Chương 74: A Prelude

Ch. 74 - A Prelude In the days that followed, the blade pushed its wielder and the orcs under his command harder than ever. Now that it better understood the threat was about more than just opposing armies, it knew that it was only a matter of time before another ambush was tried, and it had no way of knowing if it would be more successful than the last had been. The blade pushed itself, too, forcing itself to pay the cost to attempt to repair its soul a second time.

After its near ambush with the Witchhunters, it could no longer afford the luxury of living in ignorance, and as much as it didn't want to face its past, it worked up the nerve to face that torment once more. It was not a pleasant experience. It was bombarded by pain and the faces of people that it now recognized. These were friends of his first wielder. They were pieces of its soul. They were people with names. They had goals and ambitions, right up, they'd had their souls ripped from their bodies.

None of them would have wanted to be what the blade had become. It could see that as it glimpsed inside each of their souls. They were warriors and healers. While some did those things for the coin involved, others, like Baraga, did it just as much because they enjoyed helping others. It was hard for the blade to watch as it watched the dragon die and then watched itself being forged. Everything made sense this time, though, at least until it saw someone new wielding it.

That someone wasn't known to it, but the blade could remember fighting him, even in those early days. It wished it could recall killing the man, but his fate was a complete blank. He even went on to marry Baraga's princess. That roused a deep anger inside of it that it didn't really understand. It didn't care what happened to a princess. It cared that its wielder had been betrayed and that the man that had wielded it next was a preening peacock. The memories showed a distinct lack of battle.

Though it recalled seeing a second dragon slaying in the past, that wasn't in evidence here. All it saw were a few showy personal combats and one battle against greenskins that it was embarrassed by. The lack of fighting annoyed the blade almost as much as the well-coifed man's effeminate hands. It was not made to offset royal weakness. It existed to amplify strength to unimaginable levels. Did I, though? It wondered as it endured moments of hanging on the prince's wall. What was I made for?

That was a good question, but the answer wasn't to be found in those memories. There were hints, though, in the form of details that didn't fit, like why it would be okay with not fighting all the time. That was what it existed for! Why would I ever let my wielder hang me on a wall as a trophy? It wondered. It wouldn't even let Var'gar put it down on purpose. It was in his hand or on his back at all times. The strange memories slowly swirled to a stop before it found an answer, and that troubled the blade.

It had not gotten over the grisly method of its creation, but it had at least accepted that was what happened. Now, it was faced with the aftermath and the fact that it seemed to be completely different than it was now. In fact, if anything, it seemed to be scarcely more than any other hexblades it had crossed swords with to date. Var'gar didn't know of any of this, of course. The beast did as it commanded and revealed in the violence the rest of the time as his army moved forward day and night.

They faced two small skirmishes in that time, and both times, the opposing army fled when they discovered just how large the forces they faced were. Even a thousand men didn't have much of a chance against more than three thousand orcs, and after the retreat was sounded, only those on horseback managed to flee the scene of the massacre that followed. Despite its occasional losses, they never stopped now.

They were still almost two weeks away from the capital by foot, but as they pushed, the region was growing denser, and towns were both larger and closer together. The first true city, Stephan's Ford. The name was unimpressive, but its size was enormous. According to the souls it consumed, the city was named for a ford that had long ago been replaced with a bridge.

It was at least triple the size of Ogden had been, at just over fifty thousand people, and though the blade had no doubt most of those people were already fleeing before it, there would still be hundreds of souls to feast on. There would be men to fight, too.

Their movements the last few days were finding as many armed men as they were abandoned villages, and while the slaughter of women and children still happened, it was more palatable as a dull background roar as the blade struck down the few men that could control their trembling long enough to face down its monstrous orcish wielder instead of the main event. It had wasted enough of its stolen Life Force on healing its wielder in recent days.

Now was the time for crucial upgrades to bolster it for the challenges that lay ahead. And, more importantly, to increase my Path of Blood level to four, the blade told itself as it watched that number tick steadily up. It was at 4, 212/10, 000, and whether or not it would breach 10, 000 before Stephen's Ford, it was certain to before the orc left that place a bloody ruin. What new challenge would it bring for level 5?

The blade had no idea, but it would find out in the next couple of days, and then it would slake its thirst on the capital itself. While there were several other cities in the region of similar size to the one it would reach tomorrow, none had the quarter million people that Severn had, nor the castle that it would raze to the ground. Still, it couldn't spend all day thinking about the road ahead. It had to focus on the world around it, too.

Every village presented the small but real possibility that it was a trap, and so, in spite of its overflowing confidence, the blade forced itself to look at each encounter for any signs that something was amiss. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. However, despite those efforts, it found very little that was worthy of real focus, and it almost never assisted its wielder as it focused on its own upgrades.

The biggest one that the blade chose to focus on, of course, was Improved Siphon 9.

Primary Powers: Amplify Blade 2: 500 Life Force Accelerate Wielder 2: 800 Life Force Bolt 1: 1000 Life Force Disrupt 3: 1200 Life Force Amplify Wielder 3: 1500 Life Force Increase Connection 4: 1250 Life Force Lesser Life Reserves 5: 8000 Life Force Lesser Soul Reserves 5: 8000 Life Force Increase Control 4: 3000 Life Force Empower Blade 3: 4000 Life Force - not currently accessible Repair Soul 5: 5000 Life Force Improved Siphon 9: 6000 Life Force Secondary Powers: False Image 2: 250 Life Force Giant's Strength 2: 400 Life Force Speed of Shadows 2: 500 Life Force At 6, 000 Life Force it was one of the most expensive abilities it had but it was worth it.

A drain of 25-35 was huge on its own, but when it added it its other abilities like Deathly Touch and Vampirism, it was really 40 to 52 Life Force which would be drained with every blow. Improved Siphon 9: Even strong men might die from the merest scratch; at this level you will leave only corpses in your wake. Increase the Life Force drained per blow from 25 to 35. Most opponents it fought didn't even have that much now.

Animals died in a single thrust, but when they did, they gave it only a fraction of that power. Younger victims only offered up twenty or thirty before they fell to the ground dead. Given that, part of it thought that it was a waste that it continued to increase its siphon, but there were two reasons why it had to keep pressing forward. The first was that it wanted to know what came after it, and every level up came with the chance that something new would be revealed.

The second one, though, was the Aura of Hunger, and it was more important than its curiosity. In the near future it planned to weaken its aura significantly, but only so it could expand its reach. With 2000 more Life Force it would decrease the amount of people it could drain from fifteen down to seven or eight. Then, it would cut the amount that it drained from each victim from 30% down to 15%. That was why it had to make its siphon as strong as possible.

15% of 40 was still at least six Life Force several times a minute. That was enough to kill someone in a minute or two of exposure. More importantly, though, weakening those abilities would allow it to drastically increase the range of its aura. It would more than double its reach and quadruple its area of effect, which would let it harvest vastly more souls in the slaughter to come. That was what the blade spent the last day doing before it reached its goal.

It mowed down villagers and spent their souls to increase its reach further and further for the banquet that lay ahead. Then, it had Var'gar order the orcs to strip the place of doors, roofs, and anything that might conceivably make for a siege shield for the attack that lay ahead. Almost a month into their Inner Kingdom's rampage, the orcs finally reached the walls of Stephen's Ford.

The fields around it had already been burned to deny them sustenance or cover, but that was a mistake because, win or lose, the battle would be quick. The orcs were never going to lay siege to the city. They were here to overwhelm it, and they would do that right through the front door. Still, that attack waited until sunset. No skirmishers came out to meet them, so the orc army spent the afternoon cutting down trees to make battering rams. It wouldn't be using them, though.

The blade doubted that anything could stop its wielder these day, not even a foot-thick bar of wood or an iron-studded gate. Its plan was simpler than it had been the last time. Var'Gar would charge the gate alone. Then, he would hack at the gate while it would heal him. That wouldn't take long, and once the bar was shattered and the gates were opening, the rest of the army would charge, giving the defenders no time to rely on the strength of their walls.

It was an audacious plan, but it was the best way to conserve its army's strength. Though the orcs' losses had been few, they had lost a few every battle, and their numbers weren't much over three thousand now. That meant that hundreds had died, despite its efforts to be sparing with their lives, and in a city like this, it had little doubt that it would lose hundreds, or perhaps even a thousand of the brutes. Their lives don't matter, the blade told itself too quietly for its wielder to hear.

All I need is enough to breach the capital, and my wielder can handle the rest. As much as the blade wanted to believe that it and its wielder could handle everything on their own, it knew that it couldn't cut down hundreds of men on its own. With no one else for them to target, they would fill Var'gar with spears and swords, and its Life Force would leak out as fast as it gathered it. The Ebon Blade would still kill everyone within its vastly expanded Aura of Hunger, of course.

Even when they all lay dead on the ground next to it, some mage or Witchhunter would wait until it lost power and then find some way to contain it again. It studied its wielder with a note of despair. It still did not care for the touch of orc hands on its hilt, but there was no denying that the monster was hard to kill. It had suffered greatly for that, and as much as the Ebon Blade would prefer a human wielder, it did not wish to dispose of him just yet.