City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Nearing The End

“Answer me!” Richard frowned, halving the aura around the young lady in front of him with his voice alone. He had meant it as a warning, but the girl suddenly pouted with tears starting to flood her eyes.

Greyhawk and Asa found themselves staring at Richard, the former with burning curiosity and the latter with caution. The most powerful barbarian in existence suddenly realised that Richard’s grasp of Faelorian laws had reached a pinnacle that she couldn’t contend with; if the two came to blows, she wouldn’t even be able to escape. For someone at the epic realm, that was an extremely disconcerting fact.

Strangely, the girl didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by this display of power as she whined, “Daddy, don’t you even recognise me anymore?”

Hearing the girl calling Richard her father, the two jolted in surprise. Their gazes towards Richard were now filled with questioning; as someone who looked around the age of twenty himself, Richard seemed young enough to be her lover instead. As the only one prepared for it, Nasia sat where she was without moving, an eager smile on her mask.

Richard finally realised that the girl did indeed resemble his own daughter, even if the aura had changed significantly. Only half a month ago she had seemed to be a little girl who was seven or eight, but given what the broodmother had told him about her growth rate he realised that she would indeed be an adult now. It was simply that her talent was beyond his anticipation; in mere months since her birth, the girl was already legendary. As someone who had suffered for decades to accomplish the same thing, he simply couldn’t help a hint of resentment.

He eventually just sighed, “Well, you’re not coming along.”

“Why not? I’m very strong now, Aunt Nasia said so too!”

“Nasia said…” he glared at the paladin for a moment before continuing impatiently, “This has nothing to do anyway, you don’t have any actual combat experience. The reaper base isn’t a place where you can play around; even the moderately sized warships can hurt you.”

“But I’m already good at fighting! I know how to fight so many kinds of enemies; the reapers aren’t one of them, but I promise I’ll be careful!”

Fiora’s words left Richard dumbstruck. Thinking of a possibility, he glanced at Nasia once more who groaned lazily, “She’s awakened the warrior bloodline. Admit it Richard, your talent is garbage.”

Greyhawk suddenly smiled as well, rubbing salt into Richard’s wounds with an explanation, “I was about to say as well. Most powerful bloodlines pass experience through the generations. Only the strongest of descendants can awaken this experience. You know, Mountainsea is the same; she didn’t just inherit the strength of the Beast God, she also inherited its combat experience. Your gifts truly are lagging behind a little, you should try harder.”

‘I can destroy almost all of you!’ Richard wanted to shout, but the words got caught on his tongue. As he activated the Field of Truth and analysed his own daughter, he could confirm that she had no significant pool of either mana or internal energy. Her bloodline alone had propelled her to the legendary realm, and the mere circulation of that power was proof enough that she had combat experience she shouldn’t. From his point of view, she wasn’t much different from a lesser demon lord in human form.

Finally relenting, Richard gave everyone a day to make their preparations as he returned to his laboratory and fused the last of his activated ember essence with the Beast God’s blood. He sealed the tiny cloud of scarlet fluid within his own body; he simply couldn’t fathom how he would fix the Deepblue Aria if it was stolen.

……

Dawn the next day, Richard was staring at a full map of Faelor, with four red dots representing reaper squadrons that were still operating around the plane. His small party passed through a wormhole to arrive at the Land of Turmoil and gathered with Mountainsea, hopping on the latest iteration of messengers and zooming towards the northeastern edge of the continuent.

He felt himself almost completely void of emotion at this point; facing the final battle against the reapers, he felt like it was just any other. They had chosen a point where the reapers simply had no means to make it back to base, greatly lessening the difficulty of the upcoming attack. His entire group was covered by a silencing barrier that could cancel any attempts at detection, the spell so effective that they flew right next to the detectors without issue. Waterflower, Tiramisu and Ironshield were already leading armies of bladed hunters and night elves to fight the four outside squadrons and make it seem like the epics were simply otherwise occupied. While the armies that were made almost purely of drones were destined to lose or win with a small margin, they would hopefully distract the reapers from setting up extra defences.

Safe in their little bubble, the attack team smoothly journeyed all the way to the fog wall covering the reaper base. Greyhawk had nothing but praise for the idea the entire way, while Asa only grew more alert. They already knew how pervasive the detective waves of the reapers were, and both of them believed they would take at least a decade to truly break them down. Richard seemed to have just modified a silencing spell to form this barrier, but in truth it was targeted solely against the reapers and made them completely invisible to any forms of detection the machines had.

Richard had already grown used to Asa’s wariness; few epic beings could tolerate being in another’s home ground. The fact that she stayed despite knowing that he could kill her if he wished was more indicative of her trust in him than anything else.

He stopped them all just behind the fog, “This is as far as we can go like this; the fog triggers an alert the moment anything passes through. The base is roughly 25 kilometres across, and the mothership is near the centre. I’ll rush straight for it, you guys follow half-way and take out the reapers at designated points. Block off the warships for a while, remember to focus on the sky first and then the ground. The buildings aren’t important. Fiora, you’re to follow Nasia closely, don’t you dare leave her sight!”

The girl swung her red ponytail in annoyance, “I have the experience!”

“You have a demon’s experience and a human body. There are a number of things that your experience will say you should be able to survive that just kill you in one shot. Promise to stick with Nasia, or I’m putting you to sleep and having you ferried back.” With the admonishment prompting his daughter to shrink back and nod, Richard turned to face the others, “If there’s nothing else, prepare to attack.”

He suddenly recalled the barrier that had stopped all probing, the messengers rushing forward at full speed as they charged straight through the fog wall. They passed right through, just in time to hear sirens start to go off in the base.

For a moment. everyone outside of Richard and Nasia stared at the enormous facility with awe. The place was vastly different from anything in norland, and the countless strange structures that seemed to pulse with energy made them feel like they had entered a strange world that they couldn’t dream of.

Richard hopped off his messenger and flew further northeast, his party following close behind. The messengers quickly took a u-turn and clumped up together, flying away at full speed as they headed to nearby hiding spots just in case something went wrong.

The reaper command system was surprisingly fast and efficient. Even with Richard’s speed of blinking a full kilometre every few seconds, he was barely halfway across before he was blocked by a large group of warships. His flanks were surrounded in mere moments, ensuring that he had nowhere to go. Two absolutely enormous ships took to the skies from both ends of the base, picking up speed as they closed up the net of machines that aimed to trap him here forever.

However, Richard simply shouted as he charged straight forward, crashing into the cluster right ahead.