Apocalypse Reborn: Demon Lord 6

Apocalypse Reborn: Demon Lord 6

…

Interlude: Tira

…

It all went wrong.

We found it before the lessers did.

A ring which would bring return us to our greatest heights, as the true cultivators and caretakers of the world entire. With it his majesty would rise, all our kin would rally, and we will see the world cleansed of filth and return it to the green paradise it was meant to be. Our cause was just, our path set, and our paradise within reach.

Then, it came from the skies astride a great gryphon.

The gryphon itself was a mighty and terrible creature that could only be calmed and quelled by the staunchest of caretakers. Immense in size, much like an elephants written of in our ancient writings, it was covered in black features and its wingspan was as long as many trees were tall.  Just looking upon it made me wonder how much it could consume, how strong it had to be to live for so long and grow so large… and finally what sort of creature could possibly hope to claim it as its own.

The gryphon devastated us with its landing alone.

With a screech that sounded more like a lion’s roar, it crashed into the ground with its hind legs first and cast magic out of instinct with a flap of its wings. Small tornadoes came forth, concentrated and mighty, and the two ripped through our caravan in an instant dragging trees, wagons, and people in its wake. Everything caught between the two came apart, bloody mist fading into nothing amidst shards of wood, until a deep furrow was cut into the ground across our caravan and the leading column.

The gryphon was armored, its legs and chest heavily so in black colored plates that seemed to blend with its feathers, and it leapt upon us like a warrior. It smashed its side against a wagon and swiped warriors that fell out with its claws. Instead of staying to threaten those who approached it with spears, it kept leaping away, staying mobile, and crashing into wagon after wagon at the end of our caravan trail… killing all our pack animals or scaring them away.

I had thought to bid his majesty to leave, as he was close to the front, and hold the gryphon back.

Then, I heard a scream of pain that suddenly stopped everything.

I realized at that same moment that gryphon had a saddle on its back.

An empty one.

Tall and dominating, a creature clad in black plates with a horned helmet held his majesty by the spine, through cloth, through skin, and through muscle. His majesty’s lower half was dead, like the bottom half of a puppet, while his upper half spasmed and quaked while held up in one hand. The armored beast that held him up had a free hand… and that hand was holding our people’s future. The Citadel Ring was in its grasp.

I moved without thinking, barely capable of understanding what happened from the moment the gryphon descended and attacked  up until  now.

A moment ago, I felt like I was alive and walking towards the true, righteous path.

Now, I charged forward, desperate to take back my people’s future, against a monster that appeared in our ranks.

I threw my knives at him, and he blocked them with the body of his majesty. They went through his body, his magical protections no longer active with his death, but found no purchase against the monster.

Warriors came to avenge his majesty, they brought spears, axes, and swords against the creature… and the monster brought his majesty’s corpse against them.

No, not the corpse.

He extracted the spine and skull as one with one grunt of effort and swung it like a flail.

The skull of our leader crashed through a helmet broke the head of the nearest guard.

Then, the monster swung it wide, and the skull went through three heads in a single swing, leaving empty spaces between shoulders.

The monster had strengthened the spine and skull with his magic to use as a weapon.

“Monster!” Someone screamed, only for me to realize it was my own voice, as I reached him. I did not hesitate. I drew my bow, I notched an arrow, imbued it with all my strength and magic, and fired it at him. My shoulder screamed in pain, my body ran cold as my power waned instantly, and my vision instantly blurred. It was worth it. My arrow flew forth imbued with power and speed, cracking apart even as it travelled, more a bolt of energy barely constrained by wood and steel… and the monster looked at it.

And it looked at me.

He threw his makeshift flail, made of our ruler, and the arrow exploded between us. I was forced to stop as to prevent myself from running into the blast of power and energy… only to watch in horror as the massive form of the monster simply erupted from the ball of flame and power like a knife emerging at the other end of a body.

Smoking from the heat, it landed mere seven paces from me, and I could feel its gaze.

I should’ve had the time to knock another arrow, to let loose with my life once more, but such was not the case.

I barely nocked the arrow when I found myself staring at my headless body, knocking an arrow at where the creature landed, before darkness took me completely.

What was to be of our great paradise?

…

 “Find the rest. Kill any above the age of twenty.” I stated simply, while rolling the third Citadel control ring between my fingers, just before removing my gauntlet and placing the ring with the rest. “That is all.”

I went ahead of my vanguard force, searching for the closest concentration of elves, and attacked. My gryphon shocked and awed the defense, while I carried out the decapitation strike. A Champion had been present to try and attack me, almost succeeding in landing a hit, but I intercepted her shot and killed her after her attack failed.

It was a surprise attack, something that had more than enough power to blow apart an average person and probably give me a couple of wounds without my armor. With just my bare skin and magic, I would’ve probably been close to critically wounded and would’ve had to heal myself. Yeah, I need the extra riding saddles for my gryphon sooner rather than later.

Or, maybe, I shouldn’t let my guard down and kill anyone even vaguely like a Champion before going off to kill a leader.

Hm.

I’ll do both just in case.

Riegert relayed my orders to the light cavalry that had charged after me. They barely kept up, but they were here for the cleanup, so I didn’t mind their slowness.

There was more to do after.

“Make sure to kill off as much as possible and scour the place for survivors. We want them all coming this way, towards our Citadel, to their demise.” I didn’t want the Children of the Elm reforming or becoming any sort of faction. They needed to go, plain and simple, because of their ideology bent on genocide. Some would say that repaying genocide with genocide in kind was lowering myself to their standards… they’d be right. You need to deal with threats like these when the future ahead is filled with opportunities for them to expand on their bullshit. “Red, over here.”

“I am of being present!” Red came forward eagerly. She was being raised nicely as a Champion. Standard frontline warrior type. Nothing fancy, but the benchmark for all other Champions. You have to contribute as much as a warrior-type Champion in order to be worth having. With the right tools and equipment and investment, they’re viable well into the late game. “What need of me, do you have, Chieftain?”

All the food and training worked wonders. She went from someone called “Doll” to a warrior clad in armor with short hair. Her hair was still a vibrant scarlet and she still had that pale skin that earned her name, but she was growing taller quickly and she wielded the hammer on her back like a toy that just so happened to tear through opponents with ease. She walked in heavy armor, helmet tucked under one arm, with utmost ease.

Red was reliable, though I’d never ask her to write in my name or do anything more than fight and maybe sign off on things.

She could read, and that was good enough for now.

“Take your force and find targets of opportunity down this road. A caravan like this will have someone search for them or follow them.” This was more a precaution, but my instincts were telling me to send a force down the path that the enemy came from just to be sure. For an expeditionary force out to find and take a Citadel, this seemed small.  Citadels coming up came with a whole army of enemies. Monsters and small fry, but still an entire army. “This force is too small to take a Citadel. They may have planned to consolidate in this land, or they may have a warband or two trailing after them. If it’s the latter, return to me.”

The elves introduction story outlined that they took their Citadel with mercenaries of other races and had altercations with them that resulted in only elves being the only population in their Citadel. Given their track record, it’s most likely that the Children of the Elm went and killed the mercenaries off with the Guardians after inviting them in. They’re assholes like that.

“It will be of being done as you will, Chieftain!” Red gave a nod and a cheery confirmation before turning around and being met with her people. She had around a hundred people under her command. A tenth of the force that followed me ahead of the rest. She clambered onto her horse and gave me a wave. “I will give you much pride, Chieftain!”

I gave her a nod, before turning back to Riegert.

Already, my commands were being met and officers were going out the search for survivors to put down or capture with their squads.

This land will soon be mine.

Maybe, sometime soon, I can have some time to rest and relax.
But first, new Champion acquired!

“Send an order back home to bring the Shroud. This Champion is strong and worthy of it.”

…

Interlude: Harper

…

The barbarian king gave me the order to finalize his efforts towards creating a trade route and logistical line through his Citadels.

I thought I would find myself with a system that barely functioned, something which I would have to change and expand upon through countless nights.

Instead, I was humbled.

“Sign here, please, Lady Harper.”

I signed, the attendant bowed, and I looked upon the culmination of my work over the course of the last month.

 We arrived at the second Citadel within seven days. At first, I had been amazed by the construction of the wagons. Each one pulled by four horses with standardized containers that could be plucked right off the chassis. Each container had a set weight limit, to ensure that the horses could function within expectations, and travel was continuous. The containers were moved with cranes and pulleys within a large central warehouse with a main road running through it. Each container was filled ahead of time, weighed, and pulled up and brought to rest onto the base. They latched onto one another, practically becoming whole, and then became fit for travel.

The innovation was striking. Everything that needed to be sent simply needed to reach one location at a city to be sent elsewhere. There was no need to coordinate products across a whole city, let alone an entire region, and worry. Everything needed was sent to storage, then it was put into boxes, and the boxes placed in shipping containers to be sped away. It was fast and efficient, thus saving time, but that wasn’t all.

Another innovation was in record keeping. Everything was marked, dated, and tracked. Many workers were employed whose sole duty was to keep inventory and to keep track of signages on how it changed hands. If something went missing, if something went awry, then records could be searched, those who tried to steal were punished, and the day continued with everything moving with only the perpetrators taken off the equation.

I thought that would be all, but I was wrong when we launched.

Every time the first set of horses reached their limit, we were in range of a stable with fresh horses, and the new set was latched on and our journey resumed.  The roads were sturdy and easy for the horses to travel upon, mostly compacted gravel upon which smoothed stone was placed, along with gutters to ensure water would not stagnate upon the roads. We trundled along unmolested along the road throughout our journey, never stopping, as we could sleep in wagons that used hammocks to make the trundling easier.

Thus, we reached the second Citadel of my barbarian King within a week.

Through all the methods I practiced before, the journey would’ve taken three weeks, we would’ve needed many guards as even warbands would’ve tried to prey upon us with our cargo, and many horses would’ve perished in the attempt.

None had died.

We hadn’t been attacked.

We were on our eighth set of horses, and they were set to rest, before being reassigned tomorrow morning.

I turned to Alexis, as we both looked upon the mirror copy of the warehouse we left a week ago, and watched as shipments were taken off to be unloaded and feed a whole other city.

“If you have any ideas on how to improve this, I’m willing to listen.” I’m meant to complete this when I could find nothing to improve. I barely held back the panic building within my chest. So much of it was new, so much of it was leaps and bounds ahead of anything I could envision, yet I was meant to improve upon it. “Just what the hell can we do to make it better?”

I thought Alexis would just stay silent, but surprisingly… she spoke.

“My lady, if I may… going between cities is no issue, within the city itself there are problems. That we can solve, as we’ve done something akin to it before.” Alexis reminded me and I blinked. She was right. We could address the issues after the shipments were received in the new city, where so many clamored at the foot of the warehouse for their packages and shipments. “We can make something that delivers packages across the rest of the city.”

I nodded at her words.

“I’ll speak to the administrators here and discern how the districts are partitioned and how to navigate the city. You begin drafting plans and gathering laborers.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Alexis bowed, while I ran out of the warehouse towards the Citadel.

I needed information for my plan to work and to keep my current position.