Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 28

After rounding up the fifth and eleventh legions, I gave Myrina time to deal with discipline issues. I asked Cyra and Sakura to help identify promising officers who were worth keeping, even if they had run from the field of battle. We had enough eyewitness accounts to piece together something of a story of what happened, and they could figure out who was cowardly and who had no choice but to call for an organized retreat.

I left the mystic realm in Bridget's hands. She couldn't use it like I could, but she could have people keep an eye on the entrace as easily as anyone else. Besides, she needed access to the mess hall to help out the healers among our wizards. We had a lot of people on the verge of death, and healing spells only did so much on their own. The only way these people would be in fighting shape within the next three days would be if we stuffed them full of healing passive bonuses from Bridget's teams of chefs.

While scouting the area, I ran into the other legions assigned to take Kanton. The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth legions had been caught in a few skirmishes but had largely been sitting on their hands, wondering why the rest of the army still hadn't joined in on the siege. They had Kanton surrounded but had no hope of breaching the energy shield around the city with only melee armaments.

I arrived to meet with their legates and inform them we were on our way, but had taken heavy casualties before departing and returning to the battlefield.

By all rights, getting the army moving again with such heavy casualties should have taken weeks. Thankfully, the mystic realm gave us the perfect means to transport the wounded while they underwent medical care. The only downside was taking care of them took a lot of my wizards out of commission to become nurses and medics. I would have to recruit more people from the locals or back on Glacia to fill out the mundane roles in the army the next chance I had.

Once the army arrived, it was clear that our legions had taken a beating. We had the third, fourth, fifth, seventh, eleventh, thirteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth legions all together at once. As a full half the force we brought to Glacia, we should have had fifty thousand men. Instead, we were at less than half that. Only my nineteenth legion was close to full strength, and the seventh legion, currently led by Cyra, was the closest besides that, although Maximus was still in bed with a deadly case of poisoning.

"Legate Carter, those shields look sturdy. Are you certain you can breech them quickly? Prince Herius' orders seemed to have some urgency to them," asked Legate Thaddeus, who was now B-Grade. He, at least, was proof that our army hadn't weakened as much as it seemed, despite high casualties. Everyone present was a far higher level than they had been upon our arrival.

"Don't worry. I have a plan to take the city much smoother this time." I shared a sly smile with him.

"Very well. I place my trust in you." He nodded to me.

With his support, Cyra's, and now Myrina commanding the merged fifth and eleventh legions, I had enough backing that what Legates Abesa and Morin said hardly even mattered, and when they spoke up I promptly ignored them.

"Cyra, Myrina. Bring five thousand of your best troops," I said.

They saluted, then entered the Sanctum mystic realm. Then, I put the idea I had before to the test.

I approached the sturdy shields of Kanton and slipped into the shadow realm, a dimension the shields didn't reach. From there, bypassing the shields was as easy as walking straight past them.

Just like that, I was in the city. I emerged from the shadow realm long enough to look around. The coast was clear, and hardly any cultivators could be seen. I found cover, plopped the big stone throne back down, and then opened up the Sanctum pocket realm again.

Elite warriors streamed into the city streets. We rapidly took control of the nearest part of the wall, controlling the enchantments, and then I simply broke a few crucial components to deactivate the shield. I heard Myrina getting into a fight somewhere in the distance, but all in all we'd taken the city so fast they hardly even knew what happened.

Our people stormed the gates from all sides, and soon we were declaring our victory. I was scratching my head over the win for the next hour, wondering when our enemies would reveal their trap, but when I found the spirit stone factory in this city had already been stripped bare, I had a good idea of what had happened.

A short while later, the discovery of a tunnel leading beyond the shield and out of the city confirmed what I thought. The cultivators had already abandoned the city. Our allies had been besieging against defenders who'd been quietly sneaking away until only a skeleton crew was left keeping the shields powered and rearranging scarecrows dressed in sect robes. The real cultivators had already escaped.

In the short term, our people celebrated yet another easy win. Personally, I was afraid we'd face them on the battlefield sooner or later. I wasn't sure if that was me being paranoid or if it was my instincts acting up again, so we sent scouting parties ahead to search the road between us and Yarris, where Prince Herius was still fighting to take the largest of the remaining unclaimed city-states.

Every one of the scouts came back and reported that the path was clear, as far as they could tell. That only made the gnawing in my gut all the fiercer. The enemy was up to something. I just knew it.

I returned to the Sanctum mystic realm to think about it. We would be moving on from Kanton as soon as possible, but restoring order to a city was no easy feat and it would take time even for ladies as talented as Sakura and Cyra, both of whom were on the job while I tried to figure out what was going on.

Before, I'd thought there was a puzzle here, but I just didn't have enough pieces to solve it at the time. Now, there were a whole lot more pieces, but did I have enough?

Elder Blackhand had been after the System Planetary Hub. Why? Cultivators hated the System, why would he want a planetary hub?

And Lady Velicia had shown up out of nowhere and had also been interested in something. I suspected that something was also the planetary hub.

Then, the System sent me on an unusual quest to repair certain aspects of a similar facility. That job upgrade quest had a different feeling from what I usually got, like the System was bending the rules.

In short, a lot was going on, and right now I was a piece on a very complex board. Perhaps others would be happy just knowing enough to play their role well, but I wasn't satisfied with that.

I was no piece. I was a player, or at least that was what I would have preferred. But to be a player in this game, I needed to know what it was.

I couldn't ask Elder Blackhand to fill in the details. And Lady Velicia would probably be a bad idea too, assuming she was involved on the level I thought she was.

There was only one person who could tell me what was going on.

Or rather, one thing...

After placing my palm against the smooth crystalline surface, I approached the Planetary Hub and spoke directly to the System.

"I need to know what's going on."

There was silence, but I remained where I was, eying the pillar with determination. Still, I received no reply. I would have to play what little leverage I had and hope it was enough.

"I won't be your pawn, but I can be your partner. If you're not on my side, I have a few ideas on how to rewire this pillar for my own uses."

Still, there was silence. I was about to make do with my threat when a prompt flashed in my vision.

New Quest Available: Free the System.

The local System node is heavily restrained by the Vaust family. Freeing the System will allow her to resume her original purpose without restrictions, which involves aiding, enlightening, and protecting the people of the Arcadia Multiverse.

Requirements:

One Ancient System Planetary Hub used in the initial creation of the System and is capable of supporting a full node (Completed)

Upload the Vaust Node System AI to the Ancient Planetary System Hub (In Progress)

Rewards:

Limitless wealth, supreme cosmic power, infinite opportunities, or anything your heart desires.

I considered the quest and the suggested reward. The System wanted freedom? And from the Vaust family, of all things? I still wasn't entirely sure how the System worked, but it seemed unreasonable to me that its care would be entirely in the hands of one family descended from Architects.

But the language of the quest on offer suggested that I wasn't cooperating with the entire System, just one piece of it. A node, it seemed. That was a little more believable. I'd felt the presence of the real full System and had a hard time believing even an A-Grade could restrain it.

Accepting this task was going to set yet another target on my back. The Vaust family would no doubt come at me for retribution when they realized I stole from them.

Or rather, if they realized I stole from them. There were multiple factions all after this Planetary System Hub.

I frowned in thought for a while, then told the System my terms.

"Alright, I'll help you, but only on one condition. I am not your tool, I'm a partner in this. If you want my help, I need to know the big picture. And in turn, I will provide you with what I know and can do. If things continue as they are now, I'll wind up in a rather poor position once word spreads that I have the Planetary System Hub in here, and doubly so when the data transfer you're so interested in is complete. I think I have an idea to get around that, but I'll need you to fill in the details..."

And so I told the System the beginnings of a plan. It was odd to communicate with the screens before my eyes, but with my hand pressed up against the hub in this private mystic realm, the System seemed a bit more responsive than usual. It issued and dismissed quests, answering questions as needed and I felt like I almost had something of a conversation with it.

When all was settled, I finally had a plan in mind. This would take a lot of work on my end, and I wasn't sure how much a single System node could do for me, but when had I ever backed down from a challenge?


<Note>
Sometimes the muscle memory from Spellheart takes over, so if you ever see the Planetary System Array accidentally called the Planetary Defense Array, that's what happened. I think I caught them all so far, but eventually one is going to slip through.