“Heavens,” breathed Brud, who was putting weight on his recently regenerated leg in an experimental manner. “Let’s just leave then. This world is vast, so there’s no reason to stay here and willingly jump onto their pikes.”
“All you think about is fleeing,” reprimanded Jason. “And you wonder why Angelica has no interest in you.”
Brud immediately looked at his childhood friend with a bit of shock and desperation, but she ignored him.
“In this instance, Brud’s right,” said Havel. “That’s one of the two actions we can take. Then, we’ll no longer have to worry about the sect or the local kingdoms. We could just walk away from it all.”
“This,” said Sersa, motioning at the vast camp that filled the surrounding forests. “This doesn’t end until the sect is destroyed. Just so we’re all on the same page.”
Havel nodded, his expression showing that he’d expected such an interjection. “I haven’t forgotten your intentions.”
“And the other course of action?” said Jason, wishing more than ever that Nolan and Nyla were by his sides to pick out the correct path.
“The great elders mobilized as soon as the Haussians did. I can only take this as a preemptive action, to get rid of the Haussians and cultivate the captured soldiers before the Verdurians arrive. On the sect’s side, this is the best decision to make.”
“There’s no way they can win, though,” smirked Brud. “A hundred thousand disciples is a lot, sure. But the Haussians alone could take care of them. Three times their number, with trained and well-equipped troops, against a bunch of kids like us?”
“Who’s a kid?” said Sersa, unceremoniously giving Brud the slap that she had almost given to Jason after his bold words regarding his bath tub. “Annoying as you are, you’re not entirely wrong. Still, since the start of this Acquisition there’s only been one great elder in Hauss at any given time. At least until now. Of the three that are currently here, that slut—ahem, the sixth great elder has been taken over to our side. The fifth elder had been left to oversee their forces in the west while the third had been tied up with the battles in the east.
Pointing at the same spot on the map that Havel had initially outlined along the occupied territories of Hauss, she continued. “If we don’t do anything, then there’ll be two great elders with their forces, and they’ll surely kill or at least drive off Hauss’s champion in the coming battle. After that, the bulk of the kingdom’s forces will essentially be lambs waiting for the slaughter. The sect’s war party will only grow stronger, and then they’ll have a serious chance of doing the same thing to the Verdurian army.”
“This is exactly what I was thinking,” agreed Havel, who straightened his robes and then turned his gaze upon Jason. “Master, I suggest we help the kingdom’s forces in the coming fight.”
“And if they attack us?”
“They’ll definitely attack us,” pouted Brud, who stared at the ground with the angry sort of sadness of someone that knew their life would soon come to an end. “Our uniforms are the same, our skills are the same…” Quieter, to himself, he added, “Of all the people that I could’ve tried to enslave, why did it have to be him? Why?”
“Because you’re a moron.” Jason stretched his limbs and then sent a sweeping gaze around the table. “If these don’t seem like the moves to make, then don’t be afraid to speak up. Alright, I think we should do a bit of cherry-picking.”
“Cherry-picking?”
Hearing several confused voices, he said, “Basically, we wait and see. Once they wear each other down to a certain point, me, Sersa and Elisa will help Hauss’s champion deal with the great elders while the rest of our group attacks the sect’s forces from the back. Once the great elders are dead, we take as many enemy disciples along with us as we can, and then leave.”
“Where will we go, though?” said Renay. “The kingdom’s forces will definitely follow after us. From their point of view, they can’t exactly have over ten thousand of us running around their countryside if they truly intend to take back their territories.”
“Good point,” said Jason, who held up a finger to silence those present. He stepped out of the tent for a moment and then infused his voice with inner essence, speaking loud enough so that everyone in the camp could hear his words. “Elisa, get your ass to my tent. Now!”
He walked back inside to see Sersa suppressing a giggle. He could have contacted her via sound transference talisman, but he’d much rather embarrass her. After all, she was no saint.
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“What?” came an annoyed voice from the tent’s entrance. Touching a finger to her bottom lip in a suggestive manner, she said, “Does Master want to make more use of this poor slave?”
None of that shit, he said mentally to the woman. If I embarrass you, deal with it. The next time you swing back at me, I’ll ban you from wearing clothes for a month.
Elisa rolled her red eyes as strode into the tent, her erotic frame outlined by the same uniform worn by everyone else in the camp. “What can I do for you, Master?”
“How many members does the sect have?”
“Six or seven million, not counting the surrogates or the dungeon dregs.”
When he looked at the others with a raise eyebrow, Havel offered, “She means the children that the elders keep in their dungeons. Some core disciples and direct disciples have their own stocks as well.”
While Sersa’s expression remained unchanged, the anger in her eyes made Jason realize that she must have once been one of these so-called ‘dungeon dregs,’ all of which were either captured from surrounding settlements or birthed by the sect’s surrogates.”
“How many of them?”
“The number changes often,” said Elisa, who was absentmindedly playing with her long, chestnut hair. “Sometimes it’s as high as three or four million, sometimes as low as a few hundred thousand.” Glancing at Sersa, she added, “There are only so many villages to plunder in the mountain ranges around the sect’s territories, and the surrogates can only work so hard. A shame, for the dregs are always so fresh.”
I can’t believe I let her suck me off, Jason thought as he suppressed a grimace. On the surface, he said, “How many are at the Genesis stage?”
“Before the Acquisitions, around thirty. Now? Over a thousand, surely.”
A thousand?
Jason wasn’t the only one to be caught off guard by the figure.
“How?” he said.
“Before I was assigned here, over half a million Haussians had been brought back to the sect by the invading disciples. After enjoying my piece of the pie, I came here at the behest of the sect master. Only, we’d been receiving a constant stream of resources from the various Acquisitions in the Easterly Kingdoms, so all of the higher ups have been enjoying themselves quite liberally in recent weeks.”
“Cut to the chase. What’s the point of this Acquisition? Too many disciples are dying to settle any of these lands. What’s the deal?”
Elisa laughed. “The same purpose as in every Acquisition. Elevate the seated elders while getting rid of all of the inconvenient mouths to feed. At the same time, cultivate a stronger generation to inherit the sect.” Scratching at her chin as if recalling a wonderful memory, she said, “My mother was a great elder, you know. According to her, she was one of the thousand or so disciples that survived the Acquisition of Mour. Three million disciples, and only a thousand lived. These thousand survivors were the bedrock of the sect over the past century, but now that many of them have been killed off, the sect master felt it time to initiate another cycle.”
“Cycle?” said Havel, whose voice was slightly unsteady with shock and anger. “You’re saying that the purpose of these Acquisitons is to kill off all of the disciples, while strengthening the older members and bringing up a new generation of seated elders?”
Elisa snorted in derision. “Did you think our intentions were pure? What a naïve little lambs you are.”
“That’s all,” snapped Jason, who wasn’t surprised by the depravity of the sect at this point in his relationship with its members. “Go back to your tent and wait for my command. I don’t think anyone here wants to see you anymore than they have to.”
Elisa smiled and then left without a word, clearly happy to leave the group behind.
“Alright,” he breathed, rolling his shoulders as he prepared for yet another of his daily life-and-death battles. “Havel. Renay. Angelica. You three organize the mobilization. Make sure we’re ready to leave within an hour.”
“What about me?” said Brud, who looked happy at the thought of being left out of the procedures.
“Go cower somewhere until we leave, or do whatever it is you do.”
“Yes!” he said with shining eyes, the shorter boy running from the tent before anyone could say another word.
Angelica spat on the ground, her actions describing the unanimous disgust that everyone at the table felt. Brud was truly the most shameless person that any of them had ever met.
An hour later, Jason floated atop a large serpent of crimson energy, Sersa, Renay and Brud on his left, with Havel, Angelica and Elisa on his right. Beneath them were thousands upon thousands of youths that filled the hill-pocked fields around the forest where they had been encamped until a short while ago, all tents and utensils safely stored away in the spatial bags of those that used them.
Both of the moons were very bright today, the larger one full while the smaller one was in its crescent appearance. With his ocular arrayment activated, Jason observed the mass of body heat with a subconscious sense of satisfaction, encouraged by the thought that he was now the leader of such a large and capable force.
He looked over at Sersa and she gave him a light nod. As they had already explained the situation to those below, all that was left was for Jason to give the order and the twelve or so thousand youths below would begin to move at his discretion.
“Follow behind us,” he shouted into the moonlit countryside, of which he could see plenty from his heightened vantage point. “For now, we head north!”
Jason was no general, and he was far from a natural-born leader, so he left it at that. Willing his serpent to turn around and head for the northern part of the country and thus far from where the forces of the sect and the kingdom would intersect, Jason initiated the next big step of his plan within Hauss. If things went smoothly in the coming days, the sect would suffer a terrible blow while Jason and his war band would grow in both size and strength. At that point, it wouldn’t be out of the question to march on the sect’s territories themselves, but this all depended on how many people he enslaved and how many fighters his people could refine.
Like this, the great war in Hauss was steadily approaching its climax.