Chapter 449 - Challenge (Patreon)

Zeke was meditating in his tower, working on a plan to upgrade one of his most fundamental skills, when Silik arrived. The giant kobold couldn’t hide his presence from Zeke’s perception, even though he remained outside of the meditation room, silently waiting. Still, Zeke didn’t immediately react. Instead, he spent another few minutes finalizing a few of his plans before finally pushing himself to his feet.

“How long was I out this time?” he asked.

“I am neither a watch nor a calendar,” Eveline responded.

“Come on,” he said with a shake of his head. “You pay way more attention to that kind of thing than I do.”

“Three days,” she said with a sigh. “If you’re wondering, the war is going well. The Knights have retreated to that big fortress our scouts found last week, but they’ve raised some sort of barrier. From what they’re saying in the meetings, you’re probably the only one with any chance of breaching it.”

“How do you know that?” he asked. As far as he knew, Eveline was still confined to his mind. The only exception was if she manifested physically, and even then, she needed to remain in close proximity.

“I might have figured out how to send my presence throughout the tower,” she said sheepishly. “But it’s limited. I can only do it for a few minutes at a time, and even then, the results are mixed.”

“How mixed? Can you spy on the whole tower?”

“No. Not yet,” she admitted. “And for some reason, I can’t see into private spaces.”

“Probably a good thing,” he said. Zeke certainly didn’t have any issues with Eveline seeing every facet of his life, but he knew others wouldn’t have that same attitude. Most people needed privacy, especially from a strange mind spirit.

“I’m not strange!” she insisted. “And you make it sound like I’m going to be watching people in the shower or something. I’m not a pervert.”

“Really.”

“Really!”

“You know I can sort of read your thoughts just like you can read mine,” Zeke pointed out. “So, given that, do you want to amend that response?”

“I stand by what I said.”

With a wry grin playing across his face, Zeke shook his head. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Eveline was a succubus, and she adhered to most of the stereotypes that implied. But if she wanted to live in denial, that was fine by him. Besides, the conversation had gotten off track, probably because she’d intended to distract him from the expansion of her awareness into the tower.

“If it makes any difference, I can’t keep it up for more than a few minutes,” she said.

“You said that before. What’s the limiter? And how does it work?” Zeke asked.

“Mana, same as with everything,” Eveline stated.

“Wait, you use mana?”

“Everyone uses mana, Ezekiel,” she sighed. “Me more than most, because that’s literally all I am. Just a collection of mana tied together with a consciousness. When I access the tower, I have to expend some of that. It’s similar to how I manifest a visible form, though far more taxing. That’s why I can only do it for a few minutes at a time.”

“But how?”

“The tower is connected to you. By this point, is as much of an extension of who you are as your arms or legs,” Eveline explained. “I can use those connections to access different parts of the tower. It’s the same way I knew about the access crystal – which is almost wholly unnecessary, by the way. You can make changes without touching that silly thing.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I can’t –”

“You can’t because you’ve not practiced enough, but you have the capacity,” Eveline stated. “The fact that I can access the whole tower at will proves that.”

Zeke stretched. After three days kneeling on the floor without moving, he was a little stiff. As he did so, he said, “If you know so much, then what’s Silik doing out there?”

“Standing like a statue. I thought you could sense him.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Zeke stated.

“Fine. Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired, by the way,” she went on. “But I don’t know why he’s here. I’ve been resting for the past few hours.”

“Alright then. Let’s go see,” he said. With that, Zeke finished stretching and left the room. When he did, he found Silik standing motionless near the door. So, he remarked, “You could have come inside.”

“Yes, Ak-Toh,” Silik answered with a nod of his head. “Your presence is requested in the Pillar.”

“Is something wrong?”

Silik responded, “Yes. It will all be explained.”

After that, Zeke followed Silik out of the manor and to the teleportation portal, which took them to the Residential District. Once they’d arrived, they quickly made their way across the entry plaza to the home of the nascent government. As they went, many of the kobolds that populated the district saluted him with fists to their chests. Some of the beastkin joined in as well, but none of humans did. That seemed to irritate Silik, though the big general didn’t say anything.

In any case, Zeke and Silik quickly found their way to their destination, arriving in the council chambers. There, Zeke saw the representatives of the government. None looked untroubled.

“What’s going on?” he asked, glancing from one face to the next. They were arrayed around a circular stone table, though Rasa was standing. Zeke wasn’t even certain that centaurs could sit, but he did know that none of the chairs would accommodate their irregular form. Still, she didn’t look uncomfortable.

The same couldn’t be said for Adara and Timaso looked decidedly more uncomfortable. Adara because she still wasn’t certain of her place – after all, it hadn’t been that long since she was a prisoner. Timaso just seemed like a fearful sort, which felt a little unnatural to Zeke, who’d always associated lions with courage. Clearly, that had no basis in reality.

Kianma stood, then gestured to another seat. Pointedly, it stood on its own pediment, which meant that it placed Zeke above everyone else. His initial reaction was to be annoyed at that, but after only a moment’s thought, he realized that it was appropriate. For better or worse, he was above them on the social hierarchy. It was his tower, after all, and everything within was his domain. Couple that with the borderline worship the kobolds threw in his direction, and there was no chance of anyone in the Crimson Tower seeing him as an equal.

Perhaps Pudge would.

“For what it’s worth, I see you as my inferior,” Eveline pointed out.

As Zeke settled into his stone chair – or throne, really, given its elaborately carved nature – he said inwardly, “Of course you do.”

Once he was seated, he gestured for Kianma to go ahead, and she said, “The Mukti Plains are under attack. Over the past three days, thousands of Knights of Adontis have flooded the plains. Everywhere they go, they burn. Whole tribes have been forced to flee to the tower, and worst of all, these Knights kill everything in their path.”

“When you say everything, what do you mean?” Zeke asked. “Are they literally killing all living things, or –”

“Yes. They burn the grass and slaughter the herds of prey animals. Not for consumption. Likely not for kill energy, either. They are doing it in an effort to deprive us of food and targets for our hunting expeditions,” Kianma explained.

“Are we okay on food?” he asked.

Eta answered, “We produce more than enough food to support the tower’s population, but we still need meat. Our stores, while prodigious, will not last forever.”

“The larger issue is the lack of hunting opportunities,” said Rasa. “We rely on these for our progression.”

“I’m more worried about theirs,” Zeke stated. “Every creature they kill helps them and hurts us, right? In the long run, I mean.”

“That is true,” Rasa acknowledged.

“Who is leading them?” asked Adara.

“We do not know his name, but our scouts were too low to identify him properly,” Kianma explained. “He is a great bear of a human, almost as large as a legionnaire and much more powerful.”

“Lord Karik.”

“You know him?” asked Zeke.

Adara nodded. “He’s one of the most powerful Knights in Adontis,” she said. “He’s a brute who lives for battle, and he’s extremely good at it. His men are the same. They don’t care about what they kill. They revel in the slaughter.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Eveline said.

“Not now,” Zeke muttered inwardly.

“It’s you. I was talking about you,” she added.

Zeke ignored her, asking, “When you say one of the most powerful, how strong are we talking? What level is he?”

“Over seventy-five. One of only ten in Adontis who can claim that. Some say that only the High Lord Adontis is stronger,” Adara answered. “There are about twice that many who have reached that threshold, but few have surpassed it.”

“That makes sense,” Eveline stated. “I have told you before that level seventy-five is an important level. Progressing beyond that point is incredibly difficult, but the rewards for doing so are significant.”

“In what way?” asked Zeke.

“It differs from class to class,” she said. “But it is not uncommon for your attribute gains per level to double. There have even been cases where people have been awarded extra stat tiers at specific intervals. In addition, you will gain the opportunity to upgrade your skills instead of gaining new ones.”

“Interesting,” Zeke said. He’d already seen the momentous effects of upgrading his existing skills, and he suspected that the Framework would do a much better job of it than he could ever do. “So, you’re saying I need to upgrade all my skills before I get there, huh?”

“Ideally, yes,” she said. “But you won’t get that chance until at least level eighty, so you have plenty of time.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been progressing pretty quickly,” he stated. “And I still haven’t tried the labyrinth dungeon.”

That was on his list of things to do once the war was finished. Hopefully, he could bring Talia with him once they were reunited.

“I think you underestimate how difficult progression will become after level seventy-five. It will likely take twice as much kill energy to push you from there to the peak.”

“Twice as much as what?”

“As what you’ve already accumulated from level one on.”

“Oh.”

“Precisely. In Hell, we refer to it as the Precipice. The climb to the peak doesn’t even begin until you reach level seventy-five. So, anyone who’s taken even a few steps along that path is worthy of respect. And fear, if you’re affected by that kind of thing. Which you usually aren’t. Not in battle, at least. Your fears are usually more existential in nature.”

Zeke didn’t need that last assessment. He knew himself well enough to recognize where his fears lay. Typically, the idea of losing his own life wasn’t among his list of worries, but he did get anxious at the idea of his followers dying.

“What is the plan, then?” he asked aloud.

“We must respond,” Silik stated, which was his first contribution to the meeting. “The juveniles need the plains in order to properly progress. Without it, they will founder. They need kill energy in order to grow.”

It was one of the longest statements Silik had ever uttered, and Zeke was impressed. Eveline, meanwhile, said, “Do not mistake stoicism for a lack of intelligence. He’s smart. He just doesn’t like to speak. I would think you’d understand that better than most, but perhaps I’m giving you too much credit.”

“Ouch,” Zeke said inwardly.

Before Zeke could respond to Silik, Adara said, “The Knights need it as well. Most of them who have joined are lower-leveled and lacked opportunities in Adontis. That’s one of the reasons they chose to switch sides.”

“That does not speak well to their loyalty,” Timaso growled. “They will flip sides again the moment things become difficult or someone offers them a better situation. There is no honor among the so-called Knights of Adontis.”

“Enough of that,” Zeke said, though he knew there was some truth to Timaso’s statement. However, that had been the case since he’d chosen to allow some of the captured Knights to join the Crimson Tower’s forces. It was an issue with only one solution: keep them engaged long enough to cement their loyalty. But then again, that was his strategy with all his people, because aside from the kobolds, none of them were there because they truly wanted to be. Instead, it was a marriage of circumstance, and Zeke knew that the moment the benefits dried up, they’d begin to look elsewhere. “Do we know where to find the enemy?”

“They do not hide,” said Rasa.

“Alright. I think we have no other choice but to confront them,” Zeke said. “Clearly, they were sent to the plains to distract us.”

The problem, though, was that Zeke could only summon one gate at a time, and unless he wanted to spend a month trekking through the plains as well as the labyrinth, he had to keep the lone gate active in Adontis. So, he and his army would have to cross the plains the old-fashioned way.

Which would take quite some time, considering their size as well as the issues with moving a large army.

“How many soldiers?” he asked.

“Seven thousand Knights and twice as many infantry,” said Rasa.

“Dammit,” Zeke muttered. To fight that kind of force, it would take the bulk of his army. That meant he wouldn’t be able to leave much of a presence back in Adontis. In turn, that would just delay their conquest of the enemy kingdom. “Okay. Fine. We take everyone. Overwhelming force.”

“Will you participate, Ak-Toh?” asked Kianma. He’d held himself out of the most recent battles in Adontis, largely so that his people could learn to fight without leaning on the advantages he could provide. That strategy had increased the casualties, but the gains were significant.

This time was different, though.

If this Lord Karik was as powerful as Eveline and Adara suggested, then Zeke was the only person who could stand up to him. On top of that, the opposing force was just powerful enough that Zeke didn’t think his own people could win the fight without significantly outflanking the enemy. Even then, there would be grievous casualties.

No – if they were going to win, Zeke had to participate. Perhaps he would even make some gains along the way. Because if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that the higher-leveled the enemy, the more experience they awarded upon their defeat.

“Get everyone ready,” he said. “The kobolds, the Knights, the beastkin, and the centaurs. I only want to leave a token force behind in Adontis. We can’t afford to hold back. This is going to take everything we have.”