Translator: Ryogawa
TLC: Hedonist
To say that Rose was excited would be a severe understatement. Completely unaware of how different she was acting, she ran off, leaving Romon to stare at her dumbfoundedly. After a good while, something occurred to him as he looked towards the way underground. “I guess he’s the only one in the Pandemonium who’s able to send direct messages with his soul…”
He was hardly new in the Pandemonium and more or less knew how powerful Han Shuo was. Ever since Han Shuo had killed Gyál more than a decade ago, everyone in the Pandemonium knew his true strength. Throughout the years, Romon had seen the Five Elite Zombies seemingly telepathically communicating, so he wasn’t too surprised at seeing Rose talking to herself all of a sudden before she ran off.
All of a sudden, he heard something in his mind too. “You should come with us to the centre of the underground palace.” Startled, he looked around for a while before he understood what was happening.
“Ummm… Do you need me for something?” he asked after fumbling a little to learn how to respond telepathically.
“We have to talk about the battle of the gods.”
Romon didn’t ask much else and followed in her tracks, wondering how Han Shuo could speak to him through his mind like that, transmitting messages directly to his soul.
Then it suddenly occurred to him – had it been a hostile attack instead of a benign message to the center of his soul, wouldn’t that mean an instant death? Would he even have time to react? Those thoughts made him grow a little fearful. He suddenly understood that Han Shuo could kill him even without directly attacking. Anybody within the range of his senses wouldn’t be able to escape either unless they had some way to defend against his formless soul attack.
Romon felt that most people in the Pandemonium wouldn’t be able to pull off something like that, let alone himself. Han Shuo’s recent progress towards the Diablo Realm had given him even more mystical powers, such as being able to invade the mind of anyone in the Fringe and delivering a fatal blow to the soul of any lifeform remotely. Anyone that he could sense wouldn’t be able to avoid his attack, so he could easily end the life of anyone there that he pleased without even lifting a finger.
Rose’s excitement dampened significantly when she saw Sanguis, the Five Elite Zombies, Phoebe, and Emily there. She had thought he was asking her to spend time alone with him, but it was clear that wouldn’t be the case. Soon, even more important people in the Pandemonium joined them, including Stratholme, Ayermike and other core members of the House of Han. All of them were making rapid progress in their cultivation these days.
For the past few years, they had been training hard in the Pandemonium, which had tens of times more elemental energy compared to most other places. With the aid of the arcane orbs Han Shuo had provided them as well as incredible growth-aiding potions, even the lowliest of commoners could experience rapid growth, let alone the elite members of the House of Han.
They began to wonder why they had been called to assemble without much of an explanation from Han Shuo as they caught up with each other on recent events, having been cultivating on their own for quite some time. Though, they had a feeling Han Shuo definitely had something important to announce. As their anticipation simmered to a peak, the space in the wide hall seemed to bend for a moment before Han Shuo appeared in a flash of light.
He smiled and cleared his throat to beckon for silence. Everyone immediately quieted down and stared at him blankly for a moment before they went to greet him. Sanguis, the Five Elite Zombies, Phoebe and Emily even complained that they hadn’t seen him for far too long.
Gesturing for them to quiet down, he smiled and said, “Let’s sit down and have a talk.”
There were many stone chairs of varying sizes in the hall. Once everyone was seated, he began, “I asked you all to come to tell you this: even though I said we won’t be participating in the battle of the gods back then, I’m afraid we won’t have a choice in that matter. Since we can’t prevent it, we must start preparing ourselves for it.”
Everyone’s expression turned solemn when they heard the news. They all quietly listened without daring to interrupt. While the current battle only involved small skirmishes between six dominions, it was only bound to grow in scale with time. The recurrent battle of the gods always ended with huge casualties, so the prospect of fighting in it was a worrying one for sure.
“The battle this time might be even bloodier than the last few. Apart from the Dominions of Death, Destruction, Life, Light, Darkness, and Water, the other dominions will have to join as well. There will be casualties.”
“Even the Dominions of Space and Destiny won’t be exempt?” Goron asked with shock. As a native of Elysium, he had heard about the battles all too often. As far as he knew, the Dominions of Space and Destiny had always been neutral parties in the battle of the gods. While the Dominion of Space would nudge things in certain directions from the shadows, he had never heard about the Dominion of Destiny involving themselves in any other capacity than mediation.
Nodding, Han Shuo said, “That’s right, nobody will be able to escape from it! This battle will be far bloodier than any that had ever transpired!”
