Gregin
Gregin Laan was feeling good. His great-grandfather was about to be named the successor to the Bronze Legion, so his status in the legion was going to rise. He’d just made the last major breakthrough needed to advance to D rank while only 67, now only requiring resources to improve his race’s grade upon increasing its rank. And, in the War of the Chosen, he was going to absorb the secondary army and gain over a thousand law armors, which would allow him to advance far further than the Bronze Legion had thought they would.
Walking through the camp of the Bronze Legion’s second army, all the members of the legion, holding their own law armors and those of their fallen comrades in their arms, bowed to him, and that felt good.
What it took him a while to notice, however, was that there were only corans in the camp.
From the intelligence report he’d received, the Bronze Legion’s second army had seven commanders not from the Bronze Legion and fifteen elves, but he couldn’t see any of them.
“Brom, where are your foreign commanders?” he asked as the Heavenly Blade’s son came out to greet him. Both of them were surrounded by half a dozen members of the Bronze Legion, but Gregin’s commanders, given they were all roughly 36 years older, were far more powerful.
“No idea.” Brom’s body was still, not showing much emotion at all, but there was a hint of derision in his aura.
It didn’t matter, though, as all he needed was for Brom to surrender, nothing more. “I will accept your surrender, General Karendesh.”
“And I would love to surrender to you.” Brom’s aura wasn’t as strong as Gregin’s and Gregin could sense a slight hint of amusement replace the derision in the younger man’s aura, even if it didn’t show on his body. “Sadly, I gave up the general position before the War of the Chosen started, so my surrender means nothing.”
“Would you like to surrender instead?”
Gregin and the commanders he’d brought with him all turned around in shock to find a relatively short black-robed human woman standing behind them, her face unnaturally covered in shadow, and it took a second before Gregin realized it was an illusion and not an actual woman, showing the creator was very talented.
“Me, surrender to you?” Gregin couldn’t help but scoff.
“We already made a deal with the Bronze Legion.” The illusion’s voice was light and pleasant and the aura which emanated from it was surprisingly strong. “It makes very little difference to us whether that is with Brom or yourself. Were you to agree to the same terms, we wouldn’t have much of a problem.”
“A problem.” Gregin opened his mouth in a threatening grin. “Thank you for the law armors. They will be incredibly useful. But the Bronze Legion has no need for outsiders. You can all just die.”
“Understood.” The illusion nodded, not showing any sense of being phased. “Us outsiders have no need for the Bronze Legion then.”
She turned to Brom. “I’m sorry, Mr. Karendesh, but it seems your side has broken the deal. You yourself have treated all of us with respect and been an excellent ally, however, so we wish you well for your future.”
The illusion bowed to Brom and then turned to look at the spectating corans, raising her voice to spread to all of them. “The Bronze Legion’s leadership has shown itself to be a group of betrayers and cowards, but we trust you soldiers are just following orders. To you, who have fought alongside us, we are sorry your ability to continue in the War of the Chosen has ended. Should you fight on the battlefield in the future, try to choose a less idiotic general.”
With that, the illusion faded, and, for a second, Gregin just stood there as it fully sunk in that he didn’t know where any of the outsiders were and that his intelligence report had claimed they were incredibly skilled in terrifyingly powerful bombs and deadly biological weapons.
“What are you all standing around for?” He yelled after coming back to himself, looking at everyone in the camp. “Find those outsiders and kill them!”
“What’s the point?” One of the commanders under Brom, who was still wearing his law armor, glared at Gregin and spoke out angrily. “They all left using the princess of the Forest Cauldron’s portal power. They can go anywhere in the stage with ease. And this stage lasts for ten days and has nothing to stop biological warfare. Within the next few days, if not already, they’ll release a plague that only targets corans and, because you also threatened the skilled healer General Brom managed to recruit, we’ll only be able to slow down the plague, not stop ourselves from dying. Even if we could find and kill them, which we can’t, it wouldn’t make a difference as we would all still die.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The commander threw down his weapon and Gregin belatedly realized every one of the coran commanders in the Bronze Legion’s secondary army had been armed with Heroic grade artifacts. “We made intelligence reports for the legion about our allies in the War of the Chosen, and I know in mine I advised precisely against what you just did, outlining exactly what the result would be.
“Did you not read our reports? Or did you show such a lack of leadership that you didn’t trust our judgement?”
“Hold your tongue, Soldier!” one of Gregin’s commanders yelled.
“Or what?” Brom’s commander yelled back. “I’m already dead in the War of the Chosen, as are you! But, before your general’s idiocy, I had a small chance of awakening to a uniqueness! A uniqueness!” He looked out at all the soldiers from Brom’s army. “We were all benefitting from riding on the coattails of a force far stronger than our own, yet General Laan here decided to make the Bronze Legion a new enemy for no reason other than his own stupid pride, something which might have extremely grave effects in the future!”
He turned back to look at Gregin. “And in the now? You’ve just betrayed the trust of the Forest Cauldron, where the Bronze Legion buys pills! Have you ever read the terms of our agreement with them?”
Gregin just stood there in shock as it started to dawn on him he might be in a lot of trouble.
“Well it clearly seems you haven’t!” The commander, someone Gregin couldn’t touch as he was a favored descendant of the Bronze Legion’s third subleader, kept glaring at him. “You just violated the terms of our contract with them, which will reduce the legion’s priority for pills of all kinds and triple the price for all specialized pill requests for the next 2,985,984 years unless we somehow manage to renegotiate!
“Great job, Gregin! You, a little E rank, just cost the legion the equivalent of resources required to raise a new subleader! I’m sure your great-grandfather will be proud!”
With that, the commander just walked off, and Gregin, realizing he was about to be sacrificed by his great-grandfather to appease the rest of the Bronze Legion, just stood there, doing nothing.
* * *
Mila
“Wait, we could have used the terms of the contract between the Bronze Legion and the Forest Cauldron as a bargaining chip?” Mila, who’d been watching through the eyes of a stealthed doppelgänger after finishing pretending to be Diana, asked the others who’d been watching through her shared senses.
Irena then asked Krysta, pretending one of Diana’s stealthed spirits had overheard the corans’ discussion, and Krysta confirmed the nature of the deal.
“Damn.” Mila could only shake her head.
“It wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” Irena, the most experienced of them all in the fields of making and maintaining allies, explained. “Our relationship with the Bronze Legion had already soured. Even if we used the contract as a threat, or just threatened to kill them all, the relationship wouldn’t have been the same and we would likely end up losing a round in the War of the Chosen well before we would have otherwise.
“And, without our army wearing the law armors, by all reports we aren’t strong enough to kill the enemy general, so we would have had to negotiate with him instead of someone more intelligent.
“Given the circumstances, a clean break and then hopefully getting the next force we meet to surrender and merge with us would have a better effect.”
“Yeah.” Mila, who was traveling by herself as she’d originally left the camp to act as a scout before they’d known the Bronze Legion’s plans, shook her head. “Even if the Bronze Legion had fully cooperated, given how much stronger the armies we’ve been meeting are getting, we would have lost within the next five to six rounds.
“Now, at least, we might have a chance for several more if we manage to somehow subdue a stronger force.”
“We’d have an even higher chance if we could rapidly level up,” Isaiah added.
“I concur.” Irena’s tone was still businesslike. “It might be risky, and previously it wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but in the next round especially it will be important.”
“What do you think, Nana Xara?” Mila asked.
“Your grandmother is right.” Nana Xara sounded her usual chipper self, likely not caring that much as she wasn’t expecting them to do that well in this first War of the Chosen in the first place, putting more hope in the next one they could participate in given their young ages. “Leveling up now has more advantages than before, so it is worth the risk.”
“Nana Xara agrees,” Mila sent to everyone. “So, okay.
“First, we’ll deal with Brom. Irena, you can go with Epecteos and Isaiah to meet him on Hira and get him and his settled down there. You should be able to level up quite a bit from the two D ranks who otherwise would try to kill him.
“Isaiah, you should leave that primal energy to Irena, as she’ll gain a lot more levels from it than you would. I mainly want you to go there to interface between Brom and King Roland. You’ll also act as an interpreter.
“Meanwhile, I’ll apply for the Violet Mountain Sect to allow me to level up in some special zones on the capital planet. And, while I do that, Epecteos can take Isaiah, Diana, and Aalam to conquer a few E rank planets on the outskirts, adding them to Aalam’s Territory. Just make sure not to reveal either your faces or core powers.”
“Got it.” Cheerful sounds of excitement came from everyone and Mila herself felt quite excited as well.