City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Reunion

Richard had almost run out of mana by the time he arrived at the Land of Turmoil. Travelling at 500 kilometres an hour, just the wind was as strong as a grade 6 wind blade, forcing him to keep a barrier up at all times. Having travelled continuously like that for ten hours, he had stopped bothering to keep track of how many times he had to recharge his barrier.

“Master!” the broodmother’s voice rang out the moment he entered her territory, “Welcome to my… no, our kingdom!”

Dozens of cloned brains connected to him instantly, giving him a combined panoramic image of the entire Land of Turmoil. The place truly had been formed to her needs now, the larval forest covering the entire area while worm nests that were hundreds of metres high towered everywhere. The sky was flickering with strands of timeforce that even he wouldn’t want to pass through, and three flesh furnaces were operating at full speed in the west. Two of the furnaces were refining frostiron, some for sale and others used to create the winter soldiers, while the third was creating equipment parts like sword blades and scalemail to be transported to Norland for enchanting.

Two wasps were slowly making their way through the skies, carrying hundreds of tonnes of frostiron and weapon parts towards Bluewater Oasis. Meanwhile, a good number more were heading over from the Iron Triangle Empire, bringing in raw ore. Drones were bustling everywhere in the huge underground maze formed by the larval forest, tending to the trees and any other organisational tasks. The roots of the forest had dug kilometres in to extract all the energy in the earth, while their tall crowns were swaying in the sky absorbing energy there. A single tree only managed a tiny amount, but with the hundred thousand square kilometres of area, it had grown to an astronomical figure.

The larval forest had grown alongside the broodmother herself. It could now create units below level 6 without any need for intervention, able to form an army of a hundred thousand in only a few days if need be.

After giving him the view of the Land of Turmoil, the broodmother then connected to Richard herself, “Master, I need the divine blood!”

“Will that get you to level 12?”

“No, but I’d be very close.”

“Then no. I have other uses for it.”

A strange noise was transmitted over their connection, almost like a groan, “Fine, I can wait. There are many gods in Faelor, you’re not planning to stop just now, are you?”

Richard smiled. “Of course not. I’m just waiting to see who provokes me next.”

“Okay then, let’s take a look at the divine force crystals.”

He opened the two chests and poured the crystals down into a pile. The broodmother picked one of them up with a tendril that moved incredibly slowly, turning it over attentively before almost moaning, “So beautiful!”

“You know how you’re going to use them?”

“It’s a tough choice; I have many options for them. I was hoping for your help.”

He nodded and opened up his soul, connecting to her completely to form one combined consciousness focused on finding the best way to use the crystals. This was an extremely pure form of energy that could do anything from growing her own battle abilities to increasing the levels on her drones and creating the battle elites she had spoken about. They could even grant special abilities to elite drones, and a few quick calculations revealed power equivalent to a grade 7 spell. A single small piece of crystal could power many abilities more than ten times, posing a threat to even legendary beings when massed.

Eventually, they decided to use a majority on creating battle elite versions of the winter soldiers, a thousand level 17 warriors with the same strength as rune knights. A small part would be used to enhance a special batch of 500 arrowbeasts, capable of shooting up to three magical tracking bolts that had a range of a kilometre. This didn’t seem like much, but even legends would have to focus all their efforts to survive a single such volley.

Once they had decided on the best course of action, Richard finally heaved a sigh of relief and disconnected from the broodmother. The moment he returned to his own body, he realised just how much time had passed and was left dumbfounded; they’d spent a week on this!

“Master, will you not reconsider the divine blood? We could do the same as just now; I think we’ll find a better use for it.”

The broodmother clearly hadn’t given up yet, but Richard just chuckled and ground his knuckles against the flat side of one of her pincers, “Stop thinking about them!”

“Ugh, fine. There are so many gods in Faelor anyway, you said you’re continuing!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed at the whining broodmother and jumped back onto one of the messengers, heading straight for Bluewater.

……

It took another day to reach Bluewater, but Richard only stayed there for a few hours before returning to Norland. The situation in Azan was still tense, and he had spent a significant period of time away. While he was confident in his display of power, one could never tell when someone would come looking for vengeance.

Having moved through with the shipment of frostiron he had seen when he first arrived at the Land of Turmoil, he arrived at Blackrose Castle to see a merchant group already waiting for it. There was limitless demand in Norland for high-quality enchanted weapons, and every batch of frostiron gave him a hundred thousand gold in profits that as always flowed back into the Archeron army.

Archeron soldiers were continuing to gather around Azan, with a number of mercenary groups flocking over and even a few saints willing to fight under him because of the potential profits. However, he didn’t need to handle any of this personally; with both Goliath and Alice helping him, there was very little work to be done and he managed to finish up and head to the Deepblue the very same day.

……

The first thing he saw stepping out of the portal was the figure of a grey dwarf, rushing off somewhere with a chest that was even bigger than his own body. Blackgold slid to a stop the moment he saw the portal flashing, turning around and shouting warmly, “Richard! Why are you here? Anyway, doesn’t matter. My experiments are going well, come take a look! This will change everything!”

Richard walked over and gave the duergar a big hug, “Is Master here? I need to meet her first.”

Blackgold shrugged, “Her Excellency is in her residence, but you should be careful. She hasn’t been in a good mood lately.”

“Alright, I’ll take note of that.”

“Come find me once you’re done with her! I have a surprise for you!” the grey dwarf exclaimed once more.

By this point, the upper levels of the Deepblue had been restored to perfection. The only difference now was that the elves guarding the gates had become saints, and there were four instead of two. They still knew who he was and let him through immediately, but unable to use detection spells in the huge hall he had to walk around to the different sections of it one by one. After fifteen minutes of trying a few different rooms and failing, to his surprise he finally found Sharon in her lab.

The legendary mage was working on a mana crystal, so focused that she didn’t even notice him enter. Beams of mana flowed out of her fingertips into a crystal, the mana so dense it almost flowed like a solid rod of starlight.

“You stupid witch, I’ll show you!” she was muttering viciously under her breath, but as she grew agitated the crystal cracked loudly. She immediately threw the crystal into the wastebasket nearby, bringing Richard’s attention to ten others, “DAMN IT!”

“Hmm… Let me try,” he said as he walked in, his sudden voice startling the legendary mage. Her eyes started glowing only a moment later, and she rushed over and knocked him to the floor while kissing him a few times.

Richard smiled and grabbed her body, about to kiss her back, but Sharon suddenly bounced up and blinked away. She was back the next moment with a basket in hand, emptying it down onto the floor, “Quick! Charge these things for me!”