"You sure about this?" Kal asked Brother Rel.
"You aren't? I thought you trusted me," said Master Rel with a smile.
Master Rel spent two weeks reviewing all of the data Kal provided. He determined that finding Fiend Stones and Harmony Stones would lead them to quickly finding Fiends. The problem they faced was no one ever heard of a Fiend Stone or Harmony Stone prior to Master River informing them.
Therefore, no one had experience finding Fiend Stones. The information provided by Master River allowed Master Rel to plot likely locations of both Fiend and Harmony Stones. Master Rel went further and tracked known Fiend attacks. He had Kal take his attack frigate, Raging Immortal, to investigate the sites.
Based on these site investigations and Master River's data, Master Rel was able to piece together the required information and plotted what he felt were likely targets. At this moment, The Raging Immortal was hidden near one such target.
The Dragon Squad was on stand-by after laying traps. They found a batch of Fiend Stones just as Master Rel predicted. Would the Fiends really show up here? Kal didn't know why Master Rel was so sure, but that wasn't his concern. Master Rel followed the Dao of the Hunt. If he was confident, then Kal was confident.
Standing next to Kal's side was his wife, Zhihui, quietly observing everything. Kal was true to his word and taught her his tricks and the way to be a smuggler. He also encouraged her to pay attention to Master Rel. Zhihui was free to ask Master Rel any questions. She was an excellent student.
There were periodic tests Kal had Zhihui perform to track how well she was learning. One of his favorite things was to have Zhihui come up with her own analysis based on the same information Master Rel had. She made predictions and gave reasons for her predictions.
Zhihui, as the daughter of a General, grew up with a knack for strategical thinking. Hunting and smuggling were completely different skills from running an army. The same rigorous thinking skills remained relevant, but as Zhihui discovered their application were extremely dissimilar.
Both Kal and Master Rel would review Zhihui's predictions and reasoning. Kal was always a patient partner and helped her to see where she was going wrong. Master Rel, on the other hand, didn't care much about her at first. He just decided the whole thing was a whim of Kal's. He soon realized after some critiquing that Zhihui had excellent potential as both a smuggler and a hunter. She even had strong command abilities. Once he realized this, Master Rel began to take her training seriously.
After more than a month of waiting for the Fiends at their location, they finally detected the presence of a Fiend. Kal and crew observed the figure making his way to the planet with the Fiend Stone.
The Fiend consulted some type of device, not realizing he was walking into a trap. As the Fiend walked the device led him to the Fiend Stone. Realizing what the Fiend was holding, Kal decided to switch off the traps and confront the Fiend himself, and perhaps steal his device.
Leaving the ship, Kal used a movement technique and practically teleported to the surface of the planet. The Fiend was completely unaware of his presence. The Fiend worked quietly digging for the Fiend Stone. Had the traps still been active, the Fiend would have died a dozen times over.
Finally, a slight smile creased the Fiend's face as he retrieved the Fiend Stone.
"Oooh, neat, what'd you find?" asked Kal.
"A Fiend Stone." The Fiend replied absently. Realization quickly dawned on the Fiend. He spun around to find the origin of the voice. There he saw Kal smiling at him. How did this person get there without him knowing?
The Fiend made a move to activate some Fiendish art, but before he could, Kal pulled out his gun and fired a laser bolt, killing him. Kal grabbed the Fiend and put down a circular object on the ground. After activating it, the soul of the Fiend became trapped in the object. Both the body and the soul of the Fiend were sent into Kal's Samsara pod where Benton waited for the creature.
Kall picked up the device the Fiend held. After looking at it for a few seconds, he sent it into his Samsara pod. Benton was the best person to figure out how such things worked. When Master River freed Kal, he also freed Benton. Benton shed his metallic body and took on a new flesh and blood body more to his liking.
Being a weapons nut, Benton took the body of a Goldux Beast Man. The Goldux were a species in the Dragon Empire known for their strong affinity for the weapons making arts. Like the Wu Di, who had a nearly instinctual understanding of energy, the Goldux Beast Men had an instinctual knowledge of how to forge metals, create alloys, and utilize the power of nature to create the most powerful weapons.
The Goldux Beast Men were similar in temperament and talent to Dwarves. Their bodies, however, were huge, having six arms, an extended chest with the arms at the top longer than the middle and lower arms. The chest was like a layered and segmented upside-down step pyramid allowing the connection of six shoulders. The top chest was the widest. The upper torso was able to twist in three different directions at the same time.
Six golden horns and coarse black hair adorned the top of their heads. The Lower torso was extremely powerful and longer and thicker than most species' legs. Benton's complexion was a dark yellow and he wore a standard Weapons Maker armor. The back of the armor held a special metallic backpack. On the bottom were specialized tools, but the top contained hammers, swords, and spears.
The arm bracelets were specialized tools which could be combined together to form armored bracelets. During a battle, these bracelets were a powerful defensive arm shield. During work, it was a handy tool belt.
The leg armor mainly protected the shins and knees. The thighs had an armor padding similar to the armored tool bracelets. The armor was an amalgamation of special tools that when combined, became the thigh shields.
The armor finished with a helmet that had several different visors. Each visor performed a different function. One visor protected the eyes when welding, another acted as a sub-atomic microscope while another could examine Qi and Energy flow lines. There were additional attachments available depending on the need. This helmet was both a tool and a piece of armor.
Benton was trained by Master River in forging, weaponsmithing, array, and mental techniques. He was even a proficient medic during emergencies. Benton wasn't interested in the full education Kal and his fellow disciples received. Therefore, Master River only took Benton on as an in-name disciple. This limited the range of techniques Benton was taught, which was fine with him.
Kal returned to the ship and waited for Benton to report back to him. Benton had two different weaponsmithing shops. His secretive R&D shop was located on the Samsara Pod. The Weapon Forging Shop was located on the Raging Immortal. It was here Benton had his apprentices.
Benton mysteriously appeared a month later and made his way to his weapon forging shop on the Raging Immortal. With the help of his apprentices, he began to construct some very strange devices. Some of these devices were installed on the bridge of the ship, others were given to members of the Dragon Squad, and the remaining few were installed in the twenty fighters and Kal's other personal ships.
Benton appeared before Kal in the Raging Immortal's War room along with Master Rel and Zhihui and explained the uses of the devices.
"The devices I've created have different purposes. As you suspected, the device the Fiend was carrying is useful for tracking Fiend Stones. It can also locate Harmony Stones." Benton activated the star map on the mapping table and showed their current location.
Benton overlaid the mapped coordinates of Master Rel's hypothesized Fiend and Harmony Stone locations.
"These blue dots are Harmony Stones while the red dots are Fiend Stones. I've circled in white Master Rel's locations," said Benton. Everyone nodded in understanding.
"Utilizing the device you captured from the Fiend, I created devices with much greater range and power. Those devices were installed in the ship and the fighters. I had the fighters doing patrols in various quadrants to help with precision.
I discovered why we waited a month until the Fiend showed up to harvest the Fiend Stone." With that, Benton pushed a couple of more buttons and thousands of new red and blue dots appeared all over the map.
"As you can see Fiend Stones and Harmony Stones are far more abundant in the Dragon Empire than we initially thought."
Benton let the shock settle in the hearts of the others present. There were so many locations for these stones.
"I conferred with BS42 and was able to extract useful information from the Fiend's soul. I've learned the method utilized by the Fiends to take over universes is to infiltrate with a small group and then dig up Fiend and Harmony Stones to quickly build an army.
The initial number of Fiends were one hundred and twenty-six. The current estimated numbers, according to our guest, is fourteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. The Great Fiend, as he is called by his subordinates, who initially arrived in our Dragon Empire, only began his operation six months ago.
Based on estimates and given the explosive rate of increase, we could be looking at a Fiend army numbering the millions within a year. The lowest Ranking of every Fiend is the Void King level." Benton said.
"Oh Shig," said Kal.
"We have to find these Fiends and quickly wipe them out or we won't be able to stop them after a year or two," Benton concluded.
Kal's mouth went dry and he heard his wife stifle a desolate cry. Master Rel looked like a man who just found out he had one day to live.
"Solutions?" asked Kal.
"BS42 and I were able to determine that just as the Fiend Stones and Harmony Stones can be tracked, so can the Fiends. If we were in the Devilish lands we wouldn't be able to find them so easily given their natural bio-resonance is harmonized with their environment.
However, they are in our Empire and they stick out like a sore thumb. I adjusted the sensors to now detect Fiends as well as the Fiend Stones and Harmony Stones." Benton said proudly.
"What do we do?" asked Zhihui.
"First we send the designs of Benton's devices only to your father General Long. A report with our analysis will be sent to both your father and the Dragon Emperor.
Next, we use these devices and kill every Fiend we can find. How many Fiends are near us?" asked Kal.
Benton pressed a few buttons and the red and blue dots disappeared now replaced with yellow dots. The yellow dots were much fewer.
"A little over three thousand," Benton said.
Kal was quietly thinking and noticed Benton seemed to want to say something else.
"You have something else to add?" Kal asked.
"BS42 had some of his deep space fairies collect some Fiend and Harmony Stones. His team of experts discovered the Harmony stones can do more than just alter the natural resonance of a universe." Benton said.
"Really, what else can they do?" asked Master Rel.
"They can be used to power tools like energy weapons and shields. Given enough time, we could create guns for the big Space Ships that could kill someone at the Ascended Immortal Realm. We could even create shields strong enough to protect us from such experts." Benton said.
"What's the status of this? How long will it take to create such weapons?" asked Kal.
"Not long. BS42 said the plans for such weapons should be ready within the next week given they're in the Time Disfased universe. He suggested we return to the new universe for new weapons and shields." Benton said.
Kal had a killer's gleam in his eye and wore his trademark smirk. With these new weapons, they would become the terror of the Fiends.
"Ok, I'll have our heading changed to the new universe. Benton, get the report and those designs to General Long. Also, ask BS42 if they could invent a special shield design for the Imperial Palace. We'll pick up the dragon twins while we're in the new universe.
"Let's get these nightmare guns on our ship and fighters! Now, it's time to kill some Fiends!" For the first time since they began their war against the Fiends, Kal saw some hope.