Chapter 515: Tree of Holy Light

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

“Cleansing all Chaos and distortions. This is Holy Light, a power of Order.”

Holy Light was a new power that arose from the previous Holy War. But in this Holy War, it received a new definition. The Southern Sect’s new edition of the Holy Codex directly abandoned the Holy Church’s way of describing Holy Light as a gift from the God of Holy Light. Instead, the Southern Sect explained Holy Light in the simplest of terms.

“Holy Light is a type of high-purity positive energy. Its core Concept is Cleansing. The way it cleanses is by forcefully restoring Chaos, distorted creatures, or distorted energy back to Order.”

This type of explanation sounded more like what a mage or alchemist would say. According to the first pope of the Southern Sect, the divine Holy Light was actually something ordinary that could be researched. Although the daring archmages long since had such a point of view, ordinary devout priests and Holy Knights all had their worldviews completely upturned.

If this was a materialistic world of nature like my original world, this would have merely been a divide in church sects. However, Eich was a world where Concepts really existed, so things were completely different.

In the past, Holy Knights and Holy Light priests had simply prayed to the Gods, asking for the gift of Holy Light. So, they would level up extremely quickly after receiving the gift of Holy Light. However, this also meant that they had a poor understanding of Holy Light itself, meaning they had poor foundation. No matter how strong Holy Light was, it still belonged to someone else. After reaching a certain level, they would all reach a bottleneck in their power level. Only those who were truly favored by the Gods would receive the most divine power.

Back when I received the wondrous title of “Child of Holy Light”, that was because I reached Legend rank at the miraculous age of 14. And, I reached that rank primarily because of my unique understanding of Holy Light.

And now, the “Salvation of Holy Light incident” with Estrada’s death in the eastern Bardi plains caused countless Holy Light job class members to reassess the very meaning of Holy Light. Believers in the teachings of “Pure Holy Light” instead of Holy Light were now spreading all over the world. Holy Light was downgraded from a God-given gift to a more ordinary power. In fact, even many regular mages had begun researching Holy Light and treating it as nothing more than another type of energy.

Holy Light was no longer treated as divine. Perhaps this affected the high status of some Holy Light job class members and Cardinals, but this had far deeper of an impact on how people used Holy Light.

In just the past seven years, after the shackles on how people viewed Holy Light were cast off, it was just like opening a treasure trove of knowledge. There were plenty of expert Holy Light users in this world to begin with, and now that people were allowed to research Holy Light, countless new Holy Light Divine Arts and techniques were born. This only fueled the belief that Holy Light was indeed researchable, helping to shatter the old shackles even more. In the end, this created an entire revolution of Holy Light.

After all, fanaticism and worship would commonly lead a person the farthest away from the truth. And, oftentimes, things weren’t truly impossible. People simply didn’t dare to do them, or even dare to think about doing them…

Currently, my Yongye City opened up its shadowy canopy. Various seeds were sprouting from the garden in midair atop all the buildings, on top of the ancient Tree of Life.

The tree was being enveloped in a golden glow. Its roots and branches seemed to be crystallized. Liquid energy flowed within it as all the seeds rapidly matured. These translucent crystals gradually expanded to the size where the branches sagged from their weight.

“Seeds of Holy Light…”

This wasn’t a spell that I invented. This was actually a spell that the archpriests in the Southern Sect invented… well, although they plagiarized it as well.

The foundational working of this spell was similar to the druids’ Seeds of Life spell. Only Holy Light experts like the Southern Sect’s archpriests who had studied Holy Light for many decades could have imitated a completely different branch of magic’s spell to use as their own.

Although this spell was plagiarized from the druids, I was probably the only person in the world who could show off the maximum potential of this spell.

“After all, I have the second-generation Tree of Life right here. This is a top-class tree that even the elf kingdoms don’t have many of!”

“How did you get it?”

“I stole it!”

I gave a big thumbs up and had a proud expression as I said this. When considering our relationship (hatred) with the elf kingdoms, I felt no guilt whatsoever at having stolen from them.

Although the silly cat seemed not to care with her expression, she was actually the one who told me the elves’ Tree of Life’s location and how to secretly enter the forbidden district. This past Gold Elf princess would be far more proactive than anyone else in the world as long as it involved the “bastard long-ears who forgot their honor and loyalty suffering misfortune”, even if she was technically one of those long-ears herself.

And right now, this incredibly rare second-generation Tree of Life activated its astonishing power. A tremendous amount of Holy Light entered it, causing numerous Holy Light crystals to form on its branches.

“47%, 46%, 44%. We’re now lower than the safe amount of energy to be. Shall we continue?”

“Notify me when we reach 30%. We need to keep a minimum of 10% extra energy for backup.”

Although we were using the Winged Tribe’s floating city technology, Yongye City was overloaded on equipment and facilities, making it require even more energy than normal to stay afloat. At only a 20% energy level, Yongye City wouldn’t even be able to float or keep up its defensive shields anymore.

A tremendous amount of Yongye City’s mana reserves were transformed into the power of Holy Light. All the ancient artifacts and churches I stole from the Holy Church acted as the best energy transformers. But despite this, the energy transforming efficiency would only be 70% at maximum.

As the Seeds of Holy Light grew ever bigger on the branches, our energy reserves started dipping rather low. And, Conservation noticed that we were preparing something, so she unhesitatingly started attacking us without stopping. Although Harloys successfully blocked all her spell attacks, our energy reserves were dipping dangerously low.

“Damn it, this floating city’s mana battery still has such a small capacity. I need to find one with a bigger capacity next time.”

“I remember that you stole the Cloud Tower’s backup energy battery, which is probably the strongest energy battery for a mage tower in the entire world. Where are you going to steal a better one than this? A real Titan’s heart?”

“Nice idea! Let’s steal from the Titans next time! They’re currently living in my land, so it’s time that they paid some rent.”

“Is a Titan’s heart a true perpetual energy source? Isn’t that just a false rumor created by other people?”

“I don’t know if they can be perpetual energy sources or not, but as long as we catch a Titan to produce energy for us, we definitely won’t need to worry about lacking energy in the future. Isn’t this such a pure and harmless perpetual motion machine?”

I kept cracking terrible jokes that might come true one day, but we were currently worried about our energy level that had now reached 34%. Right now, the entire canopy of Yongye City was opened up, while the main body of the Tree of Life was still here with us. However, the light extending out of the tree had now covered all of Yongye City.

If you looked at it from afar, you would see that a giant tree of light had now grown to become larger than the entirety of Yongye City itself. Countless branches of light were extending into the clouds, and the floating city now appeared to be nothing more than a flower vase in comparison to the tree’s size. And, the Tree of Holy Light was emanating frightfully powerful shock waves that could easily destroy any undead who got close. Even an idiot undead would have realized that the situation wasn’t good for them.

Unfortunately for the undead, no matter how powerful their army was, they couldn’t do anything about us. Skeleton archers and ordinary liches would be unable to attack us so high up in the sky. Most of the gargoyles and bone dragons in the Undead Calamity were currently harassing Starwood City. The few present here didn’t even dare to get anywhere close to the Tree of Holy Light. The only threat that remained was Conservation’s constant bombardment of long-distance magical attacks.

“Boom!”

But this time, Harloys intentionally conserved mana, and didn’t succeed at blocking Conservation’s attack. Judging from where the smoke was coming from, Yongye City lost its third negative energy pool, as well as recording room, swimming room, and a candy warehouse… Fine, I admit that losing the last three was no big deal. The lack of candy would only result in a certain cat being displeased, but the loss of a negative energy pool made our energy shortage even worse.

“27%! 25! Just release the spell. We can’t hold on any longer, so just release it.”

“This isn’t enough, this power level still isn’t enough! There’s no helping it, we’ll have to take this risk.”

While I was still being anxious, a sudden beam of light landed from the outskirts of the sky and directly hit the Tree of Holy Light.

I didn’t even have the time to react when that Tree of Holy Light suddenly expanded its size yet again. Its branches were now completely in the clouds. If it wasn’t for my personal Hell world’s concealment, this gigantic Tree of Holy Light would have been visible from Starwood City.

And by the stars, at the very top of Hell, on the very top of the golden Pillar of Holy Light of Salvation, a faint tall figure was waving at me, seemingly trying to tell me something.

“What’s he saying?”

Seeing how that familiar figure of Estrada was waving at me, when I thought about how he was now destined to remain in Hell for forever as he had become a Hell God, I felt a discomfort in my heart even though I tried to keep calm.

Obviously, Estrada had noticed that we were in trouble, so he gave his direct support.

With such a great distance between us, including across dimensions, it was a distance that we could see but never reach each other. It was quite lucky already that I could see his figure, so making out his words would be impossible.

“Harloys, can you send one of your clones to him?”

“…Harloys, Harloys, everything needs Harloys, you only call me Harloys when you need me, but you call me silly cat whenever you don’t. I still need to deal with Conservation, so I can’t spare the energy to do so many unrelated matters.”

“…Alright, I apologize, but this is really important. Could you please send a clone to Estrada?”

“Hmph, I already did. He’s saying, watch out a…”

“What?”

Harloys kept decreasing her voice volume and speaking ever slower, despite the fact that there were no such things as unclear soul connections.

But the next moment, Harloys sped up and finished her sentence, and I instantly realized what was going on, regretting that I realized too late.

“…above! He says to watch out above!”

“You’re digging a pitfall for me yet again!”

A black wind rushed right past the top of my head. If I hadn’t ducked in time, my body would likely have been torn apart.

*Boom!*

That black wind directly shattered two houses in Yongye City before it finally stopped, revealing itself to be an ancient silver hammer.

“The Light of Salvation, the Hammer of Hope for the Messengers of Light?”

This war hammer had formerly been the Holy Knights’ war hammer passed down through the generations. And previously in the battle of Hell, it became the holy artifact containing the power of Hell’s Holy Light. As it became one of the Four Foundational Elemental Items of Hell, I had left this hammer behind in Hell to power the Pillar of Holy Light.

And now that I was in trouble, it returned to my hands… almost breaking my head.

This silver ancient war hammer lay there quietly. Its ancient battle scars were the records of history, but I didn’t intend to pick it up… With my current physical strength, I was unable to do so.

“…Harloys, is this story’s style wrong again? We’re clearly having a major battle, so should I be a little more serious?”

“The style is perfectly fine. Haven’t you always been the comic relief?”

“Hey, hey, hey, that’s not right. I’m clearly the main character! Just look at me, I’m a prince, someone out for revenge, and someone who saved the world. Don’t I sound just like the male lead of an epic? I’m not a comic relief character!”

“…An epic? So you’re the female superstar, Princess Peach? I heard that image recordings of that play have already been sold to the entire world by the fairies. Your fans are constantly asking when you’ll perform the sequel. You’re the comic relief character who’s immune to death due to plot armor, and you look better in female clothing than male, and you keep getting into countless romantic entanglements, but you’re forever a virgin. You fit every requirement to be the perfect comic relief male lead.”

“…Let’s talk more about the ongoing battle instead.”

Before I could focus on the war hammer instead, since we had received support from Hell’s Pillar of Holy Light, our Tree of Holy Light finally bloomed. This super spell which had used up almost 40% of Yongye City’s energy by itself would finally be activated.

*Ding!*

All the golden crystals on the branches began to shake in unison. Their synchronized sounds made my skin go slightly numb.

These crystals of Holy Light were the size of adult humans. They were the Seeds of Holy Light from this giant tree, and the next instant, countless seeds scattered everyone, arcing strangely shaped lines in the sky, and suddenly descending with the speed of meteors.

This was a majestic sight of a meteor shower, with countless golden streaks pouring down like a torrential rainstorm. Each and every impact created a giant explosion of Holy Light.

Yet, this was only the beginning.

Brand new Trees of Holy Light were sprouting from the Holy Light crystals. In just a few short seconds, they grew into new Trees of Holy Light. Right after that, they started spreading even more seeds.

Soon, the Seeds of Holy Light spread throughout the entire battlefield. This pitch-black alternate dimension of Hell became entirely covered with a golden forest.

Any undead that were touched by a Tree of Holy Light would be directly burned to ash. Even those special half-mechanical bone giants found it difficult to move around in this Holy Light forest.

Yet, this still wasn’t the end.

“Explode, reality!”

After I snapped my fingers, a Tree of Holy Light in a corner directly exploded. A glorious mushroom cloud of golden light devoured everything around it. The next instant, when all the intelligent undead understood what happened, their icy expressions all had unified looks of incredulity and despair.

*Boom!*

*Boom!*

All the Trees of Holy Light exploded, sending countless mushroom clouds of Holy Light into the sky. Golden clouds followed each explosion, with undead soul screams being the accompanying music to these explosions.

Finally, when the entire world became golden, I could see nothing but white.

Right now, even far off in Starwood City, people there could sense a violent earthquake. They also saw the death mushroom golden cloud rising into the clouds, slowly spreading into the form of a beautiful flower. The top of the golden cloud had far surpassed the actual clouds. Its golden petals appeared divine and noble, yet it was still just the mushroom cloud of an explosion. And, its dangerous shock wave had already arrived before everyone.

The Starwood City defenders didn’t even have the time to celebrate that all the undead vanguards before them had just been evaporated by the light emanating from this explosion. This was because they couldn’t comprehend the incredible sight before them right now.

“The mountain, the entire mountain is gone…”

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