Mila
When Mila arrived in the area where the cave was supposed to be, the situation was quite a bit different than she’d expected.
The land for kilometers around was flat, just plains and forests, with very little even in the way of hills, and the cave entrance was in the middle of a forest. From what she’d learned from the beastmen she’d questioned, the rebels hadn’t built much infrastructure around it before the integration, hoping to keep it hidden, but that was now old news.
After the integration, it seemed a large portion of the rebels had moved to the area, dragging a whole lot of other natives along, and built a small fortress around the entrance. But they hadn’t lasted very long as four different invasion forces had come to the area a few weeks later and worked together to destroy the rebels and take over the entire region, the four forces now each with a base around the entrance to the inheritance.
Mila had been able to get this information quite easily by questioning one of the natives still in the area while pretending to be a powerless G rank herself, gaining the relevant quests for destroying each invasion force after getting close enough, and it hadn’t been that difficult.
The four forces had imposed martial law, but they’d only killed the native cultivators, leaving most of the powerless natives alive to provide the area with food and amenities through farming and services, making it quite easy for Mila, with the help of Trickster’s Guise, to sneak in.
Mila then used her Blur skill and Law Egg of Obfuscation to walk around the edge of the area the invasion forces controlled, and, after about half an hour, she managed to find four cultivators from one of the three human forces alone in the forest coming back from hunting further out, three of them carrying a large lizard bear thing.
She then got in their path and hid behind a tree. When they’d just passed her, she used Illusion Steps to move behind them. But the one not carrying the monster noticed her before she expected him to, so she couldn’t knock him unconscious like she’d intended and instead had to use Artifact Enhancement on the Twin Dragons in spear form to stab him before he was fully ready.
As he was stabbed in the heart with an attack powered by her Law Larva of The Reaper, he wasn’t going to survive, but her plan was disrupted.
He was obviously the scout of the group, armed with a bow and a couple small knives, and he was likely the weakest combatant, thus why she’d wanted him as her hostage.
With him dead, she had to keep one of the others alive, and that would be more difficult. They all seemed like warriors, wearing metal armor and carrying spears in one hand with swords on their waists.
Thankfully, however, their spears were all stabbed into the bear thing to help with carrying it and they wouldn’t be able to pull them out easily, while their helmets were hanging from belts around their waists rather than on.
Activating her Second Self skill and empowering it with her Law Egg of Hologram, Mila made two duplicates of herself overlapping with her body and then had them move to attack two of the warriors while stabbing at the third herself, making it nearly impossible for the men to tell which her was real. The man she personally attacked was barely able to get his sword up to block her spear and, with Blur still active even though she’d stopped infusing her Law Egg of Obfuscation into it, he missed her intention to not attack again as she moved to stab one of the others.
The second man was off balance from trying to let go of the bear thing and protect himself from her illusionary clone, so she managed to stab through his left eye before he fully understood what was going on. Then she dismissed the illusory clone which had been attacking him and created another to attack the first man she’d tried to kill.
The third warrior was also off balance for the same reasons, but she didn’t attack him, instead going after the first man again, deliberately making her movements not flow with the same ideal smoothness as the clone attacking him. For a brief second, he thought her clone was the real her and tried to defend against it, but that action put him off balance and she managed to stab him in the upper throat with her Twin Dragons’ spear form, ending his life.
There was only one warrior left and he’d completely let go of the bear thing, the monster falling to the forest ground with a thump. But he was surrounded on all sides by her and her two illusory clones.
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“Would you like to make a deal or would you prefer to die?” Mila asked using Universal Standard, sending over a contract. But, instead of replying, the man lunged at her true body as she’d expected. She moved backwards to dodge his sword and the two illusory clones both whacked him on the back with their spears, one of them containing actual force through a clever use of Telekinesis.
Then he tried to attack that one, but his sword flowed right through the illusion and the other illusion whacked him on the back in the same way.
According to Nana Xara, telekinesis skills weren’t all that uncommon but clone skills that could actually do damage were, thus her trick. For natives, this wouldn’t add an extra intimidation factor, but for those from the wider world, it would imply a type of backing they didn’t want to mess with.
With 12 invasion forces, the chances were very high he wouldn’t know the identities of all the other forces, and, with her Blur skill active, he couldn’t even tell her species.
“Alright.” The man lowered his sword and accepted the contract.
Now neither of them could kill the other, but he had to answer all her questions to the best of his ability, would have to warn her of any dangers to her or himself, and would have to follow basic non life threatening directions or he would be weakened and she could kill him.
Mila quickly put the three bodies of the fallen invaders in the Left Hand of the Runescribe, along with the one still alive’s spear, and started walking away from the invaders’ camps. “Follow me.”
The man followed, walking beside her, and Mila started her interrogation. “Tell me about your force and the other three around the inheritance, leaving nothing out which you think might be useful.”
“I’m from the Flare Clan of the Kingdom of Night. Are you familiar with our kingdom or should I give more context.” He had the habits of a good subordinate, which was useful.
“I’m not familiar.”
“I can’t tell you much due to oaths, but I can reveal public knowledge. The Flare Clan is known for our fire magic class paths and is an above average D rank force in the Palazin Galaxy Cluster. Our leader on this expedition is the current clan head’s second son and his three generals are all descendants of the clan’s elders. I can’t share more than that, such as the location of our Pillar of Conquest or the makeup of our forces, but I myself and those you killed were just outer members of the clan, not expected to ever reach E rank.
“Two of the other forces come from our kingdom as well. First is the royal family, led by the youngest child of our kingdom’s monarch, Silveea Night. She has an assassin class, specializes in the Law of Shadow, and wields a sword. Her three generals are scions from three different clans of the Kingdom of Night. Gorin Lorok is a warrior specializing in war-hammers and the Law of Inertia. Civilax Co is a magician specializing in large area of effect spells and the Law of Storm. And Jameel Fa is a healer especially talented in the Law of Rejuvenation.
“Each of them are probably more talented than any of the leaders of most other forces.
“They brought with them about three thousand production specialists and six thousand combatants, evenly distributed between warriors, magicians, and assassins. Only about half their combatants are in this area though, and I don’t believe anyone knows where their Pillar of Conquest is yet.”
Mila quickly decided the names weren’t important, though she remembered them anyway. The royal family was probably one of the more powerful factions on the planet and they were led by an assassin with an armored warrior, a storm wizard, and a traditional healer as her generals.
From what she knew, most kingdoms in the universe were effectively C rank forces, but she didn’t yet have a good grasp of what that meant. Morin Daal, the leader of the undead invasion, said he was from a B rank force, with his dad the actual B rank, but she hadn’t found him that impressive. Granted, they’d never actually fought, so she wasn’t sure how powerful he’d actually been.
“The third force from our kingdom is the Gale Clan. They are led by the younger son of their clan leader, Aleron Gale, a swordsman specializing in the Law of Wind. And their generals are Aleron’s twin sister Ava Gale, their cousin Omalia Gale, and someone known as the Pink Ursa, apparently the bastard child of their clan leader’s first wife. Both Ava and Omalia follow the same path as Aleron, but little is known about the Pink Ursa.
“They were the clan originally going to guide this world if it hadn’t undergone an apocalypse style integration and they brought in an extremely large force, spending the maximum amount possible for an F rank world just to bring in more bodies, In total roughly 20,000 combatants and no more than a few hundred production classes.
“They also seem to have been aware of this inheritance before the integration started. I don’t know the details, but I think my clan’s leaders do.” He pointed to the south. “Their Pillar of Conquest is about 144 zi that way.”
Zi was a galactic unit of measurement, roughly 0.4 kilometers, so it seemed the Gale clan was quite close, likely not by accident.
“The Flare Clan and the Gale Clan do not get along, but with the Night royal family present, we are both staying in line.
“Finally, the last force here is the royal family from the Life Tree Empire, one of the major powers of the Palazin Galaxy Cluster. They found the inheritance by following the movements of our forces and, while their leader isn’t a scion of their Empire’s B rank, no one dares to kill him.
“I don’t know much about their force at all other than that they’ve brought thousands here.
“As for why we’re all standing around in a stalemate, everyone who’s gone into the inheritance agrees it won’t open until a year after the start of the invasion. All that can be gained from going in now is the method to make those useless beastmen.
“Whoever left the inheritance seemed to want to leave his possessions to people actually capable, so the inheritance was set to release soul sacrificing magic so the people of this world would destroy the planet’s balance and trigger an apocalypse style integration.”