A couple of seconds later...WHOOOOOOM!A huge wave of Mana exploded out of the black mist!The Mana was so insanely dense that even the Mage Kings were thrown back a little.The brutally dense sphere of Mana expanded and expanded, stretching across the entire world.It was like a huge droplet of water had landed in a small cup filled with water."The rules state that I can't keep the Mana," a cold voice came from the black mist.

"They don't say that I have to give it to you."Sadly, that was the truth.This was what all the Emperors had agreed on.The Lightning Emperor looked at the black mist for a couple of seconds.Then, he stepped through the portal again and returned to the Lightning Manor.The black mist also disappeared.Nothing had been left behind by the dead Mage King.She had completely vanished.The Mage Kings released more deep breaths.It seemed like the world would change quite a bit in the future.Releasing so much Mana into the world would change some things.Would there be a new Mage King or Beast King?No.Since the Mage King's Mana had been distributed across the entire world, the density hadn't nearly reached the level that someone could just break through without the help of an Emperor.Even if a person theoretically had a twentyfold Spirit Sense, they still wouldn't be able to control enough Mana to break into the Mage King Realm.In order to become a Mage King, one needed A LOT of Mana in their immediate vicinity.

One needed something like 10% or so of the entire world's unused Mana, and the world didn't only comprise the Continent Aterium but also the Eternal Ocean.Even a Spirit Sense with a radius of five million kilometers wasn't enough.So, what did this mean?This meant that there would be a lot more Mage Lords, Ancestral Mages, and Archmages.

The main reason was that a higher density of Mana also increased someone's comprehension ability.One could compare this to being in an environment with bad air and an environment with good air.

One could survive in both environments, but one would be much more productive in one of them.This meant that even more geniuses would rise in the following years, and comprehending Concepts had become a bit easier.The Custodian looked at Shang for a moment with a polite smile before disappearing again.Shang took a deep breath and released it.Luckily, the Lightning Manor had his back.Shang was proving to be of incomparable value to the Lightning Manor, and the Lightning Manor reciprocated it by treating Shang like a treasure of incomparable value.Both of them put in a lot of effort to defend the other.Naturally, everyone could tell what had been going on, except for Shang, since he didn't know how the war was actually going.The Mage Kings had seen that the Judgment Palace was being pushed back because of their lack of Defender Flags.If they had just one more Defender Flag, they could use the tentacle strategy again, which would make things easier.But there was nothing they could do.What if the Lightning Manor could contact Shang and tell him when the Judgment Palace was using the three-star flag?Shang could then attack the territory to the south, and even if the Judgment Palace managed to deactivate the Defender Flag there, the Twilight Dusk Family would need to conquer another territory of the Judgment Palace.That would actually slowly close the Judgment Palace off from the front.

On top of that, they couldn't just hand over a territory to another Empire since conspiring was forbidden.They would need to put in an honest effort to defend that territory, which meant that a powerful Mage would die.They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.Lose territory near the front or let this crazy warrior rampage in the back of their frontlines?This fucking warrior!This fucking warrior had made so fucking many problems for them!This entire war was failing just because of this one fucking warrior!Sadly, the Mage Kings had been forbidden from colluding with others or breaking the rules.Everyone knew that killing this warrior was worth more than the life of a Mage King at this moment, but no one could say it.Also, who were they to suggest to an equal to commit suicide for the greater good?Sending weaker people to die wasn't an issue since weaker people were supposed to die, but sending a Mage King to die was not something the Mage Kings were comfortable with.In the end, one of the Mage Kings attacked.Her life would be over in 1,000 years anyway.So, she had attacked.And yet, even such an old and powerful Mage King wasn't powerful or fast enough to kill Shang in front of the watching Custodian.And now...The Mage Kings just looked at Shang with a heavy weight in their chest.Not even the sacrifice of a Mage King could stop him.The Mage Kings from the Land and Sky Empire and the Twilight Dusk Family were looking at the Mage Kings from the Judgment Palace.They had already expected that the war would continue for thousands of years, but only now did they truly come to terms with it.The Mage Kings were no longer confident in the Judgment Palace, and they readied themselves for a more aggressive period of war on their borders.The Mage Kings of the Judgment Palace were doing their best to fight the Lightning Manor, but it was just too difficult.The missing Defender Flags was a huge disadvantage.Another century passed.The war had been going on for 1,000 years.And one day, it finally happened.The barrier to Shang's north vanished.However, it was important to note that the barrier wasn't destroyed.It simply vanished, which meant that the Twilight Dusk Family had retrieved their Defender Flag and retreated.Just an hour later...DING!A barrier from an Attack Flag appeared north of Shang's territory.The Lightning Manor was attacking the territory north of Shang's.They were here to rescue the Ancestral Hero!