Harlan came back to his room once he was done with his crystal skulls, and he watched the agent of the Darkness, waiting for her to wake up.
When she did, she stretched out, the karambit in her hand cutting his couch.
“Oh, I seem to have fallen asleep.”
She cocked her head to the side, and while everything in his sense told him human, his mind couldn’t help but see a cat.
The agent left, but rather than going to wherever her home is, she just went to an empty room and jumped into bed, going back to sleep.
Harlan had planned to spend the morning finishing his skulls.
They worked as they were, since the blood he used to form the crystals was naturally attuned to him, but he wanted to remove as much of himself as he could from them to avoid them being used as a possible method of attack.
When he was done, all he had to do was test them, which just required him opening a void gate, jumping to Ragne, and then calling back to one of his Others.
When he returned, he checked in on the agent.
“Are you comfortable?”
“I don’t like it when the maids come in, this is my room.”
“Did you tell that to them?”
“I didn’t want to provoke them.”
“You aren’t going to provoke my maids, they are probably more scared of you than you are of them.”
“Hmm… my mother once said that, but she was speaking of spiders.”
“Your mother? Who-”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Ah, alright then. But if you ever want to-”
“I won’t.”
He asked her age, and she counted on her fingers, but he could tell by her movements that she wasn’t just counting, she was actually using them like an abacus, and told him how many days ago her mother found her next to her parents bodies, having killed the Fenrir who attacked them.
She was 7380 days old, so he rounded up to 20 and a half years, since she was a baby when her mother saved her.
There were other oddities that he noticed, such as how she refused to eat around others, and since the maids were told to stay out of her room, Harlan was the one who would bring out her dirty dishes, but rarely would the silverware be dirty.
When he mentioned this, she made a show out of using a fork, but she made a fist along the shaft, like a toddler who hadn’t been taught how to use one yet.
She hadn’t said a word about her family again, and if Harlan tried to steer a conversation that way, she would walk out of the room, sometimes not coming back for the entire day.
He left her there while he went to pick up Velvet.
“Oh, I am excited to go inside the veil, what color is the grass there?”
“I am sorry to dash your hopes, but inside the veil isn’t actually that different from outside.”
“Oh, that is rather boring.”
“I can take you sightseeing on another day, since I have found a few places worth visiting for their beauty, natural or otherwise.”
“How romantic.”
One of his guards spoke up.
“You haven’t assigned a detail yet, we cannot let you go until-”
“Oh I don’t think I’ll need anyone but this blue hunk of meat to protect me. Goodbye.”
Harlan opened the void gate and Velvet jumped into it along with him before the royal guard could stop them or follow; this was the plan.
Instead of going directly to Castle Fomoria, as he was already calling it in his head, he instead brought Velvet to a beach on the east coast of Ragne so he could see the veil from the inside; Velvet said he wouldn’t believe it until he could see it with his own eyes.
He tagged along to keep Velvet in line while Harlan went back to be with Adina.
“Ava, this is Velvet.”
“Oh, Harlan… or, King Fomoria?”
“Just call me Fomoria.”
Velvet looked her up and down then stared at Fomoria.
“He thinks I look like Adina, doesn’t he? We don’t even look that close.”
Velvet walked around her.
“Well, I don’t make the rules, I just observe them. Hmm… from the front they might seem the same, but turn to the side and-”
“Velvet, there is a limit to rudeness.”
“Fine fine fine. Well then, little girl, you look like you could use some-”
“I don’t care about how it looks, I just need a place to sleep between training.”
“No no no, that just won’t do. I won’t degrade your natural beauty with something that Har- Fomoria would live in.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you don’t care, then I am taking this over.”
Velvet used illusion magic to show how it would theoretically look after he was done.
“No pink, I don’t want a girly room.”
He rolled his eyes, changing the colors to red, adding leaves instead of rabbits on the designs.
“This isn’t bad, it’s like a forest fire.”
“It is a calm autumn sunset.”
“Whatever. But, while we are at it, I need weapon racks, some weights so I can train here until the training hall is actually finished, maybe a magical isolation room so I can…”
Velvet found that he didn’t much enjoy being around Ava, who in his mind was too pretty to be so pragmatic in her designs.
They went down to Amber’s room next.
“Hmm. I think you could use a-”
“Do whatever you want. Harlan, or, King Fomoria, whatever your name is. Hey.”
Neither of them was sure if they should hug or not, so they just stared at one enough.
“It’s been a while.”
“You got big.”
Amber pinched his arm and looked up at him.
“Everything outside the veil is bigger, so I adapted.”
Velvet watched them intensely.
“Hmm… do you have such a strange relationship with all of your sisters?”
“We’re close, but that is all.”
“Your Other’s wife looks like your youngest sister, and the way you two stare didn’t feel like siblings.”
“Really, it isn’t that way.”
“Is that all you have for a defense?”
Amber kicked him in the shin.
“Just decorate my room, prick.”
Autumn was his only sister who didn’t come with, but rather Redwall mansion was being reinforced.
The baron knew that he was being used as bait, but he accepted that due to the extra security provided by Balor; Harlan was against the idea.
Harlan’s family was kept in the east wing, whereas the guest rooms, including those of the royal family, were on the west wing, so there was a bit of a walk between them.
Though to call it the royal family wasn’t exactly true, since not all of them actually came along.
Alder was the highest ranked general of the army, and couldn’t exactly hide away.
Lily was chief engineer on many projects that she refused to step away from.
Cynthia was in a castle, and after security sweeps she decided that she would stay.
Magnolia, the former first princess, was to become a liaison to the mage association and was tied to various other deals across Ragne.
Valerian was engaged with Voi in a political marriage, so he had instead opted to stay in the home of his fiance.
So when one counted the living royal children who weren’t doing something that required them to be outside, Harlan would only be sheltering 14 of the original 24.
Velvet decided to drop his act while they walked once he confirmed there wasn’t anyone around.
“I didn’t expect things to be so mundane. Other than that rush of mana I feel in this place, it looks like the inside of the veil isn’t the inhospitable hellscape that some people assume that it is.”
“Why would they think that in the first place?”
“It is a landmass surrounded by a wall of fog filled with so many horrors that nobody had ever made it out and all but the insane or prepared don’t even dare to get near the edge of it?
Until I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t be sure that there was actually anything in here at all.
Though now it seems even stranger to me how you are so strong and driven with such a normal place.”
“My enemies are not beasts, they are men and women, the politics and the indifference of people who can’t even see that things must be changed before they burst into war, and that is exactly what has happened already.”
“Sometimes it can be hard to remember that you do know how to speak.”
Fomoria was in the middle of pushing one of the princes back from Velvet when Harlan came in and asked for help with a fight in Reino.
He was going to say yes, then his eyes went black.
He awoke in that city of faceless people.
“My Little Shadow, one sharpens steel with steel, to sharpen against wood only dulls the blade, go there to that place, destroy the enemies of our old enemy. Understand the depths of strength not yet given reason to be tapped.”
“So I can go with Harlan then?”
“That other champion is not your ally in this endeavor, we must show that we are not to their whims, and their plans may only bend or break against us.”
“Fine.”
Fomoria returned to reality and said he couldn’t help, then, once Harlan was gone, he went through a void gate of his own, and gathered his marshalls along with a few other golems which hadn’t yet been tested in a real fight.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Harlan slipped into the draconic body which he made and then put to storage.
He felt his humanoid form dissolve and twist into the muscles of it, his vision went dark.
When it returned it was not only from a different angle, but also with different perceptions fused together into something that without training was a mess needing to be deciphers.
He saw the invisible winds, the movement of gravitational and spatial forces, mana, runes, heat, and shadows could hide little from him now.
These seven were like a crown over his set of normal eyes, and he filtered out sights as needed, overlaying them in his mind like the second eyelid of an amphibian.
He and the marshalls were above the clouds, preparing a spell.
He kept it simple, the Others went in groups of ten.
When one was co-casting, the number of people in the chain would generally be kept to five.
The most important reason was that each person added their own influence, no matter how much they tried to be the same as their other mages, they were all independent people.
But, each person in the chain also boosted the power of the spell in a more than linear fashion.
Five people was also the limit before one got diminishing returns, so ten in a chain didn’t mean it would be twice as strong as five, it was more like a 60% boost.
Harlan partly bypassed the first issue, because while an Other did have something different from the original that Harlan couldn’t fully understand the cause of, they were closer than even the closest group of warmages.
This just left the second issue, of efficiency, but The Darkness wanted a show of force, so that is what he would give her.
It was late fall, early winter, but they were fighting in the more central lands of Reino, and they hadn’t yet gotten snowfall, that didn’t mean that the air wasn’t yet crisp and cool.
The 100 Others, in 10 groups, each launched 1 warspell at the ground, and massive spires of ice suddenly covered the enemy army, cutting off all of their warmages from the rest of the army.
In that valley of use, Harlan made a sweep, burning them with dragon fire.
Over half of the enemy force at this location was gone in a flash.
He was given his orders from The Darkness, she told him where to strike to best lead to the end she sought.
It was odd for him, she always just sent him in the direction of her problem and then told him to find out how to deal with it himself, but now she was acting as a voice in her head, telling him when he had done enough damage to turn the tide far in the favor of Ragne.
In another fight, he took a page from Sepul’s book, even causing some confusion over if he had come to join the fight or not, since the number of people who could drop a meteor from the sky, let alone accurately, was quite low.
Granted, Harlan had actually been holding onto the chunk of rock to make sure it hit where he wanted it.
There was some… collateral damage, but this was a war, the number of dead would be higher if he hadn’t been helping.
One group, 3,000 strong, though such a term felt wrong in this case, were forced to bear the full might of Harlan’s draconic form being mixed with the aura techniques and spells of his human form being used with a few dozen tons of flesh.
He skated and twirled around the battlefield with movements unbefitting of such a form.
Harlan felt how greatly the effects were diminished by his size.
As a man, shifting his momentum wasn’t that hard, but adding so much mass increased the cost of such a maneuver to near uselessness, and the mana in his body didn’t flow instantly, making each aura technique feel sluggish in its activation compared to his humanoid form.
But even with those minor issues, the strength afforded to him by being a 40 foot long dragon was an offset to anything else.
As he stood there in the middle of the dead, he couldn’t help himself but to unfurl his six wings and roar into the sky, parting the clouds and deafening the soldiers in the area.
For just a moment, he eyes on him, and was struck with fear; jealous fury was upon him.
It was too easy, at least, until he found a target that actually drew his ire, that he wasn’t just fighting because he had been ordered to do so.
Harlan struck the ground hard, and only a few men could remain on their feet.
Even from so high up, he could recognize the people in front of him with ease.
High Saint Cato stared down the dragon, waiting for a breath attack, or perhaps an attack from the blue devils which followed him like gnats.
“Cato, it is a shame I missed you at the academy, I had hoped to tear you apart.”
Enough of Harlan’s voice came through the dragons deep and hissy vocal cords that he recognized it.
“Father, this is Harlan Fomoria.”
“You are close. I am King Fomoria, from beyond the veil. I am glad that you rebelled, otherwise-”
“Whatever squabbles you may have with my sons, we have not betrayed Reino-”
Harlan’s mocking gesticulation send waves of wind which buffeted the Reinoan army.
“Oh of course, it is Fragile Peace who-”
Then he looked at the soldiers around him, his tunnel vision widening.
“Oh, you really are on the side of Ragne.”
He wondered, why had The Darkness sent him here? This wasn’t a fight he should take part in, because this wasn’t yet a fight, they were still preparing to clash with the rebel forces.
The words in his throat became ash in his mouth as he realized he had been out of line.
“Apologies. I… misunderstood this situation…”
“Next time you insult my father like that-”
Harlan used skip to move closer, his snout nearly touching the elder Cato brother.
“I would still crush you given the slightest reason you little shit.”
High Saint Cato didn’t bat an eye.
“If you aren’t here to help, then go elsewhere, demon.”
His massive shadow focused into the shape of a normal sized woman, and Harlan bowed his head to her.
She ran her ethereal fingers across his scales, leaving traces of void on him.
“I simply wanted to see how you would react. Now you may continue.”
Harlan left through a void gate, though one she made for him.
He was sure that she was sending him to destroy the smaller armies for a reason.
Though it could also be said that the strongest in Reino were the Ascended and the zealous, both of which aligned themselves with Fragile Peace, because her regency was given by their gods.
Then, after a time, she made him stop entirely, letting the golems he brought fight.
What Harlan felt he was missing in his golems were war machines.
He looked at the tanks of the empire, or at least, the ones which were sent against him, and he thought that they were interesting, but ultimately useless for him.
He couldn’t refine gasoline, and even if he could, he would then need to use metal for all of the parts, which, now that he had all of his trees and gems from the mines of former UT, could be converted into elemental metals, and was more useful for other things.
So, Harlan’s ‘tanks’ were based on Boulder Spider.
They had two large legs in the front which acted as a shield which let him save on metal since he only needed to put the defenses on these legs.
The body itself was mounted with a magical cannon rather than a ballistic one, since it was meant to be a stand alone unit instead of having a crew like a real tank.
What granted it immense power was the thorax, which was stuffed with a massive blood gem, one so large that he only made a few of the tanks and he had his Others guarding them.
In a war with constant battle, he could harvest plenty of blood, but he hadn’t exactly been saving the blood in the flesh pits, instead he had only focused on the actual flesh until now; he gave an order that butchers had to save the blood from the animals in buckets for him if it was going to be thrown out.
On a hill overlooking one of the battlefields the warmages thought they were under attack when they saw the giant spiders, but they didn’t dare go against them when a dragon followed behind them and said he intended them no harm.
The spiders vibrated, digging their feet into the ground and then anchoring themselves further by having the ground crawl up their legs.
They pointed their chintious barrels toward the sky and at first it seemed like nothing was happening, then the skin of the warmages started to tingle.
The orange light with smaller spirals around them traced an arc across the sky, there being no recoil from using the magic.
Enemy warspells tried to stop them, but of the six, four made it through.
The spiders, having operated on their full power, staggered, barely able to stand, and so Harlan sent them back.
As a test for a prototype, it was fine, but flawed; fine tuning was needed.
The warmages had no reasonable reaction to what they had seen, so they just stood on the hill and watched the amber sky, waiting for the waft of hot air and burned flesh to reach them.
Things had gone well, but he was starting to become tired of it, the seemingly senseless slaughter, the enemies who had not directly wronged him and couldn’t even put up any real fight.
A void gate opened in front of him, and he found himself somewhere he didn’t recognize, nearly striking a wall due to the small space, though it was still 100 by 100 at least in just the main room.
It was a well lit building underground with concrete walls; he felt little mana in the air; yellow symbols were drawn on some of the doors.
A woman with platinum blonde hair, purple eyes, and fair features was waiting below him.
He landed as softly as he could near her.
“Hello?”
Harlan looked at her, and found that she reminded him of Fragile Peace, but also of the royal family of Ragne.
The woman got near him and placed her hand on his snout.
“What a fine form.”
He felt a wrongness in her touch and backed away until he reached the far wall.
As she stepped closer he swiped at her, splattering the woman across the floor and wall.
Yet when he looked back, she was there again, having returned to where she was when he first struck her.
He slammed his fist down, feeling her body splatter across the ground, yet once more, she was suddenly beside his fist.
As black flames began to form in his throat, The Darkness arrived, covering nearly every surface with void and eyes.
“There is no need for that.”
He shot the puff void flames into the air before it had the chance to fully charge.
“What is that thing?”
“This is Titania, the-”
“I know what she is.”
Harlan’s grudge was not just on instinct, he had not forgotten how Periwinkle told him that it was her who tricked many Fae into passing over to Aarde, and she had destroyed the tree which birthed Pixies.
“She is now our ally, for Xol has told us of a greater threat, and Titania has agreed to side with us against them.”
Harlan narrowed his nine eyes and sniffed the air.
“I cannot sense her mind? Or is she projecting from elsewhere?”
The Darkness laughed.
“Can you see the air?”
“Yes.”
She rolled her hundreds of eyes that covered the room, and Titania explained.
“My oversoul blinds your mind.”
“And what is an oversoul?”
“There are those more useful as a source of energy than as beings.”
Her tone showed no remorse or questioning, it was just a fact in her mind.
“Like the cage at the academy?”
“HA, a cage, little more than a sieve, letting so much energy go to waste. The fool of bones stole my designs. Now, destroy the planes before they wake my pets.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Fae.”
Harlan spoke with a growl.
“Harlan, five bombers and three escort craft are flying to destroy the gathered army around the capital.
As it stands, we cannot risk the premature activation of the projects down here.
How you prevent them matters not, but they must be stopped.”
Harlan flew through the air next to the planes, examining them to see if he could reproduce the designs, but he found them overly mechanical.
Though they did give him an idea.
He spoke to his other half, and he tried to explain that he had to stop the planes, but it was less than a minute before they fired on him again.
He tried to spare them, if he just clipped their wings and forced them down, his mission would be accomplished, but The Darkness told him what she said before, that the plans of others could only bend or break against theirs, and so this insult against her after an attempt at peace must be met with an equal response.
Harlan knew better than to destroy the bay of the ship, where he was certain the bombs were.
A puff of void flames along the top destroyed the two defensive gunners on the first plane, the bullets they fired were stronger than Harlan expected, and his scales began to crack and push into his flesh.
The holes were enough to upset the balance and destroy traces required to keep it in the air.
If it was allowed to drift, it could still hit the city, so Harlan was forced to snap the wings off and push it down.
Once the bombers had diverted course the escorts could move in without risking attacking their own planes, but their small frames made them ill fit enemies for Harlan.
He snapped his tail like a whip, the blast of air tore the rivets from the plane and reduced the pilot to a red mist as the vibrations penetrated the metal coffin which was once a plane.
He hadn’t felt so terrible about killing in some time.
These people weren’t the ones who gave the orders, they just carried them out, and now the bombers were going away, he accomplished his original goal, but it wasn’t enough for The Darkness.
The other escorts attacked from both sides of him and he opened a gate, sending both of them crashing into the bombers.
The cargo detonated in one, lighting up the night sky like midday for a short time and burning out the vision in his thermal eye.
Shrapnel launched across the air, and the force nearly detonated a second plane which was instead forced into a tailspin.
Harlan couldn’t watch as it fell behind Ragne’s lines, the bombs inside going off on impact.
He felt anxiety and then peace in one of the planes.
As he approached, they set off the bombs, sending Harlan down to the ground.
He opened a void gate, and his marshalls hesitantly punched holes through the final plane, watching it as it fell.
Harlan opened a void gate to the fleshpits, dumping gore onto himself to subsume.
When he was healed, he then went to his second objective, to destroy the army which surrounded the capital.
He wreathed himself in void flame and dove through the men.
He knew these black flames were abnormal, but he had to test them more to really understand their limits.
They didn’t exactly burn as hot as he expected, but a flame more avaricious he had never seen.
Like the ice of Helik ate heat to grow colder, the flames devoured mana, in the air and in the body.
The spells which were launched at him mostly served to feed this fire, only those of sufficient power or types could pierce them before they were burned away.
60,000 through the 300,000, Harlan’s body could barely remain, the fire didn’t care where exactly it got power, and Harlan’s body was being charred.
By the time he made a full circle of the capital of Reino, he was reduced to the size of a child, not that one could tell under the mass of flames.
Harlan went through a gate, diving into the ocean to douse himself so the Others could retrieve him.
As he laid there on the table, his Others bringing tonics and potions to repair his form, he wondered about deactivating his sigil, feeling all of the pain that should be killing him.
But it would not help his mind, and it would change nothing.
He disliked having killed those Ragnite, but it was for the… the greater good.
Harlan deactivated his sigil.