Chapter 223 - 223 Ironstone Pact

223 Ironstone Pact

Moon Realm, Gray Domain, Heartstone Plain.

This was the periphery of Steelheart Widow Aiur’s Moon Realm domain. This world was perpetually gray and white, with even the sun appearing cold and lifeless. Everything shed its passion here.

The land was filled with iron crystals called heartstones, which looked like graves. Gray giants roamed the land, pulling the heartstones out of the ground and placing them in the deep holes in their chests.

But this never seemed to fill the emptiness within them, as the metal heartstones instantly disappeared in the deep recesses, and they just continued wandering in search of more heartstones.

If they could sigh or roar because of this, this scene might not appear so tragic

This continued day after day endlessly.

Today, however, was different.

Multiple links from the Moon Realm were brought into this land and placed there like the ram of a warship. Then, countless Lunar Monsters of strange shapes flooded into the colorless land.

Some of these monsters carried deadly weapons, while others had claws and teeth as their weapons. Some spat out thick acid and flames, and others cast spells.

The loitering gray giants also abnormally gathered, dragging their stiff bodies to form a defense line in the endless wilderness to fight against the monsters.

In short, a war from the Moon Realm had erupted in this area.

If mortals were standing on this plain, this is what they would see.

However, to the Moon Realm Void Sovereigns, the war appeared completely different.

It was hard to explain it in a way that made sense. It was more like the craziest and most bizarre dream that a crazy person could have. If a sensitive artist tried to paint this dream, it would be an abstract painting – a blob of paint mixed with a million different colors, trying to bring color to the deathly white-gray.

The Moon Realm didn’t have a physical form. It was just a contest of wills.

The Lunar Monsters were just extensions of the Void Sovereigns’ wills—the wandering Gray Giants were representations of Aiur’s aimlessness, and the Bloodprint Warriors with brass ax blades symbolized King of Deathblood Brand’s anger.

They didn’t have real physical bodies like people in Currere. Since they didn’t have a real body to rely on, there were no real deaths in their battles in this war.

So, the war was endless unless one will overpowered the other.

This is also why Aiur wasn’t afraid at all even if four Void Sovereigns of the same level as Her declared war on Her.

This is because She, who had a dead heart, believed that no one’s will in this world could surpass Hers.

Any power produced by passion couldn’t affect Her will at all.

So, as long as She didn’t want to win, She wouldn’t lose.

…

Really? I don’t believe it, William thought.

What a load of bullsh*t. The Void Sovereigns’ main bodies were only unfathomable because there was a HP lock. If they really dared to show their HP bar, William was confident that he could defeat such a BOSS as long as it was theoretically possible to kill it, even if it would be a difficult battle.

Of course, that’s only if players had an infinite save and reload function… William added inwardly.

But even without considering that, if the Moon Realm was really as powerful as Aiur said, and They only treated Currere as the final prize in Their game, why had the Void Sovereigns been beaten up so badly by the Holy Spirits’ incarnation in the Waning Moon ending?

“No, you still don’t understand…” Aiur said as if She had read William’s mind.

As She spoke, She placed the shriveled ironstone heart in Her hand into the deep hole in Her chest and closed Her eyes.

William suddenly felt an even stronger pressure than before.

In his ether domain, the spell that was waiting to be used almost showed signs of collapsing due to this pressure.

The people nearby reacted even more strongly.

The flock of ravens dancing around Blake fell into the sea like puppets that had their strings cut. Remides half-knelt on the ground, trying to gasp for breath, but could only let out mosquito-like breathing. The Tacma Church elder’s eyeballs and veins on his face bulged as if he would stop breathing at any moment.

This wasn’t just a mana decrease, it was already reaching the effect of spell interference.

The other party didn’t do anything, She just relied on Her aura to achieve this. The Aiur standing in front of William couldn’t be a mere projection.

Was it an incarnation or the main body?

William wasn’t sure. Although he had seen Steelheart Widow’s main body before, She had been in the background and he couldn’t sense Her true aura like he was now.

It was better to deal with the situation safely, as he didn’t have Judgment 3 that would have countered the other party. William believed that the Judgment equipment was a crucial part of his Judgment companions’ identities and therefore didn’t consider collecting them for his own use. He preferred having the Judges be the display of his collection.

This obsession with uniqueness also led him to not duplicate the Judgment equipment for himself through the console. He only used the console to duplicate items that would be damaged or lost due to the plot of the quests.

William commanded Blake to stop maintaining the coordinates through his soul voice and let Black Crow Gaze sink into Currere.

However…

Presiding Judge, the coordinates…

Blake threw up his hands at William. The coordinates that should have been black specks of light had turned into a hard, lead-colored ball.

The energy points that should have contained coordinate information had lost all activity and turned into a dead lead ball.

“Qi…” William muttered, then quickly began to whisper various status spells.

Based on his experience in resisting the Void Incarnation, he knew that even without the corresponding Judgment equipment, most spells would still affect the other party.

He cast a series of Repel, Paralysis, Slow, and Dizzy effects, hoping to pin the other party in a corner and prevent them from moving.

Silly mechanical BOSS…

As he chanted, William couldn’t help but complain inwardly.

“Are you panicking?” Aiur asked after placing the heart in Her chest.

Without waiting for a response, She went on, “But why panic? I told you, I’m not your enemy. My promise isn’t like Whisperer’s or Mocker’s—it’s genuine. Maybe you have a problem with the Moon Realm, but even so, you should believe me.”

Most beings in the Moon Realm saw promises as a part of their very essence.

That was why the magic learned from communicating with the Moon Realm became the basis for contract magic.

“I really want to trust you…” William, who was still casting buffs on himself, replied. As he spoke, he glanced at Blake and Remides beside him.

“If I were alone here today, I would be happy to keep talking to you.”

After all, he had the confidence that he could hold off the Void Sovereign’s main body for a while.

But he had two Judgment companions with him and they may be the last two Judgment companions in existence.

I left the Gray Throne and came to the Land of Despair and Hope to show my sincerity, and it cost me 30% of the Gray Domain being taken by Myriad Fates and Fury.

Aiur ignored him and even the first batch of suppression spells he had formed. Her voice echoed in the depths of his soul.

As the tremors of Her voice shook through him, William’s half-channeled spell developed dangerous cracks like a dilapidated building that had been in disrepair for years. It was as if it would collapse at any moment.

The Ironstone Pact is my sincerity, Aiur said, plucking the withered ironstone heart from the empty hole in Her chest.

She released the heart and it floated in front of William.

“There are some things I can’t tell you directly, but this may give you some inspiration. How much you ultimately understand depends on you,” Aiur said, not continuing.

William wasn’t in the mood to listen.

The heart floating in front of him, which Aiur called the Ironstone Pact, clearly didn’t appear in the game.

But he had seen it before, or rather, he had it in the Treasure Hall!

He had obtained it through the console back then. It was one of the plot items that the game developers ultimately didn’t include in the game. Players on the forum used it as proof that a huge DLC for Doomsday Watchers had been cut during development.

William remembered the item description—a semi-finished product with no description, just an empty shell.

Ironstone Pact: Unique, Plot Item, Non-tradeable, Non-discardable, …

The most important entry was Origin of the Moon.

William learned from playing the game that the other thing with the words “Origin of the Moon” was the Seed of Hope.