the thrones in front of me are empty. it normally does not happen.
fifth emperor - I don't have a long kid, so listen very carefully.
the voice was coming from all around me, resounding in every direction. I cannot see the emperor in any direction.
fifth emperor - the third emperor is not among us. your magical wall is cutting him off from you temporarily. I can't remain in contact for more than a few minutes. any more and he will figure out I am using my ability.
me - how is the civil war milord and I don't mean the one in the capital. also what happened to the report you promised to send. just how much damage has the army undergone? are we anywhere near ready for the war?
fifth emperor - I can't really send you the report, the magical wall of yours is blocking it. as for the last question. no, we are not, this time the empire is facing severe fracture. the black order is completely crippled, so we have no idea what the other factions are planning. the night order has become very active, taking out leader level figures on either side. the army is relatively stable, with three of the five commander generals being neutral and that is not counting you. the last one supports the nobles, but he has promised not to take action until the situation really becomes messy. so for now any invasion should not really harm us.
I am not sure about the future. right now the two factions are being very aggressive. I am terrified of what will happen in the future.
me - what has happened to your faction, isn't your job to make sure that does not happen.
fifth emperor - it is a long story kid. I don't have that kind of time to tell you everything. just know that I am not a leader anymore.
me - so what must I do. you won't be telling me all of this if you don't have work for me.
you definitely won't ignore the blatant disrespect I am giving you.
fifth emperor - what you are saying is partially correct. I do need you, but not now. I need you to become the monster for that. once you become the monster, I need you to go to the serpent outpost. It will be both your mission and reward. don't trust the third emperor.
me - okay.
(the next morning. )
this is the problem with dealing with the fifth Emperor. he is a man stuck between two very powerful factions.
a neutral faction is always the hardest to maintain especially one that is messing with both sides.
the fifth emperor is a genius and an able noble. but even he can't manage this faction. while I am not exactly sure what exactly happened, the third emperor has managed to somehow threaten the fifth emperor into working with him. the only reason I am so sure is due to my being the third emperor's ace.
even during the bloody banquet, I made a deal with the third emperor and it was the fifth emperor that saved me.
everybody thinks I am the fifth emperor's weapon, which is very useful for the third emperor. I think the neutral faction is an imaginary force from the beginning.
tomorrow when I become the monster, this identity will act as a shield for the third emperor. it will also make the fifth emperor the villain and annihilate the faction behind him. two birds with one stone, if you will.
anyway, it is time that we leave and I can't worry about the politics of the empire when I might just lose my life here. I miss my ability.
the wall is not that tall, climbing it will take a few minutes at most. from there we can just jump down the wall. at least me and nameless. phantom snow will break all his bones if he were to jump.
the kid seems to have not slept the entire night. I won't blame him. it was a scary night for either of the kids.
( after a while, when phantom snow woke up. )
me - listen to me nameless, when crossing the wall, just jump directly down. don't try to climb down. if the enemy has ranged undead, you will be sitting duck while they attack. phantom snow, you shall go next with nameless catching you when you jump.
nameless - bloody mage.
me - what did you just say?
nameless - I have decided a name for myself. I will call myself 'bloody mage' from today. that name has a history.
me - whatever suits your fancy, but using that name will have consequences, kid. anyway, you can use a bit more imagination can't you, for your name.
nameless - I think 'bloody mage 'suits me.
me - whatever, let's focus on surviving first. phantom snow, you shall attack the enemy leader, throw him some kind of an illusion. don't engage him directly, just make sure that he can't summon any troops. we have a nature alliances graveyard a few kilometers away. if the necromancer wants, he can summon an entire wave of undead. the last thing, our goal is not to kill the necromancer, but to survive and escape this place. so don't get any idea of being a hero.
bloody mage, you shall focus on reducing the number of undead. our main purpose is to separate the necromancer from his army and incapacitate him.
the kids did not reply, but both of them nodded. I am very nervous, the three of us do not know how to work together. I don't even know much about their ability. if we are to fight in such a manner, I will be more worried about friendly fire, than the enemy.
I have separated them as much as possible, making them fight as separately as possible. the necromancer is not that smart. I have seen the way it has sent troops into the gate.
it is what I call undead wave tactics. not very smart moves.
but then again, I have no intel on the enemy. one thing I learned in my life is to never assume a situation without knowing everything.
I won't know about the enemy until I fight him at least once.
( later that day, at the noon.)
the kids are preparing for a battle, even I am doing so. I have set a couple of puppets which we shall use to fight the enemy, first gathering some intel. I am not used to this new body of mine, so it did not come to me immediately.
me - let's go then. remember that this puppet of mine is not that strong, so don't wear them out too much. it is hard to carve things, okay.
saying so, I quickly possess one of the puppets I made. this puppet of mine is way better than before, minutely so.
me - don't engage them directly. we have to see how powerful they are before fighting them.
saying so we quickly climbed the walls. normal walls would be smooth, with no possibility to climb them. this one is different. there are runes etched all over the wall, which is the reason that it has its god mana sealing property. the nature alliance hate god mana the most. as for the reason, you can see the city in front of me. they are the strongest anti-god force that I know of.
we finally reach the top and see down. as expected there are many undead troops roaming about. I am actually surprised at the quantity of undead. I did not expect so many of them to be outside. this is going to be quite a mess.
we jump down, almost crushing our legs. a few of the undead heard the sound but did not react too much. they don't sense anything living here.
thankfully, the other two don't react too much and the undead all begin to disperse from the place.
me - follow me, I think the necromancer should be in that direction.
bloody mage - should we really take that risk, the enemy must be quite powerful if he can summon so many undead.
me - doesn't really matter. we have to know who is the one that is leading these people. if he is one that I am expecting, I would like to be ready for him.
we quietly made our way through the craters made in the war. seeing this kind of damage I understand why the alliance is always so worried about their lands. it is too easy to damage.
me - stop, look to the northeast. don't look directly at the beast. what in the hell is he doing.
Phantom snow - do you know the one that is attacking us?
me - yes, he is somewhat of an ally. we have fought together many times in the past.
bloody mage - are you sure. that beast does not seem to be any kind of ally right now.
me - I know, shit jump to the side, now.
before the kids could react, their bodies were bitten into two halves. that was the last thing that I saw before I too was bit in half.
after a couple of hours, when the kids had finally calmed down. we had to light a fire. it is getting colder in this place. I don't really like to think about the reasons why. I don't know how long that barrier will last.
me - the. wolf that you saw was a beast known as wolf of neither realms. his ability is quite unique. he has the ability to connect to the death land. every person that has learned space magic knows about him.
phantom snow - why?
me - he is stuck between two realms. he is always present in both these worlds at the same time, you could say he is a portal between these two worlds. normally he should die, but his ability allows him to survive like that.
bloody mage - how will we beat him.
me - we don't, I don't know what is wrong with him, but his ability relies on mana that he can take from death world. if he takes too much, he will permanently fall into the death world.
Phantom snow - so we try and drain him out.
me - no, his mana can only travel a certain distance. we have to leave the region of his mana control. he is being that could defeat us with a single swipe the way we are. we need to leave the city from the other side. we can't break through the forest.
phantom snow - the barrier could break any minute, do we have the time to waste traveling that much distance.
me - that wolf is not that easy to beat, we have to take a risk and leave from the other side.
phantom snow - as you wish. but if I die and become a ghost, I shall haunt you forever.
me - I don't care, we should have done so from the beginning. we have more allies on the other side.
(the next day)
to be honest, the kids did oppose me vehemently but I did not want to fight an old friend. not many of them were left. anyway, it is not like we could beat him. I know his strength.
even now we are taking a risky route. the barrier is glowing which is not a good sign. space mana is invisible and would never glow. the mana of the barrier is changing to whatever mana is behind the barrier. I have told you how infective god mana is. I am worried that each moment that we waste here, the wall shall give away and we shall become snow. we continued our journey in this way. honestly speaking nothing happened, the wall held on. though, the fear was real. we had to spend a day and night continuously, walking under the silverish glow of the barrier, worrying when it shall collapse and whether we would make it out alive. honestly speaking, I have faced such situations many times but it does not become any less terrifying each time that I have to face such a situation.