Rex had his breakfast earlier than ussual, only acompanied by Arana and Aisha. One of the two would be coming along with him and Aisha ensured they had a great start of their, no doubt to be, rather eventfull day. Rex was ever gratefull towards his dutifull wolfkin, always giving her all to ensure their meals were beyond incredible. And so, he thanked her once they were done, and with a light and quick peck on her lips left the place, acompanied by his sister, smiling rather sweetly towards him and Aisha.
With thanks covered, Rex opened gate to Elysion, and from there they returned to the place inside the Echlisiarchies barrier they had last left from. In front of them was the barriers wall, seperating Urhost county, the last of the lesser houses to fall, from his first duchy to test his mettle against. Zeke dutchy was ruled over by the Zeke family, one of the twelve council members, the ruling body of this rotten nation. During his time observing Echlisiarchy, as well as during his invasion, he had noticed a rather odd peculiarity regarding the rulling families. Namely, each family had a rather sick hobby shared to some degree by every single bloodline member of the family. Zeke family, for example, enjoyed a bit of cannibalism for their meals, if they had the pleasure of hunting and killing said prey- all the better. Who preffered the meat of a woman, a man, a boy or a girl, that varied from member to member. Or even more specific prefferences, like the thigh of a certain gender in certain age range once every month, during speacial day or mealtime. Or the neccesity to torture their meal before they die, to have an extra cheweness to their meat due to the stress of the quarry right before its death. Rex was certain that a certain chaos god of exess would trive on the rulling families of the Echlisiarchy.
He was entirely aware of what was on the other side in the immediate surroundings, so he did not hesitate as he extended his hand, and once Arana reached out and grabbed his into her own, he went forward, crossing the barrier and emerging on the other side, Arana following closely by. They emerged in a rather picturesque place, standing right in front of a decent sized river, their backs just mere centimeters away from the misty wall and a great field of colorfull flowers on the other side of the river extended as far as the eye could see.
"To think such beautifull places are overshadowed by the corruption and filth that are the people of this nation." suddenly spoke Arana, clearly displeased with such a great view being spoiled by her knowledge of their location. "I have never felt more reassured of the correctness of this purge than during such moments as this."
"Indeed. They have such magnificent land to call their own, and yet they find it more important to engage in pointless genocide over a mixed bloodline above certain level of purity." Rex agreed with a sigh. ''Lets get this party started, shall we?" He then questioned, as he held his sister, and used him mana and aura to jump and glide the two of them over the river. Then, once they were safely back on the ground, he placed on the ground once of the anchor plates, establising a gate, allowing for the transportation of much greater numbers than he could secure with his own gate. Then, moments later, therough the gate started to stream an endless torrent of blood serpent constructs, flooding the field and advancing in a measured manner and with almost perfectly synchronized movements, though there were some discrepencies all and all.
The two months cleansing and both draining countless people had allowed him to increase his mental capacity as well quite a bit, even if his individual combat power had not raised a lot. That in turn allowed Rex to increase the number of blood serpents he could reliably controll by an insane amount, thus allowing him to become a walking army by himself. And now, he would let his ammassed power towards the duchy, performing a thorough and in depth purge of the rot that had been infesting this place for far too long. All Rex had to do was think of the numerous bone piles in the burried and closed off pits were lying in, their previous owners no doubt still begging for justice, and he could compete even the worst acts against such peaople. Hell, calling them 'people' was already hard as it is.
The pair of sibblings stood there for a few minutes, taking in the sight of the ever growing red army taking up more and more of the meadow in front of them. Still, even with the rather large entrance, spewing out countless constructs evey second, they still had to wait for quite a while before Rex was ready to start his purge of the place. And indeed, once his army had crossed over and was entirely on this side, right next to him, all he had to do was mentally command his rather fresh army, something he did in a heartbeat, drawing a rather hard exhale coming form Arana. The girl was not even aware she had been holding her breath, not entirely aware of the total size of his army, only having heard Rex mention it would be enough for his current needs.
With the army now entirely crossed over, he floated towards one of the largest blood constructs nearby, clearly held close by for this exact purpose, as the army was starting its move forward. There was a small platform on the constructs back, having a small palaquin fastened to it. Rex and Arana took their seats and relaxed, chatting about a few more intereseting things on their minds as the blood tide began its movement. Countless constructs surged forward, seeming as an endless tide of intelegent blood, seeking for more beings to add to its already immense size.
The blood constructs surged forward, leaving a rather flattened ground behind them, no accidental crashes happening among themselves, the advance being controlled extremely orderly, even if it looked nothing of sorts from far away. And while it would seem the tide was like a blind monster just charging ahead, due to his extensive cosmic crow coverage over the region, his entire army was already advancing towards his first victims as a general.
Within hours of his force crossing into the Zeke territory, villages laid in ruins in his wake, and the nearest cities were already aware of a foreign and unknown monster tide charging forward, erasing any and all human life in its path. There were still no one who had noticed the palaquin bearing construct among the huge horde of the monsters. To be fair to the people of Echlisiarchy, Rex was deep withing the tide, heavily masking his existance. And that was not because he was wary of a potential assasination attempt to halt the advance of his blood tide, it simply made it easier for Rex to controll and dirrect his entire army.
Unlike what he did with the counties, here he was planning to allow the entire territory to rally their armies, should they decide to do so, making one decisive battle before he has to deal with the noncombatants and the rest, or, if his opponents so decided, he would just take down city from city, slowly reaching the same conclusion. He would find out soon enough what the local lords along the chain of command would decide to do. It was not possible to hide such a large movement of troops from his eyes in the sky after all. And while the tide had been noticed and reported, the scouts could not have any idea just how serious the situation was with jus a few glances over towards it. The construct placement was decided in amanner that hide the S class serpents rather well among the numerous A class ones, seriously concealing the actual pwoer of the tide.
Within a day Rex had laid waste to one of the minor cities, forcing the remaining lords in the immediate vicinity to reevaluate the threat his invasion force, still considered a mere beast tide, posed, forcing them to scramble to quickly form a united force to deal with the ever nearing threat, else they fall to its forever hungry maw one by one. The horde did not seem inclined to stop after a single city taken down and consumed after all, and while spoiled and arrogant, the lords were not quite retarded, to not see the fist coming for their faces after they have 'witnessed' their fellow lord already being knocked the fuck out just moments before.
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Rex wondered would they manage to organize and unite at the next city in his wake in time, or would they meet up once he had already laid waste to the next city and intercept the late reinforcements on his way towards the third. He himself was more inclined to believe the second scenario, that another day later proved to be correct. Just like the first city, there was little the defenders could do to stop the emotionless and rutheless army of constructs as it washed over its walls and began the culling. The reinforcements were still on their way, or organizing, as Rex saw countless peasants being drafted and called to defend their homes.
"Sheesh, they dont hold back, do they." Rex sighed as he saw the scurrying people in the eyes of his crows., being sent to their deaths sooner than it would come for them all the same. The armies that he encountered soon after he left the ruins behind was nit much more lucky, having barely any time to react to the ever advancing tide of monsters, Rex reinforced and even slightly increased the numbers a bit more, choosing to drain most of the bodies left behind in pieces by his army. Arana was also having her own fun, being given a few blood constructs of her own and utilizing them to the fullest. Even without the insane processing power, and controlling only a couple constructs she was hard at work, bringing her own little plans to fruition, even if they were all somewhat small in scale.
The unified army of the local cities was ill prepeared for what was coming at them, and so, the fight proper did not last even hours before most of the people were already dead, dying or frantically fleeing and hunted down by the constructs. There was no escape, no mercy to be had at the jaws of the red tide, leaving only empty and shredded armor and weapons behind, further empowering Rex and expanding his army. And sadly for them, not a single peasant that was being drafted and prepeared for Rex's inevitable arrival would make it out alive. Rex had decided so, and thus his constructs would carry out his will to the letter.
A couple more days later he could already see a sizable army being ammased at the capital of the Zekes holdings. The people in charge had realised with the fall of the third city that they needed an inquisition force to even try to stop the ravenous horde, and so that was exactly what they had done for the past couple of days, all the while Rex's blood tide devoured more and more villages and even cities, leaving nothing behind. Svergi would get their loot in the capital. It was his call after all. The counties had enriched the Mountains Rage tribe many times over already, thus Rex had every leverage to do as he pleased, reducing the possible casuallities during the campaing in these lands for the hybrid race.
And so, without any strategizing neccesary with allied forces that were not under Rex's dirrect controll, his blood tide crashed upon the walls of the capital city of the Zeke duchy, the defenders having been stationed days prior in their positions and with constant scout reports comming in regarding the status and progress of the tide. Lord Zeke and his closest confidants and family had rather grave expressions on their faces, having learned that the tide seems to have not lessened at all during the previous battles, city sieges including, clearly indicating that the monsters had some way to recover their lost numbers or multiply after a successfull battle, or hunt, or whatever else said monsters would classify the carnage they would wreak whereever they went.
A few mages were stationed right by their side, having cast some scrying spells, displaying several locations where they had front row view as if they were on the outer wall, staring down the endless tide of blood red monsters adbancing towards in real time and with rather notable speeds. Even worse was the fact that their arrows lacked the punching power to visibly damage the crystal like blood exoskeleton the monsters were sporting.
every now and then they could see some serpents among the crowds of monsters with a drill like horn at the top of their heads, who would recklessly charge into their fortified walls, clearly failing, but repeating the same process over and over again, as if possesed. Some of the serpents found the more worn out wall parts, instinctively and skillfully using the small holes and edges to slither up said wall, barrelling over the wall and start indiscriminating slaughtering any and all defenders nearby. Some ten minutes later, having seen few of the serpents reach the top of their walls, killing quite the number of their valliant protectors, while being brough donw in the end, a rather loud crash resounded throught the viewing mirrors the Zeke side were utilizing, and then, to their horror as the scrying mirror turned towards the crashing sounds,they saw the drill serpents0 succeed in their purpose. Multiple wall sections were crumbling, giving way to the blood tide, inviting it inside the city walls, promising a feast of the ages for their ever ravenous maws, or so the people here would think.
Quick and panicked orders followed, relayed through other mirrors of scrying, deploying the few contingencies they had in place should there appear breaches in their walls during any possible siege. It was quite apparent to anyone watching from side that the capital had not seen any sort of proper fighting on such a level for ages now, their ability to respond rather lacking, among other neglected aspects of the city defence.
Groups of S class fighters were sent out to stall the stream of monsters barreling in through the newly created opening in the walls while another few groups worked tirelesly to patch up said holes, trying to once again stymy the flood of monsters. Who knows, the monsters might grow tired of the rather ineficient and difficult task they were at right now, causing them to move ahead, searching for other, easier possible food sources. It was then that a rather panicked scout almost flew through the door, his breathing heavy and clothes rather tattered, exposing the man a bit too much to the audience now entirely focused on said man.
"Emergency Sir. The blood tide has human elements within it." The scout cried out as soon as he could, dropping the news unto their laps, once again creating a deathly silince in the hall, countless beads of sweat rolling down the foreheads of the people present. Who of them did not understand the implications of the news. Someone had organized this, clearly out to have them destroyed. And what was worse, their opponent must be way above their league, if the entity could rouse such unreasonable horde of monsters. Even worse still would be the case where the human elements within the monster tide actuall had controll over the entire horde. That would bring them ever closer to absolute despair and chaos in their camp. None of the people present had any desires to die right there, yet the situation seemed more and more dire by the hour.
Even worse was the fact that the breach in their wall was not in a single position, but multiple, forcing the defenders special force to be split in multiple teams, each holding down a different point. And even worse still was the possibility that the horde of monsters had even more terrifying creatures closer to its center, once again elevating the worries and slowly growing panic.
"Send out the angels. We cant risk the monster overwhelming the defenders." The lord Zeke finaly solemly spoke, more then a little unhappy at the neccesity to use their trup card so early. One of his aides quickly left the room and a few minutes later a sound of somewhat magically enchanted horns resounded throughout the city. Near the largest church of the capital was a rather large and well decorated garden, off limits to the public. There, a dozen impressive statues of angel warriors stood, each more impressive than the last, culminating with an extremely imposing angel with four pair of wings adorning his back.
As soon as the magicla melody played, cracks started to form over each and every one of the dozen statues, the largest of the bunch including. Then, with a loud crack, a pair of actual wings, made of light and snow white feathers spread out behind one of the statues, the rest following suite. In just a few minutes, the entirety of the garden 'statues' had shed their rock layer, revealing twelve well armed, ripped and brimming with energy warrior angels, their leader magnitudes more impressive than the rest.
"We have been called to action brothers! Let us go and destroy the heathens and fiends threathening the sanctity of our home." The leader of the angels spoke, his wings stretching out, and with a swish of his wings, he shot into the sky, his underlings repeating the same action as they took their places by his side as they advanced towards the town walls.