Sovereign of the Ashes

Chapter 440: Geyzes City

Located in the east-central region of the Western Archipelago, Thousand Leaf Coral Island was relatively small, spanning only a fifth the size of the Viridescent Land.

This compact island was home to three human nations, under the governance of the nearby Order of Star Knights.

When Sein emerged from White Stella’s water gate, he found himself in the outer waters of Thousand Leaf Coral Island.

Sein gathered various information on the island and pieced them together.

Since Thousand Leaf Coral Island was not part of Blackhaven, the security in this region was decent.

Under the protection of an order of the knights, the black mages and black knights to the north were deterred from causing significant trouble in the area.

Despite this, the influence of Blackhaven had gradually seeped into Thousand Leaf Coral Island and its neighboring islets over the millennia.

The human nations on the island found themselves embroiled in skirmishes or full-scale wars every five years on average, heralding periods of chaos and darkness.

During these turbulent times, black mages from the north would often come to collect the souls and remains of the fallen.

For the black mages, the aftermath of battles served as a vital resource for their dark practice.

The black knights of Blackhaven, too, were frequent visitors, sometimes degenerating into outright banditry to plunder the spoils of war.

Some black squires also often disguised their identities to participate in this national war as mercenaries, intensifying and brutalizing the conflicts.

Although the Order of Star Knights was aware of these, their proximity to Blackhaven made it challenging to maintain complete control over the situation.

The regions nearest to Blackhaven experienced the most chaos. The severity of the unrest was such that even the presence of one or two Rank Four or Rank Five beings was not sufficient to restore order.

However, the turmoil in the north-central Western Archipelago was relatively contained.

The black knights and black mages crossing the border were mostly below Rank Two. Rank Three grand mages rarely engaged in such malevolent acts.

No Rank Four or higher black mage or black knights from Blackhaven had been seen to breach the border over the past twenty thousand years.

The native powerhouses of the Western Archipelago were formidable in their own right.

In fact, the local knights and mages of Rank Four or above in the Western Archipelago potentially outnumbered those of similar ranks in Blackhaven.

Several factors contributed to why Blackhaven remained a persistent threat. These included historical complexities, strategic considerations within the Magus Civilization, and the significant strength that Blackhaven itself wielded.

Despite Blackhaven’s limited count of black mages and knights between Rank Four and Six, there were overmages and overlords among their ranks.

The cost of eradicating Blackhaven through brute force alone would far exceed the toll of the war in the Neisse Star Domain by more than triple, according to estimates by the Magus Civilization!

In a world devoid of absolute purity, driving the destitute and the malevolent to Blackhaven was a pragmatic and cost-effective strategy.

Unbeknownst to Sein, there were other, more covert reasons for Blackhaven’s persistence within the Magus Civilization.

Throughout its history, Blackhaven had made significant contributions to the Magus Civilization. However, these contributions remained underpublicized to maintain secrecy.

Anything that had managed to persist for centuries, or even millennia, within the Magus World invariably had its reasons. The surface often masked deeper and more complex truths.

Although Thousand Leaf Coral Island might seem like just another unremarkable island in the Western Archipelago, its size was considerable for a Rank One mage like Sein.

Strangely, his late mentor made no mention of this island in the notebook he left behind.

Sein surmised that this was likely Morsidor’s way of protecting his homeland from his enemies in Blackhaven.

Given the notorious reputation of black mages and the fact that the island was not part of Blackhaven, revealing its location could have endangered its populace.

After all, it would take little effort for a Rank One black mage to devastate a small human city. This was an all-too-common occurrence in the surrounding islands.

The knights and mages native to the Western Archipelago were stretched too thin to offer adequate protection.

Upon his arrival at Thousand Leaf Coral Island, Sein disguised himself as a wandering knight, complete with a black iron longsword at his waist as he began his search for Geyzes City.

Combining his Aura Restraint spell with the special breathing technique and muscle restraint technique he developed from observing Tourmaline, Sein convincingly adopted the guise of a wandering knight.

With a constitution scoring over two hundred points, Sein was strong enough to win an arm wrestle against a freshly promoted Rank One knight.

Aside from the lack of battle qi, Sein was actually not that different from a tough knight with a high constitution.

The island was currently embroiled in a national war involving all three human nations. With a population exceeding two million caught in the strife, the landscape was marred by ruins and desolation. The fields lay barren, covered only by the bodies of the starved and the fallen.

Amidst the peak of summer, the sweltering heat exacerbated the situation, giving rise to a plague that spread across the three nations on the island.

The convergence of war, famine, and plague painted a grim picture.

It was hard to imagine that the Magus Civilization, known for its astounding influence over hundreds of millions across countless planes, would witness such dire circumstances within its core territories.

Thousand Leaf Coral Island’s plight was not unique in the north-central Western Archipelago.

Compared to the further reaches north toward Blackhaven, where the lands were veritable wastelands of despair, it was still marginally better off.

After two months traversing the island as a wandering knight and being swept up in two local wars, Sein finally uncovered a lead pointing toward Geyzes City.

***

In the northeastern reaches of Thousand Leaf Coral Island lay the Delton Kingdom.

Mounted on a warhorse, Sein approached an imposing stone city, its walls towering over twenty meters high.

He had finally arrived in Geyzes City—the hometown of Master Morsidor.

Over a century ago, Geyzes City thrived as the heart of the Delton Kingdom.

While its commercial activities were modest, the city’s agricultural sector was strong, with vast tracts of land surrounding the city ideally suited for cultivating buckwheat—a staple and specialty crop in the Western Archipelago.

However, the tides of fortune turned for the Delton Kingdom when it suffered a devastating defeat in war and lost a significant portion of its territory a century ago.

This defeat relegated Delton Kingdom to the status of the weakest kingdom on Thousand Leaf Coral Island and transformed Geyzes City from a peaceful city into a frontline stronghold constantly threatened by conflict.

The consequences of continuous warfare were dire, marked not just by casualties but also by widespread famine that ravaged the island’s population.

Fortunately, unlike other parts of the island, Geyzes City had thus far been spared from the outbreak of plague.

However, the fresh bloodstains on the city’s stone walls indicated that a battle had recently taken place there.