System's POV

Chapter 1301: Wars Didn’t Prove Who Was Right Or Wrong

The fragile peace the city of Velgrande currently held would, at most, last a week.

The Demons under Tiona’s control were paying close attention to their enemies, who were still in Lyra City.

They were busy repairing their airships and tending to their wounded.

Several teams monitored Castor’s and Regulus’ movements at all times, while keeping themselves a good distance away from the two Celestials.

However, it didn’t take long before Castor sensed their presence.

But he didn’t make any move to rid the creatures spying on them. For him, whether their enemy knew that they were coming or not was inconsequential.

The real threat to them was already dealt with and had suffered serious injuries within Dark Paradise.

Castor only regretted failing to deal a killing blow to Cranky, who managed to escape by brute forcing his way out of the domain meant to entrap him forever.

Regulus was also disappointed after hearing that the Celestial that had harassed them for weeks had managed to survive.

But dwelling on it any more was just a waste of time, so they focused on what they would do for now.

Having lost a third of their forces, Castor and Regulus knew that a war of attrition wasn’t in their favor.

They would need to hit hard and hit fast.

“As long as we can enter the city with our elite units, their defenses will all apart,” Regulus stated. “The’ll have nowhere to run to, and what happened in Lyra will not happen again.”

Castor nodded. “It was pretty obvious that they didn’t plan to fight us there. They were simply trying to whittle our numbers, and they succeeded in doing that.”

If they had killed Cranky, the trade-off would’ve been considered worth it.

A Celestial as an enemy was a deterrence tricky to overcome. They might have won the battle, but it left them with no other alternative but to fight with their lives on the line and break through the city’s defenses.

“How long before our repairs are done?” Castor asked the Head Engineer. “I hope that you’re not going to say that it will take us weeks to repair them all.”

“Two days, My Lord,” the Head Engineer replied. “The reactor core of the Flagship has also overheated and needs time to cool down. To ensure that the main cannon can be used again, we need to do an emergency maintenance after we finish the repairs of the airships.”

“From here, it will take us seven days to reach Velgrande,” Regulus commented. “Six days if we hurry.”

“We don’t need to hurry,” Castor stated. “We just need to arrive at our destination.”

The old Celestial looked very exhausted, and a wry smile could be seen on his face.

He had envisioned himself as the new King of Artem, ruling alongside Queen Miriamele.

He would also do his best to make the people happy and assure them that this war was fought to end all wars.

Of course, whether history would remember him as a righteous King or not, they’d only know once he had officially sat on the throne.

There was once a time when Castor believed that the Royal Family should make the lives of their citizens better.

But King Astrion was a greedy ruler.

He wasn’t satisfied with just ruling Artem, so he ordered his army to invade the world of Chandrea.

And he had won by using the Royal Family as hostage to force Queen Miriamele to surrender.

After that war, Artem enjoyed a few decades of peace as King Astrion stabilized his rule in Chandrea.

He then focused his attention on Solterra, a conquest that he had long wished to enjoy.

However, he understood that he needed to grow stronger to face off against the Celestial and Fiends that ruled it.

As such, he sacrificed his daughter, who was born from Queen Miriamele and inherited the royal bloodline, to become a Celestial.

Unfortunately, that plan had failed for they made the mistake of choosing Shasha, Thirteen’s sister, as their next sacrifice.

Not only did King Astrion lose his daughter in that battle, but he also lost his chance to become a Celestial with overwhelming power.

The bloodline of the Chandrean Royal Family was very special, allowing them to surpass their limits.

In an act of desperation, King Astrion decided to invade Pangea in order to capture Thirteen, intending to drain his blood and start the experiment all over again.

He had sent his people to Solterra to hijack a dimensional gate that would allow them to cross over to that world that was too far away for him to travel to.

If not for the fact that the God of Wanderers directly intervened by sending Cranky, as well as the warriors of the Valbarra Archipelago as reinforcements to the war, he might have succeeded.

Castor’s wish to fight a war that would end all wars was real.

He wanted to kill King Astrion so the Artemians would no longer need to conquer other worlds just to fuel the madman’s ambition.

If Thirteen knew what Castor was thinking, he would have said the words, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Perhaps Castor could have become a good King.

However, nothing was absolute with the exception of power.

Absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There were no if’s in this world.

Thirteen needed Erasmus to remain as the King of Artem because he needed him to fight the final battle in Solterra.

Regardless of Castor’s and Regulus’ reasons, the teenage boy needed a King who would unconditionally be on his side.

This battle was a battle of wills.

Two days later, the Airships of the Rebel Army rose towards the sky. Their destination was none other than the city of Velgrande, where the final battle would be waged.

All the soldiers had a determined look on their faces.

They knew that this war had to be fought whether they liked it or not.

They also understood one thing.

Wars didn’t prove who was right or wrong.

It only proved who was left.