Way of the Knights

Chapter 928: Siphoning Vitality

‘Mark said he’s going to take a while…’

‘I guess he’s going for the slow and steady approach. Very well, we can work with that.’

‘My work here is going to take time as well anyways…’

Anne also infiltrated the enemy territory at this point. She’s wearing a disguise but it doesn’t look as convincing as the others used. She didn’t really need a good disguise for her mission, in fact she couldn’t ditched it altogether and she’d remain fine. 

As her husband slowly poisoned their enemies to death, Anne’s mission was to damage their livelihood even further by draining the vitality off of their nature and feeding to the Divine Realm instead. 

Anne was the representative of Nature to the Divine Realm, therefore she carries a crest that always takes the very essence of Nature with her. Her plan was slowly erode the consciousness of Paradise’s Nature and had the Nature of Divine Realm slowly drain it, further crippling the Abyssals. 

To that extent, she needed to find a place where she can stay and remain undisturbed. Away from all the other operations that will happen so as to not draw any attention to herself. 

She has escorts to help her out. A bunch of higher leveled Counter Guardians came with her to act as guards. They will be imposing as countryfolk who didn’t know much about what’s happening in the capital so as to not raise any suspicion. 

Anne found a suitable spot already. She just needed to complete her preparations and she’d be good to go. 

“You all should build a quiet neighborhood here. That shouldn’t be hard. While you do that, I’ll prepare my domain so that we can start with the operation.” 

Her escorts nodded and immediately got to work. As they possess great strength themselves, their work was swift and decisive. Before the day ends, their surroundings already changed into a quiet neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. They’re already discussing what kind of role they’ll have in order to make this whole act more believable. 

As for Anne herself, she already started converting her surroundings to her own domain. It is done in a way where nobody but her could sense. The nature here would still feel normal but in truth, it no longer answer to the rules of Paradise. 

It didn’t take long for her to do this since this was just a small area. She planned to take it slow since her target is huge to begin with. 

After laying down the finishing touches, Anne was ready to begin with the operation. 

She spoke to her escorts and informed that their mission will be starting already. After that, she entered a small cave that she built for herself and sealed it away to begin the conversion. 

As soon as she started, everyone in the vicinity felt the aura of Nature changing around them in an inexplicable way, it only lasted for mere seconds before disappearing. 

They didn’t pay too much attention to it anymore and just simply did their work. They lived like real country folks, raising animals and farming while enjoying some occasional banter here there. Their act was natural and very convincing so even if someone happen to stumble around this place, they wouldn’t suspect them too much. 

As for Anne, she already secluded herself but not before informing HQ about it first. She got the go signal so she started right away. 

She slowly unsealed Divine Realm’s Crest of Nature inside the cave which caused an explosive outgrowth of plants and bushes to occur, they filled the entire cave and formed a natural seal towards the entrance which somewhat helped in concealing Anne. 

That being said, the influence of Divine Realm’s Nature wasn’t taken kindly by Paradise’s Nature. 

Anne could feel a strong repulsion coming from it, which felt very unpleasant but she endured it.

‘Hmph! You think I’m afraid of you? Very well, I’ll let you see who you’re dealing with here.’ 

Anne’s face turned cold as she immediately exercised her Divinity over Paradise. 

She forcefully linked the two together and began siphoning the vitality from Paradise. 

Of course, Paradise wouldn’t let this pass. It would fight back. But Anne already knew that so she came prepared. 

With the operations they laid out over the past year or so, everything lead up to one point to the other. 

And with Raven imprisoning the only being that could assist Paradise in defending – the God Emperor, Anne’s assault was something that Paradise can’t handle by itself. 

Raven was actively suppressing Paradise and that allowed the rest of the plan to flow in motion. Anne’s siphoning the vitality of Paradise’s Nature was naturally boosted with his efforts too. 

It will start off slow. That’s to be expected. 

Paradise’s Nature has benefitted from constant conquest of the Abyssals after all. It is strong and filled with so much vitality that it could last for eons.

But, Anne’s method of siphoning its vitality is something that it can’t stop. Although it may start very slow, eventually Paradise’s Nature will be weakened. And since the siphoning is constant, it will only grow stronger with time. 

That being said, if this was to continue at this pace, it will take decades for the siphoning to ramp-up. Anne didn’t have that much luxury at this current situation so something needs to be done to expedite the process. 

This is where her husband comes in…

His mission of poisoning the food supply of the Abyssals will also act as poisoning Paradise’s Nature itself, after all life is connected. If the Abyssals caught the Crimson Affliction, they will spread it to everything they interact with. And with the growing number of infected people, the damage will slowly accumulate and ramp-up as well. 

This will also reflect to the nature badly. And by the time the Abyssals discover the affliction, the damage is already done. That would result in them destroying themselves by abusing nature in order to survive, which will further weaken the force of nature and will make Anne’s mission way easier. 

This is the layered plan that Raven masterfully concocted and it is far from done. The plan was detailed in a way that, if followed correctly, will lead to the Abyssals destroying themselves without harming Humanity too much. 

Still, this will take time and that is fine. Humanity isn’t in a worry. 

As far as everybody knowns, they are winning this war. The Abyssals might’ve already discovered the general area where Divine Realm is but they haven’t infiltrated it just yet.

They haven’t even come close at all since Ellen and Luna was there to hold down the fort. 

As they slowly crippled the livelihood of the Abyssals here, more and more pressure will build-up until Paradise bursts into flames. When that happens, it wouldn’t be too late for them to launch the decisive strike to end them once and for all. 

As Anne observed the slow progress of siphoning at the constant waves of killing intent that Paradise Nature launches towards her, she held steady. 

She was completely unbothered by whatever it did, and if it decided to release monsters to attack her, her escorts outside will deal with them for her sake. In short, she’s completely safe and secured here. 

Also, she borrowed some formation from Raven which helped her seal this cave. Even if Abyssals managed to discover this place, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to break the seal so there’s nothing to worry about. 

If there’s anything that bothers her, it would only be the safety of her child. 

Jeanne, much like her best friends; Richard and Vanessa, joined the war as well. The three of them weren’t tasked to infiltrate Paradise, their parents will never approve of that even if they were to ask. 

Their mission is protect their home from the invaders. They are stationed at the Eternal Division Wall. Tasked to finish off any Abyssals that will come close to it.

Anne knows that Jeanne can protect herself. How can she not when Mark constantly trained her and polished her skills? Also, she took after Mark a lot and even developed his fighting style. 

The part she inherited from Anne is her closeness to Nature. But she developed it in a lethal way. Jeanne was well versed in the art of poison. She had concocted over thousands of unique poisons over her life and even refined the art of Poison Healing, which is an incredible feat in itself. 

Jeanne is very lethal especially when she’s resolved to killing someone. In addition, she is immune to all kinds of poison and she’s durable too. Her training made her a very formidable assassin like her father but still…

Anne wouldn’t be a mother if she didn’t constantly worry about the well being of her child…

Her world revolves around Mark and Jeanne, if she lost them because of this war, she might as well blow up herself to take down Paradise down with her. 

Still, there isn’t much to worry for now, especially when the plan is going this smooth. She could only hope that it could continue this way so that by the end of this all, they could drop their weapons and live the kind of life they’ve dreamt about for so long…