There were no more attacks for that day, the Austerians had to rethink their entire battle strategy, they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes as they no longer had the cushion of the Crimex to fall upon. They were also wary, they had seen the large-scale magic that the mage had wrought and even though it seemed highly unlikely that he would be unable to do so again, they couldn’t risk it. But they were surprised, to think that the savages of the West had been able to manipulate acror, their word for mana or energy. And not only did this savage use acror, it was the strangest and purest acror they had ever come across.

Unlike humans, they could see acror and usually, it is the color white but often tainted with the colors of a person’s Life energy. But what the acror they saw Ieros wield was pure black acror, not white smothered in black, the acror itself was black. It was also untainted, an impossibility as pure acror being one’s acror was a thing which defied the laws of the universe as these mortals defined them. Acror needs a vessel in which to act, therefore it would be tainted by a living thing. This mage, it was as if he produced his own acror. Thus, he became a source of interest and of course, they reported him to the Emperor, showing him a recording of the strange acror he wielded.

The Emperor was intrigued, so much so that he even commanded the elites to capture the mage alive, if at all possible. The Emperor wished to speak with the mage, to find out just how this savage was able to control pure acror. The elites bowed, vowing to carry out the Emperor’s command. So with doubled efforts, they created a new battle plan which surely wouldn’t fail. It was a plan which first involved the sky turtles. They would fly over the defending army, dropping its excess scales and crushing the archery units. Once they were taken care of, the Avem would be free to carry the Ursus down and support them, although the mage’s Tower would still be free to attack.

But the firepower that it possessed could only be considered a nuisance, as the chain lightning only takes out ten per shot. Besides, once the army was taken care of, they could then focus on the Tower and figure how to destroy it. After all, no barrier could last forever, especially with the mage weakened as he was. So once this plan had been decided on, the elites commanded the Loquimi to position the sky turtles over the army and the Ursus to begin pushing the excess scales over the edge of the turtle’s shell and onto the enemy. It worked, gigantic scales the size of small meteors crashing into the stone army, crushing not only archer units but many of the infantry. When the barrage was over, only three hundred thousand stone units still stood.

The tower had returned fire, however, vaporizing any scales that fell toward it as well as wounding a nearby sky turtle’s right flipper, rendering it useless. There were roughly six hundred commanders left and of course the ten dragon generals which had taken to the air, combatting the Avem which were taking off from the sky turtles. But ten against three hundred fifty thousand were not enough to stop them and while a force of fifty thousand split off to keep them busy, the rest carried the Ursus to the ground, dropping them off at the height of ten feet.

The Ursus and the stone troops met for the first time, the Ursus using their great strength to smash the soldiers to pieces while the stone troops, underneath the leadership of the commander golems, killed them with unerring teamwork. But even with perfect synergy, the stone troops could not stand against the might of the Ursus, their numbers dwindling although they did not go without a fight. It had been five hours since the attack and it was now nearing noon, seventy thousand stone troops and five hundred commander golems remaining. On the Austerian side, of the four hundred thousand Ursus that had been deployed, a hundred thousand had been killed.

They were obviously soldiers of greater caliber and seeing this, Ieros contemplated using a stone imitation of them for future battles. Eventually, he tossed the idea, he had to remember to limit himself, to create an all-powerful army wouldn’t allow him to learn as much as he could. So he relaxed in his tower, wondering if he should purposely lose, to speak with the Austerian Emperor would certainly be an enlightening experience. But he decided against it, he had all the time in the world to visit this emperor, he did not have to do it now.

Meanwhile, the Surveyor stopped using Ieros’s body as a vessel and took command of the Second Sentinel, condensing its body into a crystalline form. It had succeeded in creating dark matter but it was so dense that the size was no larger than a human’s heart. As for its appearance, it was like a piece of crystal that had been broken off a larger piece, fitting in with the name Shard, which the Surveyor thus named it. But as this form was not optimal for interaction with mortals, it then created a body around the shard, a black, transparent humanoid form with the dark crystal as its core. While this was happening, the remaining stone troops took formation around it. To preserve its stone troops, the Surveyor extended the barrier of the tower to encompass all of the stone army for he knew that not even they would be able to withstand a continuous barrage.

It expected the enemy to lay siege to its tower and it was right, the elites gave the order to retreat roughly two miles from the tower. The reason for doing so was that the Ursus would eventually tire, to get out of the range of the tower and the arrival of the Shard had not escaped the notice of the elites. It was best that they gather more information on this new variable before engaging it. But they were not at all worried, after all, they too had a trump card. A captured Saurian and not just any Saurian, but one of the ruling class Saurians, the Giganotosaurus.

This one possessed the Acror of Fire, which made it especially hard to defeat but through the sacrifice of many Crimex, they were able to capture it. Of course, controlling it was hard as it needed the strength of five Loquimi, the Giganotosaurus’s mind so powerful that it could overwhelm the mind of a single Loquimi. This was no small feat, the Loquimi’s most fearsome weapon was their mind and as such, it had to be very powerful. This was also another reason why Auster had not yet invaded the Saurians, they could resist the Loquimi and could even kill them, the stress of the mind too much on the Loquimi’s frail bodies.

But with the combined might of five Loquimi, they were able to command the Saurian, to defeat the enemy. Their reasoning was simple, if they as a superior race had to expend so much strength in defeating the Giganotosaurus, it would be nigh impossible for this barbaric race. But they kept a tight leash on their trump card, they couldn't afford to make a mistake handling it. If it were to escape from its chains, the sky turtle in which it was imprisoned would be lost. Its shell would not be able to stand against the hellish fires which the Saurian wielded, it would fall to the ground as a flaming meteor, exploding as the flames ignited the gas stomach.

This of course really did happen, which did delay the invasion force as they needed to procure another sky turtle and to replace the units lost. But it was not a huge loss when one considered the resources at Auster’s command. After all, it was an empire which controlled half of Ortus, which was no small continent. If one was to compare it to one of Earth’s continents, it would be of similar size to Russia. Truly a force to be feared, given enough time and without the Surveyor’s interference, they would have conquered the world.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

This was still very much possible, but not now, the Surveyor would not allow them to interfere with its observations. After all, it still needed to live its life as Ieros. But its next life could be that of a slave under the Austerian Empire, that could prove to be very interesting. It had seen slaves and observed them countless times before, how humans would capture others and force them to do menial labor for them, sometimes these slaves being other humans. Truly an interesting race, to enslave others of their own kind for things that they do not want to do. Quite fascinating really, these creatures who do not even respect themselves.

Then there were the monsters, the most powerful of which were the Austerians, who practiced slavery as well. It seems that along with the boons intelligence can bring, it also brings a curse. To bring Progress requires sacrifice and to achieve it, these mortals sacrificed themselves, the “superior” building a golden age upon a foundation made of countless corpses of the “inferior”. The sacrifice of many for a few. Of course, the Surveyor could understand why they did so, the “inferior” had no place in society for they would not provide anything to better it. Their only use would be to further the accomplishments of their betters, to be the foundation upon which Progress can stand and grow upon.

But of course, these mercurial mortals also fight amongst themselves on this, saying that all Life is precious and even if it is to stop progress, they should protect Life. How strange, these exact people who enslaved each other also proved to be their own salvation. It was bizarre to Ieros, that these creatures fought amongst one another, one half taking the side of logic and the other taking the side of irrationality. The logical argued how sacrifices must be made to usher in a golden age but the irrational rejected the price that must be paid to bring forth Progress. It was an argument between Logic and Emotion, one that had not reached an end, even though it started around the time the war between Light and Night began.

But the Surveyor’s philosophical thoughts were interrupted by a sudden explosion. The Surveyor turned to look for the source, seeing a few more elemental attacks flying through the air before they smashed ineffectively against its barrier. It seemed that the Ursus had taken up a perimeter around the tower and a few acror-users were firing upon the tower, seeking to weaken the barrier. The Surveyor paid it no mind, it was not of an immediate threat. It just commanded the tower to return fire although the enemy blocked it with barriers of their own. It did glance up at the display with the human equivalent of a face but it then returned its attention to the enemy base before it. It then remained still, its body of dark crystal blending in with the darkness of night.

Only when the day came did it move, walking forward as the remaining stone troops fell into formation with it at the center, the front line positioning their spears right out in front or drawing their blades to meet the Ursus’s charge. But now the army was under its direct command, the entire army effectively acting as the Surveyor’s body. So with perfect synergy and with its omniscient abilities, it fought against the Ursus who charged, the Ursus suffering more losses than with the first encounter. The elites were quick to figure out that the strange dark thing was the reason for this and ordered the acror-users to fire upon it. But the creature raised its left hand and a large shield of dark matter appeared, devouring the attacks and strengthening it.

It then reciprocated those same attacks, only black or grey in color. Bleached fire and lightning struck back at the enemy who barely were able to erect a barrier to defend themselves. But other than that, the Dark Golem, as it was named by the Austerians, did nothing else, only counter-attacking and commanding the stone army. Eventually, the elites gave the command to stop attacking it and to only focus on the stone army. They would deal with the Dark Golem once the nuisances around it were eliminated. So the elemental acror was then directed towards the stone troops, destroying many.

Seeing as this was now the case, the Shard abruptly changed tactics, having his army split up into small groups of five which branched out and mingled with the Ursus, preventing the mages from firing upon them for fear of hitting their comrades. But the attack power of the stone army was greatly diminished and the Ursus began to wipe them out. Eventually, only the ten generals and the Shard remained, peerless foes to the Ursus and Avem. The Shard looked at the ten generals and praised itself for a moment, it had truly done well in creating them. As for the dragons, they were still flying in the air keeping the Avem busy, living up to their name as the rulers of the sky.

Meanwhile, the elites had decided to step on the battlefield. The Ursus were being slaughtered and were simply useless, they themselves would have to participate in the battle. Besides, how long had it been since they met opponents worthy of their strength. Upon their order, the Ursus retreated. The Dark Golem then pointed at them, the ten generals walking to meet the elites. Each of the elites introduced themselves only to be met by silence. At first, they thought that the generals were being rude but now that they were closer, they saw that the generals were not alive. They already knew that these things weren’t human or monster, but seeing only shadow where their faces should have been was quite unsettling.

That and there was the silence, they did not speak, did not breath, there wasn’t even a heart beat. They were also permeated in the same dark acror Ieros possessed, a literal shadow in their acror-sight. But before they could think further on the subject, the generals attacked, the elites having some hard time defending before they got used to the attacks. But once they got into stride, they then had fierce smiles on their faces, for it was a rare occasion for them to draw their blades, usually, they relied upon their claws and steel-like fur in combat. They had weapons of course, but these were weapons of acror, personally forged by Fornax, a race whose skill in smithing was far superior to that of the dwarves.

These weapons of acror were powerful, for the powers of the elements were sealed within them, unleashed when the wielder channeled acror through them. Their durability was also nigh unbreakable, although once meeting a blade that was of equal or greater strength, it would begin to chip. That was soon the case, as the elites furiously hacked away at the generals whose impeccable defense blocked every strike with their sword. But, one general fell as its opponent possessed great piercing power, his gauntleted fist punching through its chest.

The fallen general then dissipated into black smoke, as well as its equipment. Its steed, the dragon, also dissipated in black smoke. This was now the turning point, for seeing how the elite defeated the general, the others began to imitate his attack, destroying the generals with a force that was powerful enough to shatter dark matter. This of course was due to the help of the acror weapons, for it was said that these weapons were able to slay gods. When the last one was defeated, they surrounded the Dark Golem which stood still. But as they prepared to attack, its suddenly moved at a speed so fast that they couldn’t react.

It appeared before one of the elites, having already grabbed her by the throat and lifting her in the air. The other elites struck but their attacks were ineffective, the Dark Golem simply ignored them as it began to drain the life out of her. Eventually, an elite who possessed a sword with the light acror was able to slice through the arm that was choking her, saving her and wounding the Dark Golem. The limb fell to the ground before turning into a shadow that soon crawled across the floor and merging with the Dark Golem, the arm regenerating. It looked at its arm and then at the elite with the sword, a sword of darkness manifesting in its right hand. It then pointed its sword at the elite, an unmistakable challenge.

The elite was surprised before an excited grin spread itself across his face. Truly, this was an opponent which he could go all out on.