Chapter 718 - Meeting Gift

Chapter 718: Meeting Gift
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
The entire world was burning…
That was my first impression when I got close to the battlefield.
No, I hadn’t gone into the Amu Mountains. The Holy Church was still busy fighting against the ogres and demons there. I definitely didn’t want to die without even realizing how.
The San Antonio royal palace’s topographical information was quite excellent. However, the problem was that the Sun God’s map that Beifeng had mailed me was just far too outdated. After comparing this several tens of thousands years old map to modern maps, I finally confirmed that the ruin I was looking for would be in one of three possible locations.
One location was in Maria’s territory, one location was in Winston’s territory, and one location couldn’t be located on the maps. It seemed that the final location was located somewhere in the mountains.
Since I didn’t want to go into the Amu Mountains to accompany Pope Caloma any longer, it was only natural for me to accept Maria’s invitation and check out her territory.
But, in Brunsel, the temporary new capital city of her territory, I learned that Maria wasn’t here. I was told that she had gone to the frontlines.
And so, I went to the frontlines of battle to find Maria. That was where I saw even the sky burn.
The entire sky was on fire. The red clouds in the sky were nothing natural. This was the result of absorbing too much fire element.
Every single second, injured warriors were being carried off the battlefield. Every day, new warriors would come join the frontlines of battle.
The Chaos Faction members here were mainly Inferno Demons, Flame Ogres, and other such fire element enemies.
If it weren’t for the fact that I had recently returned from the Fire Elemental Plane, I would have wondered if I had mistakenly returned there again.
These were the Saffey Mountains. The name sounded rather ominous.
This area had originally been a famous volcanic district to begin with. Right now, so many portals had been opened up here. The situation here was even worse than in the Sharal Autonomous Region.
Fire element creatures were famous for having terrible temper and zero patience. The Sharal Autonomous Region had only faced an unorganized horde of powerful fire element creatures that wouldn’t cooperate or work with each other. However, the demons and Flame Ogres here were a proper, actual army.
Thoro Fortress here on the frontlines was a highly sturdy fortress. Its thick stone walls even had the blessing of Holy Light. Countless corpses were already scattered under its walls. But even now, the fortress was still shaking under a constant bombardment.
Meteors would keep falling down from the sky. They would explode and instantly kill any normal living beings in a radius of several dozen meters.
Judging from the meteors’ arcs, they had been tossed from the peak of the distant volcano. It was unknown whether gigantic catapults or Inferno Demons had launched these meteors.
Since there was far too much distance between the volcano and the fortress, the meteors’ accuracy was quite low. However, there would still be an occasional meteor that landed a direct hit, causing the fortress walls and all buildings inside the fortress to shake.
Outside the fortress, demons were fighting against other demons. The demon warlocks on the fortress walls were constantly opening up portals to the Chaos Abyss, summoning hell hounds and low-level demons that unwillingly fought to their death at their masters’ commands.
The human soldiers mostly stayed inside the safety of the fortress, and operated various cannons and long-range artillery weapons to attack the demons down below.
I could see right within my field of vision that there were almost 10 Level 4 power level individuals fighting against each other.

…Did I arrive at the wrong location? This looks like a battlefield in the Chaos Abyss.

While I had indeed witnessed such high-intensity battlefields before, I had never seen anything like this in the mortal plane before.
The situation at the frontlines in the Saffey Mountains was far worse than I had expected, yet the news being sent out from here didn’t sound anywhere near as pitiful as the situation in the Amu Mountains.

…Since I’m here, I might as well give them my greeting. Magic sword Northlands, whip up some wind and snow!

I retracted my wings of Holy Light as I stood in the center of a group of demons who were trying to attack the fortress. I then opened up my personal combat domain.
The fire clouds from earlier suddenly vanished. A sudden blizzard arrived, bringing hail and snow calamity to end the demons’ lives.
Actually, I loved Inferno Demons. This was because I loved to fight with an elemental advantage!
The descent of snow calamities from the Northlands instantly caused the field of vision in this area to decrease to less than 10 meters. The Flame Ogres and Inferno Demons seemed so tiny and helpless amongst all the snow.
The incredibly low temperature was rapidly robbing heat from their bodies. For these half fire element creatures, keeping a high body temperature was critical for their very lives.
I stood in the middle and casually slew anything that got close to me as I cleared out the surrounding environment.

A mage! There must be a mage somewhere!

It was quite fun for me to listen to the demons panicking as they spoke in the demon language. Unlike antagonists in stories and shows, I didn’t have the bad habit of introducing myself or explaining my abilities. I simply created an ice house and hid myself inside…
If there was a powerful individual or archmage here, they would naturally be able to trace the source of the mana to me. However, as for these Inferno Demons and Flame Ogres that had probably never seen snow in their lives before… they would have to first get accustomed to the environment.
I had especially designed my Northlands magic sword to clear out trash mobs to begin with. This would be a good time to test things on these demons.
I could still hear a commotion outside as enemies constantly approached my position, but none of them actually discovered that I had sealed myself into this house of ice and snow.
It was likely that these fire element demons and ogres had already started panicking since they had never seen snow before.
Since it seemed that none of them were able to find me, I simply started solidifying my ice house. According to my experience, as long as my luck wasn’t so bad that my Northlands summoned a high-speed hailstorm, my ice house should be able to last for at least half an hour.
And so, I really did stay in my ice house for half an hour. I even almost fell asleep… Finally, my incomplete magic sword Northlands was no longer able to maintain the ice and snow environment, and everything naturally melted away. Everything was now silent outside.
When I came out from under the snow, the previously noisy battlefield had already transformed into a silent land of snow. Countless corpses were buried in the snow. Even the outer walls of the fortress were covered in a layer of snow.
Since the source of the magic had disappeared, this land of snow was now melting rapidly. The countless demon corpses were released from the snow, revealing that there wasn’t a single sign of injury anywhere on their bodies, yet they were definitely dead.

It seems that my experiment was a great success.

And so, I happily waved towards the fortress walls, but the Level 4 demon warlock standing there was so scared that he hurriedly backed away, while all of the artillery operators nervously aimed in my direction…
10 or so minutes later, I finally managed to meet the person I came here to see while being surrounded by fully armed knights and highly nervous mages.
I met Empress Maria, the strongest demon warlock in the world.
Naturally, she would come out to check the situation with such a large ruckus happening in front of the fortress. But when I personally met her, I began to suspect if I had mistaken her identity.
Maria had red hair, a freckled face, and was slightly pudgy… fine, she was actually mega obese. I was quite worried about the lifespan of the rickety wooden chair that kept creaking and groaning under her weight.
From far away, Maria looked no different from a standing bearman.
She looked far different from the highly dangerous and seductive beloved child of the God of Death that I had been expecting. I almost shouted out loud that she looked just like a red-haired version of Ruhua 1…
However, her eyes were quite active. Even though it was already impossible to identify her chin, she still appeared quite young and filled with energy.
Maria was a Level 4 demon warlock. All of the chaos magic wavelengths around her were completely under her control. If it weren’t for the fact that all of the other Level 4 individuals here appeared to truly respect her from the bottom of their hearts, I never would have believed that someone like her could have achieved the peak in her chosen job class. She didn’t show any signs of her power at all.
Well, physical appearance was only something minor. I had already gotten accustomed to all sorts of individuals with far stranger physical appearances. Compared to certain existences, Maria could definitely be called friendly and kind.
The strange thing was that even though I had clearly never met Maria before, I kept feeling more and more like she was so familiar the more I looked at her. Her chaos magic wavelengths felt even more familiar.
But, no matter what I thought, I would have to keep my thoughts to myself. I couldn’t afford to be diplomatically impolite, as Maria was the empress of a mega empire.

Empress Maria, I am so honored by your invitation, which is why I rushed over as fast as I could. I happened to see that some villains were blocking the entrance, so I took it upon myself to clear them away as a meeting gift for you.