The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

Chapter 184

Chapter 184: The Seal of the Four Elements

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

The harsh climate of the Northlands was overtaking the elves’ territory. The originally warm temperature that was abnormal for the season clashed with the cold front and caused a natural reaction of thunderstorms, the like of which had never been witnessed in elven territory.

The rain fell in torrents, making it impossible for people to even see themselves. It was only natural that there would be many troubles in such an area, especially in one that was used to dry and comfortable weather. It suddenly experienced such a rainstorm, but this was actually just the beginning.

When the chilly grasp of winter staked its claim on this land, the torrential downpour transformed itself into life-threatening hailstorms and blizzards. After its natural climate had been twisted for thousands of years, the entire Elf Kingdom received the cruelest retribution from nature.

Unlike the other Northland countries, the elves had no ability or experience in withstanding the cold weather. They didn’t have the necessary thick clothing and firewood supplies for defending against the cold, and solely relying on magical flames would make the mages quickly run out of their already short supply of mana.

The hail and snow made this winter a hundred times more difficult for the elves and their light clothing. They were now facing the cruelest test of their abilities; if the Elf Kingdom remained chaotic and didn’t change in time, it was entirely possible that less than ten percent would survive nature’s test.

And currently, the leaders of the elves didn’t have any time to pay attention to the preparations for the disastrous weather. On the increasingly cruel and frigid battlefield, an incredibly vicious internal battle was raging among the elves.

After imprisoning a prince and killing two generals, the king of Tassel Kingdom succeeded in grasping the commanding leadership position of the combined armies of four countries. Of course, it was impossible for him to deal with every detail of the chaotic situation, and there were still plenty who continued to plot his downfall.

“…It’s meaningless to think too much. If we don’t win this next battle, there won’t even be anything to think about.”

Resolution was fine, but reality was brutal, and this battle was most definitely not going to be easy. Bad news arrived like snowflakes in succession right at the beginning itself.

“The Moonblade Squad was ambushed by the dark elves’ Bloodsword Squad and lost over half its members. It can no longer function.”

“Our Pegasus Knights and Hippogryph Knights aren’t a match for the enemy’s black dragons at all! We need support from higher-tier aerial cavalry.”

“Those accursed dark elves should have been exiled for ten thousand years! All their members are elites, damn it. We need high-ranked mages! They can just ignore our acolyte mages’ spells!”

“Archmage Maladis and all his disciples died to those damned dark elf assassins, and the other three countries’ royal mages all refuse to participate in battle. We’re being suppressed in magic by the enemy’s priests and mages. We encountered a complete one-sided loss in terms of mage strength.”

“Tell those mages to stop using low-level spells; did they forget about the dark elves’ magic-resistant skin?”

Morale, numbers, battle preparation, battle equipment, and high-tier combat strength. The elves couldn’t match up to the dark elves in any of these aspects, and compared to the dark elf armies that were well rested, the elven allied armies were fatigued from their long travels in the field. The elves were crushed right from the beginning of the battle.

Yet greater trouble still lay ahead of them.

“The second St. Lawrence army refuses to carry out your orders. They request to see their prince.”

“The SemiGod Priest Samana wishes to meet with you. It’s probably about the assassination of their general. Your Majesty Adrian, would you like to meet with him or refuse?”

Adrian hadn’t even finished taking care of securing his own position of power. Rumors were already spreading everywhere. If it weren’t for the fact that this was an emergency situation, and that the elves were facing their mortal enemy on the battlefield, the other three countries’ armies would likely have turned against his.

“Why can’t you all understand? Do you think that I enjoy using these dirty methods, or that I wouldn’t be heartbroken at Suana’s sacrifice? She was my only precious baby daughter! Why did I sacrifice so much? I was doing it for the sake of all elves; why don’t you idiots understand! Why?”

The furious Tassel Kingdom Elf King Adrian was shouting in his royal tent. He had already broken the various decorations and ornaments around the tent, but even after venting his anger, he could only watch blankly as the situation continued to worsen in front of him.

There were endless internal conflicts, a vast enemy army outside, and he was forced to the brink by both internal and external problems, but…

“I wasn’t wrong; I definitely wasn’t wrong! It’s all those idiots’ fault!”

Even now, he still believed that he hadn’t made any mistakes. Suddenly, however, one of his closest retainers brought him a short message that caused his expression to change greatly. After a brief pause, he began laughing.

“If you all won’t fight with honor, then I’ll do the same. I’m doing everything for the sake of the elves; it’s all your fault for not understanding me. Don’t blame me even if we meet at the River Styx!”

…

“By the way, Roland, I recently fell in love with playing chess. That’s why I’m giving you a small present that I hope you’ll enjoy. — Karwenz”

I was shocked when Elisa suddenly sent me this message.

Apart from being shocked at its contents, I was more shocked at the source of the message. It was evident that Karwenz understood quite a lot about me through certain channels.

“Karwenz directly contacted your main body? He knows that you’re on my side? Are you still safe over there?”

“The side of Chaos is rather disorderly. More accurately speaking, apart from a few at the top, the others don’t have much interest in this Holy War. Of course, they’d be more than happy to have a go at slaughtering the upper dimension, but having them concentrate on plotting and separating allies from enemies is much too difficult for those demons with muscles for brains.”

“Most of the demons are still currently preoccupied with fighting their own kin. Relax, I’m fine. Rather, since I just completed the Will of the Abyss’s direct task for me, I even have the possibility of raising my rank.”

As they were of Chaos to begin with, it was only natural for the side of Chaos to not have any order or organization among themselves. The norm was for each Chaos leader to have their own faction, while demons ranked Baron and above had their own territories. This was just as expected, since this was the only reason for the strange balance between the sides of Chaos and Order, despite the fact that the number of Chaos Gods outnumbered the Order Gods two to one with the Chaos side’s battle power far surpassing that of the Order side.

The strong would be the leaders. This was a maxim, but since they were strong already, why should they have to obediently listen and fight a war? To the Chaos side, internal struggles for personal benefits constituted the real prize.

Since that side still hadn’t come looking for Elisa yet, that meant that she was still safe—at least for the time being. Even a demon prince like Karwenz wouldn’t be able to declare battle against a female demon Earl without making any preparations. Elisa’s words helped reassure me, but closer consideration of the message contents made it seem all the more difficult to comprehend.

“A small present? What could it be? Since the demon prince is personally involved and is bragging with such swaggering delight, it definitely won’t be small. It’s probably something that will turn the tide of the battle in the enemy’s favor. There is some sort of problem…”

“The elves? Red Maple Castle? Antuen? Diffindor? Somewhere inland in the human territory?”

There were too many choices and possibilities for me to think about, but someone was unable to tolerate me any longer…

“Roland! Stop dazing off; we can’t hold on any longer!”

Alright, I suppose that’s true. Adam finally got tired of my antics and barked at me to remind me of the fact that we were in the midst of a difficult battle.

Currently, the gigantic black stone hulk in front of us had transformed himself into a heavily armored black battle scorpion, and he had buried his massive body directly into the earth. His single, viciously glaring eye was flickering with a dark green light, and those menacing stone spears of his were still searching for victims on the ground.

“…This guy is too ridiculous. Just how many times can he transform?”

Battling with Emordilorcan was an endless nightmare. Each time we became slightly accustomed to his combat style, just as we were about to gain a slight advantage, he would immediately transform again and attack anew.

A stone giant wielding a shield and sword, a high-speed flying stone eagle, a stone Sword Saint who brandished a dozen lightning-fast weapons simultaneously, a stone guardian that was slow and strong—Emordilorcan used various different forms in succession against us. He could be said to be at the ultimate pinnacle of physical attacks.

“You tiny, short-lived creatures, I have experienced countless eras and battles, and have witnessed endless amounts of ferocious battle techniques. My special structure can imitate any combat technique imaginable, and my body will never fatigue! No matter how hard you try, you all shall still be defeated by me!”

Emordilorcan’s heavy roar contained an indescribable emotion that sounded like frustration, as he was unable to defeat us even after such a long time in combat.

“Relax, my lovely mortal heroes, I can sense that the Dimensional Door is in the midst of closing and that his elemental power is beginning to weaken. He won’t be able to resist for much longer! My powerful mortal allies, victory is right before us.”

“At the very least, if I die, you all are coming with me!”

The two raging Elemental Gods gave me two completely contrasting depictions of their furious battle, but I knew that the truth wasn’t how either of them described it. It wasn’t true that Emordilorcan was about to be defeated like Camdian claimed, nor was it that Emordilorcan was truly undefeatable like he claimed.

The closing of the Elemental Door meant that Emordilorcan’s investment in it had been entirely wasted, and he was indeed currently weakening, but as the strongest and oldest existence among the four Elemental Gods, he was far from being pushed to his limit. This was definitely going to be a long, drawn-out battle, where any small mistake on our part might result in our deaths.

But some things were impossible to conceal. Every time Emordilorcan changed his form or took a blow, he would lose part of the earth element that made up his body. The current him was no longer able to take elemental power from the Dimensional Door, so he was destined to only become weaker and weaker.

We had suffered significantly on our side as well. As the main tank, Adam was battered all over, and the spirit versions of Karwenz and Roland had long since disappeared. It wasn’t because the time limit was up—it was because they had been defeated.

The ironic part was that the spirit Karwenz had been attempting to protect the spirit Roland when he was crushed by a gigantic boulder, which had also caused the spirit Roland to automatically be recalled, while at the current moment Roland was currently frustrated about what to do about Karwenz.

“If I’m frustrated, let me make the others get in a bad mood as well. Maybe seeing others in a bad mood will help make me feel better.”

I suddenly recalled a random sentence I had heard in my past life, causing me to suddenly speak up.

“Emordilorcan, are you truly proud of the fact that you can use so many forms? The truly strong all have their own distinct style, but what’s your style—just transforming all the time? Perhaps you should be called the Slime God instead of the Earth Elemental God.”

“You coward that only knows how to talk a good fight! I shall definitely rip you apart!”

“Oh my, according to this reaction, I must be on the mark. Do you only know how to say these empty words? That’s right, your Master Monk form was quite powerful, just which master did you imitate? I wonder if you have the confidence to defeat the real one? Could it be that you perhaps chose to imitate him because you couldn’t defeat him?”

Emordilorcan’s single remaining eye was emanating a bone-piercing killing intent, but judging from the fact that he didn’t reply, it was apparent that I had touched a sore spot. The attacks of his stone scorpion form increased in ferocity.

“Hey, hey, stop adding oil to the fire; I’m the tank here!”

Adam was too good a tank—even Camdian was using Adam to block attacks. My “idling,” though, was finally at an end as all my preparations were now in place.

“Activate, Seal of the Four Elements!”

The elements all countered each other—this was one of the fundamental maxims of this world. The most powerful seal in this world was a spell array which imitated the bodies of the elementals themselves. As long as this seal activated, and the four elements within it began circulating, it would emulate a sealed world with no exit.

Since we were already aware that we were dealing with the Elemental Gods, we would, of course, be prepared. However, when Margaret had discovered this ancient seal in an archaic, old book, we had met with some small problems.

“To seal a powerful elemental or magical creature, we need to find three Elemental Power Sources that are equal level to it? Emordilorcan’s an Elemental God, so where are we supposed to find the other three Elemental Gods?”

Honestly, though, perhaps it was Emordilorcan’s unfortunate fate to be doomed. Coincidentally, we had quickly discovered the three keys we lacked.

“The Flame Seal of the Flame Sea Earl!”

Elisa, who had obtained the power of the Fire Elemental God, gave the source of her power to me. While it was the only source of God-rank fire elemental power we had, it was definitely a fire elemental power source on the same level as Emordilorcan’s.

“Sidunwar’s Ocean Bottle!”

The power of the Ancient Sea God Sidunwar was unimaginable, as even the Water Elemental God was only his wife and follower God. Even though the divine power residing within it wasn’t much anymore, it was actually even more powerful than Emordilorcan’s.

But the final key was rather troublesome. The Wind Elemental’s power was quite challenging to obtain, and I had initially intended to make do with Adam’s Titan Thunder. Now, however, we had a better option.

“Camdian, it’s all up to you now. Help us complete the Seal of the Four Elements and send Emordilorcan to his grave!”