Chapter 1096
The Last Fragment of the Team (Happy New Year, everyone!!)
Aivas’s eyes widened in surprise after seeing the attributes of this true “heirloom holy sword.”
The attributes of this holy sword… were unexpectedly good!
Although it was a “ceremonial artifact” like a bell, holy emblem, or whisk, meaning it was a weapon that couldn’t directly participate in combat or deal damage… for a support-class character, its attributes were already at the level of graduation gear.
After all, it was a genuine divine artifact!
—Are all the holy swords of the Knights of the Round Table at this level?
No, it’s impossible to think it that way…
Arthur hadn’t become the Silver Crown Dragon at the time, and all the holy swords the Knights of the Round Table could obtain at best could only be blessed by the power of a Crown Heavenly Envoy. Arthur’s battle with Supreme Heaven at the time was a life-or-death struggle where the weak defeated the strong… He couldn’t have allocated too much power to forge Holy Weapons unless absolutely necessary.
Perhaps only a few holy swords like Clarent, Arondight, and the Red-Hilted Sword could be at the level of divine artifacts.
Originally, Aivas intended to sacrifice this weapon and use it to recast the Red-Hilted Sword.
The Red-Hilted Sword, infused with the three attributes of light, fire, and wind, contained a knight’s spirit that extremely worshipped the sun—and these three attributes could coincidentally form a concept similar to “the sun.”
If this sword were fully reforged, it would undoubtedly become a radiant sword of the sun.
—But for Aivas, this didn’t hold much significance.
If he simply needed to deal damage, Aivas had plenty of means—although Viness, Alistair, and Helchin all leaned towards dark-type damage, there was still Little Butterfly who could provide fire-type damage. Compared to damage, he was more in need of a team support-type Great Beast—
Originally, Aivas’s profession, “Lord of Great Beasts,” which he obtained following the historical trajectory of the Ring Heavenly Envoys, provided the ability to transform by merging with Great Beasts. Switching between Beasts of Sin was like Kamen Rider transformations, using different avatars to deal with different enemies.
But here’s the problem.
As everyone knows, there’s a saying: “If that’s the case, why not just fight in red form from the beginning?”
Therefore, in the game, players with the Lord of Great Beasts profession didn’t actually switch between different avatars when facing different enemies as described in the profession introduction, or as the developers expected—players naturally transitioned to using various types of buffs or damage-vulnerability transformations, and various “firecracker” transformations that could deal damage and be switched out immediately, to enhance their ultimate, strongest output form.
Aivas’s initial preparation of Beasts of Sin followed this line of thought—which is why he always felt Little Butterfly, who had to stand still to deal damage, was inconvenient, and Night Demon, who could leave after casting a curse, was more useful.
However, Aivas had already decided not to follow the career advancement path that the Ring Heavenly Envoys had once taken. Instead, he would pursue a different advancement route from the original history!
Rather than merging with six different Beasts of Sin and transforming into six completely different forms… he hoped to let each of the six Beasts of Sin exert their full strength.
As Viness was jealous of—different Beasts of Sin could not manifest simultaneously.
Although he had already found a clever way to entrust some of their power through the Shepherd’s Method to achieve simultaneous manifestation… that was not a sustainable path.
Rather, it was precisely during the battle against the Fallen Heavenly Envoy that Aivas realized… if these Beasts of Sin could manifest simultaneously, their combined power would be far greater than the sum of their parts.
Moreover, Lucifer’s white wings required the Beasts of Sin to merge onto the wings—the battle against the Fallen Heavenly Envoy had proven that in battles of that magnitude, it was impossible to summon new Beasts of Sin one by one to merge.
Once the suppression was lost, initiative would be immediately lost. Some Beasts of Sin couldn’t even be summoned, as their abilities were not suitable for dealing with such enemies. Even summoning and sacrificing them immediately would put him half a turn behind, and this would completely waste their unique powers.
From then on, Aivas had a new idea:
—He had to find a way to make these Beasts of Sin manifest simultaneously and cooperate with each other.
Undoubtedly, this would greatly increase his suppression power. When the time came to merge their powers to use Paradise Lost, preparations could be completed instantly, without needing to summon the Beasts of Sin one by one.
In the earlier stages, Aivas had very little freedom in choosing his Beasts of Sin—he used whatever he could, and generally didn’t get to pick.
Leah, the Great Beast of Sloth, was a turret-type fire damage mage. As a turret, she wasn’t particularly fragile; at least she had active defense capabilities. Her evolution direction was towards pure destructive power, and she had now reached the point of being able to grow mushrooms… Her weakness was perhaps that her attack range was shorter than her damage radius, which was quite fatal.
Helchin, the Great Beast of Wrath, could control the power of storms and lightning, dealing damage suitable for legion-scale warfare. He was also an extremely powerful Melee Profession, capable of providing a considerable amount of physical damage. If used in combination with the Lightning Halberd, he could also convert his damage type to lightning.
Alistair, the Great Beast of Lust, as a Blood Angel, possessed extremely strong sustain and mobility. Her sustain was so strong that even in a travel state, she could use normal Fifth Tier powers—
Once Great Beasts fully manifested in the Material Realm, they would continuously lose power, which was why Aivas needed to expend mana to maintain the summoning channel.
But for Alistair, her self-recovery speed could already compensate for a certain degree of power loss, allowing her to exist continuously and stay away from Aivas—although other Great Beasts could also exist at a sufficient distance from Aivas, for example, Viness, who acted as a crow pendant back then, could be quite far from Aivas.
But if the distance was too great, Viness couldn’t use her powers and could only relay messages.
However, Alistair didn’t need to do that.
She could even maintain a flight state at several times the speed of sound, easily crossing several countries and flying at high speed for an entire day without consuming Aivas’s mana.
Although she couldn’t imitate the abilities of other Paths through blood magic like the Blood Lord, she could perfectly exert Fifth Tier combat power through her effortless control over blood power—just like those Children of the Moon who believed in the Blood Heavenly Envoy, the more she fought, the more blood she gained.
Except she didn’t need to pray to the Blood Heavenly Envoy to possess the same, or even greater, power.
It was this level of mobility and sustain that made Alistair Aivas’s most frequently manifested Great Beast.
Viness, who had been the only one to achieve sublimation using a Heavenly Envoy Fragment, was most skilled in area damage, interference, or curses. Her specialty was debuff abilities… but previously, this ability was useless against Heavenly Envoys, as her priority was too low, and her restricting abilities were completely unusable.
But now it was different.
With the Heavenly Envoy Fragment, Viness’s curse, control, weakening, and suppression abilities could be used against the Blood Heavenly Envoy!
Looking at it this way, Aivas’s randomly composed Great Beast team was actually quite balanced. At least there were no two Beasts of Sin with completely overlapping roles.
A powerful magic-type main DPS, a long-range turret mage; a melee physical main DPS, a high-mobility warrior who could provide a large amount of mixed physical and magical damage at close range; a high-mobility magic tank who could temporarily serve as a sub-tank with considerable lifesteal and damage resistance; and one who could serve as a sub-DPS providing large area damage and debuffs…
In the “transformation” mode of the Lord of Great Beasts, the Butterfly, the King of the Wild Hunt, and the Blood Angel forms were completely mutually exclusive. But in this “team battle” mode, this could just form a perfect small team…
If Aivas were a healer, then this team would only be missing one role.
—The main tank, the so-called “MT.” The core of the team used to absorb large amounts of damage and protect fragile members.
Previously, when fighting the Fallen Heavenly Envoy, Aivas himself filled this role—he took hits while healing himself, barely holding on.
With a proper tank, the Butterfly, which had to stand still to deal damage, could finally exert its full ability; although the King of the Wild Hunt wore armor, without any damage reduction, evasion, or invincibility abilities, he was quite fragile in battles at the Heavenly Envoy level.
The offensive power of both the Fallen Heavenly Envoy and the Blood Heavenly Envoy was not too strong. Against enemies with strong offensive power like the Abyss Heavenly Envoy, both of them were the type that could die from a single touch.
Aivas still had two Great Beasts of Sin left for the attributes of Light and Earth, and for the Great Sins, Greed and Gluttony remained. For the remaining two team positions, at least one tank would be needed to make the entire team viable. A team always needs someone to sacrifice; if everyone wants to deal damage, the result is that no one can deal damage.
—And this sword would be perfectly fitting.
Damage absorption, blocking, parrying, group defense—and a crucial 50% group damage increase. This damage increase was of the rare “attack bonus” type, meaning that when others dealt damage, this sword would add an additional instance of damage. It could be a flowing light, or sword energy… but in any case, because this damage was caused by another entity, the amplification rate would not be diluted; it was a solid 50%.
It even had an aura effect that could boost the attributes of “Knights”… A significant increase in attack power meant “a 30%-50% increase in attack power”; if it exceeded 50%, it would be called a huge increase. Fortitude meant that the more remaining HP there was, the higher the attack power increase, generally equivalent to a 20% increase at full health.
And Aivas’s team actually had Knights.
—Helchin belonged to the Knights!
In other words, this sword could even greatly enhance Helchin’s damage and defense!
Although he was somewhat surprised by the fact that “Mordred played a support role in the Knights of the Round Table,” Aivas had decided—it was time for the Red-Hilted Sword to retire.
Rather than adding another pair of chopsticks to the table, it was better to have someone who could cook.
—In other words, Aivas did not intend to sacrifice Clarent to recast the Red-Hilted Sword.
He even planned to completely destroy the Red-Hilted Sword—allowing the Sun Knight’s soul within the Red-Hilted Sword to “move house” and transfer into the greatsword Clarent.
If this technique succeeded, the Light Phantom Demon sealed by Aivas could use this greatsword, thereby supplementing the team’s most critical shortcomings. With it, Aivas would have greater confidence in fighting the Blood Heavenly Envoy—after all, reality could not be redone, and he had no room to fight again after failing. When he himself had clear room for improvement in the short term, the matter of vanquishing Heavenly Envoys could not be rushed.
…In any case, Aivas had heard that although the Blood Heavenly Envoy went mad upon landing, his madness manifested as him rampaging around looking for Children of the Moon to kill.
So, delaying a bit longer wouldn’t be a problem…
Aivas understood him quite well—among the Heavenly Envoys of the Path of Love, there was the Shadow Heavenly Envoy who was suspected of being about to be expelled, the weak and unbacked Envoy of Mist, and a Banquet Heavenly Envoy with a dual personality, half of whom wanted to die. He shouldn’t have been the one to be overthrown.
As a result, his unfilial descendant, for the petty power struggles in the Material Realm, so that “if the subordinate is beaten, the elder can come,” directly pulled the elder down without asking—and the one who did this was even the only group of Children of the Moon who worshipped him.
He wondered if the Blood Heavenly Envoy had the attribute of blood pressure. If he did, it should be quite high now.
The technique of moving a Knight’s soul involved delicate soul manipulation and transplantation… Aivas himself naturally couldn’t do such a thing.
But Aivas knew there was one person who could definitely help him.
—That would be Haibasha.
She was able to transplant her daughter’s soul into a doll to escape death back then, so she should be able to transplant the Knight’s spirit from the Red-Hilted Sword into Clarent now.
Coincidentally, Aivas also needed to return her daughter to her. He had to go to the Church anyway.
However, speaking of going to the Church…
Aivas pondered for a moment and suddenly had an idea—
There was a Cardinal in the Church who was an agent of Hengwo.
Why not contact Hengwo together and ask her what she thought of the Blood Heavenly Envoy?
(End of Chapter)
