Chapter 139 - 139 Two Meetings (Part 1)

139 Two Meetings (Part 1)

William lifted the lid of the porcelain cup in his hand. Dense green vapor slowly rose from the cup, and a fragrance filled the entire conference hall.

He first took in the cup’s fragrance before taking a sip of the bitter light-green liquid. Finally, he relaxed and leaned back in his seat.

The wound on his shoulder caused by the Lady of Starvation was healed by the rich vital aura.

After William returned to Camilla, the wound caused by Camilla’s main body remained unhealed. It was very normal. He had made Her suffer significant losses, so She naturally used Her year as a medium to constantly project Her strength and cause him as much affliction as possible.

William had been trying to use high-level life spells to completely heal the wound, but no matter how much effort he put in, the other party would project more power on the wound, causing it to fester and rot.

If he wanted his wound to completely heal, he probably had to wait until the Year of Starvation passed or find the Holy Spirit Mother’s main church for a potent expulsion ritual.

William sighed and took another sip of the bitter liquid in his cup.

There was no such thing as tea in this world. This light-green liquid was an alchemy potion concocted by William using the tender leaves of the Holy Tree. It could slowly replenish life force and slow down the spread of a curse. He only needed to drink one cup a day to suppress the curse on his wound without using additional life spells.

This made William like a retired cadre. He held a porcelain cup wherever he went and took a sip when he had nothing to do.

It wasn’t just the injuries on his body. Most of the equipment he had brought over had been damaged to varying degrees.

The other equipment was fine. Other than the one-time Tear Crystal that had been consumed, the other equipment could be barely repaired with the equipment in the Dawn Fortress. However, the seven Holy Spirit protection rings were severely damaged, and they needed to be blessed in the main cathedrals of the Holy Spirits to be repaired.

In other words, he wouldn’t be able to face the Void Sovereigns with maxed-out equipment for a long time.

Fortunately, Their main bodies couldn’t appear in Currere for the time being.

“Lord Kane, everyone is here.”

A voice pulled William out of his thoughts. He looked around—he was in the conference hall in the Dawn Fortress. It wasn’t the round table where the Judges met, but the conference hall used to receive representatives of other factions. William maintained the rules in this aspect.

The people sitting in the venue were representatives of the various factions that William had gradually developed over the past two months.

Thorn City’s City Lord and the First Citizen of the Blackwater Swamp, Vincent;

Roy, the bishop of the new Holy Spirits Church and the chief preacher of the doctrine;

The new Holy Spirits Church’s Retribution Templar, Nizemar;

The person-in-charge of Blacklight City, the Viper Scar Guard, Julianne;

The fourth Judge of the new Judgment, the Lord of Dawn Fortress, Blake;

Cass, the person in charge of the new Judgment and the Moon Realm’s rapid reaction force—Lightning.

The person who spoke was Nizemar.

“Oh…”

William came back to his senses and put down his cup. Then, he said, “Then let’s begin.”

It was Vincent’s idea to hold a meeting every once in a while. In the beginning, it was mainly to coordinate the purge of the Moon Realm churches in Blacklight City and Thorn City and help with the proselytization of the new Holy Spirits Church. After William standardized the format of the meeting, this meeting had become the highest authority in Blackwater Province.

William originally planned on naming this meeting the Senate Meeting, but he later felt that it was better to call it that after taking down Platinum City.

“According to the reports received in the previous meeting, the spread of the blight in the entire Blackwater Swamp has been delayed by about 40%. At this rate, if Thorn City’s food reserves are included, we should be able to survive this Year of Starvation on our own.”

Vincent first reported.

William shook his head and said, “The blight’s delay is certainly temporary. She will do something major this year based on my understanding of the Lady of Starvation. Therefore, we have to plan for every aspect, especially the security of the granary. We can’t relax. We have to transfer at least half of the life mages on our hands to guard it.”

The Lady of Starvation had once filled an entire granary with maggots overnight. Having suffered such a tremendous loss, She had to think of a way to regain her dignity. Perhaps She would repeat her old playbook.

With this in mind, William subconsciously touched his aching shoulder and asked, “By the way, how are the test results of the previous batch of magic affinities sent to the Stranger Lighthouse for the awakening?”

Vincent shook his head and said, “Unfortunately, none of them have successfully awakened. It looks like the Astral Council has sealed off all awakening access in the Blackwater Swamp.”

With the collapse of the Viper Astral Lighthouse, William originally planned on transferring the staff in charge of the magic awakening in Viper to the still-complete Stranger Lighthouse to be in charge of awakening those with magic affinity in Thorn City.

From the looks of it, the Stranger Lighthouse was completely inanimate. Other than being a time bomb that could turn into a Moon Realm rift at any moment, it was useless to William.

In the past, the awakening of magic chanters relied on a mentor system. Teachers guided apprentices to establish a connection between their ether domain and the Astral World. The current awakening process was all done through the Astral Laws, preventing current magic chanters from knowing how their ether domain was originally connected to the Astral World. Naturally, they couldn’t guide new apprentices.

If a new magic chanter wanted to be born under the blockade of the Astral Laws, they had to be guided by the cultivators from the classical magic system back then. However, William was probably the only classical mage in the Blackwater Swamp.

Although William was good at using magic, he was undoubtedly an extremely terrible teacher when it came to teaching others magic—after all, it wasn’t that troublesome for him to learn so much magic back then.

“I understand… So we need a large number of classical magic practitioners, right?”

William nodded.

Without a doubt, the number of mages was an important indicator of the strength of a faction. Although William had recruited all the official mages in the Blackwater Swamp, if he couldn’t form a system that could continuously replenish the number of magic chanters, they would be at a disadvantage in the future war with the empire.

The former tower guardian of the Viper Lighthouse, Julianne reported the situation after Vincent finished his report.

“…Since then, the invasion of the Lunar Monsters in Viper Scar has maintained a frequency of one every two days. According to the monster illustrations, more than 80% of the Lunar Monsters come from the Lord of the Dark Tide’s Moon Realm domain, the Abyss of Filth, and the Pale Poet’s domain, the Bone Shore. Moreover, the strength of the invading monsters has been constantly increasing in the past half a month. Two days ago, the descent of high-level Lunar Monsters like the Drowning Banshee happened, and this resulted in considerable casualties in the Battle Mage Order…”

William rubbed his brows, sensing an ensuing migraine.

He had unreplenishable magic chanters, and in addition to the continuous small-scale Moon Realm invasions, the exposed Moon Realm rift in Blacklight City was a wound that constantly bled his faction.

Before Black Crow Gaze was completely accommodated by the Dawn Fortress, William couldn’t move it through the coordinates to block the Moon Realm rift—that would drown Blacklight City. As for sealing the Moon Realm rift, it was even more ridiculous. The restoration materials for the World Shell were the plot’s key items that disappeared after being used back then. There weren’t even any in his Treasure Hall. The price William had to pay to obtain those materials again was something he couldn’t afford.

After a moment of silence, William slowly said, “Cass, lead Lightning to reinforce the defense of the Viper Scar and kill all the Lunar Monsters you see with Judgment equipment. This will probably make Them restrain Themselves a little. In addition, pay attention. I seriously suspect that the Whispering Empress has also sent Her spawn over, but they haven’t been exposed for the time being.”

With that said, William turned his gaze to Vincent and said, “If Cass is transferred away, the pressure on your side will increase greatly. Therefore, I’ll come to Thorn City to help you resolve all those troublesome matters. When the time comes, you can keep the situation under control even if I’m no longer in Blackwater Swamp.”

William couldn’t help but sigh.

Unfortunately, Blake couldn’t leave Black Crow Gaze because once he left for too long, the storm in Black Crow Gaze would spiral out of control, causing a huge safety risk. Otherwise, letting Blake guard Thorn City would be the best choice.

Troublesome matters cropped up one after another before his trip to Ava State, forcing him to delay his plans. His actions of wrecking the plane fusion plan at Black Crow Gaze were undoubtedly a declaration of war against the four Void Sovereigns. And now, They were naturally creating troubles for him one after another.

He could suppress them for the time being, but William suspected that as long as he left, Blackwater Swamp would fall into chaos. When that happened, as long as the other party invested a little and brought two or three Demon Generals into Currere, and as long as they grew a brain and didn’t approach anywhere within Blake’s range at Grief Mountains’ Blake, it would be a massacre for the Blackwater Swamp.