Chương 105: BECMI Chapter 104 – The Judgment of Heaven

They were cowering before me, for good reason. It was late in the evening, and this was the third and last of the forts that the Khirifi had put up here in the northern Elb lands. The soldiers were all dead, burning away to crimson dust and white smears from screaming Skulls Seeking them out wherever they were. A number of homes were on fire, their windows shattered, and the slaves left here to serve the Khirifi were clutching fallen weapons and glaring with hate at those who were still alive.

Those were the civilian families of the soldiers here, spouses (mostly women), children, and some elderly who'd come along, mostly as instructors for the young. All of them were in the center of the fort, ringed by grimly expectant Elbers as Duum glided down near-vertically, a level of maneuverability not natural to even magical beasts, and alighted weightlessly on the stones. While some of the children were crying in fear, most were ashen-faced and silent.

They had dominated the Elbers for most of a decade now, treated them like dogs to be whipped and beaten and killed for the slightest defiance. They had not imagined the tables could be turned so suddenly. Whatever the gray-haired matron in charge of them was about to say faded awkwardly when she saw my eyes and the Skulls hovering around me.

The last thing that came to mind when looking at me was mercy and clemency, especially when the Skulls were obviously those of the spirits of those you were responsible for murdering! Edgelord has to edge, after all. Just a wee bit of illusion on the magic...

"I am the Lady Edge, currently working with the forces of Darkmoor to remove the Khirifi taint in the north," I stated in their own language, the work of but an hour with a native back in Darkmoor City during my weapons training. My inflection was exquisite, contemptuous, scornful, and quite cruel.

"I have already called for judgment upon the followers of the malevolent Immortal that calls itself your god, and the pronunciation was this!

"As you gave, so shall you be given, in equal measure. For every innocent civilian of the Duchy of Elb slain by the benighted servants of Guzgul, one such will also be taken from them." Roses blossomed around me, swelling in height, black edged in crimson, their Thorns ablaze with potent magical energies whose Holiness made it difficult for these uncaring souls to look upon.

"Rejoice! As you showed mercy, so shall it be extended to you and yours!" I announced, with a great deal of expectant schadenfreude, given the amount of Red and Purple I was seeing among the adults… and not a few of the children. The Chained Thorns went out, and now the screams arose as a score and more of screaming Skulls exploded through the mass of them.

Bodies blew apart into crimson and black ash, unwhite flames reached up to drag down the writhing spirits left behind, and sepulchral cries and wails faded away into the ether. When it faded, I was utterly unsurprised that there was not a single pureblood Khirifi left alive, only a handful of mixed-bloods shaking in the middle of the ground stained white. Their Elber mothers were clutching them in terror as they stared at the results of the executions and me.

"Your Elber blood has saved them," I addressed the mothers, before turning eyes on children who'd likely been abused on both sides of the spectrum, one as traitors, the other as inferiors.

"If they choose to walk the roads of their fathers, they will soon enough follow in the fates of those who choose Guzgul's path of tyranny and conquest.

"I am going to Recundrik to clear it now. If you cannot stomach having any blood of the Khirifi among you, then you will give these women and their children horses, wagons, and supplies to make it to Darkmoor City, where their blood will not be held against them. If you turn upon them now, when they are of your own blood, and your blood protected them from judgment… then, when I return, I will show you all the mercy that you showed your own."

The rage and glee apparent on the faces of the former Elb slaves faded away at my icy words. I wasn't going to allow them to kill these few women and their children, and they were looking right at the price they were going to pay if they proved to be like the Khirifi.

"Be better people. When Darkmoor sends an envoy, I suggest the free men and women of Elb give serious thought to bending a knee to him for the duration of his reign and making a kingdom of the North that can hold against any and all invaders, that the travesty of the last decade never happens to you again. The disunity and rivalry of your barons was what doomed your Duchy originally.

I think it is time the people stood up and followed someone who has proven to have the guts and guile of a warrior king who protects his people, and is not merely another conqueror with a sword who is lusting after power.

"King Antius is a soul shining Silver, freemen of Elb. Give some serious thought to this." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. And I was working with him, which I knew was going to be an absolutely huge factor in his favor.

"Save your anger for those who earned it, not those who suffered along with you." Duum beat his wings once and blew for the sky with impossible agility, shocking them even more than his vertical descent had. His wings furled and wrapped as he twisted and realigned himself, and was suddenly shooting off southeast, close enough to survey the road with Eagle Eyes, not to be spotted by anyone not so gifted with magic.

The Great Warding Swamp had been a natural defense against invasion from the west, but it hadn't done the Elbers much good when they lost their unity and the Khirifi picked them apart and turned them against one another, seizing the only good road across the swamp. Now, it was one of their key supply points, sending goods both east and west across the swamp to their outposts as they were needed, harvested from the swamp and the farms along its edges, and what little trade they got at the ports.

They wouldn't be sending on any real supplies soon enough.

I felt them coming from a great distance away. The Vista of Eternal Darkness is really good at seeing Evil, being Detect Evil at IX+1 as it was when I made it Permanent. Soul Eaters being Evil incarnate, depraved even by the standards of Fiends, made seeing them like seeing the only black blots on the whiteness of the world as to how seriously they drew the attention of the spell. Minor spells couldn't affect them, so they likely thought they couldn't be sensed like that, and they were Invisible for now.

Recundrik was partially on fire below me from where I'd had to reduce a couple fortifications to dig out the defenders within. No pureblood Khirifi remained alive within its walls now. A Seeking Great Pyroclasm Widened twice had swallowed the entire town and wiped them all in a ball of fire likely seen for miles around in the night.

Any survivors I had Skullbarb' d down with extreme prejudice, watching their hopes shrivel and die in the night as they realized what had become of their friends and family as the Silver flames took them… and didn't harm a single one of the native Elbers, nor hurt nary a dog or horse. Ash and white dust, warring in the streets and homes, brought ruin to yet one more of the Khirifi garrisons in the north, leaving only three remaining. Two, actually.

King Antius had taken advantage of my rampage across the west and led an army into Isoford, armed with some of the new weapons from the Batrachian Basilica and a Teleportation Circle from Brittabelle (Teleporting into Darkmoor City and then back to the Weirwood Court for this) leaping his army across hundreds of miles to right inside their own walls. Yeah, Valence IX's had never been used in combat in the North before, and they turned the tactical and strategic situation on its head.

It was also why the Interdictions and Stillflight defenses I'd sold to the interested loyal spellcasters of the North were snatched up so swiftly. The broad defenses against magical attack were not perfect, but they closed a LOT of vulnerabilities off. The Khirifi didn't have anything resembling a respectable magical Tradition, since the matriarchal priesthood kept an iron grip on power, and obedience was valued far, far over innovation. What innovation they gained they stole from those they conquered…

but you couldn't steal magical ability like that, you had to nurture it or pay for it. No mage in their right mind was going to take service with a bunch of barbarian fanatics like them, and they certainly had crap for skilled mages, with the one I'd killed in the volcano pit room the strongest I'd seen. I'd not seen any who could Summon multiple Soul Eaters like this, especially of such power, but it didn't matter much to me.

Duum could outfly them, they didn't present a serious threat to me regardless of their size and improved defenses… and I wasn't going to spare them, either. Duum leisurely turned around and stopped on a dime, wings poised high, holding in place like magical winged monsters aren't supposed to be able to do, facing the five Soul Eaters streaking in on the winds right toward me. I'd felt the pressure of something trying to search and find me, not knowing what it was looking for and unable to grab on to me.

Indeed, there were no Khirifi survivors of that debacle who were available to question, and even the efreet had been extinguished. Vivus and the Land weren't kind to things that devoured souls or aided in the same. The stuff they'd been doing had been shaking time and magic, and the rebound when I gave the Land the chance to administer justice was pretty horrible.

"You don't really think you are Invisible to me, do you?" I inquired of the Soul Eaters as they closed within three hundred paces of me, bringing all of them up short. A giant Rose with no visible source spiraled into existence around me, black and crimson and dripping Wrathfire with all the nasty Primal-Divine-Arcane Kickers for their viewing enjoyment. Thorns blazed on ebony stalks and Burned as the vines twisted and turned to track each of the Soul Eaters perfectly.

The demons grimaced to see them, as well they should. Soul Eaters qualified as the worst of both Fiends and Undead to the right magicks, and they had no idea how hard I could hit them with what was going to be coming at them. Immune to I-IV Valences? That was why I could Raise spells and Upcast them!

Disruption was quietly seething along the waiting Thorns -not Shards -nopers, hidden within the Force structure of the spell while the distracting Kickers with all their many energies types distracted and demanded attention, especially +5d6 of Holy Kickers swirling around the many Skulls leering at the incoming Fiends hungrily. Wasn't supposed to be any Holy stuff around this world. They were going to learn some hard lessons about moral choices.

"Puling mortal wench!" came the bellow across the distance, carried on charnel winds that echoed with the lamentations of damned souls, wailing and trying to wind their way into my thoughts. My own Skulls jeered at them.

"Are you the blasphemer who destroyed the Master's holy work at the place called Mon Burromos?" the seeming leader of the other four demanded of me, all of them spreading out and approaching carefully… which did require that they get closer to one another as they neared me.

"What insipid thing crawling out of the abscessed pit of Creation wants to know, and who is its master?" I returned icily in the most cutting, arrogant, and unafraid terms I could.