---3rd Person POV---
Abruptly disconnected from their Magic Knights, the Holy Kingdom’s soldiers shot up, gasping for air. In the last few seconds, a sizable chunk of mana had been forcefully ripped from them. For an unlucky few, it resulted in their death, as they were already running on fumes. The rest of them were physically weakened by the sudden loss of so much mana.
“Commander… What just... happened?” One knight tried to stand. His legs buckled under his weight. “Did the Principality somehow destroy our mechs?”
“You think… those fools had the firepower to destroy all ninety of our top of the line mechs? Ha!” A colleague wanted to continue mocking him, but could not find the strength to. “Forget it… We need to focus on getting out of here right now. If we delay, the Black Knight will show up to inspect our ship. In our current shape, they will massacre us.”
Everyone agreed. They could figure out what happened once they were far away from here.
“Those who can stand, get topside on the double.” Their commander shakily rose to his feet. “I want us out of here in under—”
His face paled as the words died in his throat. Blocking the only exit, Vandel and his elite knights stood glaring at them with malice. They had seen the poor state their beautiful capital was in. It was time for bloody retribution.
“To arms! The enemy is already here!” The shock of seeing their enemy already aboard revitalized some of the commander’s strength. He reached for his trusty blade, only to find it was missing.
“Looking for this?” Vandel held up the missing blade. With his bare hands, he shattered the sword and dropped it on the floor. “Only a true knight has the privilege of dying with a sword in his hand. Instead of facing us like warriors, you cowered in the bilge of a ship. You will die the way you lived, as cowards. Kill them!”
“Sir!” Vandel’s elites dashed forward, ripping their blades from their scabbards.
The unarmed and weakened Holy Kingdom soldiers could only scream as they were cut down. As the bilge turned into a bloodbath, a few agile men escaped. They sprinted topside to jump ship and run off into the city. Once things cooled down, they would find a way back home.
Upon reaching the main deck, they came face to face with a firing squad.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hundreds of rifles blew the knights apart. Blood and gore flew through the area as the aggrieved soldiers kept firing until their first clip was spent. When the bodies hit the deck, they looked more like colanders than people.
The roar of gunfire echoed throughout the ship. Those who had survived this long lost all their will to fight. Without shame, they threw themselves at Vandel’s feet, begging for their lives.
“We will tell you whatever you want to know!” One knight latched onto Vandel’s leg. “We’ve got wives and children back home. Please spare us.”
Vandel reached down and grabbed the man by the skull. With a grunt, he hoisted him into the air.
“Your nation took my wife and daughter from me. They also took my adoptive granddaughter’s parents as well.” Vandel slowly applied pressure to the man’s head. “We will get everything we want from you regardless if you are willing or not. When we are done, if you survive, I will hang you from the palace walls the way you came into their world.”
Crunch!
The man’s head exploded. His brain matter rained down on his petrified colleagues.
“Slap anti-magic cuffs on these buffoons. Take them back to the palace dungeons to await interrogation. We’ll have Lord Aremus make them sing, just as their spies did.” Vandel gave the cowering knights one last icy glare before walking away.
“By your orders, Lord Vandel.” His men complied with wicked grins.
They beat the Holy Kingdom’s soldiers into unconsciousness. Once their rage was satisfied, they put anti-magic cuffs on them and dragged them away.
---Five Days Later, Leon POV---
With rescue operations complete and the capital back to a somewhat functional state, our attention turned to Vandel’s prisoners. Days of darkness, minimal food and water, and sleep deprivation made extracting information far easier than expected. Before I was brought in to rip the information from their psyche, they divulged everything on their own.
From the other side of a one-way window, we listened to their confessions. The naval attacks on our shared border were just field tests for their latest military hardware. Their surprise attack on the Principality’s capital was a last-minute decision by the top brass. Under their orders, they were supposed to kill Vandel, the Fanoss sisters, and me if they could manage it. Knowledge of my talent for unraveling the secrets of Lost Items and Magi-tech terrified them. If I got my hands on the technology, their sole advantage in future conflicts would be lost.
Vandel backhanded one knight. “You are only confirming things we already assumed. I want to hear something we don’t already know. What is the current distribution of your forces? How many soldiers do you have stationed along the border? Are there more of those invisible ships within our territory?”
“Ugh!” The Holy Kingdom knight slumped to the side. “We know nothing about troop deployment or planned future operations. Our Commander was the only veteran knight among us. The rest of us only recently completed our training to become full-fledged knights.”
The Black Knight stared into his eyes to search for deceit. When he was satisfied that the young man was telling the truth, he gave the order to execute them. As Vandel turned to leave, the man screamed for them to wait a moment.
“It’s true we cannot provide information on future operations, but there is one recent event that you may be unaware of.” He turned his gaze toward the window. “The night we arrived, several of our field assets staged an attack on the Holfort capital. I don’t know what became of the attack, but if you let us go, we can find out for—”
The door to the interrogation room flew open, cutting him off. A soul numbing wind blew into the room as I strode through the doorway. All six enemy knights screamed in terror as they thrashed around, trying to break free of their chains.
Vandel and his men walked toward the exit.
“Where are you going!? Don’t leave us in here with—”
The retreating men gave them a cruel smirk.
“You reap what you sow, fools.” Vandel slowly closed the door. “Lord Aremus, do what you will with them.”
“Lord… Aremus…” The man pissed himself as his gaze swept up toward the mountain-sized man’s face. “You… You are Leon Fou Aremus…”
“Yes, I am.” A devastating psychic pressure crashed down upon the Holy Kingdom’s knights.
In an instant, their bodies were slammed onto the cobblestone floor. Blood sprayed from the stumps where hands and feet had been. They remained shackled to where they had been moments before. Their cries of agony could not escape from their lips.
“The time for words has passed.” I kneeled down. “Make peace with whatever god you believe in. You will meet them shortly.”
Their bodies spasmed as tendrils of psychic energy burrowed into their heads. Already mentally spent, they gave no resistance as their minds were sifted through with brute force. Most of what they had locked away in their heads was of little consequence, but a few items were of note. The most intriguing one was a meeting docket seen in passing.
Through their eyes, I saw a section about Holfort’s Elven territory. It detailed a promising site that may contain relics from the Great War era.
‘Crap! They are referring to Cleare and her Cloning Laboratory. I’ve got to secure it before they do. It’s my best bet for restoring my legion in a timely manner.’
I made a mental note of the other intriguing items before retreating from their psyche. As I did, blood streamed out of every orifice as their bodies gave up the ghost. With a snap, their bodies were turned to ash.
“Why didn’t you tell us our country was attacked sooner!?” Angelica shook Luxion like a rag doll. “Was that why you were covered in blood when we first met?”
<Correct. I had to deal with the situation personally before it got out of hand. The alternative was the capital becoming a bloodbath.>
“Show me the recordings you took.” I rejoined the group. “Also, Angelica, please let him go. He is liable to shock you if you don’t.”
With a furious sigh, she released the sphere and stepped back. Angelica wanted to chew him out more, but kept silent for now.
Freed from his captor, Luxion flew forward and projected a video for everyone to see. What we saw gave me flashbacks of movies I had seen in my college days. Packs of feral mutated humans were chasing terrified civilians throughout the entertainment district. Those too slow to escape were tackled to the ground and consumed by the mutants. Adventurers, guards, and soldiers fought to regain control of the situation, but there were just too many of them.
“What happened to our capital seems like a minor inconvenience to this.” Hertrude covered her sister’s eyes. She could not allow her to see such gruesome things.
“Please… turn it off…” Lucoa ran to me, burying her face in my cloak. Her body trembled as she wept into the fabric. “Some of those people are former colleagues and adventurers I know. I don’t want to watch them be eaten by those… those… those monsters!”
I reached down and rubbed her back. Horrors like this were almost non-existent in these times. The people here knew peace few in our galaxy did. It pained me to see their anguish, but they would need to come to terms with it. This was a fraction of the horrors we may soon face.
“Luxion, what details do we have so far?” I lifted my gaze toward him.
<The source originated from a brothel deep in the entertainment district. Patient zero was a well-known military commander who would’ve deployed to the frontline with the Holy Kingdom the next day. After taking a sip of his alcohol, he underwent a sudden mutation, then went on a killing spree. His victims turned into similar creatures after being bitten.>
“With no cameras and few witnesses, we don’t know how the drink was spiked. It could have been someone in the crowd or a supplier.”
This had Nurgle’s fingerprints all over it. As the Chaos God of Decay, creating a zombie plague was right up his alley. The issue was that I had already encountered Khorne’s daemons. The Chaos Gods never worked together unless it had something to do with the Emperor of Mankind.
‘That means the cult is of the Chaos Undivided faction. This is both a blessing and a curse…’
The Imperium’s biggest enemy, Chaos, was divided into five major factions. Four of the five were dedicated to each individual Chaos God: Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch. The last was Chaos Undivided. Unlike the others, they worshipped and served all four Chaos Gods. Outside of these five, there were other smaller groups, but their influence was far more limited.
‘If an invasion happens, I can try manipulating the daemons into fighting each other. They hate one another far more than they do humans.’
I nodded. “Our enemy has ramped up its attacks because we’ve been fighting back. Before the next tragedy happens, it is imperative that we prepare accordingly. To that end, I will be heading to Holfort’s Elven Territory to lay claim to Great War era assets rumored to be there. From what I saw in their memories, the Holy Kingdom is already aware of it.”
“What about the Magic Knight teardown?” Hertrude asked, not wanting Leon to leave already.
“With your permission, I can take one with me to disassemble en route.”
Hertrude’s and Hertrauda’s eyes lit up. They looked at one another and nodded.
“Lord Aremus, if you want to take a knight with you, we are coming too.” Hertrude crossed her arms with a smug smile.
“I’ve always wanted to explore ancient ruins.” Hertrauda mimicked her sister.
I looked to Vandel for help, but he just shook his head.
“It pains me to admit this, but they are safer with you right now. Until I’ve swept the city and set up new protocols for incoming vessels, it’s too risky for them to stay here.” Vandel knew what the sisters were up to. Not only would they get to scratch their adventurer’s itch, they would also get closer to Leon. “Do you mind?”
“I mind a great deal, but it appears I don’t have a say in the matter. Luxion, prepare for departure in one hour.”
<Affirmative.>
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