Chapter 171 - Children Of The Empire (Patreon)

Oliviala Le’Cruex

Rare dark clouds roiled high above the desert sands, a portent of the battle to come. All present could feel it in the air; a weight that pressed down on their shoulders. It was as if Madra held her breath in preparation to blow out the flickering candle that was the empire's pathetic existence.

Olive held her sword loosely in one hand, its tip pointed toward the shifting grains at her feet. Her back was straight, her chin held proudly as she locked eyes with the general casually making his way down the slope toward her. She stood in the center of several dozen rings of soldiers; their total numbers were well over four thousand. Her brother had been kind enough to stomp his foot into the ground, creating a deep enough crater that all of them could see her in its center.

Prince Ardon’s voice was firm in her ear, despite having traveled through a tunnel of his aura from well outside their makeshift arena, “It’s not too late to back out, or at the very least work a deal with him that saves you face. Losing here after creating such a scene will only make it all the more impossible to enact your strategies.”

Olive shook her head, “I will not lose. If we had even one more day, I would heed your advice. Unfortunately, there is no time to bicker with him. The chain of command must be as solid as our shieldwall or we will not succeed.”

“I agree. After this, I expect you to fall in line. Every minute delayed is more lives lost.” She felt his aura withdraw after his final words. Olive had to admit, his lack of faith in her stung. She grit her teeth, dragging the emotions into her core, using them to connect with her mana all the more firmly.

General Reifvus leaped over the last few tightly-packed rows of soldiers, landing in the sandy pit with a thud that lightly shook the ground. He looked down at her from above, nearly half again taller than she was. The smile that spread his lips was not kind and his eyes blazed with barely repressed fury.

I can’t blame him, he’s been struggling to reach his position since before I was born. But his ambition will be the death of the entire empire, and so I must do what I must do.

Olive lifted her sword until the middle of its blade was before her face. She looked at the weapon with disdain, ignoring the indignant General who’s smile had turned to a scowl. She hated her sword, for it was a weapon designed to kill her own people, not beasts. But what could she do? Carrying it was an order from her Father; a reminder to all those who betrayed the empire that they would be judged. She didn’t want to judge her people, she wanted to protect them.

General Reifvus’s voice roused her from her melancholy, “You asked for this farce of a duel, so why are you the one making such a pitiful face? If you’re worried I’ll kill you, you shouldn't be. I respect your father enough to hold my blows,” He smirked, the implication he held no respect for her personally wasn’t missed by anyone who heard the gloating satisfaction in his tone.

Olive sighed, more than ready to be done and get to work, there was far too much to do to delay any longer, “I decline your mercy. Let there be no grudges or resentment between us in the future. Use all of your strength, hold nothing back. And when the victor is settled, let this incident never be spoken of beyond this day.”

“Hah! I hope you don’t mind if I decline your offer as well. I fully intend to toast this memory in every tavern across the empire till I’m old and gray!” He drew the spear from his back as his deep chest rumbled with laughter. Not one soldier joined in his mirth, nervously looking between each other uncomprehendingly. To insult the child of one of the emperors so brazenly in a traditional duel was unheard of. Olive instantly realized he was putting his entire reputation on the line in an effort to boost morale before the upcoming battle. If he won, the soldiers would have more faith in him than ever. Since he was a tier above her, victory was all but certain in his eyes.

“So be it, let none say I did not give you plenty of opportunities to settle things peacefully between us.”

“Enough! It’s clear that you've gone far too long without a proper spanking. Allow me to teach you some discipline, your highness!” Reifvus’s spear ignited with blazing fire as mana flooded through his channels. The heat was intense, even from twenty meters away Olive could feel her skin beginning to sizzle.

As pain rapidly flooded her senses, a fleeting regret tickled the back of her mind. Shortly after meeting Jiran in the Outlands, he had taught her enough to gain a molding subskill. In her foolishness, she had made the choice without waiting for his advice. After learning more of Niya and his abilities, she desperately wished she could take back her choice as she did not have the capability of controlling unaspected mana outside of her skin like they did. If she had that ability, the general’s flames wouldn’t be able to hurt her at all.

That didn’t mean her subskill was without its own advantages. She chose Mana Compacting, and it allowed her to significantly compress mana within her body to enhance both offense and defense at very little cost. With Jiran’s help, she had devised a technique to take full advantage of the subskill: It’s name was Mana Barrier.

Her mana spread out, pooling just beneath her skin, creating a shield of energy far denser than what a tier five should be capable of. It was less than a millimeter thin, but with over sixty levels in molding, even if all her skin melted away, she would never die to such a pitiful flame as the general’s. Nearly three-quarters of her mana was dedicated to her compacted shield. She could draw upon it as she wished, for it was not spent, merely resting within her body, ready to be turned into a shaping, forcing, or kept as a defense.

“Volcanus’s Furor!” Her shout was a pitiful thing compared to the raging fire crackling around Reifvus’s spear. Ten percent of her mana flowed smoothly through her channels, engulfing her sword. She held back nothing, fully leaning on the visualization of moving molecules representing heat that Jiran had taught her. The agonizing pain of her flesh beginning to cook only fueled the anger she directed toward controlling her Mana Barrier, which held steady, protecting everything beneath her skin.

Seeing her skin blacken, burn, and boil away, General Reifvus finally recognized her resignation to do whatever was necessary to win. His eyes opened wide with sudden panic and he jabbed his spear toward her. A roaring cyclone of blazing fire swept forward, melting the sands to glass. The nearest soldiers raised their hands, projecting a shield to protect the lower tiers behind them.

As the fire swept toward her, blocking the General from her sight, Olive realized this was her best chance to gain the upper hand. With his much higher attributes and density concentration, he would easily shrug off a half-hearted attack. If she used more mana, he could simply teleport out of the way, making her exhaust herself quickly. He would outlast her if she didn’t strike a decisive blow.

Without hesitation, she sucked her aura beneath what was left of her skin and dove directly into the oncoming wave of fire. Her mana barrier wavered beneath the onslaught of the higher-tier’s attack, but it held. Her aura and mana gripped at the framework, the two working in unison to drag her forward as she sprinted through the deadly flames. With the first step, the world turned dark as she solidified extra mana beneath the sclera of her eyes. On the second step, her ears were filled with the sounds of the roiling fire that completely engulfed her. By the third, her skin was completely incinerated, and by the fourth, the pressure of aura and blasting fire nearly pushed her backward. But she would rather die here than relent, and so she stepped again.

She could barely hold her hated sword. Like an oiled snake it fought to burst from her grasp as incredibly powerful flames coursed through the high-tier beast metal. She tightened her aura and mana, squeezing for everything she was worth. She couldn't hold it another second, so she swung, releasing all the energy she had gathered within it.

Even with her vision blocked by condensed mana, the world turned white as a tremendous roar blasted into her. She lost her footing, her body flung through the air. Her aura and Forcing completely unable to cope with the forces that struggled to tear her apart. She stopped trying to fight it, instead pulling herself down until she slammed into the ground. The pain of her exposed nerves rubbing against the inside of her armor and the glassy sand nearly took away her consciousness. She screamed, but only a dull reverberation let her know she released any sound at all.

When the pain abated enough that she could think once more, she pushed enough mana into Sansaa’s Caress to heal her eyes and ears. Instantly, the world snapped into focus since she had no eyelids to open. When she swept her gaze over the arana, all that met her was devastation. Her single swing had been far more destructive than she ever imagined. A blackened crescent of melted glass started just before the General and extended outward to the edges of the arena. Her brother stood before the soldiers on the other side of a massive wall of singed ice. His palm was still outstretched, a look of complete bafflement on his face as he stared at her.

Olive groaned and climbed to her feet. The sight of her caused the soldiers to gasp in horror, many losing their last meal as others shook their heads in denial. Olive ignored them, focusing on the sorry state of the General. His armor had melted into his skin and his breaths were shallow. She stumbled toward him, holding what was left of her sword at her side. She dispelled half of her Mana Barrier, directing the energy into Sansaa’s Caress to regenerate her skin. Her boots crunched with each step, the smell of burnt chemicals thick in the air. Much to the onlookers' relief, by the time she stood over him, her skin was whole.

She pointed her finger at the man, ready to announce her victory. Instead, she laughed. It wasn’t the half-dead man at her feet, but seeing her arm and the armor which covered it that had caused mirth to bubble from her lungs; the armor Jiran had crafted her was completely unscathed.

Would I have survived leaping directly into his attack without Jiran’s armor to protect me? It seems no matter what I do, I’ll always be in his shadow. That’s fine with me. I am but a single pillar of the empire, and I have no need for glory.

***

An hour had passed since her victory over General Reifvus. Olive’s first order had been to gather all the soldiers under her command. She floated on wings of aura before the walls of the Fortress City Melathon—the last line of defense between the empire and the approaching Graymin horde. Three hundred thousand men and women were spread out beneath her; a speck before the twenty million beasts barreling ever closer. They craned their necks to see her silhouetted by dark, angry clouds.

“Four hundred!” Olive shouted, her voice so loud, and her shout so sudden, that the nearest soldiers jerked back in surprise. They gave each other nervous and confused looks before Olive continued, “Four hundred generations of our forefathers have held these sands from the Graymin. Can you see them? Your brave fathers and mothers who bled so we can stand here today,” Olive cast her gaze across the dunes in the distance as if she were looking at an army far more vast than the one that stood before her. Her voice turned solemn, almost tinged with a note of regret, “From father to mother, son to daughter—our empire has always been a family that stands together to defend the next generation. It is my family, and yours.”

She took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders as her hard gaze turned back to the soldiers, “But our family is changing. The empire we grew up in is not what it is today, and not what it will be tomorrow. What once I considered adequate is no longer acceptable. Many of you saw my battle with our esteemed General Reifvus, and those of you who missed it have no doubt heard the tale. I, a tier five, soundly defeated a tier six. No doubt you’re asking yourselves how such a thing could be possible.”

She let them chew on the question for several seconds, and when the tension nearly burst to whispers, she continued, “It is because new methods for harvesting and controlling mana have been discovered. Methods which you have witnessed the efficacy of with your own eyes. But these new methods will bring much strife, and their implementation will take time; time our foes do not wish to give us.”

One of her hands rose, pointing to the north, “The Graymin have sensed this change in us. That is why they gather an army unlike any we have seen before. They wish to snuff us out before the flickering flame of our future generations turn into a raging bonfire that will burn them to nothing. If you close your eyes, I know you will see them. Your children, grown and powerful beyond your comprehension, standing tall and strong atop a mountain of their corpses. Their future shines even brighter than the Fathers above. So do not let it be snuffed out this day!”

Her voice was power itself, suffused with so much mana that she would only have a few seconds more before she bottomed out, “I swear upon my name, Oliviala Le'Cruex and the Finlest Empire which we all serve: I will pass on what I have learned and more. Till my dying breath, I will guide our children and bring about an age of progression that will uplift the empire into the arms of the voice herself. Already, Emperor Dominus gathers our forces trained in these new methods, and we only need grant them the time to arrive. Let us create that time. This will not be a battle for victory, but one of minutes, of seconds. Until they arrive, we will hold! Let our enemies know that we are the empire, and when we roar, the deepest pits of the inferno should tremble in fear! Alor!”

“Alor!” Three hundred thousand voices screamed as fists smashed into breastplates, creating a resounding thunder that sent Olive’s hair billowing. She smiled, pride and kindled hope causing tears to leak from her eyes.

I’ll hold our home on my shoulders until you return, Jiran. I swear it. I’ve put my faith, and the future of my family in you, so please don’t let me down.