Volume Dragon: Start by obtaining the Infinity Gems

Chapter 354 Two Strands of Divinity (Combined)

Seven days later, at the White House bunker.

The damp air in the catacombs was almost solidified, and seven bone high-backed chairs formed a perfect circle. Seven distorted shadows were cast on the walls, which glowed with a cold, eerie blue light, even though there were no torches.

Defense Minister Corvin, who was also the new head of America's largest civilian family, tapped his finger bones on the marble round table, the soul fire within his skull flickering. "It's the third day, and we still haven't found a suitable place to store the life casket." His voice was like rusty gears grinding together. "The presidential palace is too conspicuous; it's not safe."

A soft laugh escaped from beneath Speaker of the House Margaret's long black veil. She maintained the elegant posture she had in life, only her eye sockets, destroyed by dragon magic, held a chilling darkness: "My dear, you are too attached to traditional forms. The vaults of modern society are far safer than ancient tombs."

At the head of the table at the far end of the round table, Lockheed lowered his gaze slightly, marking the locations of the five major banks' headquarters with red dots. "The private vault of UBS, 120 meters underground, temperature and humidity controlled, nuclear-proof design." He stroked the diamond casket in his suit pocket. "The entire tunnel network of the Alps now belongs to me; no one can go there."

As soon as Lockheed spoke, everyone fell silent. They knew that Lockheed was the first being granted power, and destined to lead them in establishing a divine kingdom on earth for the Lord.

In fact, all six liches in the "Night Owl Council" besides Lockheed were personally selected by Lockheed and transformed by the Lord.

As one of the masters who controlled America behind the scenes, Lockheed was very familiar with how this political machine worked. Among the vast number of elites, he selected six ambitious individuals with the most connections and wealth.

They are the establishment within the establishment, and have been the key figures supporting the normal functioning of the country since the early Cold War.

Lockheed chose six disciples for himself and told them that the great red dragon that was destined to descend in the prophecy was one of the incarnations of the Lord. The all-knowing and all-powerful God descended in the form of a dragon and bestowed upon them power beyond that of mortals.

In return, they will offer the entire world to their supreme Lord.

In fact, if Nemesis hadn't been unwilling to waste too much time here, he could have come on his own. However, the sword of Shadow City still hung over his head, and he was unwilling to use overly violent methods that would offend his fellow members of the Duke's Council.

So he chose to create seven liches.

Every lich is at least a level 14 spellcaster, and these seven are no exception; each of them has a level 14 mage rank.

Such strength is utterly insignificant to Faerûn; they're the kind of people any random righteous squad in an adventure story could wipe out.

But on Earth, it's different.

Liches are skilled in necromancy and bewitching magic, which means they are able to safely manipulate those in high positions from the shadows.

Manipulating the minds of others and using the promise of immortal vampires to attract big capitalists, coupled with the advanced technology of modern society, given enough time, the "Midnight Council" can hold the 0.0001% of society in their hands without anyone noticing.

Suddenly, all the liches turned their heads simultaneously, triggering a magical alarm at the tomb entrance. The energy behemoth Victor extended his pale, bony claws, and blue arcane light shot from his palms. At the same time, a virtual monitor appeared before him, showing the president's security advisor adjusting his tie in an elevator.

"Fifteen seconds." The vocal cords of the head of the world's largest media conglomerate had decayed, but ventriloquism kept his words clear. He pressed a button under the table, and the runes on the tomb's dome extinguished one by one.

As the last glimmer of blue light vanished, the seven bodies simultaneously turned to dust. The arcane holographic projection above the round table disappeared, revealing a cold, metallic sky. The moment the elevator doors opened, Victor rose to greet them in human form; his bone claws now appeared no different from those of a normal person.

"Dear Mr. Victor, the President needs the final version of the oil field report." The security advisor's shoes left marks on the water-soaked ground.

Victor smiled and handed over the folder, the burial soil clinging to his fingernails turning to cigar ash the instant it touched the air. “Tell His Excellency the President that the newly discovered reserves are comparable to the entire X-East region, but with our current technology, we are not yet able to safely mine from such a deep underground area.” Two points of ghostly blue soul fire flickered faintly deep within his pupils.

Victor was the only one of the seven liches to be granted knowledge of divination magic by Nemesis. As a capitalist who made his living from energy, he immediately used the divination magic to search for all the unknown oil sites in the entire America. And he discovered a super-giant oil field that was extremely well hidden.

After the elevator doors closed again, seven wisps of black smoke emerged from the ventilation ducts and reformed into a human shape. Victor adjusted the holographic projection, switching the image to a panoramic view of the capital, with hundreds of red dots flashing between government buildings.

"The second phase is progressing smoothly." His mechanical voice, laced with electronic noise, continued, "42% of judges in the judicial system have been charmed, the Treasury Department has a 37% replacement rate in key positions, and the drinks at high-ranking military officials' dinners have been spiked with soul-binding potions."

"This damn spell slot is never enough," Victor complained with some annoyance. "If we could only use Suggestion a few times a day, we would have taken over the entire Treasury long ago."

Benjamin, the representative of the US Federal Reserve Bank, sneered: "I've said it before, I don't have the final say in the fiscal system. Don't forget, those squid are the ones who truly control the US Federal Reserve."

Lockheed casually scratched the palm of his other bony hand with his bony finger. He was once a squid man, and thanks to the advantages of his matriarchal clan, almost everyone at the pinnacle of power had some squid blood.

But times have changed. They are liches, no longer even human, so what are squid people?
Lockheed chose to convert Benjamin for two reasons: first, the number of Night Owl positions was limited, and there were simply too many Squid conglomerates to choose from; second, Lockheed deeply disliked the Squid, a race whose entire population worshipped a heretical god.

There is only one true Lord, and a bunch of thieves and traitors, the pagan descendants, are not worthy to be His companions.

Margaret opened the new code. "The Special Court passed Bill 774 today." Her thin fingers traced the clause, "allowing the use of new polygraph technology in cases of serious national security." Inside the code's insert, brain tissue, soaked in preservative solution, gleamed faintly.

On Korwin's uniform shoulder insignia, the number of general's stars had increased to seven. He pulled up a military deployment map: "The Arctic Circle exercises have been moved up to next week, during which three nuclear submarines will 'accidentally' lose contact. I've already arranged for men to infiltrate there, disguised as Soviets." On the map, three skull and crossbones symbols slowly sank into the Arctic Ocean. "That's enough for Parliament to approve the budget for a new sonar system."

The round table suddenly shook, and William's golden prosthetic eye shot out a beam of light, forming a stock market chart in the air. "Perfect timing." His jaw clenched, revealing a fragment of a Swiss bank draft. "Army stocks will surge 300% after the exercise announcement; our controlled offshore companies have already completed their position building."

Over the next three hours, the seven liches continuously proposed various contingency plans, all with one goal—to accumulate wealth and power.

They possess immortality and extraordinary power, provided they are careful enough to remain hidden in the shadows and wait for their opportunity.
Then the world will eventually belong to them.

"It will also belong to the Lord," Lockheed thought to himself.

late at night.

In the Department of Justice building, Margaret walked alone down the corridor. The guards stared blankly, their uniforms embroidered with runes drawn in corpse oil. In the top-secret archives, she unbuttoned her long black dress, revealing a body pieced together from hundreds of legal statute tattoos. As she chanted ancient incantations, the tattooed characters began to writhe, reforming into a new draft of the constitutional amendment. "Waste the right to habeas corpus. Authorize the executive branch to conduct nighttime searches in a state of emergency," she recited, tracing runes along the edge of the judges' gavels with a bone pen.

Under the influence of bewitching magic, the federal courts became their sole domain.

Meanwhile, Corwin was at the Ministry of Defense's underground firing range. Twenty special forces members knelt in a row, each with a crystal catheter inserted into their temple. "You will be the vanguard of a new era," the general's voice suddenly boomed, his eyes blazing with eerie blue flames. The other end of the catheters was connected to brains preserved in formalin—the brains of those who had "accidentally" died in recent military exercises.

He is attempting to infuse souls into soldiers' bodies to enhance their five senses, thus creating a plan to turn them into super soldiers.

White House.

As the first rays of sunlight attempted to penetrate the bulletproof glass of the presidential office, only to be blocked by the downy curtains that completely enveloped the room, the security advisor was reporting good news from the northern oil fields. No one noticed the unnatural, jagged outline of the president's shadow, nor the blood settling at the bottom of his teacup. A president elected every eight years was unworthy of being a member of Night Owl, but Reagan, through his loyalty, earned Lockheed's favor and became the first Jasmine vampire on Earth.

"For the prosperity of the Federal Republic." The president smiled and stamped the national seal.

Inside the Federal Reserve Bank of America, Benjamin stared at the torrent of numbers beating millions of times per second. Enhanced by magic, his sharp mind effortlessly analyzed the data before him, weaving a financial network between Swiss accounts and military-industrial enterprises.

The staff member standing nearby was a little confused. He quickly realized that at some point, what was reflected in the screen was not a human face, but a skull gnawing on an electronic circuit.

Lockheed stood in the shadows, watching the monster of power frantically nurture its offspring. He smiled; soon, the world would be devoured by it.

He had no regrets, because he truly believed that the Lord was the real God, and that under the God's control, the earth would only become an incomparably happy Eden, a utopia.

And what was that dragon he trusted so much doing at that moment?
-
A few days ago, after successfully capturing [Reverse Eye], he left the Reverse World without stopping.

That world had a very deep connection with [Reverse Eye]. The moment he took [Reverse Eye] away, he heard an extremely terrifying roar coming from the other side of the rift.

Countless vines surged wildly from the cracks, and one after another, chrysanthemum monsters emerged from the shadows, trying to pass through the cracks to reach the real world. They were restless because their master had left their world.

Namisis intended to clean these things up, but unexpectedly, after [Reverse Eye] returned to the real world, the rift seemed to lose its supporting power and closed completely after only three seconds.

He tried to sense it with his divination spell, and found that the passage was completely closed, and the entire crystal system had returned to its isolated state.

The difference is that, due to the invasion of the Reverse World in recent years, Earth's magic network has basically been revived.

While not reaching the level of Faerûn, spellcasters only need 24 hours of rest to fully recover their mana.

In other words, compared to the eight-hour meditation system in Faerûn that allows spellcasters to refresh their spells daily, Earth's spellcasters often need two to three days to recover their power.

In addition, the expressiveness of magic has been greatly weakened.

Although not as exaggerated as the Dark Earth where the other duke resided, the power of the spells was still significantly suppressed, a fact that became immediately apparent after the rift between the Fallen Underworld and the mortal realm closed.

Namiesis attempted to cast a fireball, but the fireball, which could normally cover a radius of 200 meters, could only cover a radius of about 50 meters. It's easy to imagine how much the other mages would be weakened.

This is why Namiesis had the seven liches specialize in bewitching and necromancy, because these two spells are normally less affected by weakening spells than spells like evocation.

After closing the rift, Namisis brought [Reverse Eye] back to the "Stagnant Library".

It was at that time that he witnessed a real, living god.

When the [Reverse Eye] was absorbed by Vekna in the primordial darkness, he saw an enormous, colossal figure, comparable in size to a planet, appear before him.

Namiesis couldn't help but admire Vicna, who was indeed a top-tier powerhouse who had ascended to a powerful god. Even a slight fall from that terrifying body could probably cause a devastating blow to a planet.

"Mortal, you have done well." A cold voice faintly echoed in the darkness, carrying a hint of disdain. "I shall keep my promise to Ogmar and grant you two strands of divinity."

Namiesis suddenly looked up, his eyes filled with unbelievable ecstasy.

He thought the sacred artifact would be his reward, but he never expected that the Lord of Knowledge would ask for two more strands of divinity for him!
Even the cold-hearted and indifferent Juan Shulong was filled with gratitude towards that deity at this moment.

To be honest, this person was incredibly kind to Juan Celong.

In the darkness, two faint green lights slowly drifted towards Namiesis. Like magical seaweed in the water, they floated in the dark air, carrying a deadly allure.

The profound magic, the cold necromancy, and the insidious concealment were all concentrated in the two strands of divinity before them.

Namiesis took a deep breath, suppressing his elation, and said excitedly, "Thank you for your generosity, great master of all concealment, ruler of darkness, true master of shadows."

It seemed that the last sentence pleased Vikna, for a satisfied sneer and a suppressed anger echoed from the void.

“Return to your world, mortal. I will take care of Shar.”

(End of this chapter)