The hundred-year war came with time. Michael, through his diligence and a huge amount of resources, managed to reach the peak-emperor-realm and peak-solid-soul-realm. This progress speed was nothing short of legendary.

After his 10 month comprehension of laws, he had reached a big bottleneck in law comprehension. His body cultivation had reached the stage where he would have to ignite his vital force. His soul had also reached the stage just before sublimation of his cultivation. All in all, he had reached huge bottlenecks in the cultivation of body, soul and laws. He had not made any progress in his martial arts or soul skills either - except for his disorientation technique and a few others.

Michael had sparred with many people present in the tower in the past two years. Eventually, he managed to integrate all his powerful skills: Flowing River Art, Close Combat Soul Art, Death Energy, All Seeing Eyes, Disorientation Technique and Illusion Combat Techniques together.

While he had not yet perfected his fighting style, it was not far off. Now, whenever Michael fought, it was a very terrifying experience for the opponent. Michael's reactions were extremely swift, his every move carrying terrifying amounts of soul and physical power. Adding to that, it was extremely hard to react to his moves due to the illusions surrounding him and the impact of disorientation technique.

Michael's body was comparable to late-saint-realm experts in power. Thus, he was fully capable of dealing with late saints on his own. Even if a late-saint had a soul guard, Michael could subdue them one on one. Thus, it was not wrong to say that he had reached the fort guardian level. The hundred-year war prohibited the participation of perfect-realm experts or higher. Therefore, Michael could easily be considered the top dog among the available warriors.

Leonor Rageberg, Michael's brother, had reached the mid-saint-realm extremely fast due to the help of purification pills. With the remaining time, he had managed to reach the late-saint-realm as well. Initially, he had been interested in joining the hundred-year war as well. But, Michael suggested to him that he should try joining the devil slayer division.

The reason for that was simple. Michael was aware of how much danger there would be when the devils came. In the initial few years, the power of devil armies would not be too much. Most of the devils would have emperor-realm strength. The squad-leaders were comparable to saints. Perfect-realm or higher were few and they did not take part in the war initially as they were supposed to handle their base. Thus, in the beginning, the devils had been a very subdued power. This was also the reason that the inhabitants of Aterna had misjudged their threat. It was only later that the powerful experts had made their entries.

With the time given, it was very likely that Leonor would reach the perfect-realm by that time. He would be at the commander position and would have the strength to protect himself. Thus, it would be much safer. Right now, in the upcoming war, there was a much higher chance of dying. But this had all been based on Michael's initial guess of Leonor's power. As Leonor improved rapidly, even the hundred-year war was not likely to be threatening.

Both Collins and Sitara reached the peak-saint-realm and were at the peak of their influence. The Rageberg territory was quite far from the border and it was unlikely that the war would reach them. As nobles and due to Michael's connections with Karslon, it was quite certain that they would not be drafted to serve the army.

The combined base of the family alliance had developed to the utmost. The base had training facility for shadow-eyes and many of Rageberg family's troops. Mubal had taken command and this had created a formidable power. Adding the power of illusion array, taking down this base would probably require another expedition with many immortals involved. Tresline had remained by Mubal's side. Tresline too had started to cultivate for igniting her vitality. It was expected that she would reach the saint-realm in the next five years. Leonor was off to the training facility of the Devil Slayers. It was located deep in the werebeast empire and was directly under the jurisdiction of the tower. Thus, there was no possible way for any of Michael's family to be hurt in this war. This was what he firmly believed. To achieve this, Michael had done everything in his power.

But fate usually has the means of making fools out of people! How the war unfolds remained yet to be seen.

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Ashley had been trying several ways to truly escape the old ancestor's clutches. And eventually, she managed to find just the way!

For her, escaping was usually impossible due to being surrounded by many people who were loyal to Ragnar. In the beginning, she was not even interested in running away. After all, she was the princess of elves. If she was to run away, she would end up giving a boon. But recently, she could hardly suppress her own cultivation and due to Rangar's extravagance, she reached the late-emperor-realm. Ashley also knew what was planned for her if she broke through to the saint-realm. Thus, as the time for her doom approached, she decided to act.

She nominated herself for the upcoming hundred-year war and also gave her name in the same group as Michael and Kandrif! There was a very straightforward plan behind all this. Both Kandrif and Michael were the main targets of the forces of the dark empire. In the battles, both would face innumerable dangers. There, she would have the greatest chance to escape from Ragnar's guards. Also, the squadron that Michael and Kandrif became part of would naturally have a limited number and so the number of guards Ragnar could assign to her would be lower as well. After all, the beast emperor would never leave his successor's life to elven guards. This was naturally going to cause tension in the group and then there would be a good chance of infighting as well.

What Ashley wanted was chaos. She was not yet clear on how she would escape, it was quite clear that the greater the chaos in the battlefield, the greater her chances would be.

Ashley had given no indication to anyone about what she was going to do. She had just given her name to the office one day. The different people of the tower did not even take note of it. After all, everyone had seen Michael and Ashley together in gardens, library or other places. Only the higher-ups noticed the political situation. But the light tower officer who finally signed the document of participation did not give a fuck about racial politics. Thus, without Ragnar or his spies knowing anything, Ashley had been assigned the same squadron!

Ragnar was so angry that he barged into the tower to change the assignment. But, how could the light tower be pushed around? Ultimately, Ragnar had to yield. Fuming, he went to the werebeast kingdom to talk with the beast-emperor.

After several negotiations and paying an enormous amount of resources, he was allowed to send five personal guards at peak-saint-realm to protect Ashley. Ragnar was naturally worried about her. After all, her power was not all that great and adding the threat due to the presence of Michael and Kandrif, she would die quite fast. Ragnar also had some inkling that Ashley was doing all this for a chance to escape. But he was not too worried. With 5 powerful guards, she would have to come back to him after the war. Then, he would take her.

Ashley, on the other hand, was much more happy and confident. As both Ashley and Ragnar made their plans, it would only be revealed with the time that who would come on top.

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Kandrif was waiting - waiting eagerly for a chance to prove himself in the war. Kandrif had been backed by both his father and uncle as the beast-prince. But, there were several that wanted his position. His standing was not as solid as others saw from the outside. Most importantly, people still followed and obeyed him because of the presence of two immortal-experts at his back. There was no one who followed him due to his own deeds.

He was quite jealous of Michael as he had Ramsus who was fully devoted to him. Ramsus was Michael's follower and not his family's. Thus, Michael had already taken his steps in the direction of being a leader but Kandrif with all his intelligence and schemes had yet to get a loyal follower.

But this was only due to the fact that he had not received the opportunity to prove himself. Once he managed to get merits on the battlefield, many experts would swear their allegiance to him.

While these different people were thinking of different schemes and plots, fate was never bound by the will of men. It would only be revealed in the war how successful they would be.