Azekiel stood on the battlefield where thousands of soldiers fought.
Fear of death was clear on the faces of many of the soldiers, but also the desire to win could be seen. Every soldier wanted to perform their best to kill as many people as they could so they could climb in the ranks of the army and get a better future.
Swords sharp enough to slice through steel were slicing the bodies of soldiers everywhere. Most of the battlefield was covered in blood.
Azekiel glanced back at the portal. "What a perfect place to send us to."
Behind him, his porters stepped out of the portal, carrying bags of food, only to have their jaws dropped! They were in the middle of the battlefield! They could see arrows flying everywhere as archers in the back attacked the enemies. Both armies had archers, soldiers, and generals that led the troops.
Unfortunately, Azekiel couldn't find Elijah on the battlefield. It seemed like he hadn't arrived here personally in this battle.
"As much as I know Elijah, he wouldn't miss a battle of this scale, especially now that Michael isn't here. That can only mean one thing..."
"What?" Raphael inquired, keeping his focus on each and every word of Azekiel.
"This is a distraction," Azekiel commented, letting out an amused smile. "While he's keeping the army distracted here, he took a small part of his army to..."
As Azekiel was explaining, he stopped. It was as if he was distracted by something. A screen popped up before him with the information about the trial on the second floor.
Azekiel ignored all the noises and the screams that were in the surroundings and kept his focus on the screen. He had a general idea of what this trial was about since he had watched it play out before, but it was only now he had accurate information on what it was.
Trial of Second Floor:
Mission: Create an empire of your own and use that Empire to take over two existing empires. You can't create your empire by taking over an existing Empire. You can only expand your empire in this manner.
Limitations: You must not kill anyone in your wars unless you're facing other Kings and Lord of Sins. The War must be won by soldiers of yours.
Azekiel rubbed his chin as he read the mission details again and again. He knew that the mission was to create an Empire, but it was only now he found out about the Limitations of this mission since he could read the fine print now.
"So that's why I don't see Elijah here. Since there is no other King, his involvement would be useless. But this... I'm not allowed to kill anyone in wars... Then what about him...?" He glanced down at the body of the dead Soldier that he had killed.
It appeared that he was still on trial for now. How was that possible? He went through the details of the mission once again, wondering if he had missed something. Did this death not count because it happened before he was given the mission?
"Ah, so that's it! I can't kill anyone in my Wars! This isn't my war though. No wonder I am fine after doing it." Azekiel let out a sigh of relief.
He had thought that his time here was going to be a nightmare. If he couldn't kill anyone, that meant he wasn't going to level up. But it appeared that it was only the case for the wars of the Empire he was going to create. So far, he had no Empire of his own, and neither was this war something that was his!
This mission was really tricky, and he knew it. This was also the reason every other King had a harder time finishing the mission than the first. They couldn't take over an existing empire, and they needed to start an Empire from Scratch.
Moreover, there were only twelve Existing Empires on this floor at the time when this trial started for the first time. The King of Wrath came to this floor after the King of Pride, but he created an Empire filled with brave soldiers really fast. Moreover, he used that Empire to take over one of the two existing Empires.
The second King to create an Empire successfully was Michael. Instead of attacking Empires that were now controlled by Lucifer, he chose the other two Empires. It was the time when no Kings wanted to face each other.
One after another, all Kings created an Empire from scratch. It took them months to succeed in doing it, but they ultimately succeeded. Fortunately, there were twelve human Empires. All six of the Kings had two Empires they could take over without going against other Kings!
The twelve Empires existed at the start, but after each King kept taking over the other Empires, now there were only six Empires left! And each of the six Empires belonged to a King of Sin!
Elijah had also finished the Trial of the Second Floor a few months ago, yet he hadn't left this floor for some reason. It was unclear why he hadn't left this floor. Many Kings tried to theorize the reasoning behind it, but none could understand so far.
It was as if the King of Greed had something to do here, which he hadn't managed to do yet. As for what it was, no one knew.
Now that Michael was dead, one of the Six Empires was without a King! And Elijah wanted to take this opportunity to increase his Empire even more! Every King's empire contained a combination of the Empire they created and two other Empires. So, in essence, each King had three Empires under them and massive armies for this floor.
On the other hand, now that a vacuum was created with the death of Michael, Elijah wanted to make sure that there were six Empires under him instead of three. Moreover, he wanted to do it before the other Kings returned to this floor to do the same! He was really worried about that.
Another reason he wanted to control the Empires of Michael was because of Azekiel!
He knew Azekiel had cleared the First Floor before killing Michael! It was inevitable that Azekiel was going to come to this floor for the second trial. Elijah knew Azekiel was going to need to create an Empire.
Even though it was hard to create an Empire nowadays since mostly all the land was under the control of one of the six existing Empires, he still considered the possibility that Azekiel could somehow do it. However, the main part of the Trial was taking over the other two Empires with your armies only!
Elijah didn't want to give Azekiel an easy way out by leaving the Empire of Michael like a sitting duck! He wanted to take over the Empire so he could thrash the army of Azekiel before killing him!
He wanted to make Azekiel feel helpless! He wanted to make Azekiel feel like he could never clear this floor! He wanted as much land as he could for himself! And he wanted the strength of Azekiel by killing him!
Now that Azekiel had killed one King, the battle of death had started. It had started a race that no one thought was possible! The race of who could kill most Kings to be the sole ruler of this Tower!
A race that was going to change the lives of many forever, and Elijah wanted to make sure he was leading that race! Unfortunately, Azekiel was also in the same race...
