Chapter 29
"So you, you and you." Ashborn started pointing at three shadow soldiers in front of him.
Beru, Cylrit, and Uto were the strongest soldiers in Ashborn's army, currently.
"Beru, you are taking Ants under your command. You have my permission to command them all however you want." Ash told Beru who kneeled and lowered his head.
"I will never forget your kindness, I will work harder and dedicate whole myself for you my liege. I shall not disappoint you." Beru lowered his head so much that it was already underground.
"Rise up." Beru immediately got up straight and looked ahead.
Ashborn just walked up to him and patter ant's shoulder.
'My liege… just patted my shoulder…' Beru was on the verge of crying from happiness, but he couldn't display such feelings in front of his liege.
Ashborn could anyway feel what his soldiers felt.
"Pu- I mean Uto and Cylrit. Split the rest of the soldiers and take them under your command." With this said Ashborn split groups of soldiers who are ready to finally dive into a dungeon.
"Uto, Cylrit. You both will be leading soldiers into deeper dungeons where adventurers don't even dare to dive." Ashborn said and two nodded.
"There is only one mission bestowed upon you. Kill everything on your way!" Shouted Ashborn and the morale of soldiers was raised up.
"And now for you Beru… You will be helping me with important things…"
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(Ashborn's POV)
"My liege, what materials should we use for the interior?" Baru approached me.
Yes, I tasked Beru and ants to build a castle for me. A place where their liege can rest, and participation in its construction is the greatest honor they can receive.
At the same time that was my way to keep Beru away from the dungeon. Since Beru will destroy anything even the dungeon itself, It will be best to keep him away from there…
"Use… The wood I guess." I wasn't knowledgeable when it comes to constructing grand buildings.
"It shall be done, my liege." Beru immediately flew towards nearby woods.
I could already see how the fundament of Castle was formed. The fundament itself was already enormous, it surely will be noticeable in Beast Glades.
'I hope adventurers won't take this as some dungeon break…'
Certainly, if adventurers will try fighting Beru's forces, I'm sure Beru would just kill them.
'My king, we fully finished clearing the first dungeon.' Cylrit telepathically informed me, I just sighed.
They found the dungeon and cleared it in under 5 hours, at this progress my army in few days might reach already count of 10 thousand.
I dived into my shadow and emerged behind Cylrit. What I saw impressed me, corpses weren't just lying around who knows where. All beast corpses were divided into groups, and certain groups had a certain amount of magical energy emitting from them.
The exact reason why Cylrit did this was unknown to me. Maybe he did this to show me that some of them might be useless? No, every soldier in my army is a comrade to others and all of them do their duties as needed.
Anyway...
"Arise" I called upon souls of the dead monsters, they without resistance emerged in forms of shadows and merged with mine.
"Good job. You may commence your dive into the next dungeon, while I should get back and keep an eye on Beru." Just when I wanted to return, I sensed a big amount of mana in the same place where Arthur was.
I quickly used my soldier's vision to see where exactly was Arthur.
'My liege, your brother is in danger.' Beru also seemed to felt it, since all soldiers are connected to each other.
"Don't lift a finger yet."
I watched how one person, who Arthur teamed up was dead. Only skeleton and some flesh remained from him.
Despite this, Arthur remained calm. He just averted his gaze and took something that was lying on the ground.
'Let's see what you will do now Arthur.'
The dungeon where he was right now, wasn't a dungeon in which you can get out without a fight. Either way, you have to kill the dungeon boss or die. The worms they were fighting right now are just small fries, real dungeon boss was still well hidden.
Also, the small girl that was in a group with Arthur…
'Why even letting her be Adventurer? She clearly hates blood.' This was what I thought about girl. Jasmine also looked calm like Arthur.
Another worm attacked the group. Arthur and Jasmine defended, but this couldn't be said for others. If Arthur didn't save the blond-haired boy, he would already be dead. The same could be said about a little girl, who got saved by a teammate, not without cost tho…
Man who saved girl lost arm.
'Adventurers? What circus is this? Does Kaspian set low requirements?' If every other dive in a dungeon made by AA-Class adventurers are on this level, even if the boss is S-Class. Then I have bad news for Kaspian.
'My liege, shall I interve?' Beru asked me.
'No, just continue what you were doing. If something happens I will intervene.' I told, at which he complied and continued his job.
Arthur's group decided to continue their dive. Because apparently, this is the last dungeon dive for someone, and he thinks he will manage. I highly doubted that this dungeon dive would be successful.
They entered some kind of cave with a lot of green. A lot of trees, grass, and flowers were there making the groupthink that it was probably a safe one.
Exactly like I predicted some of them wanted to take a rest there.
"Clara?! Is that really you?" Someone in Arthur's group shouted towards the mist.
'Oh, so those who are affected by mist have hallucinations?' Since I wasn't there and my shadows like me have immunity to any illusions, it didn't work on me.
As expected, Man in Arthur's group ran off and disappeared in mist later.
(3'rd POV)
'Mist is limiting our sight…' Thought Arthur.
"Jasmine, do you have any spells that can clear this mist?" Arthur turned to his partner and asked.
"Not strong enough to clear it all away, but I can make a path." She responded, lowering her gaze.
Group made enough space for Jasmine, soon she started preparing spell. A green hue that surrounded her, started swirling in her hands. Her black hair chaotically lashed around her.
"Clear my enemies from my path with an ever raging howl!" Jasmine finished chanting her spell.
[Storm's Gale]
Her two hands with greenish hue swirling previously clapped, and a tornado was released from them. Group's path was finally clear, but their excitement after seeing Jasmine's spell quickly died down.
Their faces paled after they saw some vines extending towards them.
"Enough of this!" Shouted Lucas after pushing Jasmine out of his way.
"Crescent Ember!" He shouted, the tip of his staff glowed yellow, and moments later fire expanded from it like a blade.
But his fire wasn't enough to stop vines, they only flinched back after receiving some damage and quickly regrew.
"Shit what kind of trees aren't afraid of fire?" Hissed man named Brald, and charged at vined while swinging his broad-sword.
"Samantha, Elijah, Lucas! Support us." Arthur barked, while augmented himself with mana and charging.
Group maintained some kind of formation until Reginald was caught in vines and couldn't escape from it. Arthur managed to save Reginald in time.
Lucas then used a fire spell, not strong but was created to spread quickly. Flammable liquid fired by Lucas didn't bring results, and his face paled after he saw that vines weren't damaged.
Meanwhile, Elijah who was casting his spell finally finished, and ground under vines crumbled. The deep crater formed keeping vines away from the approaching group.
The mist that was previously surrounding the group started sucking into vines. This cleared a limited view of the group, however…
After finally seeing what was beyond this mist, the group paled even more.
Colossal mana-beast formed with only vines.
"I-I've read about a monster that looked something like this." Samantha, the second female mage in the group stuttered.
"I think t-that's an S-Class mana-beast Elderwood Guardian!" Exclaimed Samantha.
This shocked everyone, especially when Reginald pointed to Kriol who was in the center of the mana beast's body. Veteran adventurers already lost all hopes of survival.
Reginald regained his manliness after Elijah cast some spell, Took his hammer, and charged at Elderwood Guardian while shouting.
"Go back to the damn hole you crawled out from! You oversized tree! IMPACT BARRAGE!" Shouted Reginald.
His attacks couldn't damage the beast much. Soon vines wrapped around Reginald and started twisting his bones.
Samantha launched her spell, and later couldn't even move normally. Arthur quickly made up his mind and after grabbing Samantha quickly shouted to Jasmine.
"Jasmine! Go grab brald and let's run! Elijah, Lucas, you have to try and block incoming attacks until we can make it out from here!" Arthur enhanced himself with mana but before he could move.
Lucas who was supposed to aim at the beast aimed his staff at Arthur's chest. Staff's tip glowed with yellow, but before the spell could be cast fully.
The person appeared next to Arthur. A person broke Lucas's staff into half and aimed staff with a crystal at Lucas. Lucas's spell hit his own caster and Lucas flew in opposite direction from Arthur.
"Wha?!" Everyone got shocked at the sudden development.
(Ashborn's POV)
Before that lowly humanoid creature could attack my brother, I appeared there and reflected his attack.
"Wha?!" Arthur who got shocked at my appearance almost shouted, but when he saw me sighed in relief.
"Arthur, are you a- No you aren't. Just lay down and rest I'll take care of everything." I told him at which he shook his head.
"Take everyone out from here, I'll kill the beast." Arthur denied me.
"I said lay down and rest." I said to him more seriously. he immediately sat down
"And you there. Don't move." I now said this to a blond-haired boy who was trying to escape.
He immediately froze.
"Now that big monster right there… Today you have the worst opponent you could ever face." I never liked to talk too much in battles, but maybe I was just not myself? I was angry that was clear.
I conjured my black sword and charged at the monster. Adventurer's corpse that monster used to form his own body, I quickly slashed it making a previous humanoid form of the beast change.
"Now where is your core?" From distance, it was hard to sense the core of this beast since its mana was close to Nature.
"Found it." When I sensed beast-core I again slashed, so that I couldn't really damage the core itself.
A big cut appeared on the beast and this was enough to see the core.
[Ruler's Authority]
I pulled green beast-core towards me and all vines dropped on the ground like dead corpses.
"It's corrupted? Useless." I destroyed beast-core after sensing that it had two different manas there. For selling it was useless, while I didn't need such a shadow soldier.
"Arthur, how are you feeling?" I approached the group, blond-haired boy meanwhile was in the same frozen pose when I commanded him.
"Mother's healing spell really did save me hehe." Despite being in not the best condition he was still laughing. So he didn't need healing, unlike others.
"Then you don't need healing." I moved away from him. I could hear how imaginary lighting hit Arthur's heart.
"Now about you…" I started approaching blond-haired scum.
He looked around to see me, but again without him even noticing, I appeared right behind him. This startled him, but he was too prideful to back down like this. He swung staff, aiming at my head.
'Just how… stupid is this human?' I thought and cut off his arm he swung at me.
"Ah, AGHHH!" He clutched on his knees and started screaming blood was coming out like a fountain.
"Are you going to kill me?! My family will hunt you down! My brother is the strongest mage on dicathen!" He shouted at me, his facial expression was ugly. Tears were falling down from his eyes.
"You attacked my brother trying to use him as bait… He would have died. Now I shall repay YOUR brother with the same." With the same emotionless voice, I said to him.
"W-Wait! don't please!"
"I think I have a better way… You nobles are power-hungry ones… Definitely, you want strength… to humiliate you, I will kill you by your own strength." I kicked him, turning him over and showing his belly to me.
I held my palm on his belly, right above his mana-core. With this, I started transferring my own mana into his core. A large amount of it at that. His mana-core started evolving/breaking through stages at rapid space.
"No! Stop it!" The blond-haired boy probably felt the most unbearable pain in his whole life.
His flesh started burling, his body started expanding like a balloon.
"AHHHH?!" After the last scream escaped his mouth, he exploded… Literally.
"Where is his head?" I looked around and soon found his head still in somewhat normal condition. I wanted to give it as a present to his family, they at least need something to bury.
"What did you just-" Other group of people looked at me petrified. I just approached them quietly without saying anything.
"Jasmine, are you feeling alright?" Aside from exhaustion, Jasmine looked completely fine.
"Yes…" She nodded.
I then walked towards the girl, who Arthur carried. I placed my hand about her, I started healing her, soon all wounds on girl disappeared as if they weren't there before.
"Now you." It wasn't pleasant people who I didn't know, but I'm changing my principles.
I approached a black-haired boy and just when I placed my hand on his forehead...
I caught him by the neck and stood above him, I removed my hand and placed my leg on his neck.
"Who… Are… You?"
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For those who read WN of TBATE, would probably understand what's happening.
Btw another chappie!
Discord: https://discord.gg/jX4rWv8FQU
New FF: https://www.wattpad.com/story/284711075-tbate-severing-fate
Cya!!!