Chapter 499: Act 247 – The War of Light and Darkness
As soon as Yilian’s summon appeared, the Pendulum Man ceased his chatter and launched an attack. He raised his bronze staff, and a jet-black light curtain rose behind him, flickering with shadows that exuded a sense of decay. At the same time, he pointed at Brendel with his left hand, which was covered with chains, and a black spiritual light shot towards him.
“Be careful,” the Senior Sister reminded. “That’s his boundary, ‘Destruction.’ This boundary will accelerate our loss of cards. That spell is Assassinate; can you deal with it?”
Before she finished speaking, Brendel had already demonstrated energy loss. He received the spell, and saw its effect: Assassinate (Adversity Heaven XIII), 5 Dark; [Spell – Instant]; Effect: Target player sacrifices an artifact or creature. The target player takes damage equal to the total mana cost of the sacrificed permanent.
“This is basically a card that only affects Planeswalkers,” Brendel thought to himself. He directly targeted the gear ball above the Pendulum Man’s head, but to his surprise, a faint light wall rose from it, blocking the spell. That was Anrodus’ Holy Ring. The Pendulum Man was willing to use a card to protect that gear ball, showing it was truly important to him; he glanced at Brendel in surprise, seemingly not expecting him to have such a card, causing him to refrain from carelessly casting similar spells against Brendel.
Meanwhile, Yilian cast a golden light that shattered the jet-black light curtain behind the Pendulum Man.
The two of them fought side by side, clearly gaining an advantage over when fighting alone, especially in the speed of their spells. However, the Pendulum Man showed no signs of tension as he pointed his hand, summoning the Doom Guard to charge forward. It was evident that the Centaur Lamia and the Pendulum Man were old rivals who had been in a deadlock for quite some time, resulting in neither being surprised by the other’s actions; she swung her spear, and her subordinate, the Radiant Guardian, marched forward to meet the attack.
The black Doom Guards wore little armor and wielded sharp swords coated with hooks; they moved quickly, a clear indication of their aggressive combat style. In contrast, the Radiant Guardians wore heavy armor, carried long tower shields, and wielded one-handed halberds, indicating their extensive experience as defenders in positional warfare.
The two contrasting colors clashed, one attacking and the other defending, resulting in a fierce stalemate. Although the Radiant Guardians were outnumbered, the Radiant Martyrs behind them clearly acted as priests, casting a series of light rings over their allies. The blessed Radiant Guardians momentarily overpowered the Doom Guards in terms of combat strength, steadily pressing the attack as the Pendulum Man’s side left numerous corpses behind.
The Pendulum Man did not seem surprised by this outcome; he tapped his fingers, casting another spell over the Radiant Guardians.
This spell appeared to be the Abyssal Web from Andrigraphis, but it was woven from thin layers of twilight that enveloped the Radiant Guardians. The blessings from the Radiant Martyrs vanished, replaced by negative effects like weakening, slowing, and blindness.
“Despairing, this card can reverse all buff effects,” Yilian explained while releasing a purifying light. The purifying light shone on the Radiant Guardians, instantly removing all buffs and negative effects from them, evidently a type of dispel spell. However, Yilian did not explain her card further, leading Brendel to smile secretly; this Senior Sister seemed friendly on the surface but was quite clever.
As they exchanged blows, they cleared all magical effects from the battlefield. However, the result of their exchange meant that the fewer Radiant Guardians began to suffer. The Centaur Lamia grew anxious; she could not help but stomp her foot and turned to the young man beside her, who held a long horn, commanding: “Leno, blow the horn!”
The white-cloaked boy stepped forward immediately, his curly hair pretty and his appearance reminiscent of an angel from the scriptures. With flushed cheeks, he blew into the horn, creating a distant and melodious sound that echoed throughout the underground hall. Soon, the flapping of wings could be heard from afar, and a platinum dragon burst through the darkness, landing on the battlefield.
“Whoa, that horn can summon a dragon?” Brendel exclaimed in astonishment. Yilian seemed to sense his thoughts and winked playfully at him, neither confirming nor denying, clearly intending to tease him. This irritated Brendel, who ground his teeth in frustration at the mischievous Centaur Lamia.
After Leno finished blowing the horn, he appeared exhausted, collapsing to the side as if drained of all energy. However, the conjured platinum dragon was not as fearsome as a true dragon, or perhaps it was just not yet mature; Brendel estimated its combat level was around sixty to seventy, indicative of elemental awakening stage. Of course, being at this level was still enough to shred the Doom Guards, and soon there lay a sea of corpses in the hall—most of which belonged to the Pendulum Man’s side.
Seeing this, Brendel took a deep breath; he had not expected that this Senior Sister had such considerable power, truly able to force the Pendulum Man into retreat. Still, he held on to his views, believing things were not that simple. Indeed, as the battle progressed and Yilian gained an advantage with her platinum dragon, she suddenly commanded her summons to retreat rather than leveraging her upper hand to push the attack.
Brendel did not question this order; he trusted that such a level of mutual understanding between the two should prevent any gross errors. As expected, the Pendulum Man threw out another card representing a Doom Guard, and the earlier sight repeated itself as all units on the battlefield resurrected as Doom Guards, with an additional ten. Had the Centaur Lamia not commanded her summons to withdraw, she would have found herself surrounded just as Brendel had moments before.
“What the hell,” Brendel wiped the sweat from his brow, thinking that card was incredibly treacherous.
After summoning the Doom Guards, the Pendulum Man summoned a creature resembling an Abomination to face the platinum dragon—this creature bore a resemblance to a demon from the Inferno, but its skin was blue instead of crimson, and it emanated a cold blue fire. To be honest, Brendel had never encountered such a monster before. However, this creature proved formidable, capable of matching the platinum dragon, creating a stalemate. Meanwhile, the Pendulum Man proceeded to summon one Eroncia Weaver after another, quickly bringing four onto the battlefield.
“What is he doing?” Brendel did not rush to act; he wanted to observe how Planeswalkers fought. Unable to restrain himself, he turned around to ask. He also had the Eroncia Weaver card, but it was a level 25 elite creature; he could not fathom its necessity on a battlefield of this magnitude.
At that moment, Yilian summoned two more Radiant Hornblowers; her Radiant Hornblowers appeared to be similar-looking youths with innocent faces that nearly made Brendel feel ashamed. Hearing Brendel’s question, Yilian turned to answer, “He’s filtering light.”
“Filtering light?”
“Converting dark elements into light elements. Hmph, without Pure White Paradise, relying on such clumsy means to gather light elements—you can really tell how severely the dark adversity is lacking.”
When it came to the dignity of Planeswalkers, the Pendulum Man could no longer remain composed. He snorted coldly, “Aren’t you the same? Pure White Paradise only excels at defense, merely waiting for death.”
The two exchanged barbs while their hands worked without delay. Through the Radiant Hornblowers, Yilian summoned two powerful creatures—a fully armored white elephant and a gigantic eagle glowing with celestial radiance. Only then did Brendel realize that the Radiant Hornblowers seemed capable of placing Planeswalker cards onto the battlefield at no cost in exchange for tapping themselves, rather than utilizing summon spells. However, even so, it was still quite peculiar.
For instance, his Platinum Angel required nearly a hundred mana to enter play, which he could never afford. But with the Radiant Hornblowers, couldn’t they be summoned for free? He just didn’t know how much the Hornblowers themselves cost; Brendel thought that if the cost was too high, it would make the card somewhat lackluster.
Thanks to the Radiant Hornblowers, the Centaur Lamia clearly gained biological superiority over the Pendulum Man. However, the Pendulum Man had hidden tricks up his sleeve; he summoned creatures resembling Metal Beetles, which, over time, would self-replicate into derivatives. These beetles surprisingly unleashed potent lightning balls, and every time they fired these lightning balls, a significant number of the Senior Sister’s summons would fall.
With that, it seemed as if the Pendulum Man was right; the summons of the nearby Senior Sister were clearly overemphasizing defense but lacked offensive capability. If this continued, defeat was only a matter of time.
“What exactly are those lightning balls? How could they be so powerful?” After watching for a while, Brendel finally noticed the issue. The metal beetles summoned by the Pendulum Man were clearly not strong, barely reaching twenty levels and not even silver in caliber; on this battlefield, they were utterly limited as cannon fodder. However, the lightning balls they cast were disproportionately powerful, equating to peak silver-level attack strength.
Although some creatures had ridiculously high attack power, they wouldn’t typically cross multiple tiers directly. To Brendel, this was reminiscent of his Dragoon tactics, the Wind Elemental Spider also being a weak creature, yet it could unleash attacks far exceeding its basic level through Sacred Sword Technique.
“That kind of lightning ball is a spell card of that Pendulum monster. As long as there is one Nightmare Furnace creature on the field, it can replicate a lightning ball; that is one of the two major supports for that Pendulum monster.”
Brendel did not have time to ask what the other major support was, instead following up with, “Nightmare Furnace creature?”
“That’s those metal beetles; their academic name is Nightmare Furnace Constructs, created from Eroncia’s Adversity Furnace as constructed life forms.”
I see, Brendel realized, the operation method of these metal beetles was surprisingly similar to his Dragoon tactics, which explained their strength. However, just then, Yilian furrowed her brows again: “Not only that, but Nightmare Furnace Constructs can self-replicate by devouring light elements… This is bad; their numbers have already grown so large. If we wait any longer, we’re doomed…” She suddenly discovered that the Pendulum Man had concealed some of the Nightmare Furnace Constructs behind him.
“Damn it, that fish-headed bastard is playing this trick on me!” the Centaur Lamia hissed in anger.
