Chapter 344: The Crownstar—Humanity’s Answer to Demigods!

After several more minutes of walking through the Underground City, he finally reached one of the passages connecting it to the surface and climbed upward until cool night air replaced the stale atmosphere below.

The moment he stepped outside, Zevan raised his head.

"Hmm... it’s already midnight."

The moon hung brightly in the night sky, although its light mattered surprisingly little inside Arvelon itself, because the capital possessed another source of illumination that easily overwhelmed it.

Before looking toward that, however, Zevan glanced toward the distant edge of the city, where an unbelievably high wall rose hundreds of meters into the air and stretched across the horizon.

"Even giants would struggle to cross that wall."

He clicked his tongue in amazement, because those walls were far more than oversized stone fortifications.

They had been constructed after the previous Human Emperor was slain by an Elven Demigod, and the materials, formations, and defensive enchantments built into them were powerful enough to withstand Demigod-level attacks.

Even that, however, wasn’t the most astonishing defense Arvelon possessed.

Zevan slowly turned toward the opposite side of the capital, where the Imperial Palace stood far in the distance, dominating the center of the city despite the kilometers separating them.

Above that palace floated what appeared to be a freaking star.

A blue star, hundreds of kilometers wide, remained suspended high above the Imperial Palace while controlled streams of radiant light continuously descended from it, spreading across Arvelon and illuminating the streets, towers, rooftops, walls, and districts even in the middle of the night.

"The Crownstar."

For once, genuine reverence entered Zevan’s voice.

The Crownstar was a Demigod-level artifact created under the current Human Emperor with the assistance of thousands of powerful mages, including S-Rank and SS-Rank practitioners, and its existence had fundamentally changed the position of humanity within Valtharion.

The Human Empire had not produced an actual Demigod, yet the Crownstar could both defend against one and unleash power capable of killing one, which meant humanity had effectively gained the same kind of deterrence even without possessing a Demigod of its own.

To Zevan, the concept was easy to understand.

It was no different from possessing a nuclear weapon in the modern world.

You didn’t necessarily need to fire it, because merely having something capable of guaranteeing unacceptable retaliation was enough to make most enemies reconsider attacking in the first place.

If another race launched a full-scale assault against humanity and forced the Asterian Empire to activate the Crownstar at full power, then the death of at least one Demigod could be guaranteed, and very few beings at that level would willingly volunteer themselves for such an outcome.

"And because of this, there hasn’t been another large-scale conflict between humanity and the other races."

Zevan remained impressed whenever he thought about it, because without the Crownstar, he could easily imagine how much pressure humanity might have faced from races possessing genuine Demigods, especially after remembering what had happened to the previous Human Emperor and the desperate measures he had taken in hopes of producing a Demigod for humanity.

"Whatever, that history has nothing to do with tonight."

He turned away from the distant Crownstar and continued toward the Common District, where most ordinary residents lived and where markets, taverns, workshops, inns, and many other smaller businesses remained active even this late into the night.

Unlike the Common District, many parts of Arvelon couldn’t simply be entered by anyone who wished to wander through them, because the imperial capital was divided according to function, authority, and social status.

The major sections included the **Imperial Crown District, Noble Crown District, War District, Arcane District, Grand Mercantile District, Adventurer District, Holy District, Academy District, Artisan District, Common Districts, Outer City, and the hidden Undercity**, with each section serving a different role within the enormous capital.

That division was another reason the clones had chosen the Common District and the Undercity as the foundation for their early operations.

The Common District connected directly to the Underground City, allowing people, information, and goods to move between the legal and illegal sides of Arvelon without requiring constant passage through heavily restricted areas, while the Underground City itself was surprisingly safe from complete destruction despite everything happening inside it.

Not because the imperial authorities were unaware of its existence.

Quite the opposite.

From what Zevan had learned, several noble families secretly benefited from the Underground City, and there were even persistent rumors that members of the Imperial Family held shares in certain businesses operating below the capital.

Whether those rumors were true or merely another layer of misinformation didn’t particularly interest him.

For Zevan, what mattered was establishing the organization, training loyal members, and building an information network strong enough to become useful to Luke in the future.

He eventually crossed one of the Common District’s busy marketplaces, where wagons continued rolling between rows of shops despite the late hour, adventurers gathered around food stalls after returning from quests, and travelers from numerous regions moved through the streets.

Humans formed the majority, but they were far from the only race present, because elves, demi-humans, beastkin, and several other races could be seen walking through the imperial capital without causing any particular disturbance.

"Finally, I’m here."

Zevan released a relieved breath upon reaching the tavern they had agreed to meet in, because he had half expected the other two clones to leave every arrangement to him again.

However, when he looked upward toward the fifth floor, he immediately spotted two familiar figures near one of the windows.

**Warren Skell**, the clone controlling The Broken Halo, was there.

Beside him sat **Frederic Salter**, the clone responsible for **The Thirteenth Key**, Luke’s merchant organization.

Both were already eating.

The moment they noticed Zevan below, the two casually raised their hands and waved toward him as though they hadn’t done anything wrong.

Zevan stared upward for a moment before annoyance spread across his disguised face.

"This bastard started eating without me again."

He entered the tavern immediately.

The ground floor was crowded with all kinds of customers, while waitresses moved rapidly between packed tables carrying plates, mugs, roasted meat, and bottles of rum as laughter, arguments, and overlapping conversations filled the room.

"Three more rums over here!"

"Coming!"

"Oi, that’s my plate!"

"Then guard your food better!"

Zevan ignored the noise and headed toward the stairs, climbing directly to the fifth floor, where Warren and Frederic had already booked a private room for the three of them.

After fifteen days of establishing their organizations independently, it was finally time for Luke’s three clones to sit together and decide what they were going to do next.