History


    The diary pages after the incident recorded Essien’s interest in the nes. He’d pored through many tomes and books, even abusing his position to study taboo scriptures. He pinned down his inspirations in the diary, and his research indicated there was more than just one nar invasion. The effects of these invaders varied, as did their forms. Not many were human, but human invaders weren’t particrly rare, either.


    The oracles from the God of Valour and other gods did not have much information about nar invasions, but there were still some traces. Two important factors were sent down with these oracles— their strength, and their numbers.


    Insignificant invasions like Richard’s, where the aggressors were level 10 or below, were extremely rare. Only one such incident had urred before. Those under level 13 were ssified as a mild threat, while those who reached level 15 were considerably dangerous. As for those past that point, they were considered extremely dangerous.


    The numbers didn’t matter as much, as their levels often defined their power. Even thergest group of invaders had only numbered close to a hundred, so the numbers of the invaders were rarely mentioned.


    Throughout history, none of these invaders couldpare to the gods of the ne. Any of the experts within the ne could exterminate all of them single-handedly, but they often left it for the lower strata to deal with.


    However, there was one exception. Three astral beasts had invaded from a foreign ne, and after a devastating battle almost all the experts of the ne had perished. Even one of the deities themselves had fallen, and the northwest of the continent had been separated from the rest, drifting towards the seas and turning into a lone ind. It took great sacrifice to y the three beasts and destroy the portal connecting to the other ne.


    The gods had kept mum about the truth of the matter, and no further probes could be made. Even the most secret of holy tomes only mentioned it in passing. At the end of it all, Essien had written down a simple line— Are nar wars inescapable?


    That doubt hade twelve years after he’d begun his research into other nes.


    Level 16 offered an intrinsic change in this ne, regardless of ss— mages turned into grand mages, warriors became saint warriors, and priests became high priests. Essien was only above-average as a priest, and it was unknown whether he could cross level 16 in his lifetime. But this short, sinct diary proved to Richard that he was no ordinary person. He was a genius, his intelligence far surpassing his faith.


    The diary entries from the past year noted that the priest had begun a search for relics of ancient times. That was why he’de to manage a church at the edges of the Whiterock Duchy— the Land of Turmoil was nearby, in the mountains that Richard’s base had wound up in.


    The Land of Turmoil spanned great swathes ofnd, more than 10,000 square kilometres in area with only the edges settled. The ce was extremely dangerous, with tall mountains, steep cliffs, deep ravines and ridges beingmon sights. There were few humans nearby, with mostly powerful beasts roaming thends.


    The Land of Turmoil was wedged between the fertile ins and the Redrock Hignds, capped off by the Bloodstained Lands to the north. Spacetime ripples weren’t umon here, and foreign creatures regrly drifted in from the rifts. It was unknown how many foreign species had made this ce their home, and Essien wanted to find vestiges of the tear in the void caused by the rifts they’de here through. He wanted to use those traces to unravel the mystery of the nes.


    The priest had vast ambitions— he wanted to discover the essence of nes and time, finding a method to link to other nes. He’d realised that the ne’s overall might had dwindled from invasion to invasion, and also guessed that this signified that the gods were growing weaker as well.


    The deities would send out oracles for every batch of invaders, and the stronger the enemies the more information was provided. They had to consume a great amount of energy to even make these prophecies, and for them to be clear required inordinate amounts.


    The withering powers in this ne was proof of his assumptions. The ne had yet to recover to its peak from before the battle with those astral beasts, and even to this day was a third away from its former heights. What’s worse, no new god had reced the one that had fallen. No churches had been formed in recent years, and even the Chosen, saints, and petitioners of the old ones had not recuperated.


    In the thirteenth year of his search, Essien had finallye up with a new conjecture: this was not the only ne with gods in it. Such thinking was extremely taboo under the teachings of the gods— if his diary was leaked, he would definitely be burnt at the stake.


    He believed that since war was inevitable between the myriad nes, then resources and power were paramount. One had to think of a way to open portals to another ne if they wished to break this deadlock, invading them sessfully. Stealing the wealth, resources, and talents of those nes would be the only way to strengthen their own. It was also the only way to ensure that their power would not regress further.


    All this information left Richard speechless. ording to the gods, this ne was known as Faelor. Richard gathered from the diary’s information that, more often than not, these ‘invaders’ were people who’d identally wound up here through the rifts in spacetime; they didn’t originally intend to conquer it. As for the astral beasts, they were likely powerful beings that could open portals in spacetime and travel the myriad nes themselves, like his own master, Sharon.


    Internar wars were already deep-rooted within the psyche of Nond’s inhabitant. Any family that had stood the tests of time had at least one ne’s resources backing them. Because of this, wars in Nond far exceeded those in these secondary nes in scale.


    The first time Richard met Gaton, this marquess had been allocating tasks to nibble away at a certain ne. Due to the importance of internar war, those matters were extremelyplicated. They needed a standard battle n from the moment of infiltration, inclusive of their setup and expansion all the way to total conquest.


    Thus, even in Nond only the upper echelons of society were involved with internar wars. Theory and tactics on such conquest only spread through the inner circles of nobility, andmoners would never be privy to such information. Richard’s own knowledge came from Gaton’s study, and all his actions had been an attempt to adapt the theory he’d learnt to practice. Put bluntly, he was far from devising his own unique methodology to conquer nes.


    Essien had discovered the pressing importance of internar war without even experiencing a proper war in Faelor himself; to call him a genius would be a shame. His foresight was acute, and he managed to derive great visions of the future from small details. If time permitted, he could very well have be an influential figure that brought forth a revolution.


    However, he was just a priest. Every time Richard thought of this point, he could onlyment in pity.