Chapter 98: The First Snowfall
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
The name of the cannon was awesome.
But in fact, it had only been fired once so far. After it killed an adult Black Dragon, it hasn’t been fired since. Because of the loss of mana power after the Arcane Empire, the Super Arcane Crystal Pulse Cannon was now just an ornament. In the future, the Autumnfall council even opened the transmission door connecting it to the seabed to launch a legendary mission. Firing the cannon meant consuming half a month’s worth of the floating cities energy storage while relying on the power of Wizards to recharge it. And it would only, at most, produce sparks.
Despite the great weapon’s legendary history, it was now just used a lightning rod.
This kind of magic weapon had great power, but its practicability was very poor. It could not attack across the realms or break through the space-time fabric. At present, the records of its use were mainly in the abyss battlefield. The Arcane Empire used them to crush the demon army. One shot and a legion of demons were almost destroyed. Except for the high-ranking demons who could traverse between planes, the other low-ranking demons were evaporated instantly. At present, the only functioning Super Arcane Crystal Pulse Cannon could only be found in the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, sometimes called Nirvana.
It was a plane filled with Constructs.
It was also the only place left over from the period of the Arcane Empire which was preserved almost completely. The plane had large numbers of constructed mechanical lifeforms which maintained the normal operation of the entire plane while confronting a ferocious and powerful underground ant tribe. The glory of the Arcane Empire had almost disappeared, and the only way to appreciate the incredible power they once had alongside the gods was probably to go to Nirvana.
The challenge rating there was 25, thus the creatures there were demigods and divine beings!
Any lifeforms would be affected by the high-intensity radiation there. There were no wild plants on the surface of Nirvana. On the contrary, the place was filled with giant gear machines and constructs. They have guarded this plane for countless years. In the eyes of Druids, however, this place was worse than the deepest depths of hell because the natural environment which they believe in had been completely distorted in this plane. One would not see a single trace of green on the whole plane. There was only endless steel and a doomsday-like grey sky.
Soran had been there before.
He was lucky to have made it back in one piece.
…
“You know what that is?”
Gloria glanced at Soran who was next to her and looked away from the Super Arcane Crystal Pulse Cannon. “The weapons left over from the Arcane Empire possess forces close to the level of divine power. Unfortunately, it had too many limitations.”
Soran gently nodded his head and said, “I’ve heard about it before from a story told by a Bard. They say that cannon killed an adult dragon.”
The Dragonborns.
They were second only to the powerful existence of gods in this world. They weren’t simple beasts who only breathed out Dragon’s Breath. The dragon race in this world was capable of casting spells. While possessing powerful hand-to-hand combat ability, they were also equivalent to a grade two or three sorcerers. An adult dragon could cast level eight spells while slightly stronger dragons were able to cast level nine spells.
They had the same amount of spells that the sorcerers had!
However, the way they cast their spells belonged to the turret-style classes, like sorcerers. Because the types of magic mastered by the Dragonborns varied, the adult dragons required a complete team of legendary adventurers to be even able to have a fifty percent winning chance.
Draconic Sorcerers were the most broken class in the game. Even though these guys only inherit one-third of the Draconic abilities.
Maybe because of the stories people heard.
Someone once went to slaughter dragons in high spirits but was trapped by a Maze Spell. Then a high roar terrified the whole regiment. An hour later, one soul escaped from the Maze Spell. Unfortunately, all their teammates died except the Wizard who escaped by teleporting.
The Dragonborns who cast their spells according to their routines were certainly easy to deal with. For example, many White Dragons attacked according to a routine.
But for those cunning adult dragons, one would instantly find that the way they fought was completely fraudulent! Even the veteran adventurous would sweat when they went against their attack tactics.
Professionals had once evaluated that if the adult dragon’s spell sets were given to top adventurers, then the adventurer would at least be able to kill three teams of legendary adventurers.
Shapeshifting, Sneak Attack, Assassinate, Maze Spell, Trap, Banishment, Summon Lesser Monsters.
After the set of spells has been used up, then it would be a combo of either Dragon’s Breath, Wing Attack, bites, claws and so on. Then, after carrying out this set of combos, one still had to fight hand-to-hand combat against an adult dragon which had powers equivalent to a legendary grade Fighter.
Back when Soran joined a squad to kill a dragon, they had to come up with at least twenty tactics!
For one day and one night, the six legendary adventurers discussed the way the dragon attacked before they actually went to fight the dragon. If there was no pre-planning, an understanding of the battle environment, the knowledge of terrain inside the dragon’s nest, the distribution of monsters, then there was only one outcome. Squad annihilation!
Once, there was a demigod Lich who only used the Imprisonment Spell when fighting. Many thought this was a weakness.
When there was finally a legendary squad who went to challenge the demigod, all the squad members were dumbfounded. In actuality, the demigod was bored so she only used weak imprisonment spells. But, when there was a true danger, she quickly used the legendary skill Time Stop which stunned everyone.
Summon Demon, Astral Projection, Dissection, Dimensional Lock, Bigby’s Hand, Power Word spells, Frighten, Blasphemous Language.
The team was annihilated after a combination of spells, and not even the Wizard was able to escape.
Since then, everyone learned that it was suicidal to have only one tactic and that the enemy was not a puppet that only attacked in one certain routine.
Not everyone had the Goddess of Good Fortune looking out for them, and thus, making ample preparations was the only way to go.
…
The group decided to stay in Autumfall for a day.
It was obvious that the northern Witch didn’t know that the Super Arcane Crystal Pulse Cannon was just used for decoration now because she still glanced at it with awe.
Soran hadn’t slept for several days and was now slightly tired.
First, he got two rooms and settled Vivian in, and then, he packed up and went to bed. The city was still relatively safe. If Vivian really was a descendant of god then there was a great possibility she was a Son of Fear; this was something he did not mention to Gloria.
Soran knew that Elven territory was forbidden for the Dread Lord. It was difficult for his believers and followers to enter the realm of the Elves. So for the time being, they were still safe, and there would be plenty of time.
Soran had another important purpose for coming here. A piece of legendary grade equipment was in the special area near the Elven territory.
It also had a portal which linked to the plane of the Earth Elementals. Killing one of these Earth Elementals would bring him around three thousand points of Slaughter EXP. If he was lucky, he could probably accumulate around three hundred thousand points of Slaughter EXP.
But, he couldn’t kill them alone.
There were four of these special places, and they were around the Frost Kingdom, Elfenland, Plains of Fire, and the Forbidden Sky Nation.
Those were legendary missions.
The four places represented the elemental forces: water, fire, earth, and air respectively. Each location had a piece of legendary grade equipment which, when combined together, would become a special item.
This item that could summon the four elemental bosses. All of them had monster levels of 24. After finally defeating all of them, you would acquire the final item.
A sealed shard of divinity (unknown).
When the deities fell from the heavens, it didn’t just bring destruction. It also brought opportunities.
Soran remembers a lot, but there weren’t many items that he could acquire. This mission was one of the easier challenges and the easiest legendary equipment to acquire. This is because the challenge rating of the Earth Elemental was only 9, which was about twice as difficult as the previous Snake Demon. Also, the speed of the Earth Element was slow, it was the type of creature which Soran could easily deal with, and so he could easily kill them with a helper. If he was going up against the Air Elemental, though, it would be a completely different ballgame. He wouldn’t even have a chance to attack it.
It was dawn.
Someone knocked on Soran’s door and he jumped up in surprise. He swiftly picked up his curved sword beside him, rushed out, and murmured, “What’s wrong?”
Outside the door was a somber Gloria, who pointed out the window and said, “Look!”
He saw a white and snowy landscape.
the outside had been covered by heavy snowfall seemingly overnight. It was a blanket of white snow that was around fifteen centimeters thick. You couldn’t believe that this happened overnight.
“How is this possible?” Soran’s expression grew grave, and he murmured, “Isn’t it around the end of September now? How is it already snowing?”
Gloria raised her finger and pointed to the sky. She lowered her voice and asked, “Would it have something to do with them?”
The deities?
Soran wasn’t too sure himself, but answered, “Maybe.”
He didn’t roam around this area in the past so it wasn’t clear whether the area snowed in advance. No one probably noticed the early snowfall either since there were too many things happening at that time. However, snowfall in September was a bad omen. Soran only knew about the early signs after the deities had fallen. So if the snowfall really was early for some reason, then it must have something to do with the gods who controlled the ice and snow.
Was it the Frost Maiden or the Goddess of Winter?
Didn’t the turmoil of the Time of Troubles not affect them? Didn’t the events the in Frost Kingdoms begin to erupt several years later?
Have the events already started brewing?
People outside had already started to sweep the snow. From time to time, people like merchants cursed at the bad weather. They were basically stuck in the city since there was no way to leave during heavy snowfall. They might even have to wait till next spring to leave, and the money that they earned along the way would almost all be spent here. There were also many people who were worried because the early snow would mean that the winter would be very cold. Also, monsters in the wilderness were more likely to launch frequent attacks on other creatures if they didn’t have enough food stored in advance.
The sudden snowfall would kill many animals, reducing the chances of monsters surviving in the wild.
All these seemingly insignificant events would ultimately add up to have a great impact on the world.
Many things in Nature had always been chained together!
