Chapter 190 (Patreon)

Chapter 190

As soon as Matt saw the first squad of five privates and one sergeant walk out of the pillar that sat behind Queen Winter's throne, he immediately sent a call to Liz and Susanne.

They needed to be here for this.

In an ideal world, they would tell everyone about his Talent and what he was doing with it, but Matt very much wanted to avoid ‘the box’ by all means.

So it was up to the four of them to come up with a plan to disguise what was going on.

His current idea was to pretend it had nothing to do with him, and go off on a scouting expedition, but he wasn't sure if that cover would withstand more than a cursory inspection.

Still, he told the others where they could jump the wall unseen, and together they came through the winding halls.

When they arrived, he quickly explained what he and Winter had talked about and its implications to their plans.

They both agreed with Matt’s plan, and joined him as they watched the nearly constant stream of low-ranking soldiers walking out of the pillar.

Liz turned and asked Winter, “Why not make a lieutenant or a general.”

Winter smiled down from her elevated throne. “A soldier with no enemies is worthless, so too is a leader with none to lead.”

Matt interpreted that to mean Minkalla forced her to create a number of lower-ranking fighters before the stronger ones, which made sense in the context of a constant, ever-lingering war.

It took a few hours, but eventually, a lieutenant walked out of the pillar with four squads of privates and sergeants. Even the normal soldiers they had seen exit the pillar were different. Their armor was better, and their expressions seemed harder.

Matt suspected that they were elite versions of the lower-ranking troops, and the feeling of a subtle threat that his spiritual perception sent him only confirmed the theory.

Even the lieutenant on his own was dangerous.

Matt was pretty sure that he could take the woman who wielded a sword and axe, but knew it would be a hard fight. Her armor and weapons were masterfully enchanted, but that wasn’t the half of it. Every step she took caused the air to ripple with the force of her Concept.

She was the lord of all she surveyed.

The lieutenant and her elite team, unlike the lesser squads, stopped and bowed to the throne and the woman on top of it.

“What would you command of me, your majesty?”

Winter smiled and pointed towards Matt. “That is a question for my Princess’s companion.”

Matt was surprised, but quickly asked, “What can I command you to do? What are your limitations?”

The lieutenant stood up when talking to him, which her men mirrored. “We are warriors.”

That was so vague, it was nearly unhelpful, but Matt took it in stride. “Start gathering the other squads and prepare for a larger invasion.”

The lieutenant simply nodded her head and marched out of the throne room.

Matt looked to Winter and asked, “How long until we get a general?”

“My general shall require an army, and shall have one within half a fortnight.”

Matt whistled. If they got a lieutenant in only a few hours, and they were that much stronger, he could only imagine what a general would be like.

It also presented a problem.

Multiple problems, really, but the major one was that Matt couldn't sit around all day inside the palace without sending a million red flags to everyone in the Winter court.

They might be on his side for this floor, but in the end, they were from seven other Great Powers, only one of which was friendly.

“Winter, I can’t stay here to give you mana. Is there some way that I can give you mana from a distance?”

All of them looked to the Queen of Winter, and she nodded. “Insofar as you remain within my seats of power, my city or my forts, the mana in the air is mine, and feeding it shall feed me.”

Liz decisively shook her head. “Not possible. That would remove any secrecy, which is what we want.”

Winter laughed. “Child, I am winter. I am the bank of snow that you walk through that hides a ravine. I am the spies and assassins that stalk the halls of homes. I am secrecy. The hidden distilled. No one will see what I wish to hide inside my domain.”

None of them were one hundred percent sold on the idea, but Winter assured them it would be fine. They still intended to test the theory, but if it was as she said, there would be no issues.

They were discussing their future plans when Aster woke up from the trance she had been put under.

“Oh no! Who spiked my ice cream? I feel awful.” Aster warbled as she tried to stand up on unsteady paws.

Matt scooped his bond up and checked her over.

She felt… he didn’t actually know how to put it. She felt more cohesive, but the same.

It was like someone had smoothed the internal working of a formation, but left both the shape and function of the array alone. Polished was a good word, perhaps.

Aster stretched a little in his arm, and Matt felt the air wrap around her. Frost appeared on his armor and started to creep up further with just that seemingly unconscious control of her powers.

Winter smiled down at the fox. “She is adapting well to the changes. Allow her to sleep for the evening, and she shall awaken as unblemished as newly fallen snow.”

The embodiment of the season offered them one last piece of advice before they left.

“Even with your power, the other courts won't be easy to fell. There are many tactics which we may call upon when threatened, which are unwise to perform yet powerful when utilized.”

That raised a question Matt hadn’t thought about. “What constitutes winning for the floor?”

Winter blinked at him like he was foolish for asking such a question. “Reduce the court to exactly that. A court with no land is no court at all.”

Matt noted that down but had no idea what she actually meant. At face value, it meant taking over the other courts' land, but how that actually happened was beyond him.

Still, it was early in the floor's lifetime, so they decided to leave and rest for a while.

As Winter promised, when Matt dumped his, or rather Aster's, winter mana into the air, no one else could sense it. Even Liz, who knew his and Aster's mana as well as her own, couldn’t feel a thing.

With that problem solved, they went back to their house to rest and digest the changes that Matt’s Talent would wreak on this floor.

The next day, Aster was feeling better and insisted on leaving with Susanne for a patrol.

Now that there were lieutenants, the missions started to be larger and roved farther.

Bradley found Matt the next day as he helped the workshops create more scout planes.

It was boring and repetitive work, but it earned them Favor. While he no longer needed that source, it would look too suspicious if he turned it down. It wasn’t like he could admit that he was feeding the court itself over a hundred million mana every day, which earned him an incredible amount of Favor, in turn empowering his boon.

That very increase was what Bradley came to talk to him about.

As the de facto leader of the Empire contingent, he was sent to Matt. “Dude, your Favor is fucking crazy right now. We can all feel it, and it's got us worried.”

Matt shot the man a look, and even through the blank mask, it got his message through.

Chuckling, Bradley corrected himself. “Ok, you don't have to say how you earned it, but it has most everyone intrigued. What is going on? We want in, if the rewards are that great, and knowing what we're working for will help push people.”

Matt raised an eyebrow under his mask. “Yeah, I'm not going to give out that much information. It would just be stupid to give away my advantage like that.”

Bradley shrugged as if unbothered. “Was worth a shot. What can you tell us? We at least should get to know what we are working towards, right?”

Matt checked his boon and repeated what it told him. “You grow closer to the might of winter, a nascent Title forming around you. Your ice powers are strengthened, and you resist damage from it. You can see the heat given off by any intruders inside winter. Constructs you make of Winter are strengthened. You are immune to the cold while in Winter’s service.”

Matt couldn’t help but wonder if the Queen was nudging things in his favor just a bit more than normal, depending on if his Boon also applied to the soldiers his mana was being used to summon. At least it wasn’t too damning of his contribution, most likely people would assume he was making some kind of ice-based enchantment on the side.

Bradley scratched his growing beard and hmmed. “A Title. Interesting.  Let us know when that becomes an actual thing. I’d love to get more information about that.”

The older Pather smiled and punched Matt’s shoulder lightly. “I wish I had your chops in enchanting. We were also throwing around the idea to use the relay towers as a way to extend our AI’s communication ranges. If you can work on that, our side would be at a decisive advantage.”

Through the brief physical connection, the man also sent an AI message. “Watch your ass. The Sects and Federation are suspicious of your identity and are gathering as much information as possible. The Republic is doing the same, but they aren’t as obvious about it. Bethany, their rep, isn't supporting them in espionage, which helps. Tiffany and I are doing what we can to help obfuscate things, but it ain’t easy.”

Matt nodded slightly and verbally said. “Adding AI communication should be a simple enough adjustment. I'll let everyone know if anything changes. After all, we're all on the same side.”

After the other man left, Matt sent a series of encrypted and coded messages to the rest of his team. He wasn’t too worried about anyone being able to intercept them with his Concept-powered AI removing Minkalla restrictions to further enhance the security.

While Bradley didn’t say anything directly, he implied through this last message, as well as he and his wife reaching out to him privately about the teleportation disks, that they suspected he was a Pather with a strong enchanting foundation.

Which meant Quill.

Perfect.

***

As Winter said, it took nearly a full week for the first general to exit the pillar.

Like the lieutenant, the general came out with an entourage, but this time, it was a dozen lieutenants that made the preceding ones look like children. Their armor and weapons were better, and their Concepts radiated with power that only well-honed Domains could hope to achieve.

But they were like stars to the sun.

The general’s brilliance outshone them all.

He was like a Tier 50 amongst Tier 0’s despite only being a peak Tier 14.

His very act of leaving the palace put a halt to everything inside the city.

While the Fae all dropped to their knees in veneration, the delvers all felt as if a predator was in their midsts.

There was something more about this man Matt was struggling to put his finger on, when Susanne identified it.

“He has his Intent! What the fuck?!”

Liz shook her head as she inspected the general. “No, not quite. He’s like seventy-five percent of the way there, though. Think a Phrase without a clear Image, or vice versa. But I think he has both of those, or at least it feels like there is both, so I have no idea why it's not a full Intent.”

Matt watched as the general led his troops out of the city, and turned to the other delvers who had gathered around to watch the man walk by.

Before they could start discussing what they had seen, a faction-wide message came from the most unexpected sources.

Winter had stepped out of her palace onto a balcony that overlooked the city. “People of Winter. I wish cold winds and deep snow upon thee. To the foreigners in our midst. Welcome to the war.”

She took a deep breath that she slowly let out. “Power is upon us, and we are the first of the courts to produce a general. Power begets power, and we have an advantage. Press this as much as you can, for the other factions will increase their starting Boons to counter.”

There was a hiss of indrawn air from all the cultivators around Matt, but he only blinked.

It seemed that Minkalla was once again ensuring that they didn’t get an easy win. It felt arrogant to the extreme, but Matt was sure this was because of his supercharging his court upsetting the normal balance that the planet tried to enact.

If the four representatives above were able to change the boons to ensure things remained relatively stable, that alone would make things harder, but not impossible by any means. 

It was just really annoying.

Still, Matt excelled at fighting in groups. Sieging cities was harder with a numbers disadvantage, but looking at the general, Matt wasn’t sure that numbers would matter too much with a monster like that on the field.

Winter kept speaking through his thoughts, and he concentrated on the Queen's words.

“Still, that is nothing out of the ordinary. The weak always band together to counter the strong. But I am not afraid. Through your advancements and earning of Favor, we are stronger.”

She brought up a single hand and showed off an orb that roiled with snow, lightning, and darkness, seemingly contained by a thin pane of glass and nothing more.

“When you advance, I will activate a Great Working. The storms of winter shall accompany you, and its passage shall raise the Deep Cold itself to conquer the other courts. Go forth, and expand our lands.”

With that as a final command, the avatar of Winter vanished into a passing breeze, leaving only a larger than normal snowfall in her place.

The Great Working she mentioned hovered in its same place, untouched by wind or snow.

Before anyone could say anything, a message came through that told everyone to come to a designated area outside the city.

There, all the representatives of the eight Great Powers awaited them.

The motley crew of cultivators were in stark contrast to the army that had built up outside the city walls.

Even from a dozen miles away, Matt could still feel the general and the danger he represented.

Young Mistress Diamond Lotus was the first to speak as the representative of the Sects.

She was a strong cultivator whose Concept manifestation was exactly as her title stated, and when she fought, she did so with her signature flower hovering behind her back and shielding her from harm.

“We have an advantage, but must press it. Gather what you need. We leave—”

She was cut off by a outcry from the crowd of cultivators.

Tiffany, the Guild representative, raised her hand and quieted the mass of people through sheer force of will.

“Young Mistress Diamond Lotus is a little ahead of herself, but she's not wrong. We have a general, and we need to press that advantage.”

She flicked her fingers at the crowd and explained the map she sent everyone.

“Thanks to our scouting efforts, we’ve found the enemy's lands, and the situation ain't great. Each is around five thousand miles away from this city. If you see smaller dots on the map, they are fortifications on our own side. We can expect our enemies to have similar fortifications, and we'll need to blast through them before we can push forward. Thankfully, we have the general.”

Someone from the crowd called out in the Monster Collective’s language. “Yeah, about him. How the fuck are we supposed to fight someone like that? I’ve fought Tier 17 bosses that felt weaker.”

That earned him a lot of ridicule. No one believed that he actually fought Tier 17 bosses on his own as a Tier 13, but he ignored the comments about his trustworthiness.

It was still a good question.

Darrell, the representative for the Monster Collective, nodded and fielded it. “If we encounter them, we'll simply try to tie them up, and then hopefully whittle them down with a numbers advantage from range.”

No one liked that answer, as it glossed over the fact they would take serious losses if they needed to enact that plan, but no one said anything either. It was a fact of cultivation that taking down a stronger opponent through sheer numbers demanded a sacrifice from the weaker side. And none of them wanted to be that sacrifice.

Thankfully, the general was on their side, and could hopefully match any general that the enemies created, leaving the two powerhouses in a stalemate that the rest could take advantage of.

William, the representative of the Corporations, was the next to speak up. “We have a fifty-fifty option if our information is accurate. Spring to our northwest, and the Fall court to the northeast. The representatives are equally split on which side we wish to attack, or if we want to split our forces and attack both.”

Half the crowd started speaking at once, making things impossible to hear, but William shut them up with a skillful application of [Air Manipulation] to create a barrier around the crowd.

The feedback quieted them quickly, and he kept speaking. “We don’t think it's a good idea to attack both at the same time, but with the general, it is an option. Just not one we believe to be a good. Vote on what option you want, and we'll take the mass consensus into consideration.”

Matt voted for attacking Spring along with the rest of his team. He had already seen the map and knew it by heart.

While they didn’t have much of a view of enemy territory yet, they were able to make assumptions based on what they did have, and from information regarding their own territory. It also came down to the boons that each side offered. Spring seemed to be the strongest counter to their own with its earth spells. Earth mages also made for the best fortification builders if given enough time to dig in. Matt would prefer to take them out fast rather than go for Fall.

It only took a minute, but the votes came in, and Spring was the overwhelming winner with seventy percent of the votes, while Fall got twenty-eight percent of the votes, with a paltry two percent of people voting to split their attack.

Who was so suicidal as to risk fighting a general without one of their own Matt didn't know, but he was glad they were so thoroughly outvoted.

The representatives talked amongst themselves for a while before Tiffany spoke to the crowd. “We leave in three days. Make your preparations, but know we’ll be marching with the army, so expect it to take at least four days to cover the distance to the edge of our territory.”

And that was exactly what they did. The delvers prepared for a war and did so rapidly.

As the army started their own mile-eating march, they flew or ran beside the troops. Contrary to everyone's expectations, the army of Fae moved faster than the cultivators. Each of their steps allowed them to traverse a dozen feet with seemingly no effort, forcing the slower delvers to use a flying device or fly with their Concepts.

It did have an advantage in the fact they covered the five thousand mile march in two quick days.

When they came to the end of Winter's area, they paused to stare.

It was like someone layered two pictures over each other. One of a forest in the depths of winter with snow-laden branches and snow over the ground, while Spring was exactly that, a land of new growth and green.

But as they watched, Winter marched on. Not the troops, but the very season crept forward as if the pictures were moving. Trees that had been covered in new growth withered as frost crept over their branches, and the green buds shriveled up and vanished as snow started to weigh down the branches.

Matt now had a better understanding of what Winter had meant when she talked about the court's influence. It was a literal representation of how strong the court was. They took over the other courts' lands and imposed their own season's theme on the area.

After they stood around for a few minutes, everyone started looking at the Fae troops, who had stopped their relentless march.

Word came not long later of what was going on.

The Winter Fae didn’t want to enter the forest of Spring on their own. While it was possible, as proven by the scouting parties, if they entered Spring's domain, they would be greatly weakened.

It seemed like their idea of a quick assault was dead until a cultivator moved into Spring and a small area around them converted into Winter faster than the surroundings.

Seeing that the representatives called out, “Break the path forward for the Fae. Everyone move up front and start marching on the ground.”

Most of the area the cultivators converted were only a few feet wide, but when Matt crossed the boundary, an area of fifty feet quickly started to convert.

At that same moment, he also felt his Favor condense his boon into something more solid.

Mentally pinging his boon, he got his answer almost instantly. “You are the Herald of Winter, let all those before you hear our call. You spread Winter's influence faster and further, and can sense those not of Winter. Your magic is strengthened while within Winter, as is that of those around you. Should you desire it, magic you work seems to be of Winter and not your own. You are immune to the cold while in Winter’s service.”

Everyone turned to Matt as they felt his boon change, so he explained. At least partially.

“I got a Title, and it's called the Herald of Winter. I spread Winter's influence further than normal, and it empowers anyone inside that range. It also makes ice spells stronger.” Putting words to action he cast [Hail] at its greatest range but only put a trickle of mana into the spell, limiting how much ice actually fell.

As he suspected, that increased the area that he was able to convert into Winter’s domain. It was a good thing he had already started moving the spell as soon as they entered Winter’s side.

It was so large that he was able to cover most of the army's path if they narrowed their formations to half-width. Even with Aster and her own boon, they couldn't cover enough ground for the entire army to stay spread out.

Bradley, who had landed next to him along with the other representatives, clenched his fist. “Fuck yeah! Let's push on. Everyone follow White, our new Herald of Winter.”

It took a while, but they discovered that any leading elements were cut off from Winter, and would lose the effect if they moved too far ahead of the wave of ice and snow. But if their joint presence was large enough, they actually created a permanent indentation in the landscape that tried to grow on its own.

While it meant that their outlying scouts were more vulnerable, the army was able to move without too much worry about having their influence cut if they moved too fast.

At first, they thought it was because of Matt’s Title. But while he and Aster helped spread Winter's influence faster, that same mechanic worked for them all. As long as there were enough of them, they had no issue moving forward with Winter.

They reached the first fort only an hour later, and it turned into a short battle. In fact, the battle was over before the main army even arrived.

There was an anti-flying formation, but it meant nothing to the wave of cultivators that rushed the small fort.

Matt noted that it was comparable to the small forts he had dealt with in the vassal war between the Seven Suns and Alliance of Allied Queens.

Unlike that practice war, there was no one to save the charging attackers or the defenders. This fort was much better defended, with the Spring Fae loosing magic and arrows at the attackers, but the closing five hundred cultivators rushed forward to earn what little Genesis Energy and Favor they could get from the kills.

From his spot leading the slower progression of Winter’s influence, Matt noticed the older cultivators in the attacking crowd.

They were like ravenous beasts as they released their spells and arrows first, trying to secure a kill on even a private who looked over the parapet.

An earth mage in the attackers created a ramp right up to the walls, and despite the ramp shaking violently, it held long enough for the attackers to jump the remaining ten feet to get on the wall.

By the time the army neared the fort, the front gates were already open, allowing two squads made up of ten privates and two sergeants to enter the fort.

When they were inside, things changed. Where the fort had been giving off a wave of Spring, that influence quickly turned to spreading Winter.

Even the wave of Winter that trailed a few miles behind them started speeding up to join with the new portion of Winter's influence.

With firsthand experience on how effective conquering a fort was, they split into smaller bands to look for forts, congregating to take them over whenever appropriate. Some overachievers didn’t even bother calling for the larger group, dominating the forts on their own or in a small squad. Liz and Susanne discovered firsthand how profitable that was, while Matt preferred to stay with the marching army to keep powering Winter as he slowly rearranged his spirit to prioritize ice and winter skills.

It was effective, and allowed the army to speed up tremendously.

Their progress was slower than their march through friendly territory had been, but that couldn't be helped with the limitations of the Fae army.

As they neared where they believed the Spring city would be, they started encountering larger and stronger squads of patrols. Meanwhile, the forts were better defended, on top of being larger and better armed.

Each one now contained ten squads and at least one lieutenant, which greatly slowed down the Winter court’s acquisition of forts.

But it didn’t stop their progress.

Not at all.

The Winter cultivators were eager for the fights, and threw themselves at the fortress walls relentlessly.

With the enemy Fae being the primary source of Genesis Energy for this floor, the representatives needed to hold people back rather than drive them forward.

It took one half-sized team of cultivators getting ambushed as they tried to take out a star fortress by a band of enemy delvers from Spring to finally reign them in.

Dying wasn’t worth it, and everyone prioritized their lives over the Genesis Energy they could gather. That, and people themselves were even better sources of Genesis Energy, though it took considerably more effort to obtain. Those two facts allowed the Great Power representatives to regain a portion of control over most of the eager delvers.

It took another week to cover the final thousand miles to the Spring City. The whole time, there were more and more Spring Fae troops appearing and fighting them. There was even a Spring lieutenant that managed to kill three Tier 13 delvers who overestimated their own power before being taken down by a pair of Tier 14s.

Winter moved forward with its Herald leading the march, but the speed slowed down considerably.

Still, they didn’t stop.

Matt ensured that.

He slowed down, but he always took another step, forcing the cultivators to clear the path.

As they breached the thousand mile radius to the city, and some of their scouts had seen the much larger walls by flying ahead, the troops that had hindered their progress vanished like leaves in the wind.

It seemed that Spring was pulling back its forces to better defend the city, which was exactly what they didn't want to see.

They had extensively studied their own side’s city, and knew it was a fortress in every sense.

The walls were thick, tall, and enchanted to resist magical influence and resistant to damage.

With the city's walls in sight, everyone looked to the general.

He finally acted, and fed mana into the Great Working that Winter had provided.

Almost instantly, a strong wind picked up the surface layer of snow, and whipped it into a frenzy.

At the same time, the skies darkened, and a heavy blanket of snow started to fall, even as ice-blue lightning started to crack above them.

From around them, the newly fallen snow started to rise in humanoid shapes.

Matt rushed forward ahead of his friendly troops, both Fae and human, as he flexed [Hail], back in his inner spirit for the first time in years, and created more and more ice. Combined with the Great Working, his very passage raised groups of ice elementals and snow golems.

Matt looked up to the city in front of him, with its walls topped with green banners rising defiantly high into the air.

This might be Spring, but Winter had come.