Why are there monsters in my territory?

Chapter 159 Dragon King Sacrifice

The hollowed-out area is called "Star Sky", and what is suspended on the "Star Sky" is not so much a seat, but a huge floating platform.

In fact, they are indeed called "star stations"

On each platform, in addition to the respected people sitting in the main seat, there are also relatives, friends and attendants.

Just like on the highest platform, the Emperor Sephirod and His Royal Highness the Queen are high above, and there are beautiful maids ready to present fruits and delicacies at any time, and several solemn guards accompany them.

Besides, the only one who can stand by Sephirod's side is the talented eldest son Kailars.

Even though Sephirod had no intention of abdicating the throne, he still declared Kailars to be the next emperor for the sake of reassuring the people and his ministers.

As for when he would succeed to the throne, he didn't mention it.

But even so, Kailars is still the only person who is qualified to share the highest seat with the emperor and empress as the master.

A little lower level—it is obviously a void without steps, but it seems to be divided into layers—there are four grand dukes.

The four grand dukes, no matter which one holds the real power, the territory is divided into east, west, north, south, and one side is divided.

For thousands of years, there may have been changes in their decline and prosperity, but since the establishment of the Shenguang Empire, their positions have not changed. It has always been like this. The four dukes have not increased or decreased.

They have a strong background, each has a powerful legion, and each of them has at least ten or more gold powerhouses as a deterrent force.

The long history and glory gave them the confidence to be proud, and the powerful legion made the royal family feel threatened and had to treat each other with courtesy.

What's more, the long-term marriage has made them inextricably linked with the royal family.

In some periods, they even directly influenced the royal family and interfered in internal affairs.

Even in today's period, Sephirod, who is sitting on the throne, has increased the power of the Church of Light, allowing the Church, the Council of Wise Men, and the great nobles to check each other, and most of the power is firmly in their hands, but there is no doubt that among them Any one of them is still the giant who would make the empire tremble if he stomped his feet.

In addition to the four dukes, there are actually two other platforms on this floor, the "Great Sage" and the "Pope" of the Sage Society and the Church of Light are impressively listed.There is no doubt about the status of these two major forces, they are only second to one person, and no one has any objections.

Further down, there are twelve marquises.

The "seats" of the emperor and the grand duke are very similar in size, and the area is huge. Not only are the delicious food placed randomly, but also a dozen people can serve them without being crowded.

The star platform of the marquises is obviously much smaller, only about a dozen square meters. Apart from bringing a few parents and children who came to meet the world, there are only a few powerful guards accompanying them.

In every Marquis family, nine times out of ten in history, there have been superpowers who have reached the gold limit, allowing them to be Megatron when the family has a gold limit powerhouse.

But the golden limit is still gold after all, and the biggest difference from the saint's realm is the issue of lifespan.

When they reach the golden limit, most of their lifespans have reached halfway or even further, and after all, they cannot let the shadow last forever.

Therefore, most of the Marquis family were at their peak when they debuted. They were strong for 200 years, and then fell rapidly, or even declined too much. They were eliminated in the competition of the empire and fell into the earl family.

Of course, as long as they are managed properly, most marquis families have a deeper heritage than earl families.

Conversely, some down-and-out marquis families are not even as good as earl families.

In a word, the emperor is one level behind the duke, and the duke is one level behind the marquis, but the four grand dukes are almost the kings of the country. Although the marquis is powerful, it is a huge level behind them.

If you really want to calculate, the difference between the royal family and the duke is half a step, the duke and the marquis are one step apart, the marquis and the earl are one step apart, but the down-and-out marquis and the earl may be less than half a step apart.

Among the twelve marquises currently in position, nine are still in full bloom, and only three are slightly weaker, but they have not yet reached the point of despair.

Regardless of whether it is a marquis or an earl, compared to the viscount and baron in the lower realm, they are undoubtedly great nobles.

In the lower rank of the Marquis, the three earls are listed among them, and the earl Rudolph is impressively listed.

Beside the handsome and young contemporary Earl Rudolph, Luna, who seemed unaffected by the festive atmosphere, was still calm and even indifferent, standing quietly beside her father.

There are a total of 72 earl families in the Shenguang Empire, but except for these three earls who are particularly prominent, the remaining 69 can only sit in the ring-shaped area "Star Ring" on the edge of the hollowed out area, overlooking the so-called star platform from a distance. Seats show their difference.

Every earl family has had a gold powerhouse, but gold powerhouses have extremely high requirements for qualifications. Even if they have the background of the earl family, they may not be able to smash a new gold powerhouse with resources.

Just like the Darius family behind Felix, after their ancestors, no gold has been produced so far, and the family status has fallen again and again, until it fell to the viscount family.

Today, only half of the 72 earls still have strong gold masters. In a hundred years, maybe half of the earl families will change their faces.

But the three major families, including the Rudolph family, are not listed here.

Taking the Rudolph family as an example, their territory is not much larger than that of an ordinary earl family, but they have a strong economy, a prosperous commercial trade industry, and strong military power, and they are also favored by the emperor...

Even though the hard resources of the territory are quite different from the marquis family, the hard power is almost the same. They are called earls, but they are actually marquises.

Although the other two families are worse than the Rudolph family, they also have their own unique features. Most of the earls above the star ring are convinced that they can sit on the star platform.

With the transformation of the Singold Palace, a huge hollow was opened in the middle. If the hollow area is included, the area of ​​the entire Singold Palace will be about one-third larger.

Twenty seats, but enjoying one-third of the wide space, and the best viewing point, is no less than throwing the difference in status between the star ring and the star platform area directly in the face.

As the great nobles among the great nobles, they do have such qualifications.

Accompanied by the sound of the dragon chant, the Holy Dragon Knights flew into the starry sky and danced around the star platform, announcing the start of the Dragon King Sacrifice.

One program after another competes to be released.

A pure white cross like a thin bamboo pole extends from the border of the starry sky toward the center, and in the center of the cross is a circular platform with a diameter of [-] meters.

That is the stage for the performers, "Starfall Arena".

The performer does not step into the arena for most of the performance, but walks on the void among the stars.

This has high requirements for the quality of each actor.

As for the performance that can be included in the Dragon King Festival, everyone who can appear here, even if their status is different, have the most outstanding talent in the empire in common.

No actor dares to make a mistake when he is tested by a respected audience, especially on the star stage in the best auditorium.

After the regular performance ended, the Starfall Arena revealed the reason why it was named the Arena.

"Dragon King Sacrifice Martial Arts", this is a performance and competition to verify the results of a year's training of legions including the church and major nobles, and to compare the strength of the legions.

At the same time, it is also a performance and a warning for the royal family to show their fangs to deter the sages, the church and the great nobles.

Even great sages who advocate wisdom and strength and the pope who believes in the supremacy of the goddess will not deny the combat effectiveness of the First Legion of the Holy Dragon Knights on this continent of Kanya.

Even when the duke family was in its heyday, none of the dukes dared to subvert the imperial power. A large part of the reason was placed on top of the Holy Dragon Knights.

As long as the Dragon Valley is occupied, the elite of the Holy Dragon Knights will continue to flow.And under the current situation where monsters are watching and abyssal demons are waiting for an opportunity, no matter how fearful they are, no noble will have the rebellious idea of ​​destroying Dragon Valley, the birthplace of the first human army.

The reason why the royal family can always be half a step higher than the duke's family is that the Holy Dragon Knights is the mountain that never shakes.

This legion composed entirely of strong men above silver is the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Grand Duke and the Church.

Even if the Holy Dragon Knights can't destroy a Duke's family, they can ignore most of the obstacles and directly take the dog's head of any leader.

For thousands of years, out of ten times in this Dragon King Festival, the Holy Dragon Knights won nine times.The remaining loss was due to the competition system.

The so-called martial arts performance does not mean that a whole legion fights. To accommodate two legions to fight, this sky is still a bit narrow.

In fact, martial arts is just a small competition with the arena as the core, limited rules, or 5 vs 5, or 1 vs 1 battles.

It is a matter of course that in a certain era, in a certain legion, individual geniuses emerge.But this does not mean that the entire legion is better than the Holy Dragon Knights.

Seeing that the Holy Dragon Knights won the Dragon King's Festival again without any risk, the emperor Sephirod's depressed mood due to the turmoil in the lower realm suddenly turned from cloudy to clear.

After the martial arts performance was over, Sephirod glanced at the Pope, and after the latter nodded slightly, the smile on his face grew even wider.

Before the process of praising the goddess with hymns at the end of the Dragon King Sacrifice, the guard of honor had already been prepared to enter the arena from outside the Meteor Manor and present the sacrificial objects.

Psalms were chanted, and then the priests offered sacrifices to the goddess, praying for good weather and peace for the next year—it should have been nothing more than that.

However, this time, Emperor Sephirod personally presided over the sacrificial ceremony.

Along with the offerings hidden under the red cloth, endless holy light enveloped the entire Singold Palace.

The glow falling from the sky can be seen clearly even by the people watching from afar outside the palace.

As the radiance gradually condensed into the appearance of a goddess, countless civilians and nobles trembled, knelt down, and praised the majesty of the gods.

Even the four great dukes showed extremely shocked expressions when they saw the face of the goddess manifested in brilliance.

Yes, there is no doubt that this is a miracle of the goddess!

After thousands of years, the incarnation of the goddess of light finally came to the world again!

This……

Compared with admiration, the four grand dukes had more doubts in their hearts, and without exception, they cast their eyes on the smiling face of Sephirod.

Just when everyone was shocked, the huge and majestic incarnation of the goddess of light finally opened her mouth slowly.

"Believers, I am very satisfied with your sacrifice."

Immediately after the shock of hearing the voice of the goddess, something even more shocking happened.

The nobles noticed that there was an obvious smile on the face of the goddess.

……

Sephirod felt like his blood was about to boil.

Of course, it wasn't actually boiling, it was just that he was so excited that he had an illusion.

The long-term goal is finally about to be achieved. At this moment, past experiences appear in front of Sephirod like a revolving lantern.

As a child of the royal family, Sephirod is not the eldest son, nor is he as charismatic and talented as his ancestor Singold.

Rather, he has nothing.

Ordinary.

The only thing he has is the ambition to "live".

Yes, the reason why he can achieve his current cultivation level is neither because he yearns for power nor is he obsessed with the truth, but simply because the higher his cultivation level, the longer his lifespan.

But limited by his aptitude, the probability of him wanting to achieve gold is very small.

At this moment, he thought of the "easiest" way to borrow his power - becoming the emperor.

As long as you become an emperor, you can pile yourself up to that realm with countless piles of cultivation resources.

For ordinary people, even those of the earl's family, it is extremely difficult to produce a strong gold man, but for the emperor, the entire empire is his resource, on this basis, as long as he uses a little more, his talent is slightly inferior So what?You can still become a gold powerhouse.

After all, Sephirod's so-called "poor talent" is also relative to brothers and sisters.

For this reason, he used all means to eliminate dissidents and win over forces...

Finally, I got what I wanted.

However, there is no limit to desire.

Gold powerhouses have a lifespan of only a few hundred years.

He wants to get more time, and wants to continue the time at the top of this throne.

He is lucky.

The "Battle of the Red River" was the wedge, and with the help of "something" obtained from that battle, he finally broke through the boundary and stepped into the realm of the saint.

But "something" has a limit.

As it is used more often, its effect gradually diminishes until it has no effect at all.

For more than ten years, he only took one step after the third floor of the ladder of truth, and then... Finally, there is no way to enter!
That was the limit that he could achieve with his mediocre aptitude, the moat of despair.

At this moment...he knew a different way.

Received the gift of divine blood, relying on the blessing of "Demigod Rank", which in turn pushed him to a higher realm!

So, he sacrificed "something" that he regarded as a treasure in the past.

'finally--! '

Sephirod was ecstatic.

puff--.

But with the splash of blood, a golden spear pierced his heart, and the sound of wild laughter stopped abruptly.

Sephirod turned his head stiffly like a puppet and looked at his own son, Kailars, holding a spear and smiling brightly at him.

(End of this chapter)