City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Evacuation Plan

Richard was currently in his command centre in Bluewater, staring at a map of Faelor with a frown on his face. The distant cloned brain had already sent a report of the battle, and things were not pretty. He had lost a wasp and 300 elite soldiers, while the reapers had lost a single flying machine after a level 14 officer went all-out.

The only source of consolation was that the scale of the enemy wasn’t all that large, but it seemed like the wasp had only met with a small detachment. How else would the reapers destroy entire planes? Unfortunately, he just didn’t have much credible information.

After some deliberation, he decided to send the nearest cloned brain to gather all aerial troops in the vicinity and go into battle with the machines. The brain itself was pretty strong, and with a hundred level 12 winged serpents it immediately set off for a grand battle.

A grand battle that lasted one minute and six seconds. All of Richard’s forces were destroyed in that pitiful length of time, and the cloned brain only broadcast a short capture of what it deemed important. That image showed a sizeable machine currently on the ground, mechanical battles carrying red and white cubes into it in line. One part of the image showed a distant beetle cutting into the wasp corpse, another separating armour pieces from the dead humans and trying to compress them.

The sight left him shocked. This was eerily similar to how the broodmother’s drones collected resources! The only difference was that the drones were living beings, while the reaper machines seemed almost purely mechanical. However, the way these machines performed their tasks made it obvious that they had to have some form of intelligence as well, intelligence that was not inferior to his drones.

Richard lost all control of the northeastern skies with that battle, even giving up a valuable cloned brain, but he had also obtained some key information as well. Given the fact that none of his drones would have escaped anyway— the smallest machines from the reapers could travel a little under twice as fast as the cloned brain— it was an acceptable compromise.

The attacks from the winged serpents showed that the reapers had great resistance to most magic, but while they were almost impervious to cold, heat and lightning spells did have some effect. Even the smallest of the war machines were extremely powerful and made from metal, full-fledged attacks from the winged serpents only leaving scratches on the surface. The entire battle had only killed ten of the smallest ones, while the bigger ones were completely unharmed.

Richard immediately contacted Gangdor, ordering him to focus on defence and wait for reinforcements. Adjusting the map to focus around the Bellowing Canyon, he marked out a few important areas for scouting. Another cloned brain was ordered into the skies, commanding a squad of aerial beasts to split up into two groups that scanned east-west and north-south respectively. After that, he drew a line near a sparsely populated territory towards the eastern ends of the Iron Triangle Empire; dozens of flying beasts set off to defend the location.

……

Once he was done planning for the initial wave, Richard teleported to the Frozen Throne and met Emperor Salwyn in the palace. The man had grown thinner over the past few days, but his aura had evolved to truly match his position as the ruler of the Iron Triangle Empire. Of course, all that majesty had to give way as he bowed respectfully, “Your Majesty.”

Richard smiled in response. Although it had been some time since he had crushed the Empire, Salwyn seemed to understand his position well and didn’t even think about independence. Now, that loyalty would be rewarded, “You’ve been managing things well for the past few years. How’s your army?”

“The original ten corps have been rebuilt and reequipped, and we added ten more. There are also twenty secondary divisions with basic training complete, as well as fifty brigades of militia. Combining everything, we have more than four million soldiers ready for war.”

“Not bad, but that’s a million short of our goal.”

“This army is already strong enough to sweep through Faelor, and it still can’t compare to yours. You never told me why we needed to build up such a force,” Salwyn stated in confusion. Maintaining an army of this size was a huge burden that would have left him bankrupt without Richard’s support.

Richard sighed, “The enemy I mentioned is here now, and they’re terrifying. Even with full power, I have no confidence in defeating them.”

“Impossible!” Salwyn’s eyes went wide. As someone who had been on the other side, he knew just how powerful Richard’s army was. Conquering all of Faelor was a simple task for someone of his power, only delayed because of commitments elsewhere and a shift of focus to the divine. What did it mean if someone who had torn Runai from her throne was now uncertain of victory? This was the man whose three subordinate gods were currently wreaking havoc in the south!

Richard gave him a brief rundown of the situation with the reapers, ignoring the emperor’s shock. Anyone would be stunned if they heard that their plane was going to be destroyed.

“Then what should I do?” Salwyn eventually asked.

“Gather your most important subordinates, I’ll take them back to my plane. The number of people will be limited, it’s best if you keep it under 10,000. Also form up your defences and prepare for a battle with the reapers; it might just be meaningless, but every moment counts.”

“You’re… giving up on Faelor?”

“I’m sorry, it’s inevitable. I don’t know how fast the reapers will attack, I don’t know how many of them there are. They might be at your doorstep next month, you need to be ready to leave by the end of the week.”

“… I understand. I’ll need some wasps, how many can you spare?”

“Hmm… Twenty, at most.”

“Only… Nevermind,” Salwyn smiled bitterly, saying nothing as Richard pat him on the shoulder. The Iron Triangle Empire obviously meant nothing to someone who had millions of citizens he was directly responsible for, and the twenty wasps were obviously on account of his own worth. They could transport the 10,000 people in two trips, and if he was fast about it they could likely come back and save a few thousand more in that time.

Richard then passed a map to Salwyn, containing defensive lines and their movements. Everything was organised around the most defensible terrain in the Empire; although this wouldn’t stop the reaper attack, Richard hoped it would slow things down.

However, Salwyn shivered as he looked at the lines. If he were to set up according to this plan, dozens of major cities in the east would be hung out to dry. That was tens of millions of people! Unfortunately, Salwyn was an outstanding general himself. He understood that this was the line with the highest potential, so he eventually nodded and agreed to the orders.

Time was scarce at the moment, and every second was precious. Richard didn’t have any time to console Salwyn, so he returned to Bluewater and started planning his next moves. He planned to use the Iron Triangle and the Land of Turmoil as defensive strongholds, stopping the reaper advance to buy time for his troops to withdraw. He could manage to get 500,000 people out from Faelor if he used the portal to its limit. Cost wasn’t the major issue; if he tried to push people through faster, the portal would destabilise and could even be rendered dysfunctional. Given what he had seen, his troops couldn’t hold the reapers off for more than a month.

That being said, a larger portal could have been just as dangerous as well. While reapers had never travelled through portals before, anecdotal evidence wasn’t something to base one’s actions on. He would withdraw and give up on Faelor, ready to close the portal off at the first sign of danger.