Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1681 - 1680 - Tragic Updates

Lind confirmed not a single issue with his new ship. The only strain was the jump from the Emerald Isle to his family. Karu had practically grilled him on what he had done but explaining it would not help her.

When he refined and merged his Heaven Layer, he felt something. There was a layer of the Divine Lands that would allow for faster travel but the power requirements were insane.

It also required a connection between people to work. He had no idea why that was but he had locked onto Ethry and thus they arrived at the right moment to drive back the Bastard.

He had been extremely pleased at hurting a Master Tier but only with Fiends could it work. Any other Master Tier would easily deflect or vaporize even the powerful beams of his vessel.

Despite coming in time to drive back the Bastard and his forces at one battle ground, it had been a horrific state of affairs.

At least a dozen factions were mounting the defense against the main Fiend forces but it was like a sieve catching water. A strong flow could not be stopped, only slowed down.

The Fiends were across the Divine Lands and it was more the sheer size than anything that prevented them from laying claim to anything outside the Eastern Continent. The other factions were thus tied down and either unable to support the effort at the Gray Line or simply chose to let rivals get worn down before swooping in at the end to gain benefits.

There also, of course, traitor factions that worked in the shadows or openly to undermine the battles.

Lind had avoided as long as possible catching up on those he did not see but had the potential to ascend to the Divine Realm. Enough time had passed that they may have attempted but he was unsure.

Qing and Shoti sat with him as Annabelle stood nearby. That was a dangerous trio to bring together. It meant very bad news was coming

The 4th layer of the Celestial Fields was actually Fiend free and the barrier still stood but was now weakening.

He was not surprised. Heaven and Earth would not let such an unfair obstruction stand forever.

Once enough Divine Realm cultivators ascended, it would likely fall as the Fiends could not easily carry out their plans. He had yet to even learn how such a thing was done as he had been hyper focused on increasing his own strength.

He had assumed the Void Ocean was where his Celestial Fields was located but it was not the case. Its actual location was relatively known but impossible to pin down. What was accessible was both an array and weaving that made anchor points.

Only a Journeyman Tier could do it and connecting was part luck and part resonance with a native of the lower world.

Such a haphazard thing made Lind realize how dangerous his realm actually was. The Fiends had risen in secret from his realm, a fact no one seemed to know but him and the Bastard, but all the Celestials were punished across all worlds.

Such a fact made it clear that if a lower realm remained undiscovered by all but a native, they could monopolize resources, personnel, and even force the Immortals to suppress their old rivals.

It explained why some factions flourished to insane degrees while others took a very long time to rise.

They likely monopolized very potent lower realms to increase their numbers. Lind did learn karma could sever the connection but it was damned rare.

That fact confused him as the Bastard should have made it impossible to go back but likely it was because he came from there that his realm was one of the many public lower worlds fought over.

His wall actually was unique in that regard.

The rest of the catch up was death, a lot of death.

The factions had tried to capture his wives and friends after the Bastard's bounty was put on his head, but his training and new elemental theories had not spread as it had in the Celestial Fields. Thus, escape was almost child's play.

After that, his wives actively scouted out any ascensions for allies and gathered a powerful force in a shockingly short amount of time. The reason being was that normally Divine Realm ascensions were rare from lower worlds but the Celestial Fields seemed to enter a golden age of them!

It was so bad that internal feuds and rivalries were put on hold due to the real danger of drawing the ire of a tribulation down on them. It had happened at least once before a ban was put in place!

Once they had enough numbers, and a few had pushed through to the mid to late Apprentice Tier, they joined the war once more. Compared to the Heaven Realm Endless War, it was not even remotely the same experience.

In the Heaven Realm, millions died but the line moved back and forth depending on the success or failure of each side.

In the Divine Lands, there was only ever slowing them down. Billions were eaten up, sometimes literally, in the war. Fiend, human, demon, it did not matter, all were equally killed.

Lind had no idea how it could be sustained for so long until he recalled the trillions of lives in all the Divine Lands. It was also likely that there were lulls at the beginning that bought time for their side to devise methods to slow down the Fiend expansion.

The arrival of 6 elementals and Harmonic Dragons turned the tide at first. The once nearly unstoppable Divine Fiends were destroyed with ease! Apprentice Tier Fiends no longer became a threat but the issue still came back to numbers and Journeyman Tier Fiends.

The former was simply impossible to match in the short term. The latter he had seen with his own eyes.

Thousands of dragons he had raised from birth were gone. Some had gone back into the cycle of samsara but others were taken by the Fiends!

His own flesh and blood that had struggled to rise up had thankfully been spared but were now under pressure in the Celestial Fields. With most of the first generation gone, the unity that held his Clan together was fraying apart.

He could not stop it, it was simply not possible but he knew one day the home he had built would no longer even recognize him.

His mother had stayed in the lower world as she would end her days as a Radiant Tier. Cyntilla's mother, while having higher potential, chose to stay with her.

He pitied anyone that crossed that particular duo.

No one knew anything about the 3 True Lords he left behind. They had gone into seclusion but he knew none of them expected to advance beyond the Sovereign Tier.

The final piece of news made all 3 women grasp his arms or even hold his back. He braced himself.

"Romana is gone." At first he did not understand. So many deaths and what was one more? She was an important friend but as he slowly turned around, he understood there was more to it.

"She was betrayed by a Maiden. She was given to the Fiends and they extracted her soul right there." Lind froze. His mind flashed back to the older woman on the Floating Isles that helped him settle his sect and dared to teach beasts to work in harmony with people.

He recalled the miracle of her physique awakening and being given a new lease on life to advance and change perspectives. She had changed over the millennia but still was the same friend each time.

All they had been through and he was not there when she needed him most. A flash of Solon's family telling him the same kind of thing in the Heaven Realm Lands came to him and so many others.

Cultivation gave one the illusion that there was more time to do things and meet people once more but the truth was any parting could be the last and any time death still could come.

Lind thought he would rage but it was like he simply felt hollow. How many more? How many more would those bastards take from him?

"Lysanna?" He asked after the wife he knew was closest to Romana but they all shook their heads.

"She was devastated. She went into seclusion for a few centuries before coming back and demanding to have combat training. She has been fighting as you saw." He had. She was far from helpless but seeing her on the frontlines had been surprising. Shoti's words were so gentle but her eyes were in pain.

Lind took it all in and gathered his family together. He spoke of his own time in the Divine Lands. He did not hold back but he told them of the good times in more detail than he normally would.

He also spoke of the Divine Lord and Maw Island. He affirmed that others ascending from their old home will be pulled to that island going forward.

In fact, some Celestials and a handful of others had arrived but he stayed away as they were too weak to help.

The island needed them more.

He then explained that he would stay a few months to shore up defenses before heading to the Northern Continent. He had to keep growing stronger as his deadline had not stopped.

The fact they only had a little over 17 thousand years before it all ended made them all solemn. It was not a question of if but when.

Karu was brought in and explained what she could to help them but firmly warned them that relying on her predictions was dangerous given the Bastard had the same memories somehow.

"I will be assembling a crew but it will be a tight circle mainly due to the need for as much power as possible on the frontlines." None argued and they began to plan out what needed to be done.