Chapter 24: Victory Loves Preparation

Untamed Forested Mountains

Sera Hawke finally came to a decision to make a Variable Jet Fighter just like the shows back on Earth called “Macross”, it was a story about space faring humans who pilot Jet Fighters that can transform into mechs while they got entangled into a racial interstellar fight with giants that are practically human like in every angle.

Sera thought that before attempting a breakthrough the Core Formation level that she should first finalize everything in the Stone City Since the breakthrough might take years according to her research. It would only be natural to have the Stone City working and productive in the following years as she make her breakthrough.

The surrounding land of the Stone City has been stripped clean of most if not all of resources half of it was stored inside the vault of the Flying Fortress while the other half is stored under the Stone City which what is essentially a underground Metal City. This underground Metal City perfectly mimics the design and the placements of all structures and establishments of the surface Stone City.

While making the Stone City Sera had a humorous thought that it would be really cool make the Stone City look like a City from an ancient unknown civilization. With the knowledge and technology she has it would not be a strange thing for the natives of this world to think so if they find this city in the future.

The 100,000 Stone Golems protecting the Stone City on the surface is nothing more than a militia. The Stone Golems may be weak but repairing them is literally easy since Stone is abundant, they would also be used to defend the Stone City from the occasional beast tide and from malicious intents of the people that would find and stay here.

Sera set the Stone City as a free for all kind of City as long as they don’t break the City rules they can practically do almost everything inside without and worry.

The underground Metal City on the other hand however is strictly for Sera Hawke’s personal use. The underground Metal City would be Guarded by 100,000 Steel Golems. The amount of resources poured into this endeavor is purely staggering so much so that Sera could just actually make her own Kingdom.

But since Sera is more of a free spirited type of person being a Queen of a strange and potentially dangerous land did not appeal to her too much. This place is strictly a back up should everything goes bad in her journey.

If she never really have a need to return to this place in the future then she would just let the City to its own devices and let it stand throughout history as an unknown ancient city built by some ancient civilization that they know nothing about.

Just thinking about along those lines made Sera giggle “I really want to see their faces if that happens”

As the city reinforce itself Sera Hawke now felt it is time to make an effort for a breakthrough the Core Formation stage. She called Gemini Doc and entered the Sentinel, as she laid there the insides of Gemini Doc is filled with precious serum to be injected at Sera as she enters a “secluded meditation” .

This now marks the start of her estimated 10 years of the journey she would take to make a breakthrough the Core Formation stage.

Continental Isle

Lavant Kingdom

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When it rains it pours as the saying goes. Right now tragedy has struck in the alliance of the Continental Isle Kingdoms as more and more territories fell at the hands of the Lavant Kingdom. They just kept coming one after another despite their massive losses they just poured in as if they are water that flooded their Kingdoms.

While the Eastern Cultivators are only all too happy at the result that they are seeing right now obviously smug of their achievements.

“haha! If we’ve only known it would be this easy we should have just used this strategy ages ago!”

“well.. I wouldn’t say that so easily, you have to remember that we are only at the top of the food chain because of our cultivation methods should any of these land at the hands of our enemies we would have serious competitors”

And then General Yohmu suddenly said “he’s right… we do not need any more cultivators, have you forgotten what pushed us to invade this Continental Isle in the first place”

“.………” the whole room became silent as they realized that because of the over usage of the dragon veins that their Sect legacies are now in danger of collapsing.

“We only have a few more years before the deadline and as I see things we cannot invade more Kingdoms to harvest more blood in time. Soon we will have to cull all of the Lavants to return just in time for the Blood Sacrifice”

“yes yes, I think we were getting ahead of ourselves earlier that we almost forgot about the deadline. We have been too preoccupied with the blood harvest that it just slipped our minds” as the elder said in sigh

“after this Kingdom whatever its name is, we should scatter the Lavants into manageable pieces and start killing them slowly. So that even if they manage to retaliate we could easily surround them. Make it look like they died in a patrol or a unknown army got them”

They intended to separate the Lavants to be easier to kill and they have discussed abut these topics over a meal as if its normal. They never really cared about them ever since the beginning even if some of them might be a student they have instructed 40 years ago. In the end they would still be harvested for a Blood Sacrifice.

Lavant Kingdom

Unknown Location

Duke Arman is constantly receiving reports on the Lavant Kingdoms actions in their offensive. The news that broke his heart is that his fellow citizens are being sent to the front lines as a fodder unit.

It does not matter that they have become a high level cultivator the fact alone that they have no training already doomed them in the battlefield where even veterans could easily die from a stray attack.

As the days go by Duke Arman is even more thankful that he made the decision to run and hide some of the people willing to join him. Most of which are thinking that he was planning a revolt of some sort and since Duke Arman has a good name there are a considerable number of people who blindly join him.

But now as they get more and more news on what is happening on the outside they literally wept and prayed to the deities they believed in. Most of them could not even bare the thought of being on the front lines of a brutal war.

A few years ago some of the people who joined Duke Arman have become restless and have been planing to retract their support to him if nothing catastrophic happens according to Duke Arman.

And now that they are getting reports that King Draken Lavant IV did not even bat an eye as he sent waves after waves of their fellow citizens into the front lines to be canon fodders. They could not believe their luck that they followed Duke Arman blindly without knowing anything would end up saving their lives.

Because of the Eastern Immortals teaching everyone with their cultivation methods the citizens of Lavant went on a frenzy thinking that they could also become Immortal. They could not be any more mistaken.

One of the Duke’s trusted aides then asked “what do we do now?”

“we wait, it’s all we can do” Duke Arman said in a gloomy voice

His eyes looking to the distant past, present and future the glory days of Lavant, the current battlefield in which his brothers and sisters in arms are now littered in and the future smoldering ruins of Lavant. Such an endeavor could not be sustained after taking down the Kingdom of Rosario their territory would have more than doubled… but no the King and the other nobles wanted more always more.

They constantly received reports and updates on the situation until one day suddenly it just stopped.

“s-should we go out and check?” asked one of the guards

“no, I think everyone here already knows what happened and are just in denial” said Duke Arman

“then how long would we be staying here?”

Duke Arman said in a resolute voice “ we will only leave this place when we have less than 1 year worth of food. By then we would die either way so we might as well go and charge out!”

The people in the room were silent but nodded anyway they were thinking “that is right we ran we hid we already stockpiled our food and resources we already did the best we could. If all things still fail we will fight to the death and take down as much as we can.

Later in History this event would be called “the last light of Lavant” after the slaughter of Lavant, the remnants that Duke Arman brought with him would eventually try to rebuild their Kingdom but would eventually fail and only avail to build themselves a Duchy where they could barely defend just themselves.

Continental Isle

Dwarven Mountain Stronghold

Inside a stone room with a series of exquisitely carved stone furniture a small group of Dwarves huddled together around the stone table.

“around a quarter of the Human Kingdoms from the Alliance have fallen” as the Dwarf said it murmurings could be heard some already knew but refused to believe and some crestfallen.

“how could this be? Lavant Kingdom grew too powerful too fast!”

“it must have been the Eastern Cultivators’ techniques, our reports says that Lavant suffered at least triple the amount of soldiers after conquering each Kingdom”

“i don’t get it? they’re powerful so? We already know that!”

“no, you missed the point! What I’m trying to say is that either they lost most of their official soldiers or they have transformed their veteran soldiers into ranking officers. Which means we are likely fighting an army overpowered cannon fodders!”

The room went silent at the sudden yet unbelievable revelation. “With such loses how could an army maintain such fighting force?” they all thought unbelieving

“although unlikely since there are no other probable reason then it must be the truth. For argument sake let us assume that Lavant Kingdom is now fielding high quality and high quantity canon fodders” one of the Dwarf said with a smile

The other Dwarves only looked at each other while shrugging their shoulders.

“i don’t like where this is going BUT if it is true then what do we do!?”

“the records are yet to arrive in full detail but I think we can assume that the Lavant Kingdom is currently fielding ordinary citizens to the battlefield. If we use this line of thought then it would make sense why there are so much higher casualty rate in their forces since all they would know is to charge forward”

“are we really going to talk like this? How can we just assume that those eastern fools would teach normal people!? I mean I can somehow understand empowering the allied soldiers BUT… normal citizens!? surely you jest!”

“well I’m all out of ideas to put on the table. I have already told you, although unlikely, since there are no other probable reason, then it must be the truth. Not to mention with our current predicament it never hurts to be over prepared. double…. no triple the defenses and traps alike!”