Chapter 1572 — 1572: Three armies

Even if Lex told Z to hurry up, it was basically impossible for Z to quickly finish up a fight Lex didn't even think he could win in the first place. That didn't mean that Lex would interrupt the fight before it was needed.

Simultaneously, Z's fight could not be disturbed. Although Z's music was lethal to the locusts, under the protection of their king, they could pretty much ignore its influence and march right up to him. In truth, if they didn't rely on their passive ability and actively resisted the music, they'd be able to survive.

But even in their mindless form they were too difficult a foe for most, let alone if they gained a measure of intelligence.

Lex simply watched from the rampart as an ever increasingly nervous Kaemon stood by the sides. He was nervous not because he feared the locust king. Rather, he did not want the Midnight tavern to fall before he and his men returned to top form.

While he had some reservations about Lex's attitude towards Abaddon, he could not deny that as a host and as a tavern keeper, he was doing a first class job.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do," finally Kaemon said, unable to hold himself back. "All I suggest is that you stay fully prepared in case your defense doesn't hold as you expect it to. A locust king is not a weakling."

Lex nodded, and as if to reassure Kaemon, told Leonidus to be prepared to venture forth at a moment's notice. The entire battalion was battle ready. All they needed was the command, and they'd be deployed on the field!

Lex, himself, did not move however. He stayed in the perfect position to monitor the situation. Back when Luthor had been helping him craft the castle, he had warned Lex that he needed to purify the malevolent influence of Hellfire, or it would taint the castle. Lex took another approach instead.

As Luthor sat down on the throne in the Great Hall, and gained complete control over the tavern, he finally gained an understanding of what Lex had done, and marvelled at how he had managed to tame the very influence of Hell itself!

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Lex could control divine energy, so it would only be normal for him to be able to control malevolent energy.

If anyone else in the universe heard Luthor's rationale, they would first laugh at him. Then they would kill Lex.

A force capable of controlling the energies of both Hell and Heaven was something the Devils and Angels had been conspiring to achieve for billions of years, facing strong opposition. Now, Lex was on the verge of achieving it himself unbeknownst to anyone.

The only reason he would be able to do such a thing was his cultivation technique. However, Lex had not actually done that. In fact, Lex had never even tried to use Malevolent energy, and instead used Supremacy to bind the malevolent influence of Hell to the castle so that it could be unleashed in a tamed manner.

Perhaps that is also why no one in the universe had yet noticed how close he was to achieving the dream of two powerful races by accident.

The castle walls trembled, and countless machicolations revealed themselves on the outer walls through which liquid fire started to pour out. Liquid fire was not the same as lava - it was something far more sinister.

Just as the fire was about to touch the ground, it morphed, taking on the shape of a hellhound made entirely of flames. As the fire poured out of the castle walls, more and more hounds began to appear, each one just as crazed and hungry as the locusts themselves.

Within the span of a few seconds, an army of hellhounds stood at the base of the castle walls, and all it would take was a single command from Luthor for them to attack. But the command didn't come.

The castle had one more weapon Lex had prepared, so Luthor wanted to test that out too. While fires flowed out of the walls, thick white clouds began to flow out of the tower windows. White clouds were not unusual, except that the clouds were emitting a chill so piercing just looking at them was enough to give frostbite.

As the white clouds rose high, they eventually began to morph, taking on the shape of many wyverns.

With icy wyverns up above, and fiery hellhounds down below, the two weapons of the tavern castle had been deployed in full force.

Oftentimes, when one thought of a Hell, they usually thought of fire and burning, but in truth many Hells were also icy, and equally as terrifying and malevolent. Using Fenrir's Iceage attack as a foundation, Lex had allowed the malevolent energy that tainted the castle to manifest in two different ways.

The sight was intimidating, for not only had two armies been summoned virtually out of thin air, they radiated a ferocious aura of Hell, intimidating anyone who felt it.

In truth, the number of these creatures that could be summoned was not limitless, and would require an external energy source. Similarly, the malevolent energy that was used to create them could be temporarily exhausted. That was why Lex sent Luthor to summon them.

While the energy source could be any number of things, from spirit stones, to individuals, to power plants of some kind, Luthor's Hellfire was an important ingredient in resupplying the tavern with malevolent energy, enabling him to summon a lot more of them than anyone else.

The most insidious thing about these conjurations summoned using malevolence was… that as they fought and killed and ate their enemies, they would grow stronger!

Just as the locusts were about to near Z, Luthor sent the command, and the armies leapt forward, eager to meet their foes!

The three armies clashed headfirst without slowing down whatsoever, causing a massive explosion filled with fire and ice. The locusts, whose very bodies were fused with strange laws that caused them to live without souls and recover without end, soon began to be devoured by the Hellhounds and Wyverns, while the Hellhounds and Wyverns started to grow larger in size every time they killed a foe.