Bzzzt!

An electromagnetic pulse burst out of Siegfried, sweeping across the clones of Duke Randoll.

“...!”

“...!”

“...!”

The expressions and movements of the clones stiffened. Then, something shocking happened. The vast majority of them suddenly turned gray.

Some did not stop at merely turning gray, as they crumbled altogether, disintegrating into nothing but handfuls of ash.

Siegfried had unleashed his skill Absolute Nullification, a powerful debuff that was practically a death sentence to the clones. Since the clones were not true clones but mere split-off copies, they suffered devastating damage after being exposed to Absolute Nullification.

The only reason the clones turned gray before turning into ash rather than instantly disintegrating into ashes was that they were copies of Duke Randoll, an exceptionally powerful warrior who had reached the realms of Master.

Otherwise, they would have been annihilated outright.

‘So the ones turning gray are the divided clones and the ones turning to ash are the weaker divided clones,’ Siegfried thought.

The copies that disintegrated into ash were the last ones to be divided from the original ones. No matter how great the Marchioni Empire’s cloning technology was, splitting too many clones inevitably meant producing weaker clones.

And then there were the real clones.

“Such petty tricks!”

“Such petty tricks!”

“Such petty tricks!”

Those that did not turn gray roared at once.

‘Just as I thought. My debuffs are the key to everything,’ Siegfried thought with a smile.

Absolute Nullification allowed him to distinguish between the "original" clones and the divided clones. Then, it also weakened or outright erased the weaker divided clones.

The sight proved that he could truly rely on his debuffs, regardless of the pinch he was in.

The skill set created by the Level 999 Hidden NPC, Deus, was Siegfried’s foundation. If he was truly Deus’ disciple, then he ought to do more than just dominate his opponents.

Debuff them to oblivion and obliterate them.

‘I’ll destroy the original clones first,’ Siegfried thought, rushing at the clones marked by the Absolute Nullification skill.

“Stop him! Don’t let him get through!”

“Stop him! Don’t let him get through!”

“Stop him! Don’t let him get through!”

The divided clones turned gray after being weakened by the Absolute Nullification skill, and they tried to protect the original clones by throwing themselves at Siegfried.

“Get the hell out of my way,” Siegfried said nonchalantly, waving his weapon.

The split-up clones were not capable of stopping him or even stalling him for a second.

Dozens would get annihilated even when Siegfried merely waved his +10 Sky Piercer around.

How come? Well, even the original, Duke Randoll, would be no match for Siegfried.

In other words, these clones weakened by Absolute Nullification were obviously powerless before Siegfried, even though they were copies of Duke Randoll, a Master.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Siegfried muttered under his breath.

With those words, he thrust his +10 Sky Piercer—

Shwik!

—shoving it straight into an original clone’s neck.

“Krghhk!”

The clone let out a gasp before dying right there on the spot.

“What?!”

“How?!”

“What in the...?”

The clones divided from that original clone—now hanging dead at Siegfried’s speartip—were stunned by what they saw, but before they could utter another word, they crumbled to dust and were scattered by the wind.

‘Verdandi is correct. The divided clones will disappear once their original is dead,’ Siegfried thought. The Marchioni Empire used the Emerald Tablet to obtain the alchemical knowledge required to turn the Omnistones into clones of Duke Randoll.

Ten thousand clones of Duke Randolls were created, but the Marchioni Empire did not stop there. They used their vast reserves of Omnistones to divide more clones from the original clones. Even though they were unstable, they were still an army of one million strong clones of a Master-level warrior.

Unfortunately, all of their efforts went up in smoke, as the Absolute Nullification skill of the Invincible Emperor either annihilated or weakened the clones.

After becoming the Invincible Emperor, Siegfried could no longer be fooled by petty tricks, like the army of clones before him.

“Ignore the ones that have turned gray! All of them will disappear if you kill the real clones!” Siegfried bellowed, his voice carried by the Primordial Force and spreading throughout the battlefield.

“Over there! There’s a real one!”

“That one! That one hasn’t turned gray!”

“Ignore the fake ones! Focus on bringing down the real ones!”

At his command, the Proatine Imperial troops and allied troops charged straight for the original clones.

‘There are ten thousand Duke Randoll clones. I have to destroy at least half of them with this one move,’ Siegfried thought, his eyes gleaming dangerously.

Whoosh!

He unleashed a massive amount of Primordial Force from his mana hall.

Wooong!

Tens of thousands of aura blades formed around Siegfried.

“Ah...!”

“The Master of Swords...!”

“Are those swords... created by His Imperial Majesty?”

The Proatine Imperial troops and allied troops stood in awe after witnessing the brilliance of the aura swords.

The sight of Siegfried standing amidst tens of thousands of aura blades was simply far too breathtaking. It was as if the aura blades were gathered around worshiping him, just like knights would do to their liege.

These knights were prepared to charge and slaughter the enemy at the command of their liege, and that was exactly what happened.

“Torrential Flower Rain.”

As soon as Siegfried uttered those words...

Shwiiiiiiik!

The tens of thousands of aura blades rained down upon the enemy, ripping the clones of Duke Randoll into shreds.

***

Meanwhile, Emperor Stuttgart was receiving live reports from the battlefield.

“...The Corals?”

He grimaced as he read the report stating that three battleships resembling the motherships of the Coral Race had appeared on the battlefield.

The Coral Race’s motherships possessed offensive and defensive capabilities far beyond imagination. Even the Marchioni Empire’s Immortal Battleships were no match against them.

In fact, it was so powerful that it could rival even the dragons. Emperor Stuttgart vividly remembered how even the mighty dragons had struggled against the Coral’s motherships during the invasion of the Coral Planet.

However, a new type of battleship containing both the technology of the continent and the Corals had actually emerged?

It was definitely going to be nothing short of a calamity.

What was the reason Emperor Stuttgart had to resort to underhanded tactics just to get rid of the dragons?

Though the Marchioni Empire was the most powerful nation in the whole world, it was still nothing compared to the might of the dragons. History had shown that there was nothing humans could do but accept their demise once a dragon had flown overhead and unleashed their dragon breath.

Even the Immortal Battleships, feared by many on the continent, would be easily brought down by an adult dragon.

Thus, Emperor Stuttgart had no choice but to deceive the dragons and force them to clash against the Coral motherships.

The decision proved to be a wise one for the Marchioni Empire, as dozens of dragons were killed or suffered grievous wounds during that battle.

Of course, that was not the end of Emperor Stuttgart’s treachery.

He gathered the Dragon Slayers who were wandering around the continent after the demise of the Illuminati. Together with the intelligence bureau of the Marchioni Empire, they located every single lair on the continent and raided them.

As a result, the dragons were wiped out from the face of the continent.

The most powerful creatures that struck fear into the hearts of every mortal being were now extinct.

Yet a battleship that could rival the dragons had emerged on the battlefield? That alone was enough to trouble Emperor Stuttgart, and the fact that there were three of them gave him every reason to grimace.

“Battleship Four has been shot down!”

“Battleship Seventeen... has been destroyed.”

Even now, reports of the Immortal Battleships being shot down continued to flood in.

On the other hand, the Proatine Empire’s aerial fleet was untouched.

The battleship built with the combined technology of the Proatine Empire and the Coral Race was not the only reason they dominated the skies.

The Proatine Empire’s strategy of placing the Iron Fleet, which boasted immense defensive prowess, to tank all attacks proved ingenious.

Protected by the Iron Fleet at the front, the battleships and the light fighter jets of the allied forces bombarded the Marchioni Empire’s Immortal Fleet with reckless abandon.

The strategy perfectly distributed the roles of each fleet.

Fleets specializing in offense were to focus only on attack, while those specializing in defense only focused on defending and protecting the other fleets.

Focusing on both offense and defense was indeed the right move.

Why?

It was all because the Marchioni Empire’s Immortal Fleet completely disregarded defense—no, it was more like the concept of defense did not exist for them at all.

Ever since the Immortal Fleet was formed two decades ago, their laser beams had always obliterated all enemies that dared to block its path. They had successfully laid waste to every single city they hovered above, striking fear in the hearts of those beneath them.

With such overwhelming dominance, they had little to no reason to even bother practicing any defensive maneuvers.

While this seemed like the result of the officers' negligence or incompetence, they couldn’t really be blamed, as they had no opportunity to practice such maneuvers in real battle.

How could they defend against the enemy when they had yet to fight a real battle?

The Immortal Fleet was basically a broken weapon that guaranteed victory whenever they were deployed. In other words, they had not fought a single proper battle in the twenty years they were in service.

They were so strong that none proved to be worthy opponents, and that sense of complacency slowly crept into their ranks. Today, their complacency proved fatal, as the meticulous strategy prepared by the Proatine Empire caught them off guard.

Just like how complacency brought about the loss of the Lord of Destruction to Siegfried, the Immortal Fleet, too, was on the verge of losing.

“How is this even possible...?” Emperor Stuttgart muttered in disbelief.

“Y-Your Imperial Majesty!”

An officer rushed in, bringing yet another grim news.

“The Corals are attacking our capital! There are far too many of them!”

“What...?”

“It seems the slaves at the Coral Planet revolted and used the transport vessels to come straight into our capital undetected!”

The Marchioni Empire was caught completely off guard, blindsided.

At the moment, most of their troops were fighting on the battlefield, which meant a sizable force of Corals invading their capital city was nothing short of a disaster.

Even if the Marchioni Empire were to emerge victorious in the war and return in triumph, the only thing awaiting them would be their imperial capital, razed to the ground and reduced to ashes by an army of enraged Corals seeking vengeance.

Weary from battle, the Imperial Army of the Marchioni Empire would, without a doubt, be slaughtered the moment they returned.

***

The Transcendent Torrential Flower Rain unleashed by Siegfried caused a miracle.

It was Weapon Master Shakiro’s ultimate skill, and it was reforged through countless battles and finally enhanced when Siegfried became a Grandmaster. Rather than an ultimate skill, the Transcendent Torrential Flower Rain could be considered an act of the gods at this point.

Each of the tens of thousands of aura blades conjured by Siegfried zipped around the battlefield and struck down five thousand clones of Duke Randoll.

The divided clones from the five thousand original clones turned into dust and were scattered by the wind. Siegfried had single-handedly annihilated five hundred thousand clones with a single move.

Unfortunately, this came at a heavy cost.

“Huff... Huff...”

Thud!

Siegfried slammed his +10 Sky Piercer into the ground and used it as a crutch to stay on his feet. He had expended a massive amount of Primordial Force to unleash the Transcendent Torrential Flower Rain just now.

In addition to conjuring far more aura blades than usual, he also condensed far more Primordial Force into them. On top of that, he pushed himself to his limits to control every single one of them, too.

He was a Grandmaster, but sniping down five thousand clones of Duke Randoll remained a difficult task. In truth, the only reason he could pull off such a godlike feat was due to his massive reserves of Primordial Force.

The massive amount of energy he had absorbed from the Dragon Heart of Inkarthus, the First Black Dragon, became Primordial Force, giving him a massive reserve.

In other words, Siegfried possessed the same amount of energy or even more than that of an Ancient Dragon.

However, he still had his limitations.

He expended almost all of his Primordial Force to annihilate half of the original clones on the battlefield.

While the Primordial Force regenerated quite quickly and he could easily replenish it using the Infinite Flask, he did not even have the luxury of waiting for it to regenerate or sipping from his flask.

The battle still raged on, and every single second counted.

Meanwhile, chaos descended upon the entire battlefield. Siegfried running out of Primordial Force was a huge loss of firepower. Now that he had run out of Primordial Force, his debuffs were no longer active. The Karma Flare, Embrace of Despair, and Green Hell Magno that enveloped the battlefield had disappeared.

‘This is bad...’ Siegfried clenched his +10 Sky Piercer tightly.

While reducing the enemy’s numbers by half was huge, his allies struggled against the clones now that his debuffs were no longer in place. Ten minutes was all he needed to replenish his Primordial Force, but countless allies would have fallen by then.

‘Damn it! If only I were stronger—!’

Bzzt! Bzzzzt!

A bolt of lightning struck from the heavens above, and the space around it twisted.

And...

Tsss...!

From the dimensional gate, pink silhouettes emerged.

The gods had descended.