Chapter 13 A Threat

After 7 days the army of Lucifer left the forest of Trivia. Only 10 % of ghosts and 22% of Knights were able to learn fire manipulation. Instead of marching towards the frozen land, they marched towards the city of Ether. The news came as a shock especially for the ghosts from the land of Oden as the only thing that was keeping them strong was their desire for revenge. Roan and Karl were okay with the decision as they knew that the ghosts of the blessed land were not strong and the only advantage they had was the element of surprise which was now gone.

The city of Ether which had only a few Knights and few ghosts gave them a grand welcome. It distracted the knights and ghosts from reality for a while. A reality where the majority of the people from the blessed land are dead. A reality where their many comrades died and a part of their consciousness was locked inside a stone.

"What did the spy say?" asked Lucifer.

"Taro went inside the frozen castle however, there was no commotion. He entered and after that, no one saw him. Also, the Snow King made his appearance there were four of them with similar Aura. Even Taro could not figure out which one of them was the real one." said Roan.

"Keep me updated, Don't miss any details. What is our lost count in the battle against Taro?" asked Lucifer.

"We lost a total of 70 Knights and there are around 120 Knights who are injured. Out of them 10 are in a dangerous situation and can die anytime," said Karl.

"Use your power and will, and convert them into ghosts. There is no need to take chances," said Lucifer.

"As you wish my lord, Also I wish to train an elite unit of ghosts. Shall I choose some of the ghosts for that?" asked Karl.

"Yes, you can. Also, inform Shawn that he too can make his elite unit and start meditating. From now on our goal should be to increase the quality. So let ghosts fight freely and let them devour each other to increase their strength. Also once their average level reaches 6 take them outside of the city to hunt other ghosts and consume power from rituals." said Lucifer.

"As you command," said Karl.

"What do you plan to do with Knights?" asked Lucifer to Roan.

"We plan to train and get strong. The survivors of this battle are top crops, we think that we can become stronger," said Roan.

"Okay, go to the blessed land of Oden. There I still kept a light room. The concentration of light essence in that room is very high go there and increase your levels. You have all the time. I want at least 50% of the Knights to reach level 8 or above." said Lucifer.

" I will get to it then." Roan bowed and left the room. Karl too bowed and followed.

Currently, Lucifer was on Level 11 of light magic just like the Ghost Kings each of them was at Level 11 of darkness apart from King of Ether who was a pseudo Level 11.

Taro was an intermediate level 11 whereas King Snow is a beginner level 11. However, for some reason, Lucifer felt threat by him as compared to Taro. That was one of the reasons why he attacked the Kingdom of Taro first.

Currently, Lucifer couldn't move to level 12 the reason for that was he indirectly killed many people and turned them into mindless ghosts. Even though that served a bigger purpose his mind was corrupted and he could feel that his light power was decreasing instead of increasing. That was one of the reasons he chose to retreat because he wanted to find a solution and reach level 12 before challenging King Snow.

Lucifer sat on his throne in a meditative pose. He started concentrating on his consciousness and started cleansing it with light essence. He was slowly pushing himself into a trance in a state where his deed of turning humans into ghosts would fade away. After 10 days he was able to get rid of corruption.

Once he came back to his peak form. He started focusing on increasing his attack power and to do that he started learning manoeuvring. He was creating a technique where for a second he would move at half the speed of light and while doing so would create multiple illusions all around. Once he would be close to the target instead of hitting them with the sword he would just feint and make them concentrate all their awareness towards him. Once that happens the illusions would break away and hit the target in the form of light beams from all the sides.

The reason he was making such a technique was because his targets were ghosts. So if he would just go and stab with his light sword then there would be chances that it would be a clone or an illusion. So by doing that, he would be sure if they are real or not and hence would be able to unleash a hard attack. The defense of ghosts rested in their ability to create illusions mostly as to defend against light attack directly they would need a crazy amount of essence.

After a few days, Lucifer created the technique and named it Volt. It had many variations, he could create up to 12 illusions and then once his opponent would get distracted they would get converted into light energy and would hit the target. He needed absolute fast thinking as well as almost half of his light essence to do it once.

While Lucifer was training hard, King Snow was busy analyzing Lucifer. His thought pattern, his way of attack etc. Also, he was improving his swordsmanship by creating virtual clones of Taro and Lucifer.

"This clone would lead you to your demise." said a Ghost. He was flying high and was not in a human form. He had two eyes however one was destroyed and the open one was like a volcano. His soul was in the form of a Snake.

"How can I die? When I have you," said King Snow.

"This human is the same as you, Cautious." said the Snake.

"That is the reason I'm not moving and instead focusing on improving."

"You don't have anything to fear he is at level 11 intermediate stage, whereas you're at level 11 beginner and I'm at Level 12 beginner." said the Snake.

"You broke through? Congratulations big brother," said King Snow.

"Yes, I did the essence of King Taro did the trick. Now we have no one to fear. However, that brat is too cautious and vicious so before attacking him we would take Kingdom of Swords." said the Snake ghost.

"That sounds good, Once we have the power of Sword King I would be able to reach the late stage of dark affinity level 11 with that he would stand no chance," said King Snow.

"Release the message that we would be attacking the City of Ether. Once we start the march kill the spies from Kingdom of Swords and City of Ether. Let's take both of them by surprise." said the Snake King.