“You have an opinion about that, Watson?” Sylvan narrowed his eyes. His expression did not change, but his eyes were filled with danger.
“My opinion is that Lord Sylvan should go back to where he came from. We don’t need your help to excavate the ruins. These ruins belong to Blackmoon Castle. I won’t give you even a single hair, let alone a tenth of it.”
Watson spoke with a puffed chest.
If it were in the past, he might have admitted defeat when he saw the border count. Back then, he did not have the strength, but things had changed. Even without the help of the astrologer, he could still fight against Sylvan with his two peak platinum-tier items.
Hiss.
Those powerful words caused a great uproar. Nightingale and the Shadow Guards did not say anything; they stared at Watson in shock. Sven also opened his mouth and then laughed. He could not even say such words to Sylvan. It clearly did not leave Sylvan with any dignity, but it seemed like something Watson would do.
The astrologer could not do anything; he just shook his head. In his opinion, it was a quarrel between father and son. The two of them were family, so it would be the same if any one of them excavated the ruins.
He did not expect that Watson would not even address Sylvan as a father; he addressed him as the border count. It seemed very distant. After he thought about it carefully, he figured it was not a surprise. After all, Sylvan had left him in someone else’s home.
“I am a tolerant person, but I can get angry too.”
The corners of Sylvan’s mouth twitched. “The price of enduring my anger is terrifying. Watson, I will give you another chance. Take the initiative to hand in 30 percent of the things that you have already excavated! Also, to prevent the magical beasts from harming the border, you must hand them to me for management.”
Watson had previously gotten the astrologer to hint at him that he wanted to become his illegitimate child. He had cooperated and admitted to that and had even given him many gifts. Why would Watson refuse him when he asked for some benefits?
That child must not know what was good for him. Sylvan decided to teach him a lesson.
Watson was also enraged. Sylvan had presented him with a bunch of trash. He had given him a platinum-tier item, but Watson had to use the World Tree’s branches to fuse a new one. Then, the man came and asked for too many benefits. He did not only want treasures from the ruins but the magical beasts as well. Watson thought it was too much of an ask.
The hundreds of thousands of silver-tier magical beasts and the treasures in the ruins were worth more than tens of millions of gold coins. Those were not comparable to the gift of 200,000 gold coins that the border count had given him.
“Lord Sylvan, what if I don’t agree with that?”
“Well, if you want to bear my anger, you’ll have to pay a huge price. The best method to deal with disobedient children is to beat them up. Only when their body is in pain will they realize what they can and cannot do.”
Sylvan’s face was solemn as he spoke. He extended his right hand toward Watson; there were five rings on his fingers, and they were lit at that point. “I already gave you five rings. Return those five rings to me because you go against my wishes.”
He had only given Watson five of those rings because he had left a special magical imprint on them. He could summon them back from Watson at any time.
After all, they were platinum-tier items, and they were extremely precious to him. He had never intended to give them to Watson in the first place.
As he moved, the light from the rings on his fingers spread out and fused into his body. It caused his aura to become five times stronger. At the same time, Watson’s body moved with it, but there was no reaction after only one move.
“Huh?”
Sylvan was taken aback. According to the magic he had engraved on them, the rings should have left Watson’s body and returned to his hands by then. He could only make one wish with the Nibelung rings. Watson would have no choice but to comply as long as he wished for him to submit to him. There was also a gap among platinum-tier elites; someone like him could kill Watson easily.
The prerequisite was to summon the ring.
“Huh? Where are my rings? Why aren’t they reacting?”
Not only could the ring not be detected, but neither could the magical imprint that he had left behind. Sylvan’s magic gestures toward Watson continued to shift. He was perplexed as to what had happened. Did Watson not have those rings on him?
That should not be the case. Even if the rings were not with him, he would still be able to find them as long as they were within the border. Unless…
“Are you looking for this?”
Watson had no choice but to take a battle stance when he realized Sylvan was ready to attack him. Sylvan, however, surprised him by not releasing any powerful magic. Instead, for some unfathomable reason, he gestured toward him. He stretched his palm outward after staring at it for a moment. A branch grew from his hand, and a dazzling, wriggling ring hung from it.
“This is—”
Sylvan’s demeanor shifted. He could sense that the ring Watson wore had the same aura as the Nibelung rings, but it was not the same.
“This is a peak platinum-tier tool that I created after I fused the five Nibelung rings. It’s the Wish for the World Ring,” Watson explained casually.
“Are you joking?”
Sylvan looked doubtful. Nightingale had told him that Watson had perfected a fusion skill that could fuse two weapons to boost their quality. On the other hand, the Nibelung rings were platinum-tier items, and it was too heaven-defying to fuse a weapon of that level.
“It’s true. I can attest to that. The ring Watson created is platinum-tier, and it’s even stronger than the previous Nibelung rings. You can make three wishes, and each wish would only cost half of the price,” the astrologer’s voice boomed from somewhere nearby.
Three wishes?
Sylvan’s mouth opened slightly.
An ability to make three wishes at half price was equivalent to six times the effect of the Nibelung rings. He did not know how Watson did it or if the astrologer had helped him. His master might have helped the child.
Sylvan found solace in his heart. His master had given him the Nibelung rings, and no one knew it better than his master. If the astrologer had modified that ring, it would not be surprising if he could make three wishes.
Of course, it was not the time to think about that. He thought of a severe problem. Watson had fused a new ring, so the five rings in his hand could no longer form a perfect Nibelung ring.
As if to test his idea, Watson’s voice echoed from the other side. “Lord Sylvan, please don’t be so stingy with your next gift. It would be better if you gave me a complete item, or else I would have to fuse it myself! Now that I’ve fused the rings, you won’t be able to use your other five Nibelung rings anymore.”
“Ignorant brat, shut up!”
Sylvan’s anger surged. He gave up on using the item and began to chant. “Draping the true-red battle armor over his body, the destructive fire of calamity churned in his palm. Forging the giant sword into a new shape, the sound of the chiming was like an epitaph: Cleave the Divine Court, forge the stars! Platinum-tier fire-elemental spell, Vermillion Nova!”
A red dot soared from his finger and into the sky. A closer look revealed that it was not a red dot but a space that had collapsed to the extreme. Then the hole collapsed, and endless flames shot out from within it and burned the entire sky into ashes. The ice on the Dragonspine Snow Mountain, which had not melted all year round, quickly melted to reveal the bare black rocks underneath it.
There was a sea of fire above his head. As his feet took a step forward, dragon-shaped flames wrapped around his torso. It made him look like a fire god that had descended into the world. His eyes flashed a dark crimson light, and he pointed at Watson. The sea of fire that covered the sky poured down instantaneously and transformed into a pillar of fire that coiled around Watson.
“Sylvan, what are you doing? You activated your strongest self-created platinum-tier spell, Vermillion Nova. Do you want to kill Watson? He is your—” The astrologer’s expression changed. Sylvan interrupted him before he could finish. “I know, Master. That’s why I want him to understand what it means to be obedient.”
Vermillion Nova was a spell that he created by simulating the explosion of a star. The temperature of the flames exceeded 10,000 degrees Celsius. Even a diamond-tier elite’s body would melt if they stood still and let it burn.
He had used all of his strength in that spell. If Watson were willing to give in, he would withdraw 50 percent of his force. He promised that he would only make Watson miserable and not let him die.
He wanted Watson to face the harsh reality. There was a stark difference between a platinum-tier elite like him and a veteran platinum-tier elite like Sylvan.
Sylvan almost smiled when he saw the flames enveloped Watson’s body. At that moment, a tender voice came from within the fire. “Absolute Zero!”
The flames that had filled the sky were suddenly extinguished; Watson had escaped unscathed. His body emitted an aura that could stop time. Even the air solidified into ice crystals and rushed toward Sylvan.
