Hill of course understood that the Sons of the Earth were the most stubborn type.

It’s not that they’re all rigid old fossils who don’t know how to adapt, it’s that some things, even if they understand them and can see them clearly, they still don’t want to do.

Like Aesces, who actually understood a lot under Snow Cloud Peak’s constant nagging—when he felt that doing something was a betrayal of his allies, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Because Snow Cloud Peak is born aggressive, his starting point is often rather tough—he clearly believes that the best defense is offense.

So he might not be able to hit that point in Aesces’ heart, and instead just keeps telling him how to fight back more effectively.

That was why Hill told him directly that any defensive measures set up to protect himself were not wrong.

You don’t have to be the one to cheat people first, but you absolutely can’t be completely undefended.

If someone can’t even figure that much out, and even complains about you because of it, they’re not a real friend in the first place, so why should you care?

More importantly, if he actually triggered your defensive measures, how does he still have the face to complain about you?

The only reason Aesces hadn’t thought of that was because he was born strong.

While Hill’s path had been smooth, he still had to walk it carefully, step by cautious step.

But this kind of explanation was indeed something Aesces could understand.

The earth is highly tolerant, but it is definitely not something without a temper.

He no longer hesitated: "I understand. I’ll make proper preparations."

"Hm?" Hill looked at the Lily of the Valley that came snaking out of the Magic Tower, and the golden Bell it delivered to him.

"Mr. Hill." Snow Cloud Peak’s slightly nervous voice came from the other side, "Is this really the only way?"

"Let me think..." Hill blinked, pinched the little Bell, then turned his head to give Aesces a surprised look... it had already been sent over?

Aesces hopped once in front of him: "Ah, I suddenly figured something out.

For a friend who’s about to go on a long journey, I don’t have to be so strict."

Hill couldn’t help but laugh, his eyes curving into little Crescent Moons.

The overly gentle smile made the little black ball shift uncomfortably: "I’ll go do my own thing. Uh, Kelo’s already grown to 12.

Weird. Why hasn’t Asmodeus made a move yet?

He just keeps hammering at Gaia and somehow still hasn’t smashed her to death.

Tsk, only an idiot like Gaia would think a guy with a Battle Angel origin is that weak—so weak he can’t even pound her flat."

"As happy as I am to hear you say that." Hill reminded him mildly, "Gaia isn’t going to be completely wiped out this time. Her main body should still be in or near the Chaos Sea; she’s not going to die that cleanly.

Give her some time to recover and she’ll definitely crawl back out.

No one can say whether she’ll come after you again out of sheer unwillingness.

She was originally a Goddess of the Earth, after all—don’t underestimate her power."

"I know~" Aesces replied very straightforwardly, "but Asmodeus hasn’t gone all out. She really doesn’t seem to have noticed."

"If she could see through the Lord of Hell’s disguise, she wouldn’t have ended up where she is today." Hill smiled helplessly. "Besides, there’s a saying from the Undead Tribe you absolutely need to remember: ’The onlooker sees clearly, the one within is confused.’"

Aesces mulled over this line seriously for a while before answering, word by word: "I will remember it."

Watching the little black ball vanish into the wind, Hill loosened the hand gripping the golden Bell: "You still there?"

"Here! Here! Hill, did you find something out?"

It was rare to hear Snow Cloud Peak speak so cautiously and urgently. Hill’s fingers, supporting his cheek, even tapped along to the rhythm.

"If you don’t want to sacrifice people, you’ll have to bleed money. And you’ll have to invest a lot of time and effort as well—though that shouldn’t be much of a problem for you." Hill didn’t plan on keeping him in suspense any longer. "You still remember the Radiant Crystal, right?"

"Hm?" Snow Cloud Peak, clutching the Lily of the Valley Branch, blinked nervously. "Isn’t that... a specialty of Heavenly Mountain?"

"Any Positive Energy Plane will have it." Hill explained, "Tyr’s original home is that kind of Plane."

"Hm? Then would William’s Divine Kingdom have it?" Snow Cloud Peak practically pressed his face to the Golden Bell... the method Hill mentioned earlier was basically no method at all.

The male Priests in their Proud Sky Alliance weren’t few in number, but they absolutely couldn’t withstand that kind of drain.

And besides, who said men can just brute-force it?

Even if you scoured the entire Alliance, you’d be lucky to find ten or twenty thousand who could endure it.

But people like that are all weirdos on the level of Magic Sword and An Idler. Ask them to switch to Priest?

Even if the Undead don’t die, their lives are still worth money, okay?

"No." Hill said firmly. "Positive Energy usually belongs to native Planes and holy lands.

All those so-called good and righteous powers come with the Deities’ own agendas. Radiant Crystals born from that kind of place can be used for healing, but they can’t be used to build an Array that suppresses pure Force of Death.

Because what you’re facing is the purest Force of Death—even the Styx can’t directly control it, so only the purest Positive Energy can hold it down.

If you want to use Radiant Crystals, they have to be those most pristine pale-gold Crystals."

"Then... the 2,000-gold ones, or the 5,000-gold ones?" Snow Cloud Peak irritably raked his fingers through his hair... this was going to be a pain.

If William’s Divine Kingdom didn’t have them, they’d have to buy on the open market.

Toril had a Dimensional Gate connected to Heavenly Mountain, so they could indeed be bought there—but they were expensive.

Although Radiant Crystals could be used multiple times—you just had Priests recharge them once they were depleted—the biggest advantage of these Crystals was that they could convert various slightly-aspected positive energies into the purest Positive Energy.

But Snow Cloud Peak understood something even better: to build a huge Array that needed tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Priests to unleash its Light Energy, the number of Crystal Stones required would be enough to bankrupt Proud Sky Alliance on the spot.

If they were the 5,000 ones, there was no point even thinking about it.

The pressure could only be shifted onto each major family itself... Zhu Meili absolutely wouldn’t choose to go after the entire Proud Sky Alliance.

That was also why he couldn’t just dump all the Alliance funds into this at once.

Even though everyone knew there was a risk of being defeated one by one, the idea of "the first unlucky one definitely won’t be me" would inevitably be common.

Most people wouldn’t think that after Black and White Path, the next unlucky one might be Black Rose—but those families, especially the ones whose grudge with Zhu Meili wasn’t that deep, would definitely harbor some wishful thinking.

Some might even think Zhu Meili would just keep staring at Black and White Path and picking fights!

After all, the resentment between them really was tangled beyond belief.

But Mobi Chenxin isn’t an idiot. As soon as he heard that kind of talk, he’d naturally know what those people were thinking.

And how would Perfect Bald and the people of Black Rose feel about that?

Snow Cloud Peak would never give them the chance to say that kind of thing out loud.

As long as the Proud Sky Alliance was still under his Control, he wouldn’t let something that made his people feel betrayed happen to him.

The reason Snow Cloud Peak had so many flaws and still so many people who steadfastly followed him was that he had never voluntarily given up on any family—and he rarely directly abandoned members of other families either.

He would always try to save them first.

Even if this was just a game, he was still the one who never gave up.

"The 2,000 ones are fine."

Thankfully, Hill never let people down.