Zeke crushed a knight’s head in his hand. It burst like a melon, sending brains and other gore oozing from the eye openings of the man’s helmet. Once the knight was dead, Zeke tossed the man’s body aside like the trash it was. It clanged against the ground before rolling to a stop next to all the others.
He’d lost track of how many he’d killed. After destroying that first group, he’d been beset by another. And another after that. Each instance was complicated by their protective enchantment, which he’d long since determined didn’t actually enhance the knights themselves. Rather, it funneled enormous amounts of power into their armor, which in turn made them stronger and more durable than would have been possible otherwise. It also gave them the ability to regenerate at a level that rivaled Zeke’s own [Hand of Divinity].
The result was that he couldn’t kill them until he destroyed the anchors, which turned out to be more tedious than actually dangerous.
Never before had he appreciated his old abilities to destroy whole city blocks. But without his skills, his destructive capabilities were far smaller scale. He was still an unstoppable juggernaut, but having his skills sealed away definitely affected his large-scale capabilities.
Even so, Zeke hadn’t let his dedication to the task waver. If anything, he translated his frustration into a furor that made him an absolute terror on the battlefield. It also forced him to think more strategically and fight with proper technique, which hadn’t really been the case for quite some time.
“You really should be thankful for this,” Eveline pointed out. “There is opportunity in hardship.”
Zeke didn’t respond. Instead, he looked around, taking stock of his situation. His path through the city had been dogged by the groups of knights, but he’d slowly made his way closer to the giant citadel at the center of the metropolis. Now, it was only a mile or so away, which meant that he’d gotten close enough to hear the sound of the kobolds’ continued fight.
But only an hour or so before, the clatter had ceased, telling Zeke that something had changed. He didn’t believe the kobolds had lost, which meant that they’d been forced to deploy their contingency.
“That Alchemist is truly interesting. Most of them focus on healing potions and the like. Enhancements. The fact that he’s so dedicated to killing his enemies is a great benefit to our efforts,” Eveline said. “He’s also quite intelligent, and his experiments have already borne fruit. Did you know that he is on the verge of creating something to help the kobolds’ development? I think –”
“I don’t need to hear about your crush on Tucker,” Zeke muttered aloud before leaping to the top of a building. He landed with a heavy thud, but thankfully, the buildings had been reinforced by powerful enchantments. Otherwise, the structure would have collapsed under his immense weight.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am no teenage girl. I do not get crushes.”
“Sure,” Zeke said distractedly as he looked across the city. Night had already fallen, and there were hundreds of instances of fires glowing in the darkness. In addition, he could see pockets of fighting, usually between lower-level knights and the beastkin-led portions of the army. They weren’t the fighters that the kobolds were, but many of them had been training for years by that point. So, they held their own.
But Zeke wasn’t worried about them. Instead, his attention locked onto the citadel looming in the distance. It wasn’t just enormous. That word seemed ill-suited to describe what he saw. It was so large that it defied logic, and he’d even been told that it bore a large-scale spatial enchantment meant to make it even larger on the inside.
By any measure, it was a masterpiece of magical engineering and one of the wonders of the Eternal Realm.
And Zeke intended to tear it down.
To that end, after getting his bearings, he leaped down from the building’s roof, then trotted ahead. Thankfully, he didn’t need to worry about being ambushed along the way. It seemed that the bulk of the Radiant Host was either dead or confined to the citadel, so there was no one left to attack him.
Due to that, he soon reached his destination, and he was happy to see that most of his army of kobolds had survived. There were casualties in every battle, and this one was no different. However, most were alive and well, which was gratifying to behold.
The ranks of kobolds parted before him, and when he reached the front lines, he was greeted by Silik. Nearby, Zeke saw Tucker and his Kirran companion, Athis. The pair looked a little out of place, but considering the green haze hanging over the entire area, the alchemist had already done his part.
“Those piles of bodies in front of that monstrosity of a building should have been your first hint,” Eveline remarked.
Zeke ignored her, focusing on Silik as he asked, “What’s the status? Why aren’t we attacking?”
“We have,” Silik stated. “We have employed the siege engines, but not no effect. The fortress is completely sealed. The gate has so far proven impervious to our efforts at bringing it down, and the walls are impregnable. We do not know how to proceed.”
“What about Sasha? Can she cast a spell?”
Silik shook his head. “Not for a long time,” he answered. “She must recover from fracturing the wall’s defenses.”
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Zeke had already known that, but he’d held out hope that she had been holding back. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. “Where is Pudge?”
“Down below,” Silik stated. “He is tasked with rescuing the slaves.”
Zeke nodded, then studied the citadel. It was absolutely covered with runes, and they were so thickly applied that even with his Will blocked, he could easily perceive them. If he’d had access to his path, he might have been able to break them, but even that might not have been possible.
“Likely not,” Eveline stated. “Not without a significant investment of time, at least.”
“What do you suggest?” he asked her. Then, when she didn’t answer, he repeated the question aloud.
Silik answered, “I do not know, Ak-Toh.”
Zeke tightened his fist in frustration. He’d hoped for better news, but if he was honest, he couldn’t have expected the kobolds to be more effective. They’d taken the city without much issue, and they hadn’t even needed to employ their full numbers. Sure, more than the first army had been required, but they hadn’t even dipped into the reserves. From just about any perspective, they’d won a resounding victory.
But they hadn’t won. Not yet. As close as they were, they still needed that final push before they could truly claim unmitigated success.
“Do we have any intelligence on their situation?” Zeke asked. “Do they have food? Water? Can they withstand a siege?”
The answer to that question was not encouraging. Everything they knew about the Radiant Host suggested that they were well-equipped for a siege. They couldn’t survive indefinitely, but the expectation was that they could hole up in that citadel for years if necessary. Perhaps a decade or more. The exact number wasn’t known, but in reality, it just didn’t matter. The fact was that Zeke and his army couldn’t simply starve them out.
After getting that report from Silik, Zeke joined Tucker and asked the alchemist what he could do.
Taking off his hat and wiping his forearm across his forehead, Tucker answered, “It’s sealed up tight. There’s no chance I can get anything inside. Even the rangers can’t find a way in.”
“Dammit,” Zeke muttered.
Over the next few hours, he thought of a dozen different tactics for getting into the citadel, but they were all met with failure. He asked the earth mages – most of which were beastkin – to create a tunnel. The same request went out to the kobolds, and both groups told him it was impossible. They floated all sorts of ideas, but with similar results. There was no way inside.
Finally, Zeke threw himself at the gate, hitting it with all his strength. That proved moderately successful, and the entire citadel shook beneath his blow. However, only a second later, the people within the citadel opened fire with the massive cannons scattered across the structure. The first one only clipped Zeke, but it was enough to nearly take his arm off. As he retreated, he recognized that even with the advantage of his massive endurance and the ability to regenerate via [Hand of Divinity], he couldn’t withstand an entire barrage.
Later, he would be told that those cannons had been created by a peak artificer who’d since ascended. As such, they were far more powerful than they had any right to be – especially considering that they were operated by relatively low-level knights of the Radiant Host.
In any case, the results were clear.
Zeke and his army couldn’t get inside, and as such, he couldn’t finish the task and move on with other, far more important things.
“You don’t really believe that or you wouldn’t be here,” Eveline said. “This is important. It’s just not something that will result in progress. Don’t confuse progression with worthiness.”
“Do you think this is worthy?”
She gave a mental shrug. “Not to me. But you do. You’d never forgive yourself if you didn’t take them down,” Eveline answered. “And that is all that matters.”
“If you say so.”
An hour later, he found himself inside one of the nearby buildings – just out of range of the cannons, of course – and meeting with his closest advisors. They all had plenty of suggestions, but as it turned out, none were truly viable. Still, once they had a series of options, they tried everything they could.
But in the end, nothing worked, which left them with only one real option – waiting it out.
Zeke summoned a gate near the front lines, then headed inside. Meanwhile, they cycled the surrounding armies just in case the knights tried something. After that, the plan was simple – they’d continue the siege until the people inside gave up or the citadel’s defenses failed. After all, it likely took quite a lot of mana to power such powerful enchantments, and Zeke was banking on the power supply being finite.
In the meantime, he occupied himself with training. If he wasn’t sleeping or eating, he was inside the Hunting Grounds fighting against ever-escalating odds. Weeks passed, becoming months, and Zeke continued his training regimen. In the beginning, he could only fight a hundred or so copies of his most powerful enemies, but after the first month, he’d doubled that. After the third, he’d added half again more enemies. His obsession with growing stronger – not via stats or skills, but through sheer training – took over, and he was reminded of how dedicated he’d once been to baseball.
Back then, he’d done little else but practice, and he channeled that same attitude into becoming an elite fighter.
At the same time, his armies continued to train as well. Some of them used the Hunting Grounds, just like him, but others utilized the various dungeons at their disposal. Still others hunted for powerful monsters in the wilderness. Like that, they grew stronger, just like him. None reached the peak, but some, like Silik, had already blown past the first threshold and were knocking on the door of maximizing their potential.
The first year passed without any change. The Radiant Host refused to open their gates – or acknowledge the army on their doorstep in any way – and the armies of the Crimson Tower continued to grow stronger.
For his part, that first year’s passage allowed him to take a slight step back and reevaluate his priorities. Sure, training was important, but he had to admit that he wasn’t going to solve his problems through sheer effort. Time was his only weapon against the citadel’s impregnable defenses. So, he decided to use it to his advantage, and he began to spend more of it with Adara.
She was almost as dedicated to training as he was, and she often accompanied the kobolds on hunting expeditions or dungeon runs. However, when she was home, they both made a point to spend as much of their time together as possible. As such, their bond deepened, and they settled into their relationship.
Halfway through that second year, they professed their love for one another.
It wasn’t a huge event, but it wasn’t inconsequential, either. Either way, it was something they’d both felt, but they had so far hesitated to give voice to the obvious.
It wasn’t until the end of the second year that something changed.
That was how Zeke found himself staring up at the citadel’s ramparts, where a single man stood. He called down, “I challenge the leader of this force to single combat. If I win, this army will vacate the Imperium. If I lose, then my people will surrender. Know this – if you refuse, we have supplies to last at least another decade. So, choose wisely. I will reappear at dawn to receive your answer.”
With that, the man disappeared, and Zeke’s heart began to beat a little faster. The end of the years-long siege was finally at hand. All he had to do was beat a knight in battle, and it would be finished.