everyone still had enough rationality to avoid crossing ranks.
They fought only opponents of the same level and fled the moment higher-ranked Sovereigns clashed nearby.
Netherworld — Mount Nether
"Tsk, tsk, tsk… this is absolutely marvelous."
Within Mount Nether, Liliya's Water divine clone used the scrying spell to project the battle observed by her Sovereign clone's divine sense into the air before them.
She and Locke watched it together.
"Heh…"
Looking at the chaotic blur of multicolored lights, Locke could only laugh dryly.
The gap between a Sovereign and a non-Sovereign was simply too vast.
Liliya could understand what was happening because the projection was being fed directly through her Death Sovereign clone's divine sense.
No matter how fast the battle was, it appeared perfectly normal to her.
But Locke was different.
Although he had already obtained a Fate Sovereign spark, he had yet to refine it and become a Sovereign.
As a result, he couldn't make heads or tails of the battle unfolding within the spatial turbulence.
Still, with the shifting lights and Liliya's occasional commentary, he was at least able to piece together what was happening.
Through her explanation, Locke also came to understand the connection between the Four Divine Beasts and Violetthorn Sovereign.
Perhaps it was precisely because Violetthorn Sovereign and her husband had once been ambushed by other Sovereigns, and only Azure Dragon Redding had come to their aid, that after the Four Divine Beasts later perished, Violetthorn Sovereign had extended Linley a helping hand.
Giving him the soulstone of the Amethyst Beast and having Reisgem teach him Blackstone Prison could be seen as her repayment of that debt.
If Redding had successfully saved Violetthorn Sovereign's husband this time, then after the Four Divine Beasts fell, the Violetthorn couple might very well have stepped in to protect the Four Divine Beasts clan.
But since her husband had still died despite Redding's intervention, his help did not count as a great enough favor.
It was not enough for Violetthorn Sovereign to risk offending the other Sovereigns by sheltering the clan.
As for Violetthorn Sovereign killing the three Lesser Sovereigns who had besieged her husband, the four Rule Sovereigns did not move to punish her.
After all, judging from the outcome, she had not violated the Sovereign Pact.
The moment those three Lesser Sovereigns attacked her husband it could already be considered a provocation against Violetthorn Sovereign herself.
And they had killed him.
Her killing them in revenge was only natural.
Sovereigns were still people.
If they could not even protect their own family, then what meaning was there in becoming a Sovereign at all?
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