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Chapter 470: Hostage

Vague descriptions like “the strongest” would always be unclear. But back in his day, he was the leader of all the Sea Gods, and there were multiple Main Gods under him. His power was more than sufficient to challenge the Goddess of Order’s authority.

Unlike Gods from future generations that gained their powers through belief, the immemorial Gods had all obtained their power levels through their own efforts, making them have incredibly solid foundational strength. Since Sidunwar had multiple Main Gods under his command, including even the Queen of Storms, who was his underling at the time, it doubtlessly meant that Sidunwar and his faction had astonishing power that gave him the mistaken impression that he could challenge the Goddess of Order.

Of course, it was also said that Sidunwar was supremely arrogant precisely because of his overwhelming power. This was what led to his downfall in the end. And when he ended up meeting with difficulties, almost nobody other than his wife remained by his side to help him. Not only did his past subordinates not help him, they even attacked him while he was down. Although the two major factions of Order and Chaos would be responsible for bribing and tempting the other Gods to do so, it was still rare to see someone unpopular to such a degree.

But, regardless of history or legends, no matter how badly he acted, every story would describe Sidunwar as incredibly strong…

“Perhaps I can make use of his strength.”

Unlike most people that almost instinctively worshipped the strong, personal strength wouldn’t obtain my respect at all. In fact, it was rather the opposite. The personality defects exposed by one’s strength were nothing more than weaknesses to be taken advantage of.

“Although most love out there is unequal, it’s quite moving just how deep Aylos’ love is. Perhaps… I have an excellent hostage.”

Yep, from a certain standpoint, I had already maxed my skill points in “ruling behind the scenes”, “using carrot and stick”, “kidnapping, scamming, and extortion,” and other such antagonist skills. It would seem that my original wish to be a good person had gone off track from the very start… By the way, if it wasn’t for the fact that I was always mysteriously treated as a bad person, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be a good person in the first place.

From a certain standpoint, personality decided one’s fate. Reaching my level today was no coincidence at all… perhaps I was born to be a natural antagonist.

“Elisa, don’t listen to Sidunwar blathering on. He absolutely has to protect the Pillar of Ice, more than anyone else! He’ll never abandon the Pillar of Ice even if he has to die again.”

Creating a physical body for one of the Gods of Hell would be no easy task. Right now, I was currently unable to move as I was still in the process of reviving. However, my will was able to transmit my words of consolation to Elisa, not even trying to hide my condescension and displeasure.

And I was indeed telling the truth. Since I knew from the very start that it would be possible to revive Sidunwar, of course I would account for him in my plans as I lacked top-tier combat strength.

In a way, perhaps I had indeed done something terrible. I made a trade with Aylos, having her sacrifice herself as the price to revive Sidunwar. And now, I created yet another unique situation where Sidunwar would be forced to fight for my cause… If he wanted Aylos to revive successfully, he would have to protect the Pillar of Ice!

That’s right, the Pillar of Ice was connected to Aylos’ revival. By now, my plans should be obvious.

The Four Elemental Pillars were the equivalent of the Elemental Thrones in the Elemental Planes. Naturally, there would need to be the equivalent of Elemental Gods in order to control and adjust these elements. In the plane of Hell, that would be the Four Pillar Gods that I had previously emphasized.

It wouldn’t be easy to reach the level necessary to be a Pillar God in Hell. As each Pillar God would be an existence controlling the entire Concept of one of the basic elements, the lowest requirement was that this existence must already be equivalent to Godhood in power, and also have his or her powers foundationally be about one of the four elements. The most important was that the Pillar God would need to be dead…

That’s right, only a dead God or mortal who had an incomplete soul would be able to become one of the Four Pillar Gods of Hell.

This wasn’t to force people down a thorny path; this was dictated by the most basic dimensional law of death in Hell. This was the same as how the Elemental Planes’ Elemental Gods could only originate from elemental creatures. Only dead souls would be able to become a Hell God.

In my grand scheme, these dead souls would temporarily be stored in my soul ice crystals. They would then be combined and synchronized with the dimensional laws of Hell, finally reviving them as the Four Pillar Gods and becoming the undying Main Gods of the Hell Faction. And, the price for reviving them from death was that they would all be destined to only be able to forever remain in Hell.

This seemed quite simple, but would actually be quite difficult to achieve.

There wasn’t a single God in the world which possessed the Concept of Ice. The God with the closest related Concept was the Goddess of Frost, who was a Chaos Evil God. She was the very incarnation of a blizzard, and her favorite hobby was to freeze travelers that dared to travel through snow mountains by themselves. She was an insane woman who had an evil reputation rivalling that of the Queen of Storms.

The Frigid Nightmares were of the ice element and met the power level requirement as well. However, since they were special soul existences, they didn’t even have the Concept of Death. Any Frigid Nightmare that was seriously injured would naturally disappear and be returned to the snow mountain. It would be impossible to use a Frigid Nightmare for my Pillar God of Ice.

And so, my only choice was to either kill the Goddess of Frost or to use Water Elemental Goddess Aylos as water was the foundational form of ice. That was because the Elemental Gods were quite similar to the Pillar Gods to begin with. The water element also represented the power of life, similar to the intent of ice representing life in Hell. Plus, anyone who was killed off for no apparent reason would definitely have a grudge. If the Goddess of Frost became one of the Four Pillar Gods of Hell, it was highly possible that she would choose to rebel and take revenge, which would be a huge amount of trouble.

“I absolutely have to force Aylos to die in order to obtain her dead soul…”

That was the foundational reason why I had to force Aylos to suicide. And now, the current situation’s development had proved that my choice had been correct. I could now heave a sigh of relief.

Yet, choosing the candidates was actually the easiest part to complete regarding the Four Pillar Gods…

There had been no other candidates from the very start for the element of Law in Hell. Wumianzhe was the only existence that had achieved Godhood by using the power of Law. And, this prerequisite condition was the largest reason why Wumianzhe ascending to Godhood became the foundational first step of the grand scheme. It was when I successfully had Wumianzhe obtain Godhood that Ayer finally made up his mind to support me.

Improving the Concept of Law, spreading the teachings of the Church of Law, sacrificing my own soul shard of Sloth to create Wumianzhe’s body, and thinking of all possible methods to have Wumianzhe obtain ever more Divine Concepts and divine power… only I myself knew all the hard work and schemes that happened along the way.

And as judgement and death were the most basic dimensional rules in Hell, the God of Law and the God of Death would need to be incredibly powerful. That was why the Ayer Faction had unhesitatingly supported Wumianzhe in becoming a powerful God while disegarding the price. And as Ayer was the only Death God in the world, there were no other candidates who could replace him.

Of course, it was unknown just when the Pillar Gods would be able to revive. No, I should say that it was impossible to promise that they could even be revived at all. That was because the forbidden spell to create the entirety of Hell was based on nothing more than a theory. The probability of success would be so low it’d be impossible to calculate from the very start. Nobody knew just what would happen, and even if they could revive, they would definitely only be able to remain in Hell for the rest of their lives. That would be a great loss for the overall situation.

“The success rate for Hell’s construction won’t be greater than 50%, and the Hell Gods’ chances of revival are also no greater than 50%… You’re asking how I calculated these odds? Since things will either succeed or fail, the odds are naturally 50% with only two options… Cough, okay, I’ll be a little more serious. Anyways, I’ve already done my very best to do everything I could think of to improve the odds. However, there’s still just too many unknowns. It’s impossible to even try calculating the odds of success. But, the more we do, and the better the conditions are, of course the better the rate of success will be.”

While humans schemed, their schemes’ success would depend on the heavens. This phrase was probably referring to such a situation. I was always someone who told the truth, even if the truth didn’t look good.

Naturally, the Ayer Faction Gods didn’t want to see their boss, the strongest Main God of all, to meet such an end. They also considered using some death-related Divine Concepts to replace Death itself, such as Destruction, Armageddon, Guardian of the Dead, and so on. There were True Gods that volunteered themselves, but Ayer rejected them all.

Yep, Ayer actually could have survived. Even if he personally shattered the Cycle of Reincarnation and River Styx, as long as he was willing to lessen the degree that he changed things, that would also lessen the backlash he would receive. For instance, he could temporarily take over some other Divine Concepts, which would indeed allow him to survive, even if that survival would entail a tremendous price to pay.

Yet, Ayer still chose to personally die and become the Pillar God of Death in Hell. Why? Of course, that was to increase the odds that Hell would successfully be constructed. Ayer was the only existence that would be capable of providing the purest power of death. And not only that, Ayer even gave me his corpse in order to additionally raise the chances of success. His corpse was actually Ayer’s secret backup method to revive himself if he ever somehow died. So this meant that if we failed here, Ayer would meet a certain death forever.

“Ayer has gambled everything on Hell and our grand scheme. Not only has he given up on his chances of being ‘eternal’, he’s even given me his trust. He believes that even if he’s no longer here, we can still complete the grand scheme… We can’t possibly let Boss Ayer down.”

As a leader, Ayer never said any grand speeches at all, asking others to sacrifice themselves. He sacrificed his own undyingness in order to maximize the chances of success. This was actually the foundational reason why I would half-jokingly and half-seriously refer to him as Boss Ayer, an honor I reserved for no one else.

As for the final Pillar of Holy Light, while it may seem that there were many powerful individuals with the Concept of Holy Light, there were actually no other possible candidates from the very start.

Previously, I mentioned how Holy Light job class members took shortcuts with their path to power. Those existences in the realm of Godhood had actually all borrowed from the God of Holy Light’s gifts to them. “Holy Light, please grant me power” sounded like such a convenient prayer that would indeed grant them power, but from another level, these powerful Holy Light existences were nothing more than servants for the God of Holy Light. They weren’t independent existences at all. How could these powerful Holy Light individuals possibly become the Pillar God of Holy Light which represented Salvation in Hell?

“The Holy Light requires salvation, so Estrada has to die.”

The letter I sent to Estrada which contained a soul ice crystal forced Estrada to intentionally choose death. Estrada actually smiled and faced death head on when unreasonably requested to do so by the disciple he was the proudest of. Estrada met all the stringent requirements.

Before he died, he gave a new definition to the Holy Light. He allowed his power of Holy Light to be stripped from him, and reentered the realm of Godhood with his own personal strength alone. He became a completely independent powerful individual with the power of Holy Light. And so, the final condition was met.

By now, countless sacrifices had been made so that Hell could be created. Three of the Four Pillar Gods’ dead souls were now sleeping within the Pillars of Hell. When they finally awakened, the invaders of Hell would then face the true rulers of Hell, Main God level existences! Of course, Wumianzhe should have originally entered a deep sleep together with them, but I was sly enough to bend the rules by entering his body with my own soul. Of course, the current Wumianzhe Roland wouldn’t be a complete Pillar God with full power.

Just how powerful would the Four Pillar Gods be as Main Gods? Since there were no precedents, it would be impossible to calculate their estimated power levels. But as they were the rulers of Hell, and each of them controlled an entire element of Hell, they would have boundless potential. The moment they awakened, they would naturally change the entire combat situation.

The main reason why I chose to stall for time in every battle was mainly to wait for the Four Pillar Gods to revive. Forcefully starting up the incomplete Hell and its operations would also give power and nutrition to the Four Pillar Gods, which would speed up their awakening.

The Four Pillars were the strongest weapon of Hell—as well as the only weakness. Of course, this would be the greatest secret of Hell. But unfortunately, Ilmisya was actually a spy that revealed this secret to Karwenz.

But luckily, I was accustomed to being as secretive as possible and only told my allies half of what I was planning. Although Karwenz learned that Aylos’ dead soul was within the Pillar of Ice, he couldn’t have possibly known that Sidunwar was about to be revived by me.

Although I clearly sensed that Sidunwar had been revived successfully, he had remained abnormally silent since his revival. It was quite evident that he didn’t want to become an unpaid fighter working for me. But since his wife had become one of the Four Pillar Gods of Hell, Sidunwar would be forced into fighting for our Hell Faction unless he was vicious enough to be willing to leave his wife.

His silence and refusal to appear was his way of expressing resistance and dissatisfaction. But in front of a veteran villain like me who “had a hostage”, that would all be meaningless. I broke through his attitude of unwillingness with just a single statement.

“If any of the Four Pillars that contain sleeping divine souls are destroyed, even if Hell luckily manages to survive, the Pillar God within it will certainly die for real. We won’t have any more chances at using Creation by the Four Elements…”

When my words echoed on top of the Pillar of Ice, Sidunwar who had been in hiding suddenly appeared!

“If Elisa dies, then Aylos… If I don’t have a girlfriend, then don’t think that your wife will survive!”

And so, Sidunwar had originally intended on simply watching Elisa die and only protecting the Pillar of Ice, but now he made his move.

My words were quite obviously a naked threat. If Sidunwar had been in his prime and someone dared to talk to him like this, he would have simply killed that person already. But now, he could only obediently fight for my cause.

As for his previous words which sounded so “tsundere” in trying to explain his own reasons, cough, let us forgive him for that. Since he was an immemorial God, of course he would want to save face. He would prefer to say some words that made it sound like “Hey, I came here of my own volition.” Yep, at the very least, he wouldn’t want to allow others to see that he had been forced into fighting for my cause.

As for whether or not I would be worried that he would take revenge upon me?

“Antagonize him? Who cares! His wife’s life is in my hands. He’ll have to work for me for the rest of his life.”

Cough, it would probably be impossible for Roland to whitewash his name for the rest of his life—no matter how noble his goals were in the end. With his style, he was definitely just like the major antagonist, not to mention the lowest of the low: someone who kidnapped a hostage to threaten others.

Now, Sidunwar brought out his full power. Even without that bastard Roland threatening him, Aylos’ dead soul was within the Tower of Ice behind him. He had no path of retreat whatsoever.

“…So, relax, and have that employee of mine be your meat shield. Since you want to become stronger, accept this gift of mine.”

I sent all this information to Elisa’s mind as well. While she was angry that Roland had hid so much information from her, and how much of a bastard he was, the seemingly expressionless Elisa was also secretly pleased.

“At least he still remembers my ability. I think this is the first present he’s given me…”

Alright then, from a certain standpoint, Elisa’s difficulties in obtaining love and just how low her standards were could be considered worthy of crying over. But right now, Roland had indeed just given her a great present that would be supremely useful to her.

The dimming Inferno Demon Main God’s half a heart was given over to the Inferno Demon Marchioness. All the conditions were completed. As if fate had started a new cycle, the scene from Sulfur Mountain City was about to be reenacted as a new record would be shattered for demon evolution.

“…Awaken, my Soul Imprint, Marauder!”