Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 11
Morgan nodded and proceeded to give her his assessment. By the time he finished, the battle was well and truly over, and Gilderon and Sarah had come over to join them.
“This isn’t good,” Elyssa said, chewing on her bottom lip. “The World Beasts are moving much quicker than anticipated, and if the destruction is truly as great as you say, the parts of Faeland they’ve already destroyed will be unlivable once they’re gone.”
Once again, Morgan resisted the urge to tell her the truth. Faeland was pretty much done for. Unless the World Beasts stopped in their tracks, they would continue to rampage, sinking the continent into the ocean with their rage.
“Thanks for getting this information to me so quickly,” Elyssa said, giving herself a shake. “I’ll gather my commanders and prepare to break camp. We’ll also have to send word to the civilians to increase their marching speed. We can’t let them get caught up in this. Are you able to travel? If so, I would like you to go join Katherine immediately. She’s sent me some troubling reports, ones that I cannot say where we might be overheard.”
Morgan opened his mouth to give her an answer when Sarah cut in.
“No,” she said flatly. “Morgan was injured in our battle with Strangler. He’s going to take a few hours to rest and recover. Then we’ll go meet up with Katherine.”
“You fought Strangler?” Elyssa exclaimed.
Morgan had conveniently left that bit out of his report. After all, they weren’t supposed to fight the World Beasts, just report on their movements.
“More of a skirmish, really,” Morgan said with a shrug.
“We exchanged a few blows,” Sarah said. “Enough to see how powerful that monster really is.”
“And?” Elyssa asked. “How did it go?”
Morgan let out a sigh at that and shook his head.
“We lost.”
15
“Stop fidgeting and let me see,” Sarah said, smacking his hands away so she could get a better look at the series of burn marks lining his chest and shoulders.
“It’s fine,” he insisted, trying to squirm away. “They’re already healing.”
“Stop that,” Sarah said, locking him in place with a glare. “You’re going to let me take care of you, and that’s final.”
The two of them were sitting in a stone tent Morgan had conjured on the outskirts of the military camp. The interior wasn’t exactly plush, but it definitely helped that he had his Rift skill, which allowed him to keep things in small pocket dimensions.
Most of the furniture in this small building, like the two chairs and large bedframe, were made of stone. But Morgan had pulled softer travel mattresses and cushions with him, which made them quite comfortable.
Right now, he was sitting on the edge of said bed, with Sarah poking and prodding at his various wounds. What he’d said was true. They were healing, though slower than he’d expected. The pain was receding, though it was still very much there, and while he was a bit annoyed that Sarah was being so fussy, another part of him glowed with warmth and happiness.
When was the last time someone had fussed over him this way? When was the last time someone had cared enough to tell him that he wasn’t ready to go charging back into battle?
Had he been alone, he’d probably have gone running off to join Katherine without a second thought. With Sarah here, he’d taken some time to fully recover at her request.
“Fine,” Morgan said, dropping his arms and leaning back. “I give up. You win.”
Sarah let out a huff, but he could see a small smile curling her lips as she ran her fingers over the wounds. Her touch was light and a cooling sensation followed in its wake, soothing the burning wounds. It only took about five minutes before the pain was almost nonexistent, and Sarah sat back with a satisfied smile.
“You can thank me by making a bathtub,” she said before he could say anything.
Morgan grinned as a tub rose from the ground in the corner of the stone tent. Sarah extended an arm, a stream of water flowing from her outstretched fingers and filling the tub in less than a minute.
“Mind heating it for me?” she asked, getting up and starting to strip out of her armor.
“And here I thought we were going to be losing luxuries once we left Pinnaclefall castle,” Morgan joked.
After their bath – Sarah had insisted he join her – the two of them lay in the makeshift bed, staring up at the slanted stone ceiling. Although he wasn’t actually tired, it was nice to relax, even with the tremors running through the ground and the overwhelming feeling of power drawing nearer by the hour.
Sarah shifted, snuggling closer to him, and started tracing lines across his chest with her fingers.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
She could tell when he was tense.
“It’s Grace,” Morgan replied. “She’s only been gone about two days, but I can’t stop worrying about her.”
“Your drake Lumia is going to get her, and she’s going along with Shul, one of the strongest Supers you know. Yes, she’s gone right now, but she’s a strong girl. She won’t break easily.”
“But she’s still so young,” Morgan said, thinking of his protégée.
“She’s seen battle before,” Sarah answered, “and has dealt with plenty of hardship. Grace will survive this, and so will we. Now relax, try and get some rest. We’re going to have to leave and rejoin the battle in just a few hours.”
Morgan let out another sigh but nodded and closed his eyes. He couldn’t fall asleep, though. While he could feel Sarah breathing evenly and her body relax, he remained restless. He tried to fall asleep for well over an hour before giving up and opening his eyes. He stayed where he was, as he didn’t want to wake Sarah, and pulled up his status to see how much more energy he’d gained by butchering the weakling cultists.
Name: Morgan
Title: King of Eternity
Pinnacle Supermage: Rank - 80
Energy to Next Rank - 2,042,069/750,000,000
Ability - Downfall
RP - 16,500/16,500 (Regen - 156.0 per second)
Strength - 1,750
Agility - 2,100
Constitution - 1,710
Intelligence - 1,650
Wisdom - 1,560
Traits - Eternal Soul, Perfect Aura Control, Devourer, King’s Might
Skills - Gravity Release, Bestial Might, Starforge, Earth Mastery, Expanse, Rift
Superior - Infernal Star, Light Star, Meteoric Downfall, Continental Collapse, Soulstream
Ultimate - Eternity Beam, Sunscorch
Another eight-hundred-thousand energy, just from killing some cultists who couldn’t even defend themselves. He might have felt bad, if not for the fact that they’d tried to ambush seemingly helpless troops. The cultists were a plague that needed to be wiped out, but the others…He wasn’t so sure about them.
He was glad Sarah was asleep, as he didn’t want to drag her into his own worries and self-doubt. War was a truly ugly thing, and he knew that before this was all over, thousands upon thousands more would lose their lives.
***
Shedra stood before the altar, the blood so deep that it sloshed around his ankles. Around him lay the corpses of five thousand, their throats slashed open in honor of the World Beast Strangler. Cultists, thousands upon thousands of them, stood around the open courtyard, a place that had once been so full of vibrancy and life, but was now filled with mossy gray stone and the corpses of the dead.
“Today,” Shedra said, his voice echoing in the early morning air. “We honor our pledge to the World Beast. She demanded a sacrifice, one-thousand of each race, to be killed in her honor once every month. She has given us all her power, and in exchange, we give her our loyalty!
“The heathens and false rulers gather to attack us, even as we raid their camps and try to slow their advances. Our master has given us great strength, and here we will stay to gather and hone it. The trolls will hold the Brutal Bayou, along with thousands of our brothers and sisters.
“They are many, but we are stronger! We serve a god, the one true ruler of Faeland, Strangler!”
Shedra spread his arms wide, displaying the twining serpent tattoo, as the cultists began working themselves into a frenzy, yelling, cheering, and spraying entire puddles of blood into the air.
Shedra remained as he was for several minutes before leaving, allowing the cultists to keep cheering and screaming. A shimmering portal opened before him, tinged green around the edges, and when he stepped through, found himself in the master suite of the palace in Arcane City, the capital of his kingdom.
“Someone fetch me a bucket of water,” he yelled as soon as the portal closed. “I need this filth washed off my feet!”
Servants, who’d been patiently awaiting his return, scurried forward with small tubs and washcloths, setting to work as he collapsed into an oversized chair made for his new bulk.
“Were you successful in your mission, your highness?”
Shedra looked up to see his new second-in-command, Luriel, as she entered the room.
“Well, I’m not dead,” Shedra said, examining his blunted claws. “And those nutty fanatics are happier than ever. So, yes, I would assume it all went well.”
Contrary to his speech, Shedra did not believe Strangler was a god, nor did he have any desire to serve her or hand the continent over once this war was won. However, to gain the power he’d needed to control Tork’s Supermage ability, he needed to strike a bargain with the serpent.
He was already working on ways to get rid of the World Beast once this was all over. He’d planted explosives, newly discovered mana bombs, all over Aster, where the greatest concentration of cultists was located. When they knew victory was theirs, he would blow that entire desolate city off the face of the continent. There would be nothing left but a smoking crater.
“Very good, your majesty,” Luriel said, bowing once again.
Shedra noticed a folder clutched under her arm and waved her on.
“What do we know of the enemy’s movements?”
Luriel nodded, then pulled the folder out, opening it and starting to remove small sheets of paper.
“The main force seems to be located several miles outside the elven capital. We believe that they will begin heading east, toward the Brutal Bayou, due to the encroachment of the battling World Beasts.”
“How much farther do we believe they’ll travel?” Shedra asked.
“We believe they will go no further than the troll’s homeland,” Luriel said. “If Strangler wants to have a land to rule, she will assure the others travel no more than that.”
Shedra tapped his claws on the arms of his chair, thinking.
“Are the defenses on the border of the Brutal Bayou sufficient?”
“Walls have been erected where we could manage, and troops are massing at the borders. We’ve mounted two dozen mana cannons and are transporting bombs as we speak. The forest is being cleared away for several miles before the walls so that we’ll spot the enemy coming a mile away, and new wards are being added.”
“Their supply lines?” Shedra asked.
“Set to be destroyed in less than twelve hours,” Luriel replied with a smile. “Planting a few informants in an enemy force is always helpful.”
“The raiding parties are keeping them occupied in the meantime?” Shedra asked.
“Not to worry, your majesty. We’ve taken every precaution. The enemy will be too preoccupied fighting our dummy forces to even see the real attack coming.”
Shedra smiled at that, his wide, misshapen face splitting into an ugly grin. Sure, they had to sacrifice a few thousand soldiers in the process, but if it meant destroying the elven supply lines, then it would be all worth it. Without their food, they would be greatly weakened by the time they reached the walls of the Brutal Bayou, which would make their defeat that much easier.
“What about our own lines?” he asked.
Destroying an enemy’s food supply was an effective tactic, which was why everyone would attempt to do the same.
“We have dozens of dummy caches set up, with the real ones in plain sight. We also have contingencies just in case, and several hidden bunkers around the main cities for emergencies. Even if they destroyed all our food, we could survive for months with what we have.”
Shedra relaxed at that, shooing away the servants washing his feet.
“What about spies in our own ranks?”
“We’ve flushed out a few, mostly elves pretending to be cultists, but we’ve gotten a few beastmen and dwarves, as well as several traitors.”
Shedra’s good cheer immediately evaporated. His ascent to power hadn’t been as smooth as he’d imagined, and apparently, there had been several trolls and gnomes who’d tried to defect to the other side.
“Have we caught them all?”
“We believe so,” Luriel replied. “There are still a few who are alive, locked up in various dungeons around the country. We’ve been interrogating them to try and make sure.”
“Have we?” Shedra said, rising from his seat, his fingers flexing and small wisps of green smoke trailing off them. “I think I would like to take a trip to one of these dungeons to see if I can personally get them to talk.”
16
Morgan and Sarah stepped from a swirling tunnel of rainbow-colored light, emerging into a small clearing a hundred miles from the main camp. It was early morning, the sky beginning to lighten in the east and sending streaks of pink, purple, and red across the small banks of clouds floating above.
“Good, you’ve made it just in time,” Katherine said, turning to face them as the portal closed.
Her voice sounded just a bit cold, but when she looked to him, Morgan saw less animosity than he’d expected. It seemed she was coming around.
“Elyssa said you were on an important mission, one that she couldn’t talk about,” he said, looking around and seeing several members of Garrison Blue gearing up for a fight.
“The enemy is preparing a simultaneous assault on our supply lines and caches,” Katherine said.
“There’s a traitor in our midst, then,” Morgan said, understanding why Elyssa hadn’t wanted to speak to him about this out loud. “And someone pretty high up at that.”
Katherine nodded.
“In all honesty, we were extremely lucky. We happened to stumble upon one of the groups sent to attack our lines. We made sure to stay out of sight and listen to their conversations. Unfortunately, we still don’t know the identity of the traitor, though it could only be one of a select group of people,” she said.
To make sure that a captured soldier couldn’t give away too much, the knowledge that any individual had was extremely limited. Even those who handled the transportation of the supplies themselves only knew their route and the location of a single cache. Very few knew all the locations, which meant that after they thwarted this attack, they would need to ferret out the traitor and figure out what to do from there.
“Do we have enough to cover all the caches? They’re pretty widespread,” Morgan said.
“That’s why your timing couldn’t have been better,” Katherine said. “We have a total of forty-four supply routes. The groups of attackers are pretty small, perhaps ten or twelve per unit, more than enough to overwhelm a couple of outpost guards and burn our supplies, and small enough to remain undetected.
From what we’ve gathered, they’re ranked in the upper 30s and lower 40s, which means that three or four of my fighters can handle a group on their own. With you here, we’ll be able to transport them twice as fast.”
Katherine extended a small slip of paper with small notches and numbers marked on it.
“These are the current locations of the soldiers I’ll need you to transport. We have maybe thirty minutes before the attack will take place, so you’ll have to hurry.”
Morgan scanned the piece of paper before looking up.
“If you’re transporting an equal number of groups, that still leaves us short by about ten.”
“That’s where you, me, and Sarah will come in,” Katherine said. “We’ll each need to cover four of the caches alone, which means sweeping through the enemy as quickly as you can before moving on to the next.”
Katherine then laid out the exact order in which they would need to move, as well as their speed. While she and Morgan could use portals to travel quickly, Sarah could not, which required a coordinated effort between him and Katherine to transport Sarah to her next location before moving on themselves.
“Our counterattack will have to be swift and precise,” Katherine finished. “We need to take them all out quickly. They cannot know that we’ve thwarted their plans, and for all we know, these groups have a way of contacting one another. If we play this right, we can get the enemy to believe that our supplies really have been destroyed and maybe even root out our spy in the process.”
“You came up with all this in just a day?” he asked as she finished outlining the plan.
“Less than a day, actually,” she replied, her lips turning up a bit. “It’s kind of a rush job, as more troops would have been ideal, but we’ll work with what we have. Now, do you have any questions before we go?”
“No, I think we’re good,” Morgan said, double-checking the map and memorizing all the locations.
“Then let’s get moving; we’re already running short on time.”
Morgan nodded, then vanished, teleporting away to the nearest group of soldiers and leaving Sarah alone with Katherine.
The two of them stared at one another for a few long moments before Katherine let out a long sigh.
“Much as I want to hate you, I can hardly blame you for coming back from the dead,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I…”
“I understand,” Sarah said, cutting her off. “You love him, just like I do. If I were in your position, I’d probably feel the same way. We don’t choose who we fall in love with. You’re important to him, and although the two of us never got along all that well before, I… you know, I see no reason why we can’t now.”
