Setting Up Encampments

Vrr...crrkcrkrkcr~. Whooosh- swish! Splassh!...

Ciemnosc and company arrived at their mission location by the time that the next day’s morning light showered them all, while the rest of the vehicles made quite the large packed up stationing within a random area for the moment, he went around and moved towards an area where a few buildings were somewhat still standing despite the cracks around them and the obvious different kinds of burning, somewhat wet-iced floor and walls from the outside - among other things.

It wasn’t a large area with buildings, possibly 1 square kilometer at most, and there was only 1 building 3-story tall, it was quite wide as well, possibly 3-story wide. While the rest of the buildings had at most 2 floors and were 2-story wide so to speak, barely much difference indeed, except that the tall building was in the middle.

From afar, Ciemnosc could already see many ways in which disorder battles, confusing movements and erratic orders were being made here just weeks, and even days; ago.

He walked up to the area, with some snow falling on it, as the beginning of the Little Lake’s shallow waters were closest to the west and south, while the east was as if channeling most of the hot temperatures of the rest of the Region. Even from afar, not that far away that the naked eye couldn’t see - very tall snowy forests appeared in the distance, though the snowy floor that spans through tens of thousands of kilometers was still invisible for those at the beginning of the Little Lake.

Arriving there, Ciemnosc took a walk around the buildings, entering only some of them as he was more than capable of completely and directly analyzing most of them with his Spirit Sense alone. After scanning every single building, Ciemnosc realized that these were basically a small fortress-like sole building structure, forming a kind of ‘collective’ fortress union that was nowhere near what a citadel could be; or would be.

However, that didn’t matter in tactics against cultivators, at least not in terms of the ‘mortals’ and their way of fighting a war or simply a battle. It was obvious that such structures were made for the sake of defending, and to which they indeed seemed to have worked their way through repeated, constant and heavy attacks from the enemy.

At most, Ciemnosc could only tell that these buildings were all made from the hands of the Self-Mutilating Honores Sect which, according to general knowledge, the Grand Elder might’ve been the one to lead this place and the people in it. Ciemnosc wondered, just how many died here just for the sake of feeling out if to fight for the Little Lake or not?

The buildings were now empty, not a single trace of equipment, weapon or tool present anymore and Ciemnosc could only look at the general direction of the northern borders after finishing scanning through the entire area then.

Step, step, swish swish~...

Afterwards, Ciemnosc took some more time after receiving notifications from Valeria and how long it would take for the next several hundred groups to park their vehicles and become organized. This wasn’t something to blame anyone with, the lack of discipline in these disciples was apparent and a wholly known thing within the entire sect already.

Ciemnosc once more walked around, this time though, only on the perimeter of the entire area of desolate, cracked buildings. He walked around it and didn’t just use his feet, as his hands would be inscribing a rather large array around the whole fortress-like whole structure. He was making such a big-scale array for the first time but he was not only at ease, he was even feeling bored from the lack of difficulty on it - if only he could've had learnt more…

Once he was done with the perimeter, Ciemnosc went over to the central building, using his brand new ‘technique’, his whip of a strange black energy or whatever it could really be called. Ciemnosc couldn’t feel the whip with his hands yet he could ‘feel’ it with his whole body, being and most natural instincts.In any case, grappling up the building a few times, since it had to be rather very short so that he wouldn’t collapse, Ciemnosc stood on the roof of the central building just a few seconds later.

Once on top of the tallest building, he began inscribing a lot more, eventually taking more than 10 minutes to finish it up, and so Ciemnosc began doing just the same but of a much lesser difficulty to the rest of the buildings and even at the corners of the central building. The whole ordeal took Ciemnosc more than an hour, and only then did he feel a slight tiredness.

…When walking back into where his people were now orderly moving in and about, Ciemnosc wasn’t recognized, or if he was then he was totally ignored and seriously nobody cared for him, only when he was closer to Valeria did everyone begin giving him little, hushed greetings.

Ignoring all those, Ciemnosc walked to stand behind Valeria, who only turned around once Ciemnosc stood there close for a minute, he looked around and saw the few thousands of vehicles were almost all stationed and parked neatly in the wild.

Frowning a bit to that, Ciemnosc pouted, when Valeria turned around and saw the boy commander pout like he wasn’t getting a juicy supper in time. She let her shoulders drop, sent Ciemnosc another small report and then stood one step behind him to his right.

“How are things, commander, anything we should focus on first?” Valeria asked, her voice softened by the temperature getting cold, with her hands behind her back and her chin slightly raised up. She received an answer from Ciemnosc’s voice while he was rather comfy in these cooling temperatures, “Mn, besides the obvious, let’s first make a proper garage for all of these.”

“Instructions?” Valeria asked again, her voice the same as she practically pushed Ciemnosc for more and more so that his voice could be heard more and more by those moving about with ragged and displeased faces with his arrangements conveyed by this beauty behind him, forcing them to do the hard work without anyone being privileged. Only some acting elders were lazing around without caring about such ‘orders’ from a boy.

But, at least, there were also some acting elders who stood up for the task.

“Get everyone to dig deep, very deep. And get as many others as possible to look for materials to make cement. We should finish something like this in 3 days at most, meanwhile, I will be observing around. Oh, could you make sure to have the patrols on duty already? Something tells me that we are being seen by unknown enemy major organizations already.”

“!” Valeria who was nodding her head in both praise and slight amazement to Ciemnosc’s words and decisions, suddenly jolted her neck back as she wanted to instinctively look around for any possible enemy scouts or so, but restrained herself and instead gave Ciemnosc a nod before walking away and getting to work.

“... …” Ciemnosc was still standing on the spot, with Mosto at his left and behind himself still, he asked the latter with a swing of his head before returning it back to Valeria’s sweet small ass. “Can you fight a Conflagrate realm cultivator?”

“...” Mosto shook his head, making Ciemnosc pout yet again, but he then asked again. “Protect against one of that same realm?”

“...” Mosto nodded his head slightly and heavily, still making Ciemnosc pout once more but a bit more eased and relaxed; at the very least.

Ciemnosc then went away and began walking towards the largest body of water in the entire Region, possibly in the entire world as well while obviously not counting the entire sea. He didn’t have to worry about the place where everyone would be sleeping, though temporary, they would all be putting up tents and painting the night of steel colored fabric all around.

Splasssh! Gurgle, gurlge~.

When Ciemnosc was still making his way to the riverside, noises that he only read about them coming from the sea sounded in front of him and to his sides. They were calming, somewhat, but they were quite powerful and mystical considering that more at the center of the shallow waters’ starting point was utterly calm and unmoving.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“...haaa…” Ciemnosc couldn’t help letting out such an exclamation, in front of him was the mere beginning of the Little Lake, right behind him was the Preferential Light Justice Sect to the north, and though the beginning of the Little Lake had quite a strong initial curve; Ciemnosc was still able to already see tens and tens of kilometers of pristine blue-green water all in front of him.

Raising both his arms to the sides, extending the and opening his hands to the sensation of the warm and humid air, Ciemnosc felt like even if he was to just boil water from the lake, it would somewhat have enhancing effects and even a tiny bit of that in terms of healing properties!

Writing some more stuff for Valeria in his Identification Token, Ciemnosc then sat down on the river side and let his feet be reached by the lightly waving back and forth 1 cm tall waves of the Little Lake that either landed on the ground or splashed into water itself close to the riverside and impulsed even more water towards land.

Ciemnosc closed his eyes, the warm temperature was good for him even if he was much more at ease when in cold temperatures, in terms of preferences that is. He didn’t dip in though, the reason being none other that he couldn’t see himself doing such a thing while a really great amount of people were working against their will and feeling frustrated because of it.

Splasy splashy.

‘Aaah, that was good, mn. Well now…’ Ciemnosc stood up from his enjoyment, shook his feet a little in the air and began walking forwards, his feet all bare on his way back. When he made it back to where the temporary tents were to be stationed, he was surprised to find more than ⅔ ‘s of it already completely well done with only the remaining ⅓ rd lacking manpower.

Seeing that these people could be reliable, somewhat, at least it was so for those who helped create quite a goddamn lot of tents which was only possibly due to their cultivation being high enough to do these things without a problem. Ciemnosc felt yet a bit more at ease, he walked up to some of them— as they were thousands —and patted someone on the shoulder.

As soon as Ciemnosc patted that person, the person in question looked up expecting to see a senior brother but instead found thin air and looking down, he finally saw Ciemnosc’s handsome, cute boy face looking up at him before saying in a serious tone. “I’m glad to see people working for the good of the corps, do you know anyone willing to be of assistance? I’m in need of supervisors…”

“...Ah… Y- yeah sure, I was- actually, I can be of service.” The core disciple said, startled still by the little boy commander that was hinting at some sort of work that was really nowhere to be seen in other missions, even large scale ones. In response to his subordinate, Ciemnosc nodded long continuously before tiptoeing and saying in a whisper. “List those who were asked to help but refused to do it, anyone. Also make another list for those who volunteered.”

“!!” The core disciple was instantly illuminated, his face even went semi-duck face for a moment before he responded to Ciemnosc with a quick salute and a ‘high’ bow at Ciemnosc, since the core disciple didn’t remember the commander’s height yet again.

In return, Ciemnosc could only watch as he was treated like a child and how this 5th stage in the Gathering Spirit realm cultivator became rather cooperative of aiding him with such necessary matters, but also matters that the current disliked Ciemnosc could not get done with just his words. In any case, whatever thoughts of grandeur were in the core disciple’s head, it did good to him and Ciemnosc was planning on devising plans to trick more people; it was really worth it.

A couple of hours went by, cultivators at the very first realm of the Spiritual Ligament realm already have a strong resistance to hunger, bodily weaknesses and weakening, they were able to spend a day without eating and suffering anything from it due to such.

Thus, as one advanced, it was only right that such an advantage from cultivating would be enhanced, but even then, it wasn’t that much of an ‘upgrade’. In the Phrenic realm, a cultivator may go up to a week without feeding themselves without suffering from the starvation processes; only when that week, so as to say, was over would their bodies begin weakening until death.

Within the mission, the sect had some inner sect disciples join in, while most were core sect disciples that were always the highest ones in number every year and ten years when compared with the inner sect disciples.

The inner sect disciple could be known more as a passing stage of a disciple that wasn’t dumb trash and somehow managed to defeat an enemy to enter the inner sect discipleship. There were even tons of the likes of those that are from 1 to 4 stages above the Phrenic realm 1st stage cultivator they had to face, barely able to defeat the latter - just to show the worst cases of outer sect disciples entering the inner sect discipleship.

In any case, for anyone who wasn’t just too worthless, the Inner Sect Disciple enclave’s dormitories were only a quick stop before ultimately breaking through the Gathering Spirit realm, where it was then that many either broke through stages rather fast - to incredibly slowly.

As such, the Core Sect Disciple enclave became to be known as the true strength of the sect with even hundreds-years-old core disciples remaining at the middle stages of the Gathering Spirit realm. It was only for people like Valeria, Fu Lan and Enaro who reached a stop there, and a big one, before they could continue on to the Conflagrate realm.

But no matter who they were, even the apex of cultivators, the Obsidiafying realm cultivators, they all longed and enjoyed food like those mere ‘mortals’ they so disdain all life and hold repugnance for. Food will always be food even as cultivators. That was also one of the reasons that people complaining to Ciemnosc directly shut up…

Hence, once all tents were put up and the vehicles stationed nearby, patrols patrolling but also not being forgotten, Ciemnosc gave every single sect disciple a notification, making them all congregate at the center of their improvised encampment.

Step, step, step, step, step, step, step, step…!

Ciemnosc had already seen all of them walking about and also when marching towards their vehicles. But as he stood atop a large podium-like structure because he wasn’t going to let his actually too tall body for his age to be an inconvenience, and saw the hundred thousand people all moving towards him, Ciemnosc felt his head dizzy a little and quite a bit startled…

“...For the next 3 days, and I think you’ve heard this from your sub-leader Valeria already,” some people reacted at the ‘sub-leader’ word, a word that wasn’t in the sect’s rules but that wasn’t against it, it was just not used but thought of by the most ambitious ones. Ciemnosc continued with his elevated volume, “But in these 3 days starting from tomorrow, we will be building the garages to keep our vehicles safe and clean, but they will still need maintenance!”

“Buwaaaaaah!” - “Boooo!” - “No way! That’s too much stuff to do!” Immediately, Ciemnosc received well expected words of refusal, but he ignored them all so simply and continued. “After finishing building the garages, we will start creating our first defensive line against any force outside of our stronghold. We are more than 100,000 already, and in 3 weeks, all other organizations under the sect will arrive intermittently.”

“Since we will be ‘housing’ so many people at once, we will mostly need to have our garages filled with our vehicles to react to anything we need accordingly, and that is also to create factories and workshops for completing our job here. Yet, we have to focus more on arming ourselves, then we will be able to then focus more on finishing our mission.”

“It will take long, more than even 2 months if all goes well and you follow my orders, which I may really heavily punish some of you if you think you can get away from it.” Though some were naturally too far away to hear Ciemnosc give his speech, some were using their cellphones to record and use their intranet to share it, thus hearing it all the same while looking at Ciemnosc in the distance.

With Mosto on his left and behind himself, Ciemnosc continued with his arms casually to the sides of his body. “For those who deliberately make mistakes, accidents or look for forcing me to give them something - I will kill.”

Ciemnosc’s words were just spoken without much emotion to barely any emphasis, it was the same with his last few words, yet it was just in that way which ended up ‘striking’ in people’s heads the moment they were spoken. And his calm, serene eyes weren’t helping in giving Ciemnosc any sort of ‘just kidding’ in his speech.

“But I will reward well those who follow my orders, who comply, who extend their aiding hand and who are smart or clever enough ‘to know what to do’. So for the next few weeks, the garages, factories and workshops will be completed, and once they are, we will be building our still temporary but most capable living quarters. Only then we will begin building the encampments’ defenses before getting to work with building the stronghold. It is a simple short goal, and further details will be given in due time.”

“Excuse me, ‘sir’ corps leader, I have a question concerning the matter of you simply choosing on your own to ord-” An old voice rang out, it was educated and polite but only for the very first few spoken words before it became sharp and just plainly annoying. An acting elder was the voice’s owner, and he spoke with his hands placed against one another with his fingers spread, but Ciemnosc simply continued as if the acting elder speaking didn’t even exist.

“Now…since everyone has worked hard, why don’t you enter the water before it starts cooling down at night?!” Ciemnosc suddenly, said, for a moment, every single sect disciple who was holding something to help with or resting and tired, even sore from moving around for so much for things they didn’t deserve to do -...they all dropped their damn things and resentment before starting to take their clothes off while rushing towards the Little Lake women and men alike!

STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP STEP~~!

…