City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Special Zones

An hourglass immediately materialised above Ryan’s head, breaking down and shattering the moment it appeared. Grains of sand fell everywhere, dissolving into pure timeforce that returned into the Church. A clear bubble engulfed the youth, silencing his terrified struggles as all of his divinity was drawn away.

The mark of a broken hourglass quickly appeared on his forehead, dissolving into his skin. Seconds later, the bubble just winked out of existence right in front of the four shocked priestesses. Their gazes were drawn to the hourglass now floating atop Richard’s own head, so gorgeous that it was stifling. One thing was strikingly different from the time this hourglass had been shown in the Millennial Empire: the sands of time had switched from pale gold to white.

The mere presence of this white gold sand was enough to distinguish Richard from anyone else they knew. He had eliminated all of Ryan’s divinity, but there was basically no change to the hourglass at all. Perhaps a few grains of sand had gone missing, but there was no way to prove that.

When they saw Richard’s hourglass, the four priestesses turned extremely uneasy. They all realised the terrifying fact that Richard had enough grace to banish them all with minor impact to himself. Jacqueline especially paled until she looked like a corpse, her mouth hanging open in shock.

However, Richard wasn’t done with that hourglass just yet. He turned to the aforementioned priestess and glowered, “It seems like the last time wasn’t enough of a lesson. Looks like this Church has no need for four grand priestesses. Fall!”

The hourglass over Jacqueline’s head suddenly shattered, a huge amount of sand spilling out and dissolving into timeforce. Her face went white as Richard drew away more than a third of her divinity, dropping her to a mere level 12 before his hourglass faded away. While Ryan had been branded to never set foot in the Church again, her own career was basically over.

Richard’s gaze finally swept past the two remaining grand priestesses, both of them turning white as he smiled menacingly, “The old dragon needs some priestesses for appearance, or you would suffer the exact same treatment. Don’t think you’ve been let off; if I catch you doing anything behind my back, it won’t be hard to find replacements. An offering or two should be more than enough.”

He didn’t even wait for their replies, turning around to leave.

“Richard,” Noelene quickly caught up to him, some helplessness in her voice, “Please, there’s no real need for this, is there? It seems a little too cruel.”

He shook his head, “I’m busy with things, and I don’t have the time to spend on those two idiots.”

“But the power of our Church already lags behind the other two empires. If we don’t have enough grand priestesses and no Chosen, won’t we be at a disadvantage?”

Richard stopped in his tracks, turning and staring at Noelene, “You can’t be Chosen just because you want to. The old dragon is the one that chooses, not us. If he wants it, someone will pop up. If not, whatever. As for priestesses, he doesn’t really care about that either. Power, number… all that matters is grace. The Church that ends up with the most offerings is the most valuable one, and they’re the ones that get the most.”

“But… then there’s no point to our existence at all!”

“Sigh… No, there isn’t, technically. But there is a meaning to all of you, and you’d best pay attention to that.”

……

Escorted out by a confused Noelene, Richard took his followers and rune knights to the teleportation temple. Under the watchful eyes of a sea of nobles, he went straight up to the fourth floor and walked into the portal for island 3-1.

The moment he stepped onto the island, Richard realised that it was much bigger than it seemed from the outside. The place was more than a dozen square kilometres in area, obviously constructed by someone with extraordinary spatial abilities. At the northern end was a natural hill with a shrine at the top, in the same style as the ones that had originally been built in Faust.

Immediately sensing that the shrine would hide the rewards the Eternal Dragon spoke of, he walked up the existing steps and headed in. The place was divided into a front and back hall, the one at the front surprisingly containing an altar where one could make offerings to the Eternal Dragon directly. The smaller back hall had three ancient stone platforms, with a scroll floating atop each. As he approached and touched one of them, an enormous volume of information was suddenly dumped into his mind.

These platforms were control mechanisms, and only those branded by the Eternal Dragon could activate them. Each one was capable of creating an independent region of spacetime, forming a demiplane or even separating territory from an existing plane. This new territory would partially resemble a demiplane, but it could encompass a massive hundreds of square kilometres. With three scrolls in total, this island could produce three such zones. Island 3-2 and 3-3 had two and one each of such scrolls.

These special zones were actually supplements due to the lack of space on the island itself, mainly used for facilities or large portals to other planes. When he saw their description, Richard thought of an urgent use for them; he could completely connect the Genesis and Dragon Valley here! Even when the reapers eventually appeared in Faelor, he would be able to preserve the most valuable parts!

These zones were perfect battlefields. While vast, they had limited area and locked spacetime around them. This would allow him to control every single person fighting under him; at the very least, there would be no need for a mechanism to keep them focused or even manpower to track their movements. This was a perfect solution to some of his biggest problems right now.

However, this knowledge only left him suspicious. The old dragon was indeed supporting him in many ways, but what would he have to do to repay this favour? Unfortunately, he could only shake his head, deciding to deal with the problem later.

After some calculations, Richard had his followers gather once more, outlining his plans for the various sections of the island. The family castle would naturally be on top of this hill, surrounding the shrine and the core control mechanisms. Spell formations, guard camps, servant housing, and guest accommodations would all have to be built around it. This control section meant he would have to station at least a hundred rune knights under the lead of a sky saint here before he felt safe.

Completely building out this island was a task that was meant to take time, but Richard had amassed so many architects and earth mages that at this point the construction of ordinary buildings was trivial to him. Everything would be completed in less than a month, and although internals would take some more time he wasn’t very concerned about that.

Two groups of mages were assigned to proceed to Dragon Valley and the ancient battlefield in the Genesis, each tasked with surveying the surroundings to mark out a good section that could be connected to his special zones. They also had to prepare the battlefields in general for the moment they were shifted, lest something happen to his people within.

Once the plan for the island was complete, Richard had to deal with all the family heads who came to visit. They all wanted to see just how different a third layer island was; the idea of him skipping the fourth layer to head straight to island 3-1 had been almost as shocking as the news that he had defeated Empress Apeiron. Richard calmly gave the leaders a tour, the key focus being the shrine and the special zones. He already planned to move the reward point battlefields to these zones, so things would be found out anyway.

Almost everyone was shocked once they found out what these zones were. All other floating islands were mere symbols of status without much use, even the ones occupied the royal family. They had started to believe this was true of the entire pyramid, but this function of special zones left the other family heads with a renewed reason to make offerings. After all, the brands for the third layer and higher were personalised; Richard was the one who personally controlled 3-1, and even if he was killed the island would just be locked again. While the other islands could be conquered with force, one could only get to these through sacrifices.