Zeke felt a dozen skills hit him all at once, but he didn’t even stagger under their collective force. If anything, he only found it irritating. If he’d known that the resistance was destined to be so light, he would have remained in the tower. At least there, he could pretend he was doing something useful. As it stood, even the least powerful legionnaires wouldn’t have had any issues standing up to the barrage.
“That’s being generous, calling it that, even in your mind,” Eveline remarked. “These people are effectively slinging stones at armed and armored knights.”
“I know,” he said, forging ahead. A second later, he put his shoulder into the city gate, knocking it from its hinges. Shouts of panic followed, but he tuned them out. Most of the city’s residents would survive – so long as they didn’t make too much trouble. However, if they put his people in undue danger, the kobolds wouldn’t hesitate to put them down.
“Are you still dwelling on what happened in the last city?” Eveline asked.
“It was a massacre, Eveline. Thousands of people died,” Zeke stated.
Of course, those people had been monsters – in the metaphorical sense, at least. Instead of simply surrendering when they knew they’d lost, they had slain every last slave in the city, piled them in the market square, and awaited their fate. The leader had then laughed in Zeke’s face when he’d asked why they had done such a thing.
Killing her hadn’t been a difficult decision, but the slaughter that followed was something that would stick with him for the rest of his days. Or at least until the next horror he was forced to confront. Those seemed to be piling up more and more as the war progressed.
“Where are all their Knights?” he wondered inwardly as he strode into the city. Thousands of kobolds followed, each one holding huge tower shields and long spears while wearing powerful armor that made them resemble reptilian versions of Roman legionnaires.
“It’s been the same in every city. I think it’s safe to assume they’ve chosen to retreat and regroup in a more defensible location,” Eveline answered. “It’s not a bad strategy. It’s much easier to defend one impregnable city than trying to guard twenty locations at once.”
Zeke shook his head. The Imperium’s strategy left him frustrated, but it also put him on guard. It wouldn’t have been so bad if his forces weren’t required to honor the idea that each city might be defended. Even if they were fairly certain they harbored no soldiers, it only took one false assumption to devastate the force of kobolds. So, they approached every situation like it had the potential to end them.
But remaining constantly on guard without any payoff was exhausting in a way that Zeke hadn’t expected. He just wanted to be finished with the war, but it felt as if the Imperium was hellbent on dragging it out as long as possible.
“You don’t expect them to just surrender, do you?” Eveline asked.
“I expect them to fight,” he murmured aloud as another group of what amounted to peasants aimed various skills at him. They pinged off his metallic skin like pebbled, rather than the deadly abilities they were meant to be.
Indeed, Zeke would have been perfectly happy if he’d gotten a stand-up fight or two. However, he was constantly denied even that satisfaction, which had left him feeling even more frustrated than the situation might have otherwise dictated.
Fortunately, as Zeke progressed through the city – with his kobolds spreading out through the streets – they found no piles of dead slaves. The residents soon figured out that they didn’t have much of a chance, and they surrendered not long after Zeke had broken through the gate. All in all, the city had taken less than three hours to completely conquer, and he’d never even gotten a real fight.
“It would be a waste if you killed anyone anyway, wouldn’t it? You don’t get kill energy now that you’ve reached the peak,” Eveline said.
“I know.”
“But you just want to fight something, right?”
“Something that’ll fight back, yeah. This is like…I don’t even know. But I don’t like it,” Zeke said. “Not one bit.”
“Understandable.”
After that, Zeke returned the way he’d come. Being a glorified battering ram was the best use of his immense strength, but after that, the kobolds were more than capable of handling everything else. So, he headed back to the gate he’d left summoned in a field almost a mile away from the city. Once he was back inside the tower, he wasted no time before reporting to the Pillar, where he found Silik and Kianma.
He couldn’t be sure – reading kobold expressions wasn’t the easiest thing in the world – but he thought that Silik shared his frustrations. The big kobold general was obviously a creature of action, and he resented being forced to remain in the tower where he could direct the army.
“Which one is next?” Zeke asked. “I want to get going, so I’m in position as soon as everyone’s finished with this town.”
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Kianma pointed to the map. “This city is around three-hundred miles away,” she answered. “It’s called –”
“I don’t really care what it’s called,” Zeke interrupted. “Just point me in the right direction.”
She did just that, directing him toward the northeast. From what Zeke saw on the map, they were steadily tightening the noose on the Imperium. However, there were hundreds of small towns and hamlets throughout the region, which was populated by curated forests, farmland, and lakes. From what he’d seen, there were very few monsters in the area, and even mundane animals were fairly rare outside of livestock. Of course, Zeke had confiscated all of the latter, and the fields in the Artisan’s Terrace were now well-populated with cattle, pigs, and chickens.
As it turned out, the beastkin were fantastic herdsmen, and he expected that the already self-sufficient tower would create an even larger surplus going forward. While he appreciated the fact that his people ran the tower like a well-oiled machine, Zeke had no real interest in the mundane. As far as he was concerned, he was happy enough just eating whatever monster meat he had in his spatial storage.
“That is patently untrue. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sampling all the rich foods they send your way,” Eveline accused.
“I eat what they give me. I don’t –”
“I can literally read your thoughts, Ezekiel. Don’t lie to me. It doesn’t work, and you just come off looking kind of silly.”
Zeke resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
It was at that moment that one of the juvenile kobolds rushed into the room. In its halting way, he relayed a message that a force of knights had been spotted on the horizon. Zeke couldn’t stop himself from grinning as he and Silik strode from the Pillar and toward the teleporter that would lead them back to the Entry Hall. Once there, they exited through the gate.
“Which way?” he asked one of the nearby legionnaires that had set up a camp around the portal. The kobold pointed to the west, telling him that there were at least a thousand knights. So, Silik gathered as many kobolds as he could quickly find, and together, they all set out in that direction.
“You are eager, aren’t you?” Eveline said, obviously amused. “You sure you’re not biting off more than you can chew? You know you don’t have many of your skills available, right? Or did you forget?”
“I didn’t,” he acknowledged. However, he had done a lot of testing since defeating Micayne, and he’d established that, for most fights, he didn’t even need skills. His ridiculous attributes were more than enough to take care of the vast majority of opponents. And for the rest, he still had a few skills available.
“You seem pretty confident.”
“I am,” he stated. And it was true. If there were more than a handful of people in the Eternal Realm that could stand up to him, he would have been very surprised.
“You can’t really believe that. If it’s anything like Hell, there are hundreds of old monsters in this world. People who have been at the peak for millennia. It would be a mistake to underestimate them.”
“If they were truly powerful, they would have already ascended,” he argued.
“There are plenty of reasons why someone might remain behind,” Eveline explained. “Just because your goal is to climb as high as possible doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone. Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Ugh.”
“What? You don’t like it when I call you that?” he asked, grinning.
“It makes me want to vomit.”
“You don’t have a physical form. I don’t think you can vomit,” he reminded her.
“Still…”
On it went like that until, at last, Zeke and the group of kobolds finally caught sight of their enemy. The Knights were all mounted – apparently, the Radiant Host served as inspiration for the Knights of Adontis – and a few carried streaming flags on their upright lances. They certainly looked like an impressive force, though they were all too far away for Zeke to get their true measure.
What he did see was one of the Knights riding forward and waving a huge, white flag.
“Does that meant the same thing in this realm as it did on Earth?” he wondered.
“A white flag seems pretty universal. Even in Hell, it means that someone wants a temporary truce,” Eveline answered.
Zeke shrugged, then summoned his hammer. “Well, if it’s a trick, it’ll be the last mistake they ever make.”
Zeke slowed to a stop, and the kobolds mimicked the action. The Knights stopped as well, and for a long few moments, the two sides stared at one another. Then, the one carrying the white flag rode his horse forward, covering the ground between the two small armies in only a few seconds. When he stopped, he said, “We wish to treat with you.”
“Why should I? I’m winning,” Zeke said. “I could kill everyone in your little army in only a few minutes. It wouldn’t even be much trouble, except running you all down.” He glanced back at the kobolds, then returned his gaze to the Knight. “Did you know that a kobold legionnaire can easily outrun one of your horses? Sprinting. Distance. It doesn’t matter. They’ll run you down and crush you inside that pretty armor you like to wear.”
For his part, Zeke hadn’t even bothered to use [Titan]. He didn’t think he’d need it.
“You would be wise not to insult us.”
“I’ve never been known for wisdom,” Zeke stated.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Eveline said in his head.
“Please don’t talk like that. It doesn’t suit you,” Zeke responded inwardly. Then, aloud, he added, “Tell me what you want.”
“I am not privy to the terms on offer,” the man replied. “Nor would I be authorized to reveal them, even if I knew what they were. What I can do is set up a meeting between you and the High Inquisitor. She speaks with the full authority of the Imperium.”
“I see,” Zeke said. Then, he asked Eveline, “What do you think? Should we just kill them?”
“I think that’s inevitable,” she said. “But on the off chance that they’re genuine in their desire for peace, I think we owe it ourselves to hear them out. Don’t you?”
“I suppose.”
“I don’t care what everyone says about you. You can be reasonable when you want to be,” she said, and he could hear the smirk in her voice.
Aloud, he told the messenger, “Fine. I’ll meet with your grand whatever. But I should warn you – if I get even a hint of betrayal, you’re all going to die.”
“Death is inevitable. I welcome the embrace of the Sun Goddess.”
It was all Zeke could do not to roll his eyes. “Just go. I’ll be waiting. I guarantee safe passage so long as you all don’t attack.”
That seemed to be all the messenger wanted to hear, because he quickly wheeled his horse around and galloped off. Only a few minutes later, a group of ten other Knights trotted toward the center of the field, where they waited.
But Zeke really only had eyes for one of them.
“Oh, this is not going to be good,” Eveline muttered in his head.
Zeke couldn’t disagree. The last person he’d expected to see in that field was Abby, but there she was, waiting on him in the middle of that field.