After Augusta left with Amira, Ace forcefully suppressed his emotions long enough to tell his group what Augusta had said and ask Verano and Garot about the Planar Wars.
Although Ace's current strength, even without revealing his Willpower, allowed him to stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the strongest deities in the universe, because he didn't grow up in any of the truly top factions and because he achieved his current level in record-breaking speed, there were still a lot of gaps in his knowledge of the world.
Verano explained that, like Ace already knew, there were countless material planes spread across the universe, but as a result, there were too many people in the various planes!
In addition, these planes have existed for countless years. Their long existence has resulted in countless experts!
The Planar Wars are a tool meant to be used to reduce the number of experts.
Every trillion years, aside from the Life Realm, the other three higher realms, as well as the seven elemental divine planes, will undergo a Planar War, where the supreme experts of one plane will face off against the supreme experts of another for a thousand years, thus reducing the number of experts.
Although the Planar Wars were carried out only once every trillion years, there was more than one war in each session of the Planar Wars. It must be understood that there are Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Realms. Whilst the Life Realm chooses to abstain, the other ten engaged in battles against each other over the course of five sessions of the Planar Wars.
The Divine Darkness Plane against the Divine Light Plane is just the first of five, and after it concludes, a short period of time later, the next would begin.
The Planar Wars are held in The Planar Battlefield, which, in terms of stability, is far more stable than even the Four Higher Realms. In this place, it's hard for even commanders to be able to tear open space.
In the Planar Wars, there are only two types of individuals: "commanders" and "ordinary soldiers." One side's commanders would have red badges, with the soldiers having black badges. The other side's commanders would have gold badges, with the soldiers having white badges.
Once the badges are bound by blood, the allied badge holders can sense each other's badges once they draw near. If a commander comes across someone without sensing their badge, they are to be assumed as enemies. Furthermore, no matter the type of badge, others cannot tell the rank of the badge from sense alone.
If you enter the War as an ordinary soldier, you must submit to a commander. They aren't permitted to run about wildly in the Planar Battlefield. Only commanders are allowed to lead their forces to rove about and/or act independently within the Planar Battlefield as they choose.
Becoming a commander isn't as simple as reaching the commander level in terms of strength. Unless you hold overwhelming power on the level of experts like Druelle or us paragons, the only way to become a commander is to defeat one of the recognised commanders of a plane and take their place, at which point you will automatically be granted a commander badge upon entering the Planar Battlefield.
Verano then explained that it shouldn't be a problem for Ace. With his current fame and reports of his recent exploits, there likely weren't many, if any, actual commanders who would even dare to accept his challenge here in the Celestial Realm.
Ace then asked how it would be possible for him to enter as a commander of the Celestial Realm if the Planar War was between the Planes of Light and Darkness.
Verano explained that was another one of the fundamental differences between commanders and ordinary soldiers. Ordinary soldiers who wanted to enter had to belong to either of the two participating planes, submitting to one of their commanders, but Commanders were different.
As long as you were a Commander, you could freely enter the Planar War of another Plane; the only thing you couldn't do was lead a force of ordinary soldiers.
In the course of those thousand years, it is pretty much only those more daring and confident commanders who will fight and slaughter each other, while those who don't wish to battle hide in their camps.
At the very end of the Planar War, the armies of both sides will fight each other at the two 'bridges' through the Stellar Sea and engage in a wild slaughter. To the vast majority of people, this is suicide. But to a few people, this is an excellent opportunity to act as a fisherman.
It was for that reason that many wouldn't even enter till near the end when the final battle was due to start. It had to be understood that during the course of each thousand-year war, as a Commander, you were free to enter as and when you saw fit, be it at the start or near the end, but whenever you chose to enter, you need to remember that you could only leave at the end of the war.
Hearing that, Ace, Killian, and the others could only sigh when imagining how brutal it was. Alissa couldn't help but ask why so many would be so willing to risk their lives. It couldn't just be to hone themselves, as she could think of several far better and safer ways to do that.
Verano explained that it was for the rewards given. According to Lord Orloff, there would be a round of five Planar Wars every trillion years. So, every trillion years, the ten planes will only compete a single time. The result of each battle has three possibilities: victory, defeat, or draw.
According to the rules, if one's plane wins ten consecutive Planar Wars, then the seven Sovereigns of that plane will all receive a reward from the Overgods. They will all be bestowed with an additional portion of Will, the amount of which is comparable to fusing with an additional Lesser Sovereign spark.
So you can imagine the desire to win for each Sovereign. Because of that, to tempt the various experts into fighting on their behalf, they created a reward system for deities which relied upon experts killing their enemies and acquiring their badges to exchange for Sovereigns Might and Sovereign Artefacts.
Upon acquiring 100 Soldier Badges, they would be able to acquire Sovereign's Might. Upon acquiring 1000 Soldier Badges, they would be able to acquire a Sovereign's Artifact. Or, if one was strong enough, they could acquire a Sovereign Artifact by trading 10 Commander Badges.
However, Commander badges couldn't be traded for Sovereign's Might. To trade for Sovereign's Might, one could only trade Soldier badges. This rule was put in place to stop Paragons from entering and slaughtering Commanders to quickly acquire large amounts of Sovereign's Might.
In addition, if one managed to kill five enemy commanders during the Planar Wars, after the battle concluded, the military merits could be recorded. Once the next Planar Wars began, if one killed five more commanders, the total military merits rendered would be ten, and by then, one could still trade for a Sovereign artefact.
Alissa and the others nodded in understanding. They had to admit, the rewards were definitely alluring.
Garot then warned Ace of the threats he would inevitably face. He explained that although the only prerequisite for an ordinary soldier to enter was to be a Highgod, due to the brutal nature of the war and the level of experts entering, the weakest soldier tended to be at the level of a six-star Fate Seeker, and even then, they were a minority, with the majority being at the seven-star level, and a very small minority being those weaker commander-level experts who weren't strong enough to defeat an official commander and gain a commander badge of their own.
Still, they were only the smallest of threats. Ordinarily, the true threats were the Commanders, each of whom was at least as strong as Joleon, with the majority being far stronger, but because of everything between the Chief Sovereigns of Light and Darkness, this War will likely be far more brutal than usual.
Verano nodded seriously before adding that among all the Sovereigns, Lord Orloff, The Chief Sovereign of Fate, was the most powerful individually, but the Sovereign with the most powerful emissaries was precisely the Chief Sovereign of Darkness.
It's said that, for some reason, he regularly scours the various Divine Planes and Higher Realms for powerful experts to take on as underlings.
A Sovereigns would be lucky to have a single paragon-level emissary under his banner, with most Sovereigns not having one, but Lord Phueus actually has five. Two of them are considered to be invincible even among paragons, the first being Lieat, a paragon-level Apex Divine Beast like Garot.
As for the other, he's even more of a freak. Muyan's actually a two-way soul mutate who wasn't only a paragon of both laws but he was also infinitely close to completely fusing both complete laws. Among those in the know, that man is known as the strongest man under the Sovereigns.
Still, the chances of Muyan entering are slim to none. Unless it's a last resort, he tends not to be called upon. But with how angry Lord Phueus likely is, even if Muyan doesn't enter, there's a very strong possibility that Lieat will.
Ace nodded, understanding the severity of the situation. As he was now, even if he went all out, he wouldn't stand a chance against a monster like Muyan. Just the fact that he was a paragon of two laws meant he was equal to Ace in terms of Willpower when Ace activated his Divine Ability, and that didn't even include the boost in power he would receive as a soul mutate.
Still, even if he knew Muyan would be entering, he wouldn't shy away. For Amira, there was nothing he wouldn't do!
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