Sword God in a World of Magic

The Lightning Emperor sighed again, something he had been doing quite a lot in the past minutes.

"I assume you know about the lack of Mana?" he asked.

Shang nodded. "I was under the assumption that there was only enough Mana left to let one Mage Emperor survive if I want to become a God, and maybe not even that since the Abominations might have consumed even more Mana."

The Lightning Emperor nodded solemnly. "That's right, but that's only true when you are not willing to sacrifice a big group of people for your goal. Lucius was a kind man that wasn't the biggest fan of killing."

"I assume this isn't a problem for you?"

"It isn't," Shang answered emotionlessly.

"To become a God, you need to absorb ten Emperor's worth of Mana."

"In total, there are 16 Emperor's worth of Mana in the entirety of Aterium currently," the Lightning Emperor said.

"16?" Shang asked. "That's more than I expected."

The Lightning Emperor nodded. "There are eleven Emperors-"

"Wait, eleven?" Shang asked. "I thought there were only ten."

"There are nine Empires with ten Emperors, but there is one more Emperor who isn't very known. He was the only Emperor that Lucius left alive back then."

"His title is the Archivist, and he lives on one of the islands of the Beast Kings. He has dedicated his entire life to witnessing the progress of the world and archiving all the knowledge."

"He wanders the world from time to time, but he never kills anything or influences anyone. He just watches and documents. Not many people know that he exists, and he wants to keep it this way."

"Nevertheless, he is still an Emperor and a pretty strong one at that. I don't think any of us could win against him in a fair duel."

Shang nodded.

eleven Emperors who make up eleven

the Mage Kings combined make

water in the endless ocean into Mana,

itself

remaining living beings and the atmosphere itself would barely make up

bit more than

difficult, the three portions comprising the ocean and the continent are inaccessible to

a couple of Mage Lords, you could spare two additional Emperors, leaving you with a total

Shang just nodded absentmindedly.

said. "You have the power to kill me, but instead of doing so, you

might not care about many people, but

of Blood for centuries, and they knew a lot about me, but I don't have any desire

me today, and I will pay that investment back in the future,"

Emperor smiled in

has resonated with Shang's

to anyone else, but that

of Blood a

we have an agreement," the

said

everything. He will

"Thank you," he said as he turned around to

opened the door and walked

stood in the

toward Shang and stepped into the study. "I will be back shortly," he told

as he

the Lightning Emperor asked

assume we are keeping the warrior alive?" he

quite a peculiar person. When I first investigated him, I misread him a little

further.

with