Embers

While Richard was still thinking about Praton’s connection to Faust and the chaos energy in that paper, a guard hurried in, “Your Grace, the troops led by Lord Romney were stopped in Marquess Sispek’s territory. The Marquess is personally leading an army to stop him.”

“Romney?” Richard recalled the mission he had assigned to the saint assassin. Romney had taken two other saints and thirty rune knights to the territory of Baron Alson, a distant nephew of Praton who was actually a bastard son.

“What’s he doing?” Richard frowned. He had ordered that all resistance would be threatened with a declaration of war. His dispatchments were particularly powerful against most armies, able to charge straight into the middle of any army and kill the commander. Two other groups had been stopped before the assassin, but both of them had just rushed forward and forced the enemies to retreat. Romney himself was nearly a sky saint, and with the two dragontooth daggers he’d acquired recently there should have been no way to stop him.

“The opposing forces are very stubborn, Your Grace, they aren’t afraid of battle. Marquess Sispek is a cousin of the Ironblood Duke, and he seems to have a son who joined the Scholars.”

Another knight rushed over, “Your Grace, Lord Romney sent word that his forces are surrounded, there’s going to be a battle!”

“The...” Richard stopped himself and sighed, looking at a black-robed mage behind him, “Where’s Sispek’s son right now?”

This mage had many contacts in the underbelly, but she made a face of frustration and shook her head, “It is... difficult to track Scholars, Your Grace. He might just be in front of us, but I wouldn’t know.”

“Whatever, let’s go then. I’ll just pull it out of the old man.” Richard walked out of the barracks, summoning his followers and powerhouses before opening a huge portal in the air. He then walked through it at the lead, his followers following behind. Everyone nearby gasped; how could he transport so many people so far away? There were no traces of any divine weapons here, and the portal had been built with the wave of a hand!

The stunned warriors walked into the portal one after the other, finding themselves hundreds of kilometres away. Below was an army of tens of thousands of soldiers, surrounding a few dozen people who were standing back to back.

In the middle of the army surrounded by saints to protect him, Marquess Sispek should have been very high-spirited. However, he currently had a face like death as he looked at the huge portal in mid-air, watching all the strong warriors stepping through the portal.

Why would such an immense portal appear here? The Marquess couldn’t figure out any reason; even skilled spatial mages could only transport themselves. Such long-distance portals could only bring others over in one of two scenarios; it was premeditated with arrays on each end, or the spellcaster had divine equipment. It was rumoured that only the Millennial Empire had such an item in all of Norland, and it could only be used a few times.

Sispek felt a chill running down his spine. If Richard could build such a portal on demand, just how powerful was he? Had he really become epic?

Richard looked down on Sispek’s huge army, focusing for mere moments on the seven saints and thirty rune knights. Those below suddenly felt like dirt gazing upon the sun, retreating into their formations in fear. His sheer gaze made it clear that just managing to escape would be extremely fortunate this time.

“RICHARD!” the Marquess raised his voice, “You are killing the lords of the Alliance for no reason. You are breaking all customs, this is making an enemy of all nobility!”

Richard looked at the man calmly, “You done with your yapping?”

Sispek’s face immediately turned white. He had hoped Richard would be at least a little agitated, but this calmness implied absolute resolve. There were no customs that would stop him; anyone in his way would be targeted by the terrifying Archeron war machine.

The Marquess turned his head around, looking for the grey-robed mage that had offered him valuable advice in the past few months. The man was a good friend of his son, and had helped the entire marquessate prosper to the point of capturing two baronetcies nearby. This interception was that mage’s idea as well.

However, the adviser was nowhere to be found. Sispek went stiff, barely remembering that the man had bid him farewell the night before. His head shot back to look at Richard, face filling with despair at the emotionless bloodlust in Richard’s gaze. Richard wasn’t even looking at him, instead just gazing into the distance.

He suddenly realised that a billion reasons wouldn’t convince Richard to abstain from taking action, there was one that would drive him forward anyway; Her Excellency, Sharon!

“YOUR GRACE, WAIT! DON’T ATTACK! I WILL WITHDRAW MY TROOPS RIGHT AWAY!”

Richard’s clouded eyes slowly refocused, landing on the man below, “You want to withdraw? Fine, give me your sun and cut your hand off.”

“What? I... I don’t know where he is. He left the family a few years ago for adventure!”

“Then you’re useless.”

“NO, YOU CAN’T KILL ME! DUKE ORLEANS IS MY COUSIN! HE WON’T LET YOU OFF IF YOU KILL ME!”

A look of ridicule flashed past Richard’s eyes, “His Excellency won’t fall out of favour with me for trash like you.”

Having said that, he raised his hand and pointed forward. Blue light quickly gathered into a blast of destructive flames, crashing down on the Marquess and reducing him to ash. Richard reopened the enormous portal and led his subordinates back out, a stern voice ringing out as he left, “Romney, continue.”

In the battlefield below, tens of thousands of soldiers started fleeing in all directions. However, Richard had no interest in pursuing them.

......

News of Sispek’s death quickly spread throughout the Sacred Alliance, rippling out to the rest of Norland as well. The nobles who were once protesting went quiet, no one daring to blame Richard any longer. This incident proved Richard’s resolve, and there was no point in arguing against such determination.

Not all the lords acted out of economic interests; some truly were working off their own principles and pride. However, there was no point in jumping out to provoke a crazed beast for the sake of tradition; there was no glory in such a death. Furthermore, this could be considered a family feud in some ways, just one with greater influence. Many lords convinced themselves that Richard wasn’t completely in the wrong.

In the fifth level of Faust’s islands, Duke Orleans was staring at an urgent report with an ashen face. Before him were a number of his closest subordinates, alongside the younger talents of the family including Beye and Agamemnon.

He tapped his desk softly for a long time before speaking, “Sispek is only a cousin, but he has always been quite close. What do all of you think?”

A young man of similar age to Agamemnon stepped forward, “Father, Richard is showing contempt towards our family! If we don’t respond to him, we will suffer humiliation for decades! I suggest we demand an apology and compensation, or we will declare war!”

“We won’t win,” Agamemnon said coldly from the side.

The youth’s face immediately swelled up, “Look at our resources! We are second only to the royal family, what does Richard have? He has strong warriors, but we have them too! Besides, those serving him are just hounds looking for money, how loyal can they be? They’ll scatter after some pressure!”

“Bullshit, we’ll lose.” Agamemnon rarely swore, and this time made his stance clear.

The young man’s eyes almost shot out flames as he glared and gritted his teeth, “What do you mean by this? Father named you his successor, you aren’t the patriarch just yet! You’re already trying to throw your weight around? Is the Orleans Family’s reputation worth a chance for you to kiss Richard’s ass?”

Agamemnon’s expression didn’t change, but he touched the hilt of his sword. For someone who was never fazed by anything, this was more than a simple expression of rage.