Chapter 40: A Summons from the Endless Dark

Calling forth a champion...

Right now, it was the only way Koda could think of to steady his hold on the Tithe Lands as fast as possible.

Champions were different from the heroic shades called up from Ancestral Halls, who could greatly strengthen an army. They were different from the generals trained in War Colleges, who could lead troops on their own. A champion was something else entirely.

First, every champion belonged to a race. Each could only be called from their own people, so every race’s champions were completely different from one another.

Second, many champions could also strengthen an army or lead troops, but they were clearly weaker at it than shades or generals.

That didn’t make them weaker, though. When it came to raw personal strength and smashing through a battlefield, champions had an enormous, unmatched advantage.

They grew with every battle, gaining new powers and greater strength as they went.

With the right gear and the right mix of powers, any champion could become something that decided the fate of a whole battlefield.

Take the legendary lord Aldric Varn, whose campaigns had left behind countless famous battles. His champion, Tarsephin, was the perfect example.

Tarsephin carried dragon blood and was a champion of the very highest grade. In battle after battle that later ended up in the histories, he always led from the front. He loved to be the first one into the enemy’s ranks. Once he had torn their lines open, he would turn into a full dragon and unleash the magic of the dragon tongue all around him, throwing the whole battlefield into chaos.

Or take Grym, the champion of the rising lord Bastian Holloway, who wielded two elements at once.

Grym could reshape a battlefield almost without limit.

He could call on earth to raise walls of stone out of nothing, and on water to turn an entire battlefield into a sucking swamp.

Because of him, Bastian had not only broken the combined assault of four legendary lords at once, he had destroyed nearly all of their elite troops.

In short, champions couldn’t command great armies.

But they were the sharpest point of the blade, and the thickest wall of the shield!

They were the ones who could most directly carry out a lord’s plans in war. People called them a lord’s right and left hands.

Overwhelming personal strength, near-limitless growth, and all kinds of unbelievable powers.

That was what made a champion.

And that was why Koda, even with soul stones running short, had paid so much to grow his territory.

He had no elite troops right now. He badly needed something that could turn a battle at any moment!

---

Koda looked at the Temple of Sin in front of him and fell into thought.

"How should I put this..."

"I already know this layer is chaos down to its bones."

"But I still didn’t expect calling a champion from it to be completely random too!"

Koda had hoped to pick a specific kind of champion. Other lords could even see what their champions would be like before calling them.

But the Temple of Sin offered him only one choice.

Call a champion, and take whatever came.

For the first calling, the temple wanted two thousand kilograms of flesh and blood, and twenty-five souls of those who had died in battle.

Both were easy for Koda. He already had them on hand.

Since he had wiped out Ursok Windstride and his warriors, the flesh of those big, strong centaurs could easily cover the first price.

The souls weren’t hard either. Far more than twenty-five had died in that last battle.

Once the flesh of Ursok and his warriors had been hauled over, Koda gave the command.

He was a little worried about how random it was. But he had slowly gotten used to this place, and he decided to trust it. To trust this strange world.

Soon, the Temple of Sin began to stir.

A scarlet magic circle appeared in front of him, looking utterly evil, as though it had been made to defile every beautiful living thing.

It started as a single black point, then spread rapidly until it reached the flesh piled up for it.

Inside the circle, the flesh began to change!

Things that had been dead for some time started to squirm again!

Countless bizarre limbs of every kind sprouted from it, only to wither away just as fast.

The faces on the centaur corpses began to melt and reshape.

Eyeballs burst, ears and noses dropped away, and blood spilled everywhere.

One evil, greedy, mad eye after another opened in that indescribable mass of flesh.

Ugly mouths grew out of the corpses and began howling wildly.

Watching it all, Koda felt as though countless souls were fighting inside that flesh for control.

In the end, all the extra eyes and mouths disappeared.

Because one powerful and unusual soul had finally won. After this layer had lain dry and withered for countless years, it had waited long enough for a chance to live again, and it had returned to the world.

The strange flesh pulled itself together into a single, whole creature in front of Koda.

It was a monster as big as a small hill, bloated beyond belief, and covered from top to bottom in bloodstained iron cages.

The cages were empty, but Koda didn’t need much imagination to guess what had happened to whatever used to be kept in them.

Its purple-red skin was covered in tumors of every size.

With every breath it took, those tumors shamelessly sprayed out some foul, stinking gas.

But once it had returned, it didn’t sink into endless chaos like the other demons.

Instead, the monster, which stood more than three meters taller than Koda, lowered its huge body humbly.

Like a loyal subject before an emperor, it lay down at Koda’s feet and looked up with its four pairs of scarlet eyes at...

The Abyssal Codex in his hand!

The instant it saw the Codex, all the greed and cruelty in those eyes vanished. In their place came endless fear, and an instinctive need to obey.

"Supreme Lord of the Deep, thank you for calling to me from the endless dark! This humble one offers you endless loyalty!"

Through the throne, its name settled into Koda’s mind.

He had called forth a champion of the demon race.

Karolith, Matron of the Imps!