The Platinum Dragon God who once called himself Fei Ziben had now lost his former confidence and calmness. He stood on the side of the ship, stretched one arm into the sky, and let the howling storm brush past his fingertips madly.

——The Platinum shouldn't be able to travel at this speed! What on earth did these fearless little guys do to the Platinum?

At this point, the Platinum Dragon God Bahamut finally let out a long sigh: "...What have you done? When I gave it to you, the Platinum's normal cruising speed was probably less than one-tenth of its current speed."

Sig chuckled and said, "At least we did come back after completing the mission."

"I can see that," Bahamut sighed. "When I just passed over you, your accompanying ship immediately began to roll slightly and aimed those cannons at me. They reacted very quickly. It seems that they suffered a lot over there."

He looked at the surrounding crystal ships in amazement and nodded involuntarily. "However, Halrua is still Halrua after all. They can actually develop new equipment in such a difficult situation."

The Dragon God looked at the several novel airships around him with satisfaction - they were made entirely of fiberglass.

The shape is novel but makes people feel... beautiful.

Even people who don’t understand the craft at all can feel the beauty of harmony.

Bahamut's eyes lit up as he spoke. He leaned down without any airs and whispered in Sig's ear, "Tell me, what's the ecology like in Abel? I'm curious about how the dragons there live."

Sig rolled his eyes and immediately said, "—They are extremely poor. Not to mention metallurgy, there are even few mines. They are completely primitive tribes."

She wasn't lying; much of the equipment on both sides had a distinctly Torilian feel. Clearly, the Torilians' arrival had provided them with a technological boost.

"...Tsk." This answer obviously made Bahamut quite disappointed - this Platinum Dragon God might be upright, but that doesn't mean he is not greedy for money. If he can get something for free, he will definitely not miss the opportunity.

Sig's words were naturally a mixture of truth and falsehood—while the dragons of Abeir had poor craftsmanship, their utilization of the elements was astonishing. While they lacked the skill of fine processing, their ability to dig and survey for minerals was unmatched by the people of Toril—rock dragons would directly penetrate the mountains and the earth in search of minerals!

Before leaving Abel, they took advantage of the chaos and the knowledge they extracted from the Elemental Holy Dragon to sweep away a truly massive amount of precious metals from the Elemental Holy Church's inventory.

It was said that those treasures were originally intended to be used to reward soldiers on the front lines with pay and bonuses. Although the people of Halrua were generally wealthy, compared to the Abel dragons, who directly moved ore from the mountains and purified it with dragon breath... they were simply poor.

For tens of thousands of years, the Abeir dragons had been engaged in mining and metallurgy, amassing a fortune that stunned the people of Toril. Even if they had only robbed a large warehouse, the wealth they reaped would have been enough to shock the entire continent.

The precious metals and gems in that warehouse are worth at least one billion gold coins in total.

A true mountain of gold and silver.

——To be honest, after seeing the warehouse, quite a number of participants tried to delay their return.

They had assumed these dragons, who found it difficult to carry their wealth, were poor, but they had never imagined such a large amount of wealth could be stored in a single warehouse! This was a figure that could make people forget the meaning of wealth itself and cause alarming inflation in Toril!

Even the Elders' Council of Halrua was somewhat dismayed by this figure - this level of wealth would only cause prices throughout Halrua to soar.

Ultimately, most of the wealth was deposited into the treasury, ready for further purchases upon their return to Toril, and Team Emia received 20%, or 200 million gold coins.

This number would make a dragon silent and a devil weep.

Even the Dragon God would probably go crazy upon hearing this number.

So, Emilia decided to get rid of the Platinum Dragon God immediately.

Emiya can now confidently say: He can afford just a few dozen airships by himself!

He took a deep breath and said, "However, in Halruaa, magic itself is wealth. Therefore, you previously gifted me the Platinum, and we have already promised to give you the airship in return—a promise I can personally afford."

"Never mind. I wasn't taking it that seriously back then." Bahamut was surprisingly understanding at this moment. "After all, you're going to Halruaa to help, not for personal gain. How can you be forced to spend your own money on official business? If Tyr had asked me to donate to a good cause, I would have definitely punched him in the face."

He pointed at the brand new airships and sighed, "These new airships are so exquisite... Those shabby wooden boats used to cost hundreds of thousands of gold coins each. These new ships would probably cost a million each, right? Dozens of them, could you afford them?"

Luxury goods at this price point are enough to make even gods twitch their eyes.

…Emia remained silent.

In today's Halrua, the cost of items that can be mass-produced can be greatly reduced!

The airships that once cost hundreds of thousands of gold coins have now seen their performance increase dozens of times while their costs have been cut to zero.

But, let’s be clear - Bahamut is obviously a god who can share hardships with you, but when he sees that your family is rich and powerful, he will definitely come to take advantage of it!

"Five will do," Bahamut said. "After all, the Platinum I gave you was made of the most expensive materials and features a figurehead I meticulously crafted. It's far more valuable than an ordinary airship. The five ships you return must be fully equipped. Don't try to trick me with empty shells."

Indeed, the Platinum is an unsinkable ship, completely different from those old-fashioned flying sailboats.

"No, once I've said it, there's no way I'm going to take it back," Emiya said. "I promised you twenty airships, and I'll definitely give you twenty. And they're technologically mature airships."

This answer startled Bahamut, nearly bringing him to tears. "Boy, someone like you is destined for great success. Even if you only endure hardships on this journey, the connections you've built in Halrua will undoubtedly benefit you greatly in the future, allowing you to rise to prominence."

"Thank you for your kind words. Where should I send these ships?"

"It must be very troublesome to manufacture these airships, right? Ten years later, I will go to the Halayah Territory myself." Bahamut waved his hand.

No, twenty ships is the amount Halrua can produce in one day now.

Emiya's conscience began to ache for causing trouble to a good god ally with such a gap in information.

But he didn't dare to reveal everything directly - if Bahamut knew that their team had made hundreds of millions of gold coins, they would really bleed heavily.

At this moment, Sig also clearly noticed their team's predicament. He rolled his eyes and immediately took a few steps forward. "Lord Bahamut, you have helped so much, and it is unreasonable for us to repay you ten years later. Would you like to hear our next plan and considerations?"

"Ha! You want to drag me down with you and let me profit from the war? Who do you think I am?" Bahamut laughed and immediately lowered his voice, "Speak now."

"Ahem," Sig murmured. "We've been wondering whether the All-Knowing One is looking for quick or slow profits—now that she's seized Cyre, we've concluded she wants to win quickly. The battle for Toril is imminent, then.

"—A real war, enough to engulf the entire planet, from which no one can escape.

"At that time, nothing was more valuable than supplies."

"...That's how it all came to be. Toril's situation has deteriorated to this point." Bahamut is a god who exists in multiple worlds. To him, Toril is just one of many planets, not particularly important. So, it was only then that he finally woke up. "So, what's your suggestion?"

Sig whispered, "First, we need to stockpile food. Sel, which was just occupied by the All-Knowing One, is the main food exporter in Faerûn. Now that it has fallen into the hands of the All-Knowing One, many areas in Faerûn will inevitably fall into a food crisis. If the furious pantheon allied with her is also involved, then..."

Bahamut nodded, then shook his head. "It sounds like the most profitable way would be to wait for the war to break out and prices to skyrocket, then rob the All-Knowing One's warehouse and resell it to you guys."

"We've made a ton of money," Sig said with a grin. "Those who spend money should be grateful."

Then, the two dragons laughed uncontrollably.

"But there's a condition—" Bahamut's laughter suddenly died down, and he pointed to the airships nearby and said to Emiya, "I saw it—there's a paladin on each airship. Great, a group of newly promoted paladins with an average age of less than twenty, each one fully enchanted with plate armor and a Holy Avenger. Even if Halruaa is rich, it can't be this rich, right? Did you do this?"

Emiya replied, "I made the plate armor and the Holy Avenger, but not the armor's enchantment."

"That's fine." Bahamut waved his hand. "It seems you do have a way to make the Holy Avenger. In that case, I'll place an order on your behalf. However, this order is a little special. It's not about what we want to buy, but what you can sell."

The Platinum Dragon narrowed his eyes slightly and spoke meaningfully, "Tyr, Ilmater, and Torm—their churches, priests, paladins, and even the nations they govern can all be your allies. However, with their current equipment, it would be difficult for them to gain a significant advantage against the All-Knowing One."

"They need to be armed."

"And they will soon be your backup."

The advantage of sixty-nine is mine!

The demons in the Nine Hells are obviously one of the most mysterious forces in the world to mortals in the material plane.

Even the most knowledgeable mages only know about their biology, activity characteristics, and at best, a superficial understanding of their organizational structure.

How many troops do the devils have? How many resources can they mobilize? How much power can they mobilize from outside the bloody battlefield?

This is the devil's most secret secret, hidden even from the gods. No matter how wise a mortal is, he cannot discern a single clue from the devil's patterns of action.

Because the devil has an advantage that mortals can never bypass: the devil does not only operate on a certain planet.

Even if there is a world that successfully tracks all the movements of the devil in the current world, it cannot confirm that all the power of the Nine Hells is still left.

The devil is the force in this world that is best at exploiting the unknown and fear - at the same time, the devil treats outsiders as cruelly as he treats his subordinates.

Strictly speaking, the only person who truly understands how powerful the devil is is Asmodeus.

——Even Mephistopheles, the Grand Duke who is second only to the Demon King among the demons, does not dare to say that he knows his territory well.

All things belong to Asmodeus, this is the ecology of the Nine Hells.

However, Mephistopheles was very clear about the situation of the bloody battle - battle reports can be deceiving, but the battle lines cannot.

Zariel had never been some vain Warmaster. This mad Seraph was all tactics, no strategy.

The only reason she failed to drive the demons out of Avernus was that she simply didn't have enough resources and troops.

The wealth and power of the Devil may be limitless, but this limitlessness only applies to Asmodeus and does not apply to any other Devil.

So, the problem Mephistopheles is facing now is that his subordinates are losing confidence in this war.

Losing faith is a very delicate state for demons—they don't surrender, nor do they consider mortals to be superior to demons.

However, confidence still seriously affects the combat effectiveness of the demons.

When demons believe an action is a "harvest," they will burst forth with astonishing dynamism and initiative, unsparingly using their most valuable skills and financial resources, treating this action as an investment, attempting to gain more: souls, financial resources, reputation, trust—

However, once they lose confidence and think that this mission is likely to be another losing business and suspect that they may become abandoned pawns, the situation will completely reverse.

With this mentality, every devil will start to slack off, trying to prioritize self-preservation in the upcoming war and escape from the battlefield with various excuses.

This trend of thought will then in turn make the devil's situation worse, eventually leading to an avalanche.

Among the Nine Hells, only the Avernus Legion, once led by Zariel and Bayer, rarely experienced this phenomenon. This was because Avernus was the devil's bottom line, leaving no room for retreat for any devil. Furthermore, these two great devils, as leaders, were actually quite... kind.

Zariel always charged forward, leading the charge to slay demons, while Bile acted conservatively, never giving the enemy an opportunity to exploit their advance—even if the battle line advanced slowly.

Therefore, the devil's characteristic is that when the wind is in their favor, they become stronger, but when the wind is against them, they become weaker. It is also because of this that the devil would like to decide the outcome outside of the battlefield, rather than relying on blood and courage to fight others to the death.

But now, this subtle emotion began to spread among Mephistopheles' subordinates.

This was only natural—they were cheering for the All-Knowing One just a second ago, believing that she had seized the Magic Web and was about to become the new Goddess of Magic, and had even sent invitations to the entire Faerun—

Naturally, they should have reversed the effects of the Arcane Bane amid the fear of the people of Faerûn, brought the powerful Halruaa back to Toril, and in the process, earned hundreds of thousands of souls in Halruaa and added an extremely powerful arcane force to Hell.

As a result, before ten days had passed and they were still boasting about themselves, the Halrua people returned from Abel on their own and publicly declared that they believed in Mystrel, the first goddess of magic, and never mentioned the name of Mystra.

——Even though this country had gradually converted to the two later magic goddesses many years ago.

The devil didn't believe that this was an accidental act on Halrua's part.

How did Halruaa return from another world?

Halruaa has already given the answer with their claim: they are guided by Mystril, the Avatar of the Demonic Web.

It has been almost a hundred years, and there is no sign of Halruaa returning to Faerun. Yet, Emya and his party have only been gone for a month, and Halruaa has returned to Toril?

The devil never deceives himself with words like luck.

At this moment, Mephistopheles, as one of the most important generals of the All-Knowing One, had left his territory and rushed to Faerun.

From now on, he will personally be responsible for the work of the entire West Feren, while the All-Knowing One will simply stay in Cyre.

Raphael, who had failed in Baldur's Gate, was reinstated as Mephistopheles' assistant because of his valuable experience.

"Emia of Lunya, he seems to be the center of everything—from Baldur's Gate to Elturgard, he has always been the captain of the team. Now this invincible team is built entirely around Emia."

In the demiplane opened up by Mephistopheles, in front of Raphael was a team composed entirely of hell demons and even archdemons, and beside Raphael was Mephistopheles himself.

Mephisto's main forces were gathered in this demiplane. Aside from the necessary garrison troops, all other commanders were already here.

"Every activity Emia has participated in has displayed a very distinct characteristic—some expensive and rare items are suddenly mass-produced at an alarming rate, yet despite this, there's no severe shortage or shortage of supplies," Raphael said. "Initially, this effect only appeared on non-magical items. He relied on this ability to forcibly maintain the Flaming Fist, allowing our plan..."

At this moment, a big devil suddenly said indifferently: "—This is your plan."

Raphael's voice suddenly stopped, and the sound of his breath, almost like he was holding back laughter, echoed between the demiplane and the devil.

Raphael's brow twitched for a moment, but he finally spoke calmly, "Then, in Elturgard, he caused the entire Paladin Nation's combat power to surge rapidly in a short period of time, solidifying his own reputation and ultimately causing Grand Duke Zariel's century-long plan to collapse."

At this point, a mischievous smile appeared on his face: "—Even I was captured alive."

When discussing other grand dukes, the devils no longer had to hide their true feelings, and the demiplane was suddenly filled with happy laughter.

Zariel is a madman who only loves war. He doesn't consider himself a devil at all, and doesn't care about the opinions of his colleagues - conversely, the devil doesn't care about Zariel's thoughts and will laugh anyway.

Raphael didn't have the authority to silence the legion commanders present. He patiently waited for silence before speaking, "The same thing happened at Candlekeep. This time, it was the continent-renowned Larloch and Shar, who hadn't been seen in years, who fell before Emya. The undead army, commanded by hundreds of liches, was annihilated by the unprecedented firepower of Candlekeep."

Now, no devil can laugh.

Originally, Toril was not Mephistopheles' main attack direction, and there were some demons present who did not know Emilia in detail.

Only now did they realize that the enemy they faced was somewhat exaggerated.

Raphael was pleased with their silence.

Only the audience in this state can listen to what is said.

Raphael patted Zhou Xuan gently and said, "Emia of Lunya, this name can be said to be resounding throughout Faerun. It has been so popular these days that it is almost setting the Falling Star Sea on fire. However, in my opinion, Mr. Emia is actually just a decoy."

In an instant, all the demons turned their eyes to him.

Raphael's breathing became a little heavier: "Emmya is indeed a gifted mage, and his talent makes Zariel salivate - however, if we study his experience carefully, we will find that he is not actually the only core of the team.

"His record is deceptive."

Mephistopheles couldn't help but raise his eyebrows slightly at this moment: "Go on."

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