Revenge of the Sorcerer King 2 - 33

Morning guys! Its finally the weekend! WOOO! Well here is the last chapter of book 2 of Revenge! Enjoy!

Chapter 33

Oberon

I called an end to the battle roughly ten minutes later. Of the twenty thousand soldiers that attacked us, only two thousand of them survived. They were all taken prisoner. We didn’t have a suitable place to put them, so I created a quick solution by using Alessa’s giant canyon. The top was guarded by undead and goblins.

I offered up most of the death energy in the desert to Siateth and got a very smug and happy face in reply in my mind. He gained so much just from this night alone, that I was sure whatever his standing with the other gods was, it had been upset quite a bit. I would need to be careful how I participated in this conflict or game that was taking place. While Yuin was one thing, I had already anticipated her being against me just due to the nature of my existence. 

As for the rest of the energy, I converted to necromantic mana and raised all the corpses in the desert. My standing undead army had nearly been cut in half, but with the addition of the enemy nearly tripled. Sadly, many of the bodies were reduced to ash. Mainly from the ultra-long-range bombardment from the Golden Throne.

Thragrami was already at work repairing the damage done to the walls and gate. It was a gift that we managed to get him before this conflict. While the goddess’s appearance made things a bit more difficult, we had most of the conflict under control. Without him, it might not have been so clear cut in the outcome.

Looking through the menus of the city later during the day, I was able to get exact tolls of how many soldiers we lost during the battle. My original estimates were close, but I was off by about one hundred on the goblin count. The undead count was a bit different as well, but I quickly figure the cause as some of the undead were Ted, Alessa, and Flaira, the woman that I changed into a lich.

I leaned forward on and placed my chin in my hand. “What to do, what to do?” I mumbled as I looked at my status and the city’s status. While repairs to the wall would take some time, the district that the battle took place in had still been a ruin hence we didn’t lose much there. A lot of it would have needed to be torn down later anyway. My home forces had grown quite a bit which opened doors that I had been looking at further down the road.

“Still haven’t decided what you want to do next?” a voice came from a recess.

“One of these days, you’re going to trigger a trap and I’ll have to explain to Alessa why there’s splattered vampire on the wall of the throne room,” I commented as I dismissed all the screens in front of me and turned to Helena. She had taken a heavy hit from the avatar, but her shield had taken the worst of it. Poor thing had been sliced in half, but at least the vampire herself survived.

“When that day comes, then I’ll know its time for me to retire back to Hizin.”

I sighed but gave her a smile. “Thank you for taking the first blow. I wouldn’t have been able to adjust the mana in my body to handle her speed had you not done that for me.”

She flipped her hand like it was no big deal. “I like to look at the big picture. My lord has need of you, thus it is best that you stay alive… unalive.”

“Got it.” I turned back to look at the empty throne room. “There are several items on my agenda. I’m trying to decide what is of higher priority.”

“Maybe I can help. What are the top three?”

I raised a finger. “The gods are very active. I don’t know if it is the norm for this time period, but I don’t like it. If we have to continue fighting avatars, I need to regain Mercy.”

“A decent caution. Though, I’m not sure about the gods’ situation. I’ve always been rather involved with Siateth, and he has always spoken to me often.”

I nodded then raised a second finger. “While we have some powerful allies now, most cannot leave the city. While this means the home front is strong and well defended, it makes striking out harder. The undead have their advantages, but without competent leaders, they are not a good army. In the larger battles to come, I can only hope to command twenty or thirty thousand effectively.”

“Make some advanced undead?”

“Correct. However, with the experiments that Ted and I have run, undead that reach the intelligence needed to command take a tremendous amount of mana. Plus, I’d rather not have advanced undead that are too low level. If they get taken out, it will turn that force into a mindless horde.”

“Then you need an army?”

“Yes. That raises its own problems.” I rubbed my temples. There were plenty of dark races that had the numbers to form an army. The biggest problem was they hated the sunlight thus many were nocturnal or stayed in the underground Labyrinth. Even if I convinced those to swear allegiance to me, they would be useless in the light.

“Okay. So next?”

I raised a third finger. “We might have defeated the expedition from the two lordships, but there are close to four million souls combined between the two of them. When word of this defeat reaches the living, something far worse than an army might be created.”

“Worse than an army?”

“A hero! It’ll be even worse if one of the countries attempts to summon a hero from another world. Which means we have a time limit. We need to crush this continent within a year.”

“The other continents can wait?”

“Yes. With the ocean separating us, there is little we can do without a fleet either way. Not to mention, the Empire is a completely different beast compared to these constantly warring lordships.”

“I understand. While it sounds like obtaining Mercy might be the best path to take since if we hurry, it could greatly alter the flow of the other two events.”

She was exactly right. The problem was where it was located. The Wandering Labyrinth existed in my time. I managed to defeat it and change its path from the capital of the nation it was about to encounter. Even then it had been close to two hundred floors deep. There was a teleport matrix every ten floors, but I didn’t know if it would still acknowledge me. Having to fight through Siateth knows how many floors would be a pain to say the least.

I closed my eyes for what it was worth and leaned back. “Maybe you and Alessa should take a trip to Hizin.” 

Alessa

Looking over those in my Familia, I was happy that most of them managed to survive the battle. We would have to mourn one, but she had been the most reckless of the women and had allowed a blessed sword to be plunged through her heart. That was too much for the only few week-old vampire to take. 

We all gained quite a few levels from the battle. Jade getting the most even compared to me. I was still higher than her, but it was getting rather close. Sarius had gotten a few, but I had him stay with the lesser leveled vampires so they didn’t all end up dead. 

“You all did great. I plan to have Thragrami make you all new gear in the coming days.”

They all cheered and each downed a goblet of blood wine. Helena had taught us how to make it. Given how much blood we had access to at the moment, she said she could resist. It would be a pity to let all the blood that remained on the battlefield to go to waste. 

For the moment, I just enjoyed being around everyone and delighting that we won a victory over such a larger force. I knew that hard times were coming thanks to our victory, but to not celebrate would be a sin. Thanks to the way it was made, the blood wine could actually make us drunk and we all indulged to our limit. Tomorrow, I was sure that Oberon would have plenty of work for us, but for now, I was happy.