City of Sin

War

Outside of those with other tasks, all of Richard’s followers started preparing for battle. Some growled with ferocity, others just stretched lazily, and those like Zangru and Phaser even flushed with arousal. The saints peeking at those two beautiful assassins especially shuddered, recalling their propensity for more violence than necessary when killing enemies.

Richard split them up into different teams, each one capable of fitting on one messenger with an extra as backup. The one exception was Tiramisu, who was so heavy that two messengers needed to work in tandem to carry his team. He was given two spares.

One of the newest messengers descended for Richard himself, gracefully landing at the plaza in front of his residence. He flew over to get on it, but Macy jumped up from the sofa as he exited, “Take me along.”

“You’re too weak,” Richard shot back immediately.

“I don’t need your help!”

“You’ll die if I don’t help you, and then I won’t have any information about the alter world.”

“Take me along, I’ll tell you what I know right now!”

Richard frowned, “Ugh… Whatever, you’re the one begging for death.”

She nodded, jumping onto the messenger with him and leaning over to whisper, “The records of the elven empire talk about a natural passage to the alter world. It’s located at the Eternal Battlefield.”

Richard’s eyes went wide open. He had known it would be difficult to get to the alter world, but not to such an extent. Strangely enough, it just so happened to align with another of his goals; the Eternal Battlefield was in Arbidis.

Putting aside the fact that he had no idea how to get there, Richard knew that it would be near impossible to find a portal on a level of the abyss where the demons and devils were constantly fighting. As a human, he would be a lighthouse in the darkness that attracted powerful beings from both factions.

Macy went on to explain that the high elves had created an extradivine set called the Seven Moons. They used them to form a portal directly into Arbidis, sending an army of powerhouses to explore the depths of the abyss. Unfortunately, they had mostly capitulated to an endless swarm of demons and devils before they could actually enter the portal to the alter world, forcing them to return. Of more than a hundred legends having entered, only two epic beings and four legends returned to Norland alive. While this wasn’t the event that directly ended the elven empire, it was one of many points of hubris that had led to their eventual downfall.

Richard took a deep breath and patted her shoulder, “Thank you, but I’m letting you know once more; I won’t take care of you when I’m fighting.”

“I’m the oldest granddaughter of Empress Gelan, why would I need your help?” Macy answered proudly.

Richard chuckled, “You’re just a baby lioness.”

“You…” Macy was enraged, but she could only go quiet as the messenger picked up speed.

The duo crossed several huge supply wasps along the way, even leaving behind an army of the broodmother’s drones that were busy building supply bases. The bases would move closer and closer to reaper territory with time, giving all the saints and legends fighting the reapers a quick stop to rest and resupply.

All of Richard’s followers were going into battle this time, with even the weakest of them being a sky saint. He planned to use overwhelming battle power to remove a part of the reapers before they could attack, disrupting enemy plans and using the opportunity to figure out the extent of the reapers’ ability. He was still prepared to escape at any time; if all of the warships he had seen in the doomsday imprint were to appear on this plane, then there would be no hope.

A number of squadrons infiltrated reaper territory from different directions. Richard and Macy took the route straight north, the plan being to head deepest in and try to take down one of the large warships if possible. However, that idea had to change a little with the saint warrior in tow, so he instead gave her a rundown on the various types of reapers while teaching her a simple ability to try and survive them. The ability, the Mirror of Light, allowed her to simulate the laws of light and form a reflective surface to protect herself from the beam attacks.

“How did you know I could work with light?” she asked all of a sudden, frowning deeply. Richard just shrugged it off, but it brought her thoughts back to the time when he had designed a custom rune for her and seen through her entire existence. She understood that someone at that level could come up with simple abilities quite easily, but after a few moments of silence she suddenly opened her mouth wide and bit into his shoulder.

Macy put a lot of strength into her bite, clearly intent on drawing blood, but all that followed was a weak grunt as she almost cried out in pain. Drawing her head back immediately, she covered her mouth and whined, “Why is your body so hard?”

He shrugged and ignored her again.

The messenger eventually reached its intended destination, and Richard commanded it to descend. Leaping down to the ground with Macy, Richard had it wait a hundred kilometres away before finally shaking his head at the angry young lady, “It’s time for battle now.”

“I know! Don’t look down on me, we can… Uhh…”  she suddenly stopped mid-sentence, realising that she was about to challenge an epic being to battle. She was still only a saint herself, and Richard could defeat her with his hands tied behind his back.

Going quiet, Macy followed Richard into the depths of reaper territory. It seemed like he was strolling, but his figure flickered with every step. It seemed almost easy to catch him, but whenever she actually tried she found it impossible to actually focus. The one time she tried to follow his footsteps meticulously, she grew nauseous within moments.

“Pretend I don’t exist,” he commented as she gagged, but even as she felt much better following the advice she felt like someone was spying on her. Noticing her frown, he paused to explain, “It’s the reaper detectors. You can’t feel or avoid them, so just let it be.”

“You can?”

“Of course,” he momentarily revealed a barrier all around him. It was designed with the sole purpose of absorbing the specific energy waves from the reaper detectors, making him a dead zone in their system.

As they talked, Richard suddenly blinked a few hundred metres away and kicked a detector out from the snow, melting it down to the traces of silver metal and storing it in his vial. Sensing the waves grow denser in response, he immediately perked up, “They’re here.”

A number of black spots appeared on the distance, zooming through the skies to reach Richard and Macy in moments. The reaper warplanes could barely even notice his presence, so most of them rushed towards the more obvious energy source instead. Behind the planes were two transport ships, one carrying the mechanical beetles while the other had hundreds of flesh warriors within. They stopped ten metres above ground, the flesh warriors leaping off and rushing towards the saint with astonishing speed.