Chapter 1056: Chapter 394: Courage is the Last Piece of Equipment

Andrea’s eyes, obscured by the Eternal Self, and thus seeming hollow and lifeless, slightly widened.

A layer of twilight-colored crystallization resembling frosting spread over with a cracking sound, turning flesh into stone, and the soul was also solidified within.

Caught off guard and petrified, Andrea remained in the posture of congregating thunder, her entire person turned into a stone statue!

The Pure White thunder tightly gripped in her right hand also dissipated as it could no longer be maintained.

The escaping bolts of lightning turned into countless Pure White serpents, landing on chandeliers, carpets, and corpses, creating trails of scorched marks. It’s imaginable–if this strike had directly hit Princess Noel’s soul, even if it could not scatter her soul immediately, it would definitely cause severe damage right away!

And Andrea also lost the ability to fly, plummeting straight from the sky.

As she crashed to the ground, the brittle statue shattered and collapsed, breaking into several pieces.

If Aiwass were to cancel the petrification at this moment, it would be equivalent to tearing her into several parts… immediately inflicting fatal damage on her.

However, Aiwass instead did not do so, but slowly retracted his hand.

To others, lifting the petrification might result in her immediate death. But for the Son of the Moon, especially one at the Blood Lord Level… it’s better to just keep her sealed this way.

“…You’re quite brave,” Aiwass said, somewhat admiringly, to Princess Noel whose pitch-black soul returned to her body: “She should be a Blood Lord… Facing such a flexible spellcaster, you still dared to expose your weaknesses and charge forward.”

As the higher occupation of Blood Magus, the Blood Celestial Marshal’s own profession, even if transformed into a Son of the Moon, they can retain all of their Extraordinary Power. This equates to stacking a spellcasting ability of the same Level and Same Path on top of the powerful racial traits of the Son of the Moon.

The occupational characteristic of Blood Magi is that they can ignore spellcasting materials, incantations, and required Mana attributes, directly extracting their own Life Force to power their spells… They can even transform their entire Mana Pool into their own Life Force.

But the most troublesome part about them lies in the flexibility of their spellcasting.

Although they learn spells very slowly, much slower than other Spellcasters, and can only learn spells one Energy Level lower than themselves… once they learn a spell, they can use all spells flexibly in an almost instant cast manner without the constraints of Mana Pools and spellcasting materials. Although casting spells drains health and the same spells have cooldown times, they can still launch a large number of different spells in a short period.

Their ability to burst out in an instant is quite terrifying.

Moreover, with the Blood Lord’s extremely vigorous Life Force… as long as they don’t die immediately, they can rapidly recover their Life Force by Lifedrain. Even without Lifedrain, under the Moonlight, they can still regain health at a speed visible to the naked eye.

And for the Blood Lords, even if they receive a fatal injury from an assassin or warrior of the same Level, their bodies can automatically heal, whether it’s a shattered heart or a severed head.

That’s why the assassins from the Hawkeye Organization need to coat their lethal Weapons with Curse Poison.

Although for common people, this would definitely be considered overkill damage–as if enchanting armor penetration in an RPG to fight infantry, whether you enchant or not, within fifty meters it’s uniformly spread, there’s hardly any difference.

But when fighting a Blood Lord of the same level, even ten deadly strikes might not kill them. This is when poisoning becomes meaningful.

In-game, this is the spellcasting job most popular with PvP players in the mid-stages. Even if players cannot become a Son of the Moon, the strength of the profession itself is enough to be considered T1 level.

Because Blood Lords don’t need incantations for spells, nor do they require a Mana Pool, they can even go without a Magic Wand… and they don’t have to worry about wearing armor reducing their spell success rate.

If they also have a secondary occupation as a warrior, they can wear reassuringly heavy armor. With a war hammer or spear, they can be described as tough and with high output. This profession is simply a pure numbers monster… and easy enough to operate.

The most important thing is, Blood Lords aren’t even the type of dummies that can be kited–if willing to burn their blood, they can briefly fly at high speed and smash with a hammer for a big hit.

This profession remains strong until later stages of the game, when Spellcasters obtain high-energy-level spells, and everyone’s strength increases… their spells are always one Energy Level lower, and only then they begin to fall behind.

“I had no choice…”

Princess Noel took a deep breath, also feeling a lingering fear in her heart.

She shook her head: “All I can muster is courage…” she said, yet inexplicably, she appeared somewhat disheartened.

Clearly… this was because she felt powerless about the current political situation in Star Antimony.

Despite her desire to save everything, she simply didn’t know what to do.

Following the independence of the main export earning region, Narcissus Duchy, Star Antimony’s economy had completely collapsed; chaos swept across the entire nation, prices soared; people panicking to hoard food and weapons fled to rural areas to hide, the city streets filled with robbers, normal customers nowhere to be seen; local government agencies had completely ground to a halt, with police starting to strike…

Even the upper echelons had completely split into four factions, each without any room for compromise.

The Spirit Summoning Tower had completely isolated itself, looking like it might flee any moment; the Demons’ Association and the Alchemy Association had completely separated, clashing fiercely with each other, the remnants of the Red Chancellor, although weak in power, were exceptionally united, with the help of foreign forces…add to that the covetous Iris Flower, as well as the newly independent Narcissus Duchy and Blackhawk Duchy; Star Antimony had entered the most difficult moment since its establishment.

At this time, Noel had no idea what she could do, or how she could do anything at all.

Of course, Noel was willing to make an effort… but her talents were limited, whether in governance, interpersonal skills, or extraordinary abilities, she wasn’t outstanding. Valentine VII didn’t dare to entrust the country to her, but her brothers and sisters were no more reliable.

…Would things have been better if she had been more decisive then, and forcefully taken down Avalon?

Sometimes, Noel would think this way in the depths of the night.

Probably not, she thought.

Though the bombardment by Avalon’s Gryphon Legion was merely a warning, she had no doubts… if a real war commenced, the Avalonians would retaliate against Star Antimony with equal ferocity.

Or perhaps it would have been better to cede power earlier, to be controlled by the Son of the Moon, merging with the Iris Flower’s Son of the Moon, thus restoring the lands of the Imperial Era… In that case, although the monarch would no longer be a Valentine, perhaps the people would have a better life.

But no matter what, she couldn’t provide any solution to the dire situation before her.

—-Perhaps if I could ascend to the Fifth Power Level, the situation might improve somewhat.

The strength of an ordinary Fifth Power Level would not be enough — it must be through ascending in the New Moon Ritual, acquiring the rare Path traits that might be of some help.

This was the last solution she could think of.

It was for this reason that she came to participate in this highly dangerous advancement ceremony.

Simply because “courage” was the last card she could draw from…

“—-No.”

Aiwass shook his head slightly as if seeing through her thoughts.

“This is not courage at all.”

The young Pope said softly: “This is evasion.

“You’re just using a way to inflict pain, take risks, self-harm… to save your crumbling spirit. Because you’ve done everything you can, and there’s nothing to be done about the current situation being unfavorable. So, you do as much as possible those things ‘that will make you try your best’, thus quickly depleting all your energy…

“This is evasion, Your Highness. It’s ineffective in solving any problems, and it even does you no good… It just preserves your self-esteem, and that’s it.”