Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 21

I soon turned my attention back to our mission. We needed to finish securing the outlying farmland, and the sooner we did it, the better.

Following a routine would have made me easier to ambush, so instead, I joined up with a few of the auxiliary bands and traveled with them. For about an hour, I would devote my full B-Grade power to helping them scour the land for any hidden cultivators. Any group I was with caught ten times the number of enemies they would have without me. I switched from group to group frequently, never staying anywhere long enough to track. In just a few days, we’d cleared all the areas the prince highlighted for us. Now, it was just a matter of patrolling them and ensuring they remained clear.

I spent a day getting some more enchantment work done and examining the Black Beast Sect elder core I’d swiped. The more I looked at it, the more interested I was in these cultivators path to power. Could I implant this elder’s core into myself, instantly making myself a B-Grade cultivator?

That seemed almost like cheating, and I figured it was too good to be true. I looked into the possibility, and sure enough, there were technical difficulties that rendered it infeasible, mostly because a lot of the System’s own tether points in my soul were in the way.

A riskier, more desperate aethersmith might have tried to make something work anyway, but not me, and not here while I was on a foreign battlefield far from home. I reinforced the lattice holding the cultivator core together, though it had deteriorated a little even in storage. I wasn’t too worried though, since I had a hunch more would fall into my lap before this campaign was over.

I bounced between training up my new enchanters, who were coming along nicely, and talking to the construction crew still trapped in my mystic realm. I was still using the place as a workshop, but the pay rate to keep these guys quiet was really getting absurd.

I realized I couldn’t keep dragging things out forever, and the prince had once again taken off before setting the teleportation array back to Glacia. The pocket realm really would be useful for my legion, and it was more than operational at this point.

Rather than peddle a lie any longer, I decided it was better to come clean and accept responsibility.

“We’re... What!?” the construction crew manager stared at me with horror and anger on his face.

“You’ve been accidentally brought along to the warzone, yes. The legion is here, and pretty soon, they’re going to start occupying the barracks and workshop. We need the space.”

“We didn’t sign up to be brought to war, lad!” the crew manager waved a hand at me. A few of his people looked equally angry.

“I know, I know. But I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to send you home. Look, you can keep your current pay rate as hazard pay, and you do not need to leave the mystic realm. You guys can keep building this place out, as usual, except at much higher rates.”

“Where are we supposed to live?” the crew manager asked, arms crossed.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Build some houses nearby. Build some shops too. Maybe some of my people will want custom structures built, and I know they’ve got coin to spend.”

“You’ll get us home as soon as possible?” the crew manager asked.

I bowed my head. “You have my word. I’m really sorry you all ended up in a warzone, and I promise to make things right.”

“Fine... I guess the hazard pay rate is pretty good,” the crew manager grumbled, but shook my hand in agreement.

With the little misunderstanding cleared up, we set aside some room for civilian construction. After that, I started letting my enchanters through where they could work with proper benches and tools. I also took a brief sweep through my fancy wizard’s tower, which was way larger than it needed to be. The bottom of the tower had a locked chamber that could be filled with loot, and above that was a workshop, a study, and a very large bedroom. No doubt my ladies would appreciate that.

Across from us was a mess hall with an extra large kitchen, which Bridget and her private crew of army chefs would appreciate greatly. I was pretty sure the real beds would also be a winner with the average soldier in my legion. If I’d given them these quarters back in Glacia, they probably wouldn’t have been impressed, but a few weeks of tents and improvised shelters in a ruined city had lowered their expectations enough to appreciate something as simple as a sturdy roof and a bed.

***

Before I even finished introducing the bulk of my army to the pocket realm, news came from the front lines later that day. Prince Herius was meeting with heavy resistance as he assaulted Yarris with his ten thousand elite troops. The Black Beast Sect was protecting the city with great determination and were emptying their defenses elsewhere.

“The assault on the outlying towns has gone well, and most are occupied by our legions. We have new orders to use the opportunity the prince provides us to attack Kanton and Tinsburg, the two remaining cities under Black Beast Sect control,” Maximus said.

The legates’ reactions were mixed. Abesa scowled, Morin looked pale, Maximus seemed stoic and accepting, and I frowned pensively.

“He doesn’t want us to reinforce him? I’m certain my auxiliaries could turn the tide in whatever battle he’s caught up in. It sounds like he’s stuck besieging walls, which my people are perfect for.”

Maximus shrugged. “These are our orders. Read them yourself. We are to leave the city in Lady Velicia’s hands with a skeleton crew to reinforce her guards. Then, the four of us take our combined eighteen thousand men and march on Tinsburg.”

I grimaced. If Prince Herius had been in the room, or at least in party chat range, I would have advised against this plan. He might think he had the Black Beast Sect on the ropes, but it very well might be a feint to lure us in. But there was no arguing with a scroll in the table carrying the prince’s official seal.

So we made plans to set off the very next day.

My legion was up and ready to move within the hour, largely thanks to the enormous number of dimensional storage items I’d made for my legion. Every unit had at least one bag of holding at their disposal, and all my officers had some sort of personal storage. The other legions seemed exceedingly envious of our light load as we set our heels on the dusty road.

Thankfully, the march went far smoother this time. A few weeks of fighting and the passive experience of being on crusade meant even the third and thirteenth legions were hardening. The F-Grades we’d started with were almost unrecognizable, partly because the cultivators had left tailors’ and cobbler shops untouched during their reign of terror. Looting boots and clean shirts probably wasn’t anyone’s idea of war booty, but it was very valuable to us here and now.

The F-Grades were now E-Grades, and some of the E-Grades were already D-Grades. My legion had made similar progress, and some of our D-Grades were rapidly closing in on C-Grade. I could see now why people like Prince Herius went on crusade. He would leave with an army of sheep and return with wolves. A hundred thousand low-leveled people weren’t much use back home, but a victorious crusading army might bright with it enough high-leveled warriors to cause a stir even on a world as established as Glacia, especially if the prince himself reached A-Grade.

Of course, all that required was we return home without dying, which was easier said than done for the average legionnaire, especially if they’d been unlucky enough to join up with an army like the third or thirteenth legion. I felt bad for those soldiers, but so long as Legates Abesa and Morin were in charge of them, I had little jurisdiction to help.

“There is a town up ahead that was never reclaimed. We should liberate it so it can’t be used as a base of operations against us while besieging Tinsburg,” Legate Maximus suggested.

“Agreed,” I replied.

“The third and thirteenth legions should go first. Your troops need the most seasoning,” Maximus said.

I also agreed with that, though if I spoke such words aloud,, I knew they wouldn’t help the cause. Abesa and Morin still didn’t like me.

I remained mostly silent as the three Glacian Legates argued.

“Fine, you two can stay near my men, and if there are any B-Grades, either Legate Carter or I will handle them. You only need to order your legions into battle,” Maximus sighed.

“Good. The troops need more seasoning, anyway. I wouldn’t want to rob them of this valuable experience,” Legate Morin huffed as he straightened his uniform.

I shook my head. He planned on hiding in the back while his men did all the fighting. While that might have been the way to lead back on Earth before there were levels and grades, nowadays, with the System in place, good commanders usually lead from the front. I knew from experience that Prince Herius used himself like a mobile strike force, eliminating the toughest opponents that were giving even his elite warriors trouble.

We formed outside the town. It was a relatively small cluster of buildings, and it seemed more like a village to me. The gates were shut, though, and even from here, we could see black uniformed disciples in town.

Prince Herius would have wanted us to go up and demand their surrender, and Myrina volunteered for the job.

“Hey! Black Beast Sect losers! Open up the gates, or we’re going to kick your asses and open them up anyway!” Myrina yelled at the walls.

Naturally, the only response was a flurry of arrows, which Myrina easily dodged or blocked. I suspected she’d only asked for the chance to yell at the walls to get her Tempo of Battle passive skill active a little earlier. The longer a fight went on, the stronger she became, so an hours-long battle to take a city was right up her alley.

This was no city, but it was a good warm-up. It took us three hours to take the town, but only because we left the bulk of the fighting to the third and thirteenth legions. By the time we took Tinsburg, they might finally be up to the level of strength they were supposed to have when we embarked on this crusade.

The rest of the day saw us coaxing scared civilians out of their homes. Once again, there was a spirit stone farm in town, which I promptly dismantled. It was on a much smaller scale than the one in Mundwise, but there was still quite a large collection of spirit stones there. At that point, we began setting up a base of operations within the town.

The day turned to night, and we saw action sooner than expected. Our arrival on the outskirts of Tinsburg didn’t go unnoticed.

We were taken by surprise in the middle of the night. It was the third legion’s job to keep watch, but I wasn’t surprised to find the cultivators had gotten past them, even with all the practice they’d had over the last few weeks. Thankfully, plenty of my own people were well-versed in wards, and while the cultivators had successfully deactivated them, just deactivating them was enough to set off a few alarms for us. As a result, I had enough time to roll out from between Bridget and Myrina and dress for battle.

“Looks like we’re about to see some action,” I said, grabbing someone’s foot and giving it a jiggle. The tangle of limbs that was my bed stirred, and soon we were all armed and ready for a fight.

The alarm slowly spread through our legion as people realized the wards had been triggered. Unfortunately, it was already too late for the third legion though. Our enemies had them blinded and deafened in the hopes that they could maintain their element of surprise. Going quiet and stealthy as they were slowed them down, so the best way to help the third legion at the moment was to pretend we hadn’t noticed the ambush yet.

Once the enemy knew they’d lost the element of surprise, they’d be much quicker to slaughter the surviving members of the third legion. Every moment we played dumb was another moment we could use to our advantage.

Muffled cries rang through the night as third legion sentries were taken by surprise. I took to the shadowrealm and canned the town for powerful cultivators. There were four elders on their way here, all B-Grade. I wasn’t scared though. I’d killed four elders single-handed already, and these seemed only comparable in strength. Cyra could take one on her own, as could Legate Maximus. That meant I only needed to deal with two this time.

“No fair! I want to kill a B-Grade too!” Myrina protested.

I pinched her cheek. “Not until you grow up to be a big, strong B-Grade like me and your big sister.”

Myrina pouted, and truthfully I was reasonably sure she could take out one of the B-Grades on her own, especially if Bridget and Sakura backed her up. Doubly so if she brought along a dozen wizards from the legion.

But why take risks when we didn’t have to? I could handle two of these guys just fine.

“Go slaughter some C-Grades on the walls. Maybe then you’ll gain enough levels to reach B-Grade,” I suggested.

Myrina licked her lips and smiled, and soon was off to the walls. Bridget and Sakura remained behind and focused on rallying additional troops to go after her as support.

I knew the battle would have started in full when Myrina arrived on the walls, and our cover would be blown. Cyra nodded in my direction and took off without a word toward her B-Grade target.

“I’ll make sure Maximus knows about the other one. Go handle your two,” Sakura said.

I gave them both a kiss for luck, then took flight. I soon found two B-Grades close together. They turned out to be a man and a woman sticking close together. Both looked to be in their fifties, but given they were B-Grade I could probably add a few zeroes to that estimate.

I landed in something halfway between a hail of fire and a barrage of spells, making full use of the element of surprise. There were a few enemy C-Grade cultivators near the pair I was targeting, and my initial volley either killed them outright or took them out of the fighting for good.

“Argh! The target found us first!” grunted the man of the two B-Grade cultivators.

“Damn it! They didn’t mention he had a dragon bloodline!” the woman cursed.

I chuckled to myself, even as I continued to rain down a hail of fire on my enemies below. They weren’t even half right. My bloodline had nothing to do with dragons at all. However, considering I was currently suspended in the air on ethereal dragon wings and breathing fire down on them, it was an understandable mistake.

I had hoped one of them would make a shield to defend themselves, which I could then crack with a Void Cannon. Alas, cultivators weren’t nearly as fond of barrier spells as magic users from the Arcadia Multiverse, and they often had an almost nonsensical way of redirecting mana through martial arts.

The man of the pair swept his hand aside in wide-flowing motions, and my fire parted before him. He gathered it around himself and condensed it into a sphere of even more potent flame, which he flung right back at me.

I dodged the attack, but before I could return the favor with a Sunlight Spear, the woman had a bolt of lightning for me.

We clashed several times quickly, and I found myself surprisingly countered. This pair wasn’t necessarily better than the four elders I’d fought before, but they were much more coordinated. The other four I’d taken apart one at a time, but these two covered one another’s moments of weakness perfectly and never gave me a real opportunity to take out either of them.

The back-and-forth clashes took nearly three minutes, which was ages in a battle. Our clash had truly ruined their element of surprise for the attacking cultivators, as it was clearly visible across the town, and the legion was now fully armed and ready for battle. To my embarrassment, I could tell Cyra was done defeating her one elder while I was still busy with these two. I probably could have ended things quicker with this pair if I used Mania, but I wanted to capture at least one of this pair alive so I could find out more about the mysterious Elder Blackhand. Plus, I wanted a good read on the effects of my signature skill without Mania muddying my head.

Two other B-Grade presences were clashing on the other side of the city, which were probably Legate Maximus and the other B-Grade I sensed was coming. Before Cyra could come for me, I sent a message over the radio.

“Go help Legate Maximus. I have these two under control.”

The two elders I was fighting wore dark expressions at that.

“Think so little of us that you don’t need help, do you?” the man of the pair spat.

“Your ambush has already failed. Why haven’t the two of you run away yet? Just look at the walls and you can see my people winning decisively.”

I nodded to the walls behind the two of us, which were already free of cultivators. Most of the credit for that had to go to Myrina. Even now, she was running along the length of the wall, hacking apart anybody in a black robe on her quest to reach B-Grade as soon as possible.

“Someone has to kill you. Why not us?” the cultivator man asked. Fire twirled around him in the shape of several swords, but otherwise, he held off on attacking me. I held off as well. I’d be able to replenish Mage Armor and Elemental Phalanx soon.

“I think it far more likely I’ll kill you. How about you answer a few questions, and I’ll let one of you live? I’ll even let the you choose who.” I smiled a bit like Myrina occasionally did and put all my new charisma skills to the test. What I was doing now was a combination of Diplomat’s Charm, Conversion, and my passive Commanding Aura.

I was pretty sure I’d gotten a good read on this pair. I wasn’t sure if they were siblings or lovers, but it was clear each cared for the other deeply. Neither would allow the other to die, but both would want the other to live. My instincts told me that if I offered them both the chance to get away, they would have stood in solidarity and fought to the death together. This was the only way I could drive a wedge between two people with such a tight bond.

“Let her go, and I’ll answer your questions,” the man said.

“No!” the woman cried. “Kill me and let him go.”

I chuckled as the pair of them fell into my trap.

“Do you know of an Elder Blackhand? Who are they, and what grudge do they have with me?” I asked.

The pair were silent, glancing at one another. I had to break their silence myself.

“Whoever answers first gets to die.”

Both struggled to gush out an answer quicker than the other.

“He’s a patriarch from a powerful sub-sect and one of the Black Beast Sect’s oldest families. He wields some truly ancient powers and is convinced the key to unlocking more of them lies somewhere on this planet,” the man gushed out.

“He’s what you’d call a high B-Grade, and he’s the leader of our local forces. He doesn’t actually care about the spirit stone operations, though. They’re just to satisfy the elders while he works on something big. I don’t know what,” the woman said.

The two glared at one another as they struggled to spill their guts faster to save the other. Parsing both conversations together was easy enough for a mind as enhanced as mine, though. I soon had a picture of this Elder Blackhand who apparently wanted me dead.

He was something of a treasure hunter, and his sense of treasure had led him to Ladwick. There, he’d recruited a small army of cultivators to pillage the place while he looked for the grand prize with enough urgency that I suspected he wasn’t the only one looking for it.

He’d singled me out in particular. Ideally, he wanted me captured, which made me suspect he needed something only I could provide.

Aethersmithing came to mind since I hadn’t hidden my capabilities on this campaign. He later changed his orders to bring me to him alive or dead. Perhaps just denying my capabilities to Prince Herius’ force would be sufficient for him?

Maybe he thought Prince Herius was here for the same prize? From all I’d seen, Prince Herius was really here to gain levels and save people, and there was nothing more to it. Maybe cultivators just assumed everyone had as many schemes as they did.

But what was valuable enough that a high-ranking elder of the Black Beast Sect would keep an army on this world far longer than necessary? Something precious enough that he thought an entire army was sent here to snatch it first?

I wasn’t sure, but I was curious enough that maybe I ought to take a look myself.


<Note>

Originally, I wanted Carter to keep silencing the construction workers with higher and higher pay to stop asking questions until the campaign was over. Eventually though, I just couldn't help but feel like Carter wouldn't chicken out like that and would eventually just man up and tell them the truth. So that's what happened here.

But now we have more news on Elder Blackhand, and he will lead into what I think will be the conclusion of this act of the crusade, after which comes a trip back to Earth.

(Side note: did any of you guys ever read Matt Hiebert's Blackhand fantasy standalone novel? I read it years ago and it was one of the weirdest epic fantasy books I'd ever read at the time. Good epic fantasy / becoming a god story right up until the crazy witch rips the MC's testicles off. I feel like if the author had just rewritten the ending the book would have been pretty good.)