Book 12: Part 10 – Entering the Planar Battlefield

Ace stepped towards the gates, where he saw a group of warriors wearing silver armour. It was clear that they were the guards of the palace behind them, but as Ace approached, none stepped forward to stop him. In fact, Ace could practically smell the fear they were radiating.

Thankfully for them, just before Ace could speak to them, a commander-level warrior named Tirana approached from inside. Tirana explained that she was one of the Emissaries of Lord Uren – one of the four Lesser Sovereigns of Light.

Once inside the palace, Tirana explained that the Heavenly Palace was the home of Lord Uren and also the home of the Divine Light Plane's interspatial doorway connecting to the Planar Battlefield – each one of the seven elemental Divine Planes, as well as the four Upper Realms, have their own interspatial doorway connecting to the Planar Battlefield, each of which was apparently created by "The Four Over Gods" themselves.

As they made it to the end of the corridor, Tirana pointed towards a large floating stele that had the rules of the Planar Wars on it:

Each war was divided into two sides. One side's commanders would have gold badges, with the soldiers having white badges. The other side's commanders would have red badges, with the soldiers having black badges. To become a commander, one had to be a Lord Prefect or the equivalent thereof. As for soldiers…they had to be Highgods.

After entering, whilst there are no rules that prevent killing those on the same side as you, doing so wouldn't gain you any military merits; only by killing enemies could you acquire military merits.

The black badge of an enemy soldier is worth one merit, whilst the red badge of an enemy commander is worth 100 merits.

As for prices, a single drop of Sovereign's Might was worth 100 military merits, but a Sovereign Artefact was worth 1000 military merits. But it should be noted that whilst Sovereign's Might only costs 100 military merits, one could only trade the black badges of enemy soldiers for them, and even though a single commander's red badge was worth the same amount, it couldn't be exchanged for Sovereign's Might.

This was to stop certain powerhouses – namely those Invincible Commanders and Paragon level experts from coming in and slaughtering ordinary commanders to quickly acquire large amounts of Sovereign's Might.

Ace couldn't help but sigh, realising that it would mean that ordinary soldiers would still end up being the target of massacre for commanders. It had to be remembered that even the weakest of commanders would be able to massacre two or three peak seven-star fiends at a time, and the majority of commanders who dared to enter the planar battlefield were far from the weakest of their kind, and the majority of ordinary soldiers likely weren't at the level of a seven-star fiend.

In response, Tirana explained that although it seemed easy enough at first look, ordinary soldiers couldn't move around freely; they had to follow the orders of a commander, and nine times out of ten, if a commander had brought in ordinary soldiers to follow them, it wouldn't just be one or two, but a whole detachment often numbering in the dozens or even hundreds.

For most commanders, killing 10 High Gods was easy enough, but when the numbers rose to 20 or 30, even top commanders would have to battle with their lives on the line, and that was when one didn't take the commander leading said soldiers into account.

Hearing that, Ace could only nod, understanding that for most, killing anyone would be a challenge.

Still, Tirana couldn't help but remember the video she had seen of Ace facing the former patriarch of the Augusta Clan – Lumix Augusta. Whilst most commanders would struggle against such numbers, Ace wasn't like most; he was a genuine Invincible Commander. To him, a group of one commander and 30 soldiers wouldn't be enough to halt his steps.

Ace could guess what Tirana was thinking, but he didn't care. When she finished, Ace's eyes returned to the stele as he continued reading the rules.

If one managed to kill five enemy commanders during a single Planar War, after the War concluded, the military merits could be recorded. Once the next Planar War began, if one killed five more commanders, the total military merits rendered would be ten, and by then, one could still trade for a Sovereign artefact.

After he finished reading the rules, Ace asked Tirana to take him to the entrance of the Battlefield – he was finally ready to begin the next stage of his adventure.

Tirana took Ace to a long corridor at the rear of the palace, where there was a long corridor with several ancient runes etched into its walls.

Tirana wished Ace good luck as Ace calmly walked to the end. As Ace made it to the other side, he found himself in a completely new world.

Ace couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as he felt the sudden increase in gravity. He was born in the Yulan Plane, and although the plane as a whole was a little more stable than the world of One Piece, it wasn't by too much. But in comparison to the Celestial or Infernal Realms, whether it was the world from his former life or the Yulan Plane, neither could even begin to compare, but since they were planes created by genuine Overgods, that much was to be expected.

Still, neither of those two planes could even begin to compare to the stability of the Planar Battlefield – the gravity here was easily over 100 times stronger.

As he spread his Godrealm, he sighed helplessly, realising it was only a few hundred meters. Even if he used his new and improved Golden Sun Manifestation to increase the might of his spiritual essence, it would still only stretch a few kilometres at most.

Still, it wasn't all bad. Although he felt more restricted here than ever before, the elemental essence present was far more pure than anything he had ever sensed. Although in terms of usefulness, it couldn't compare to watching a Sovereign create a Divine Plane, training here was easily tens of times more helpful than training in the correct Divine Plane for one's chosen law or Edict.

It was unfortunate that as far as comprehension of his chosen law, Ace was already near the precipice. Still, if anywhere was capable of helping him with that final step, it was here!

Looking up, Ace noticed that there were no stars. Instead, all he saw were wild, chaotic, multi-coloured regions of chaotic space. The entire plane was shrouded in darkness, and only those coloured patches of chaotic space were able to somewhat illuminate the world. This gave the battlefield an extra layer of doom and gloom.

It was then that a familiar face approached Ace from the distance. Although he didn't know the man's name, Ace remembered him from the battle he had with Lumix – he was one of the six top commanders of the Augusta Clan.

The man introduced himself as Lomax Augusta. He explained that he was here on behalf of the Augusta Clan to provide Ace with a map of the Battlefield as well as details of what one can expect to find here on the Planar Battlefield.

After passing Ace the map, Lomax explained that if Ace didn't already have any plans, he could move with them, as there was safety in numbers. He also explained that, according to his father, this would likely be one of the, if not the most dangerous, Planar War in trillions of years. It was for that very reason that their Augusta Clan had mobilised all of their top powerhouses this time, as well as inviting two Paragons.

Ace only glanced at the map once before memorising its contents. Before Lomax could finish speaking, Ace began walking away as he said he would be fine on his own.

Lomax could only sigh as he watched Ace leave, but he had no intention of stopping him. Ace had already proven that he was more than powerful enough to travel on his own.

As Ace made his way to his first destination, he couldn't help but recall the contents of the scroll Lomax handed him. Apparently, one shouldn't fly too high or too deep into the ground. The spatial tears that Ace knew were more than capable of shredding his body apart weren't just in the skies above; one would also find them deep enough below the ground, and the higher you flew in the sky or the lower you dug in the ground, the more numerous the spatial tears would become.

Aside from that, the planar battle was extremely small when considering it was created by the four Edict Overgods – it only had a circumference of a few million kilometres. However, it was separated by the "Stellar River". One half was home to the forces of the Divine Darkness Plane, whilst the other was home to the Divine Light Plane's army, which was where Ace was now.

According to the scroll, whilst flying high in the sky or below ground was dangerous, they both paled in comparison to the dangers of the Stellar River.

Be it in mid-air or below ground, one could still move around freely. It was only after reaching a certain height or depth that one would occasionally begin to encounter some spatial tears, but because there was an orderly increase in the danger the lower or higher one travelled, everyone was prepared, but the Stellar River was different.

There were very few "safe zones" in the Stellar River. Virtually all of it was extremely dangerous.

But it was precisely there that Ace had chosen as his first destination.

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