Things settled into a relative calm after the one sided battles between the knights and Adepts.
The survivors retreated to Blue Hillock City and joined the rest of their brothers gathering there and the Adepts went about whatever tasks or endeavors suited them. Most kept hunting the mercenaries and adventurers the knights had convinced with handsome payments of gold and jewels to brave the forest.
The recounting of events by their supremely unfortunate peers had led them to take things much more seriously, the higher ups sparing no cost so they could obtain the slightest information of the enemy.
As for Greem, he retreated to his lover's city and spent the past twenty days with her, most of his time used to run numerous simulations of possible rune combinations he planned to incorporate into his path and combat style.
He'd deciphered every ounce of the knowledge he obtained from the Spellbreakers, and had even learnt some of their techniques, his body control and Allerdyce's ability to store copious flame elementium making replication of them easy.
The only thing left was the runes needed for the merger of elementium and lifeforce. Once he obtained those and the special reward from Lord Sarubo, he would be able to blend his physical and elementium talents perfectly.
The possibilities were endless. From flame constructs with the hardness of metal, armor and weapons that delivered immense heat upon each strike or collision, wingless flight and so on…
He couldn't wait to start experimenting. He wished he could just leave Blue Hillock City now and chase down the names Hyde gave to him. Most of them belonged to individuals who lived near or in the capital of this kingdom.
Finding them would be easy. The annoying and difficult parts would be reaching the faraway city and coming up with a plan to get what he wanted without dying. Still, he was unperturbed. And honestly, he'd rather be doing that than participate in the upcoming battle.
Due to the knights swarming the city like ants, Count Vanlier with prompting from Mary and his own common sense, abdicated his castle and offered it to them, retiring himself and his entire entourage to Rose Manor, one of his many properties outside the city.
This is where Greem spent the last three weeks with Mary, and it seemed their little honeymoon was coming to a close. With both of their Adept level spiritual sensitivities, the couple easily detected the sudden but familiar overpowering sensation in the city nearby.
They got off the bed together, Greem shirtless save for pants, his impressive and absurd musculature on full display and Mary completely in the nude, her bright crimson locks cascading down her back.
The curious vampiress pulled the curtain on the window, creating enough space for the two of them to see the group of black dots high up in the sky and too far away for anyone to make out their true shape.
They didn't need to see their true forms to know what the newcomers were though. Rissana's sudden outburst right before she passed into a coma had been burned into their minds and souls.
Dragon's aura of might. The nasty ability of dragons to render their enemies and any lower lifeforms incapable of standing up to them.
On regular humans, animals, and beasts, it induced temporary but debilitating paralysis, robbed the victims of their strength and left them unconscious, drooling messes.
For Adepts like Greem and Mary, their wills and potent Spirit made such a scene highly improbable. They were too hardened by the nature of Adept culture and Lethon.
So in their case, the best the aura could do was interfere with their normal thought processes, freezing the gears that made up their minds. But even then, there had to be a significant rank difference between the dragon and the Adepts.
And Rissana's status as a Second Grade met this condition perfectly.
While the both of them stared into the distance and recalled the sensation of the female dragon's last ditch effort attack, the duo looked at each other for a brief moment and looked back at the now faint dots.
"There are five of them," Mary said.
Greem nodded. "Hm. Yes. It doesn't change anything though. We're not dying for the clan."
'Right, the clan,' Mary thought. She had to inform them of this development. Two Third Grade and three Second Grade dragons. Three Dragon Knights and one Fourth Grade Holy Knight.
This group of nine could challenge their entire invasion force with no backup whatsoever from the lower ranked knights and come out on top. They would eradicate the painfully constructed base in mere minutes.
Mary was afraid. Even with the small but powerful army she'd "amassed," her role in the upcoming conflict would be reduced to that of the witcher knights. Not in entirety, but in such a significant portion that it worried her.
She turned to look at Greem, who'd started to get dressed. His face was the picture of calm. She'd come to trust in that calm, and it had never failed her. As a body refiner and one whose performance in this war had been more than outstanding, the man she loved would most definitely fight the some of the higher grades head on.
It was inevitable. He said so himself. And she believed him when she said everything would be fine. If the things he'd crafted for her and the amazing feats they'd achieved so far were anything to go by, her lover had to be the most talented and powerful First Grade ever.
If even she with her meagre intellect could notice this, how much more the clan? How much more Lord Sarubo? Maybe she was being fearful for nothing and they hadn't noticed anything yet. And that was too big a maybe for her.
If Greem was ordered to face one of the higher grades head on, he'd be forced to resort to measures the clan and no one else apart from him had no business knowing. If the clan's higher ups didn't know his secrets, they'd certainly know then.
And they were going to scheme a way to obtain it for themselves. Thinking about it, they didn't even have to do that. They had a god on their side. Lord Sarubo could easily ensure that only the clan benefited from Greem's special talents.
Benefits. That's how he explained their intentional negligence of Anderson's actions. They let her suffer through that and were willing to let others experience even worse fates because in the end, they'd be the ones to reap the harvest.
They were in for a surprise if they thought they could do that to Greem.
Even though she still held doubts and feared what would happen, his continued nonchalance at the events that would ensue in the coming days eased her worries somewhat. He even stated his promise again that no matter what, they'd both be leaving this plane alive and free.
Those plans of his. Normally she wouldn't care about the nitty gritty details. But for this, for something where could lose him, she wanted to understand every part of it he was willing to share and know how best to execute her role.
The details went through her mind again and her worried expression eased, a smile tugging at the edge of her lips.
☀☀☀
After getting dressed and bidding Mary goodbye, Greem engaged his stealth artifact and began a relaxed journey back to the forward base.
As soon her message reached there, Lord Fügen would no doubt call for all Adepts to return. He'd also likely slap on a threat, saying some nonsense like "those who fail to return will be treated as traitors and hunted down."
'Prick.'
Greem had grown tired of the war. If his foreknowledge didn't assure him the upcoming battle was the final one, he would have absconded with Mary long ago. Sure, he'd earn the ire of a clan with a Sixth Grade as its head, but the freedom would be sweeter than anything else.
Even the reward he was looking forward to obtaining didn't seem that great in his eyes anymore. Not when he had the crafting essence. If he put his mind to it, he could fashion a decent and maybe with some luck an even greater version of it.
Alas, that would take too long and his strength would suffer for that, stagnating for that entire period. That's why he entertained the clan when they announced the invasion of this plane and he chose to participate in it instead of eloping with Mary.
In his mind, it was a small price to pay for obtaining something so powerful. Plus, the spacestones. He had no way of obtaining those on Lethon. 'Sacrifice my time, my safety, my sanity and possibly my freedom… all for a chance to grow stronger. The things we do for power…'
No matter the case it would all be over soon.
Mid-flight, he felt the communication talisman in his storage ring acting up. He didn't dignify Fügen's message by even retrieving and disabling the alarm, letting it fizzle out on its own. He was seconds away from the base anyway.
The first thing he noticed, even before entering the base's confines, was the war tower. The illusion barrier was long gone. Though, if it had been present, it wouldn't have been enough to obscure the over 200 meter tall structure.
After weeks of work, the construction adepts had finally completed the main and necessary parts of the tower. Those necessary for the upcoming battle anyway. Now all the work being done on it was magic modification and reinforcement.
Instead of the special bricks and materials normally used in the construction of Adept towers, large, ultra compressed amounts of the common rocks and soil made up its bulk, making its quality and defenses—both magical and physical—dangerously insufficient.
It would not survive the beating it would take in the coming days. That's why multiple Strengthening, Hardening, and Defensive arrays were being carved and layered on top of each other all over the large structure.
Taking his eyes off the tower and noting how far it went above the surrounding trees, Greem slowed and lowered himself on the ground gently, deactivating his booster and sucking in his wings.
It seems he was the first of those outside the camp to arrive. He noticed Fügen standing nearby with his arms crossed behind him as he observed the work being done on the tower.
'No time like the present…' he thought to himself and marched towards the ice adept. He needed to confirm something. Aware of the differences in their status and how Adepts were when it came to perceived slights, he stopped about a meter behind Fügen before reporting.
"Lord Fügen."
The Second Grade Adept turned to him with his ever icy expression and gave him a faint nod before looking away right after.
"Sir, I heard we received some reinforcements recently. Will they be joining us when the time comes?"
A subtle frown worming its way into the iciness, Fügen turned to Greem and didn't look away as fast this time. "What you're asking can only be answered by the people you're speaking about. Tell me, how long did it take you to adjust to the planar laws?"
'Hours…' Greem thought to himself. But he knew better than to vocalise that. He went with the generally accepted time frame for First Grades. "A full day."
Fügen nodded. "It took me six days, and I'm Second Grade. How long do you think it'll take for them?"
Greem kept silent. 'Probably six or seven times that. I don't know. None of the books I read had information on this.'
Fügen returned his gaze to the tower as Greem turned around and strode towards his private housing. He had a plan to ensure his freedom from the clan should they try something, true. However that didn't mean it had to be the first and only option.
He could avoid the situation of drawing unwanted attention to himself if the Third Grades that arrived sometime ago involved themselves and tackled the Second and Third Grades.
Unfortunately for him, the net he'd just cast returned nothing promising. He would be engaging in fisticuffs with Second Grades. There were no two ways about it.
He could only remain calm and trust in himself and his abilities to tide him through and ensure he survived that and what came next.
****
Author's note:
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