“So my sisters, to what do I owe this pleasantly surprising visit?” Luna asked, sitting down on a small chair while preparing some aromatic tea. Fiora and Isana were sitting on her bed facing Luna while Sher was hovering and circling above the teapot, taking in the fragrance as it rose with the steam.
“Well, I’ll cut straight to the point then,” Isana replied. “I am here to request your aid in fighting Drigor. He has become considerably stronger recently and I suspect he will soon come after the other titans in search for more power. So, I want to propose an alliance between me and the 3 of you. We will go meet Rashael after and group up in Arigan while we wait for my husband.”
“Ho... that’s interesting. To think you found someone suitable for you. I pity Fiora though,” Luna said, smiling coyly while glancing at Fiora who was now fidgeting with an embarrassment. “And just how is it that you are fine with this Fiora? Haven’t you been after big sister Isana for a few millennia now?”
“Oh you don’t have to worry about that. This brat is quite clear on where she stands and I'm sure she fully understands my husband’s power by now.” Isana reassured Luna. The whole room was now staring at Fiora’s reaction to the conversation. She was twiddling her thumbs while staring straight at the floor between her feet. Suddenly, Luna burst out laughing.
“Ahahaha! Fine then. I have long thought that Drigor had to be put into place. He’s been harassing my citizens for several centuries now and I’ve been meaning to have a word with him. It seems Wanda might have had the same idea but sadly, the outcome was… unfavorable.” Luna expressed her thoughts out loud.
Bringing over 2 cups of tea for Fiora and Isana, Luna dragged the chair closer to her bed, away from the table and reseated herself. Sher had also joined the group, coiling her little body on Isana’s lap while her head tilted up, listening intently on the conversation.
“So Fiora, I’m asking you this as your sister. Have you really decided to ally yourself with Isana? Are you sure you will not regret your choice?” Luna asked, trying to reconfirm her sister’s resolution. At that, Fiora finally raised her head and looked straight into Luna’s eyes and nodded firmly, solidifying her unwavering decision.
“Very well, big sister Isana, I will gladly aid you in your quest against Drigor. I already know this is not as simple as preventing him from growing stronger, and that you actually want revenge for Wanda, but nonetheless, if Fiora is willing, so am I. Just be warned though, if things get dicey, I will prioritize my sister and brother’s lives over yours or your husband’s.” Luna declared her intentions loud and clear.
She raised her arm and summoned a jet black raven that flew in through the window. Right in front of their eyes, the raven morphed while being cloaked in black shadowy mists and finally took the form of Luna.
“My doppelganger shall stay here until I engage in the fight with Drigor. It is the perfect replica of me and will exist as long as I do not require my full attention and power to focus on another matter.” Luna explained. “Now on to the next topic,” Luna continued, “I would love to hear more about this husband of yours. Last I heard there were no males that could compare to your strength other than Drigor and Grandu. What race is he?”
Smiling at the thought of Kiefer, Isana made Luna wonder what kind of powerful entity could make Isana so happy just thinking about him. Just as Isana was about to speak, Sher enthusiastically cried out, “My master is a human! He is very kind and powerful and weird! He beat both me and Sana sis in a straight up battle!”
Isana threw Sher a piercing glare, clearly not happy that she had been robbed of her opportunity to introduce her own husband. Luna ignored it and smiled at the juicy development between the 2 of them. Intrigued, Luna also couldn’t wait and interjected, “Oh? Shearwood, you too found someone worthy to be called master? I’ll get to that later, for now, I want to hear more about Isana’s husband, so could you wait for a while?”
Isana then cleared up the misunderstanding, calming down after seeing Sher’s wagging tail that whipped back and forth so quickly it looked like there were 2 tails. She understood that Sher was simply too excited when the topic came to Kiefer and could not control herself as well as she did.
“Hehe, my dear Luna. My husband’s name is Kiefer. He is a human, but he is not of this world. He possesses skills unlike anything I’ve seen before. And before he was my husband, he was Sher’s master, having beaten her down thoroughly. I’ll tell you now, you will never stop being surprised at every turn if you choose to follow him. On the 2nd day after I met him and was beaten down just as Sher was, he mastered opening a PD just by observing me. I’m sure even you can’t open a PD yet can you?” Isana bragged out loud, clearly proud that she had landed herself a worthy male.
“Ha! This is more interesting than I thought! A mere human, able to open a PD? I would really love to meet him. I’m sure Rashael would too, even if it is just to study him.” Luna exclaimed.
“Now that you mention it, Kiefer is indeed somewhat like Rashael. He has a never ending thirst for knowledge and seems to be really good at putting that knowledge to good use. Did u know, he has this weird mana armour, as he calls it, with its structure based on knowledge from his world? It is so strong, it could withstand any physical attacks that I threw at him. Even my ice meteor barely managed to pierce his armour.” Isana kept bragging about Kiefer.
Fiora was silent but whispered to Isana to show Luna the Feni statue. Taking out the ice cold statue that froze everything around it, Fiora held it in her hands and heated her hands up to counter the chilling aura. She then proceeded to brag about how Kiefer had made the statue just for her. However, the moment she said that, Isana and Sher jumped in and started competing on what Kiefer had done for them and how much they’ve been through.
Naturally, Sher won out in the end, having spent the most time with Kiefer. She even exaggerated some facts, saying that Kiefer could not bear to be apart from her, so he had specifically designed his armor to hold her close to his heart.
“Hahaa Shearwood. Are you sure you are not lying? If he can’t bear to be apart from you, where is he now and why are you not with him?” Luna asked, clearly amused at the competition between Isana and Shearwood.
At that, the group went silent, before Isana finally spoke up. “He’s alone in Drigor province. He’s tasked us with forming the alliance with the 3 of you, while he spies on Drigor to learn as much as he could.” Isana spoke softly and solemnly, clearly not happy with how the plan had gone. She continued after a short pause, “We don’t even know how he is now. There hasn’t been any contact since we parted, but his instructions were clear – to wait for each other in Arigan once we were done with our respective tasks.”
Now looking at Luna with pleading eyes, Isana made her request, “So Luna, we need to make haste and meet up with Rashael. I would love to leave as soon as possible. Will that be alright with you?”
“Your husband sure is a brave man, to spy on Drigor on his own. How sure are you that he will be able to escape if Drigor discovers him?” Luna avoided her question, but instead replied with another question.
“He will definitely escape!” Sher yelled, refusing to accept that her master could lose to Drigor. “He is even more elusive that my brother Desir, so I’m sure Drigor will not be able to catch him or even trace him!”
“I see. Since you trust him so much, shall we depart then? My doppelganger is already in place so we can leave right now. We do not want to keep him waiting in Arigan do we?” Luna replied enthusiastically as she stood up and faced the window.
That night, from the island, 4 titans left the tallest tower in the middle of the island and flew straight for Rashael. This was the greatest gathering of titans since the great mana calamity and yet, no one noticed it.
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“Master, I still can’t seem to establish the link. I think it’s because I don’t know how to actually visualize what the netherworld looks like or how to connect to it. Isn’t there any toher way you can make it clearer? There is no way the netherworld and our world exists together in the same space like you described.” Kiefer questioned Drigor, still stalling for time as long as he could.
“Hmm that’s really difficult to explain. Seriously Kiefer, you are unlike all my other students I’ve taught before. No one ever dared to question me as much as you do. Why don’t you go spar with Varn while I find a way to describe the netherworld and its existence to you?” Drigor tried to reason with Kiefer to give him more time to find a way to explain it.
Kiefer then nodded his head silently, and excused himself from the room, putting on his gauntlets and heading to the training ground. They would continue their usual routine, sparring until evening, and then washing up before heading to the entertainment district to watch some skits and enjoy a home cooked meal in a reserved little restaurant tucked away in an alley.
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It was Varn who first proposed the idea to spend more time outside the palace and Kiefer went along with the flow. The medallion came in useful, with it, most amenities and services were free for the 2 of them and the charges would be handled by the royal palace.
Midnight arrived quickly and Kiefer could be seen carrying a dead drunk Varn back to his room in his palace. Drigor kept track of them at all times, knowing that they would not be able to return to the palace without the medallion. Sensing both medallions back within the palace, Drigor finally went to rest in his room. Kiefer however, was a light sleeper and teleported out of the palace, leaving his medallion in the room. He did not need it to move freely in and out of the palace.
That night, he flew to the forward base camp of the Diantes army and arrived in under an hour. He saw Aslan the necromancer barely holding up her spell and summoning countless undead in the field before her. Similarly, next to her, were Ducar and 3 other necromancers all doing their job. It would seem that the army had focused their attention on this camp since his runes had been making it difficult for their undead to reach across the chasm.
Certain that no one could spot him, Kiefer proceeded to open the portal to the netherworld, and sent his contract spell through it, suddenly causing the grounds in front of him to rise and tumble. The strain on his mana was barely noticeable as Kiefer summoned forth hundreds of undead giants and werewolf commanders, along with thousands upon thousands of other undead.
They just kept pouring forth until the entire stretch of barren land between the base camp and the chasm was filled with undead. As more were being summoned, Kiefer could see the visible silver wall just before the canyon, glad that his runes were still working. Meanwhile, the 5 necromancers were looking around confused.
“Hey… who’s doing that? That’s got to be at least the work of 40 or more necromancers. Did they send reinforcements here?” Dukar checked with the other necromancers. They all shook their head and expressed their concern as well.
There had been no schedule for any reinforcements that night, and yet the undead seem to be on their side, which means the necromancer would be too. Dukar and Aslan simply gave up finding the mysterious helper but were glad to have more help on their side.
Soon, the undead legion that belonged to the other 5 necromancers had been pushed into the layer of runic circles lining the chasm and disappeared, as Kiefer’s undead filled up the barren land. Since the link to the undead was now made of Kiefer’s mana, the orihalcom runic rings did not work to cut off the mana link but instead strengthened it.
Within moments, the chasm was lined with more werewolf and foxmen undead than Feni had ever seen in her life. And yet, more kept coming in and Feni could still see countless undead giants that had yet to arrive at the canyon.
“Shit shit shit shit shit! Why aren’t the runes working?!? And we aren’t even remotely prepared to handle so much powerful undead! How did they find a way to overcome Kiefer’s runes?!” Feni was panicking internally as she barked out orders to the catmen and Lamia to reinforce the canyon.
The defensive perimeter had relaxed ever since the runes were installed and Feni had reallocated the soldiers to concentrate on domestic affairs rather than guarding the perimeter. As such, the far side of the chasm had far fewer soldiers than required to handle a normal undead legion, much less a powerful unending one that Kiefer had summoned.
Feni and her small handful of soldiers she had managed to scrounge up prepared for battle as they watched the undead encroach on the edge of the chasm, just standing there without doing anything. It felt as if the undead were all intelligent and silently awaiting Feni to make a move first, their blank rotting eyes slowly turning and following Feni as she paced around the far side of the chasm.
Finally, something unexpected happened. Something that has never happened in the history of the war happened. One of the Giants picked up an undead wolf commander and placed him on his hand like it was a podium, outstretched it over the chasm and just stopped, before the wolf howled to attract the attention.
Everyone stared intently, unsure of what was happening or what was to come. None of the undead they have encountered before had any deliberate movements such as that, and none had ever displayed vocal abilities. And yet, they watched as the wolf commander opened its jaws and started speaking loudly right in front of their eyes.
“Feni. You sure have placed too much confidence in the runes. You barely have any manpower left to handle a normal outbreak. That is way too careless. Make sure next time I come, there are enough soldiers on the borders. The humans might suspect something if their spies send reports on your soldier force deployed on the perimeter.” The wolf commander yelled out loud, loud enough for all the soldiers and for Feni to hear.
Having said that, the wolfman hopped off the giant’s hands and returned to its place amongst the undead, before finally, all the undead disappeared en-masse, leaving behind sparkling silver lights that were unique to Kiefer’s magic.
Feni understood instantly what just happened while her soldiers were still confused but elated that the threat had disappeared. She knew Kiefer had been the one to summon the undead and come give her a warning. She knew she would have to reinstate the soldiers at their original posts after tonight and train them to remain vigilant even with the runes still in place. However, the one thing she knew best was that Kiefer was an even more terrifying magus that she gave him credit for, being able to summon so many high leveled undead by himself.
Relieved that it was merely a friendly reminder, Feni extinguished the flames on her twin hammers and head back to her camp, making preparations to reinforce the chasm with more soldiers. At the same time, she was wondering whose side Kiefer really was on and also finding ways to counter such a fearful force in the future in the event that the runes failed again.
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Kiefer cut off his mana supply to the portal to the netherworld and watched as the dark battlefield in the middle of the night was set alit with a sea of silver particles as his undead legion returned to the netherworld. He inspected his own mana capacity and realized that the whole charade had only drawn out 20% of his maximum capacity and within minutes of active conversion, he was back to full mana.
The aim for the night to was to gauge how mana intensive being a necromancer was and it had convinced Kiefer that the Netherworld did not lack souls to be summoned. If it were any other mage, Kiefer was sure it would have been difficult to just establish the link. However, with his expansive mana pool, he found that he could probably summon countless undead without any end as he could actively recover the mana lost faster than it could be spent.
Kiefer quickly teleported back to the palace without being seen by anyone and returned to his room, just before reports started flooding the palace interior about an unexpected help from an unknown powerful necromancer. As he prepared to turn in for the night, with barely 6 hours of rest before sunrise, Kiefer started to become worried about phase 3 when he could actually summon the legion. Drigor would know from there that his mana pool was actually exponentially larger than he had actually shown it to be.
Morning came around as Kiefer finalized his plans for the future after breakfast before finally approaching the study room of the master. As he opened the door, he saw Varn standing there in his mithril breastplate smiling widely at him.
“Hey Kiefer.” He greeted nonchalantly. “Guess what? I’m finally able to move to phase 2. I’ve caught up to you little buddy.”
Kiefer smiled back in return, and walked straight in front of Drigor and announced loudly, “Master, I was finally able to establish the link to the Netherworld this morning. How should I proceed in phase 3?”
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Hoped you enjoyed this chapter, I changed the format again since some people have sent me messages that their readers don't show colour. so now the thoughts of characters will be yellow AND Italicized. There will be one more chapter coming up tonight so look forward to it.