Chapter 19: Respite And Evaluation

Flying Fortress

It has been a few days now since their escape and so far nobody has given chase after them Sera Hawke thought “maybe they suffered more casualties than it seems otherwise they would not have just let go of a flying fortress without a fight”

Despite the relief of being able to escape such a mighty force Sera Hawke never let her guard down, she knew full well that a single mistake could end everything especially when magic is involved. After being in this world for almost a decade she is still acclimating to the environment and common sense of this world.

She played the recordings of their escape and it shows that their so called “escape” was nothing more but mere luck. As The replay shows the Rail Guns that showered the Nascent souls were virtually unharmed and has only been pushed back, had it been a determined attack they would be surely dead without any chance of survival.

Despite that this Rail Guns are currently her most powerful weapon. “it is always better than nothing” she said to herself as she sighed in front of the computer. Her loses were too big over 150,000 Golems gone in less that 5 hours. “ this is just ridiculous! I thought I would have been able to live a wealthy life from here on out but nNoOoOoO there has to be a war just exactly at the City I’m in… it’s fucking bullshit is what it is!!”

“Lady Sera dinner has been prepared would you eat at the kitchen or should I bring the food here?” said Lydia as she entered the control room of the Laboratory.

“thank you Lydia, I will be eating at the kitchen I have been cooped here for days I need some fresh air. By the way how goes your cultivation?”

“I am already getting on my year Lady Sera my strength has long diminished, not that it was there to begin with hahaha. I can only reach 5th QI refining”

Lydia is already pushing 50’s for ordinary people what she has achieved is already quite admirable. It was all due to Sera’s modified cultivation methods which combined the Wizards and Eastern Cultivators techniques, with the help of cutting edge technology like super computers and state of the art processors even Spirit Severing Cultivators could not hope to compete in terms of Computing, Theorizing, Simulations and even slowly but surely improvements simultaneously on all matters being inputted.

Spirit Severing level could indeed have a brain that could act like a supercomputer but only on specific fields. In the end even if they call themselves “Immortals” they are still actually mortals and them calling themselves “Immortals” came from nothing more but arrogance due to strength and their long lives.

Tired of thinking these past few days Sera moved to the tower and ate at the kitchen with her Guest Marianne, even though they could survive for about a year with their current stockpile of food Lunch was rather humble simple soup and bread with a piece of cheese on the side Sera enforced a strict ration on the fortress since the guests are not working for her.

Aside from casual talk nothing important really happened over lunch and they went on their way to do their own task. Sera planned to go to the back lines of this war on the untamed forested mountains where the area was relatively untouched even by the catastrophic war that ravaged Central Continent 800 years ago. But despite their speed they are not yet halfway towards their location, even though the Central Continent has been shattered and the outskirts of the continent sinking to the ocean the so called “Continental Isle” is still a very vast place so much so that not even half of the powers participated from the Eastern Cultivators Invasion.

Not that these powers did not want to defend their homeland it was more because the invading force does not warrant their attention. Sure the Eastern Cultivators invaded but only to make a beach head for their supply train so that they could invade the Western Continent to hunt and harvest the exotics including the Beast Kin and tens of thousands of years old resources.

Not to mention the number of participants from the Eastern Continent did not even reach half meaning there are more than half of Cultivators that did not agree or could not even be bothered to participate in another intercontinental war.

Narud’s Library did talk about some of the hidden powers of the Continental Isle that date back from times of antiquity when primordial beasts still ruled the world but most are unconfirmed reports from various travelers that may or may not have lied or exaggerated their stories.

Sera thought that she wanted to build her forces up at least to match a Core level cultivator one for one before visiting the Eastern Continent. Now that her body is no longer in danger of suddenly falling apart Sera Hawke intends to bide her time well.

There are currently 5,000 Knight Golems these are at the level of the Initiate Magic Knight or a Foundation Establishment in Cultivators terms. This is the only force Sera has left for offense and defense, a few hundred Skeleton Granite Golem that serves as crew and staff of the Flying Fortress due to their not so strong Spell model and few numbers they have been designated to ensure that the Flying Fortress stays operational 24/7.

And finally the Sentinels which are all broken and in need of repairs and massive overhauls aside from Gemini Doc. Medusa on the other hand was one of the first to go she was guarding behind the wall when the Body Cultivators used a Combined Extremity Fist on that section of the enchanted wall… Medusa was shredded to pieces just as the breach on the enchanted wall opened up.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

After reviewing the current situation Sera came to thinking that she relied too much on a humanoid Golem even though its versatile it lacks specialization. She turned her attention to Narud’s books which has detailed collection of information of magical beasts and otherworldly monsters.

After flipping through the pages of over a dozen bestiaries Sera Hawke finally managed to find a suitable creature to model a golem. The Giant Scorpion Centipede, but before she could make the golem she needed to make a full body scan and autopsy of the creature first. In the past Golem spell models were painstakingly created through trials and errors basically throwing everything at the wall and see which sticks this process is then repeated until a full functioning Golem is created.

Nowadays on the other hand enjoy the spell models of these pioneers but Sera is lacking an actual BEAST that can just charge ahead of her enemies without the worry of breaking too quickly. Something Ashura could no longer perform due to the formidable strength of the denizens of this world…. mainly magic is to blame for that though.

After two more weeks of straight travel they have finally arrived at the forested mountains. It contained an ocean of trees as far as the eyes could see as if grass being seen from high elevation, and with a rough estimates of around several thousand mountain peaks and most likely much much more.

Sera could only exhale at the magnificent sight “now that Marianne and the other survivors went to the mountain Kingdom of Dwarves to seek refuge and reorganize their battle lines I would be free from spying eyes”

Sera had another project in the works before the Flying Fortress became even a prospect. She wanted to build a Gundam like Mech not a Golem but a giant Mech now with magic ever present in this world some limitations of physics could now be alleviated if not be totally removed.

Sera could not help but be excited at the sight of a Giant Mech just wrecking havoc in a battlefield. But the problem lies in materials and specialized components she had to fabricate from scratch.

Continental Isle

Elven Glades

Currently there is only a handful of Elven Glades left only belonging to the not only most powerful but also wisest of Elves most of the other Glades were either abandoned or turned to ash during the war with the Eastern Immortals 800 years ago.

King Adun of the Elves sits on the throne with his eyes closed, but contrary to his calm appearance his body is full of bleeding bandages being replaced by healers. Some wounds are from sharp weapons while the others are from magic and to think that the King of the Elves would suffer such injuries was quite interesting as most monarchs would let the battles be fought by their subordinates.

Not only the king alone is injured but most people in the throne room assembled today had injuries ranging from loss of an eye to severed limbs some even have scorched bodies bone deep.

“most of our Ent warriors have been put to the flames. They cant serve in battle now except for information gathering” one of the Elven Templars said

Another replied “although none died each and everyone of our Hypogriphs are fatigued to their limits mobilizing them now would be suicide”

“the Eastern Cultivators currently has the momentum it would be unwise to face them head on while we are in this condition”

“and then what!? let them gain more strategic territories!?! as the time goes by we are going to be at disadvantage”

“No” King Adun suddenly opened his eyes and said “No. We would not be at a disadvantage as the time goes by as long as we don’t surrender more territories and maintain the situation they on the contrary would be the one in trouble”

Murmurs filled the throne room most arguing “how can that be? How can they be at disadvantage as the time goes by”

“I bought information from the Eastern Continent by paying a Yggdrasil sapling, the “Dragon Veins” in which most cultivators speeds up the process to increase their strength are becoming more unstable as the day goes by and the war to harvest blood for a blood sacrifice to repair the dragon veins are becoming more hectic and by my estimates they would not have enough time to harvest enough blood to even fix half of their dragon veins.”

“As you can see, soon the Eastern Cultivators would eventually face internal fighting as they struggle to maintain their respective dragon veins and as some clans of sects that fail to fix their dragon veins would most likely face a drastic decline in status, and as their status and strength decline they become prey for others to take a bite”

The throne room is once again filled with intense discussion at the sudden revelation of their King.

“a-a-a Yggdrasil sapling! Your majesty haw can you sell that for such a paltry information! Surely we could have done some other thing to prevent their advance?”

“Enough. Whats done is done, this information is reliable beyond any reasonable doubt gather all Elven warriors and defend our territories at all cost make a battle line and hold it! Many Kingdoms have fallen after this invasion we would expand our own domain after we survive this”

With that the Elven elders made another set of intense discussion on how to handle the task their King has given them. With this information in hand should it prove true then it changes the situation and the tone of this invasion and the Elves need only to defend their borders as they have done since the days of old.

Continental Isle

Dwarven Underground Halls

“after the destruction of Kaladia City more and more humans seek refuge to our mountain strongholds however we are in danger of lacking food supplies after several small kingdoms fell into enemies hands the Elves are on the defensive and have no intention to rally an assault in the current situation”

“what of our own forces then?” said one of the council member

“we have lost over a hundred Airships, most of our gunpowder and explosives are spent and our production cannot sustain the expenditure at this rate, the Steel Golem army only roughly 30,000 remain and our death toll currently counts at 400,000 not including injured and missing soldiers”

The council members grew solemn at the report such a devastating blow to their strength and now their forward strongholds are in danger of running out of food they have fallen in quite a dilemma of gigantic moral proportions, should they turn away the survivors to save their own?

“perhaps we don’t need to turn them away yet. We still have a substantial amount of wealth we can still purchase supplies from other places”

“but they are strangers! Should we really care that much!? taking them in is already taxing to our people”

“yes, but we are allies still and the help of humans are still needed in the following battles. I have received a message from King Adun of the Elven Glades all we need to do is defend our territories to the best of our abilities and an opportunity will present itself”

“do you trust this?”

“with my life” said the Dwaven lord with a smile

With that the Dwarven Lords that formed the council ended the meeting to tend to their duties and moved their forces to ensure the complete defense of their strongholds against any form of invasions the Lavant soldiers and Eastern Cultivators could mount against them.

Ruins Of Kaladia City

“catastrophic! Such a catastrophe! We are behind schedule and we have yet to fix 1/8 of the dragon veins many sects who participated in this invasion are getting impatient”

General Yohmu is currently suffering a headache due to stress he is being pressured to speed up the invasion and the harvesting of blood.

“DAMN IT! What do they know!? is war so easy to orchestrate?! FOOLS the lot of them!”

He could only silently fume in anger as he thinks of a solution to the problem, the dragon veins are becoming more and more unstable as the day goes by and if they could not perform the blood sacrifice in time many ancient heritage and lineage would decline if not disappear in history.

If that was not yet the worst the Lavant Kingdom has lost 60 percent of its soldiers soon they would be unable to even defend their own territories from mere bandit raids and random monster attacks, their allied forces from the Eastern Continent are also dwindling in number.

Due to desperation they just hunted all creatures that contains blood in their bodies starting from the fishes of the oceans to even animals just so they can harvest blood. Blood from ordinary beasts and weak monsters cannot compare to a mortal human but as their desperation grew they are forced to sweep anything they can get their hands on as the human survivors retreated and took refuge to from the Dwarves.

They cannot simply attack the Dwarves as they are well known for their Mountain Strongholds that even managed to survive since the Antiquity Era, nor they could charge at the Elves either as they are also comparable to the Cultivators strength had it not been for their numerical disadvantage the Elves alone would have crushed this invasion before it even began.

As General Yohmu rack his brains to form an actionable strategy this entire invasion suddenly lost its momentum just as quick as they got it.