Chương 394: (387) 6.1. Still In One Piece

In typical fashion, Vin spent the morning following the battle for wave six in the familiar council room, listening to his fellow council members discuss the events of the previous day's battle. Unlike the last couple of large-scale battles, Vin and his team had actually been off on their own down south in the red desert fragment for this one, busy with their own harrowing fight against the ranker king and his impossible strength.

He hadn't wanted to leave Terra to its own devices, but according to John, a Watcher class and one of the missing Earthers he'd brought back from the fragment of rankers, his staying in Terra during the battle for wave six would have doomed them all. It had been a tough call to make, but seeing as they'd all managed to survive, it had been the right one in the end. Well… almost all of them managed to survive.

Scule had technically died for a little bit there, having used his Magical Bond passive to actually steal the effects of Reginald's divine boon, sacrificing his own life for that of his companion's in the heat of battle when he'd suffered a full-on strike from the ranker king in his honor-fueled rage. Luckily for them, their team had been handed a major artifact a few weeks ago from the Relic Guardian located within the center of the citadel.

The gem of resurrection had been their trump card, and one Vin had been happy to play once their fight was over in order to bring Scule back to the land of the living. The act of using the gem had even triggered Vin's own Beyond the Veil ability, despite his desperate attempts to hold off on using it before hitting level 50. He'd tried his hardest to resist, but the grand arcane discovery had been too much for him to look away from.

He still didn't quite understand what he'd witnessed as he'd watched the magic within the gem reach through some sort of flimsy barrier between realms, plucking Scule's lost soul out of thin air and returning it to his body. He was sure whatever he'd seen had been incredibly important, but he had other things to worry about at the moment.

"No joke, the thing was the size of a five-story house, it was ridiculous," Spur continued, reaching out his arms as he described the epic monster Terra had been forced to go up against without their help. From what Vin gathered from the Commander, it almost sounded like a tyrannosaurus rex, albeit one that was a lot larger, and with much longer arms.

"It wasn't nearly as large as the giant flesh worm from the battle for wave five, but it was a lot faster, and a lot hungrier. We managed to take it down eventually, in no small part thanks to some of the rituals the Witches and Warlocks imbued into Terra's walls, but we lost quite a lot of combat classes. Most notably, fourteen Slayers."" Fourteen?" Vin gasped, wincing as he tried to picture the look on Alka's face when she checked in with the warriors devoted to following her.

Despite the fact that Alka didn't actually have facial features anymore, seeing as she was a golem, her glowing eyes were still rather expressive if one knew what they were looking for.

"Terra only had, what, thirty-six Slayers in total? To lose over a third of them in a single battle…"

"It was an epic monster," Phil shrugged, the Challenger looking as nonplussed as ever. He had a nasty scar running down the side of his neck that Frank's healing magic hadn't seemed to heal quite right. Or far more likely, Phil had only taken the minimum amount of healing needed to ensure he wouldn't bleed out before running back into the fray. As the leader of Terra's combat classes, he was always quick to set the example for his men and women to follow.

"We're lucky we didn't lose more."

"Two of the losses were from the Old Guard, four from the New Guard, and the other eight were from… the Slayers from the fifth wave," Alice added, her brow furrowing as she muttered to herself.

"We need to come up with another nickname for them… the new er guard? Maybe I can get my Writers to put a poll out in the next newspaper asking for ideas." Vin knew the Trapper had a lot of soft power as the leader of the support classes, but he felt like they may have slightly more important things to worry about in the wake of the recent battle. And it seemed he wasn't the only one.

"The Slayers were just the most notable losses," Witherson interjected, returning to the matter at hand before Alice could get them off track. The Architect and leader of the crafter classes looked just as tired as the rest of them, despite the fact that she herself wouldn't have been involved in any of the fighting.

"There were plenty more losses besides them. While there was only the one epic monster, we had our fair share of elite and regular ones popping out of thin air as well. Frank and his healers are still hard at work trying to save as many of the wounded as possible, so the death toll isn't quite finished. But as of this moment, we're looking at around two hundred and fifty dead."

"I hate how my gut reaction at hearing that number is relief," Vin admitted with a pained wince. Obviously, hundreds of people having fallen in the battle for wave six was a tragedy, but the fact of the matter was that he and the rest of the council had expected things to be far worse.

The last few weeks, before Vin had realized that the ranker king had been planning on coming after him specifically, all of Terra had known that the town was doomed to fall during the battle, thanks to John and his Doom Watch Capstone. With the additional seven hundred new-faces from wave six, even including the dead, Terra's population was now pushing four thousand people. Two hundred and fifty lives lost was far better to hear than four thousand.

"We all do," Spur said solemnly, and the whole council took a moment of silence to honor the dead.

"That said, the important thing is that we survived, and that you removed one of the greatest threats we potentially faced to our continued survival. The ranker king is truly dealt with?"

"Oh yeah. Alka chopped off his head herself, and Lumel has his body stored within her Dimensional Pocket. We didn't want any overly ambitious Necromancers stumbling upon it," Vin added. Technically, they only knew of one compound of Necromancers, and they were a good couple of fragments away, but it didn't hurt to be cautious. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"How will the rankers react to losing their king?" Witherson asked.

"Do we just have a new ranker king to worry about now?"

"Honestly, I'm not too sure," Vin admitted.

"I would think that whoever the second ranker was would inherit the title. Though last we heard, the council of eleven, the next ten strongest rankers on the fragment, had tried to take advantage of the ranker king and wipe him out after I ripped off the man's hand a few weeks back. They obviously failed, but that means most of their absolute strongest warriors are probably dead as well."

"Doubly good news for us then," Spur said, grinning at the unexpected boon.

"Obviously, knowing that there are twelve thousand warriors with a love for conquest just a few fragments away is still a tad troubling, but better that their leadership is so severely crippled. And you're sure they can't escape the fragments surrounding them?"

"Unless they manage to throw off their soul brands that require them to accept any and all challenges, I'm sure," Vin nodded, thinking back to the ring of fragments that formed a natural wall to keep the rankers contained. They'd managed to sneak the beastkin and orcs out from under the rankers' noses through the impregnable metal wall the goblins constructed, as their fragment was the only one that wasn't almost immediately lethal to cross through, but there was no way the rankers would be able to follow suit.

"I can touch base with Emrelda and Grunch sometime over the next few days. As the former emissaries for the beastkin and orcs to the rankers, they might know more about how the rankers work when they lose their king."

"Good idea, do that and let us know what they say," Spur said, taking a look at some notes Myers and Linda had provided him.

"With that covered, we just have the usual stuff to go over in the wake of the battle for wave six. Shia has already taken the lead and is directing our supply team to bring the epic monster corpse over to the Sacred Forest for the dryads to use as magical fertilizer, once Myers is done ripping off what parts of the monster she thinks she can use in her creations.

The seven hundred new Earthers are busy being put through the usual truth-gem screening process, overseen by Linda, Golrim, and a whole host of volunteers. Mei is really trying to lean into her new Strategist role and has gathered up most of the combat classes still capable of moving, going over what tactics worked and where they can improve for the battle for wave seven that will hit roughly sixty days from now, give or take a few weeks.

And Abby and her guards are sweeping the streets, ensuring there aren't any lingering monsters tucked away anywhere, and that nobody is taking advantage of the mayhem to cause any trouble. For once, everything seems to be in working order."

"It's crazy how far we've come," Alice chuckled, smiling as she leaned back in her chair and put her arms behind her head.

"You guys remember our first day on Edregon? Everyone wandering around without any idea what was going on while Spur tried to get everyone to focus? Those were the days."

"I seem to recall some of us wandering much farther than they were supposed to," Spur said, shooting Vin a quick glare and getting a sheepish grin in return. It had been months since they'd first arrived on Edregon, but even now, Vin recalled how he may have completely ignored Spur's instructions to stay close to camp, choosing instead to wander miles away, where he'd then been chased into an entirely different fragment. Now that had been a shock to discover.

"Some of our first days were a tad different," Witherson said bluntly, looking pointedly at Spur." I seem to recall my first few minutes on Edregon being filled with a public execution."

"Hey, General Lones was a horrible human being, and I don't regret what I did for a second," Spur argued.

"You saw how Traitor-bane lit up! Even the Gods agreed she was bad news!"

"I'm not disagreeing, just joining in on the reminiscing," Witherson stated, getting to her feet and pushing in her chair.

"Unless we have anything further to discuss, I take it we're done here? I want to do a sweep of the outer wall and ensure any repairs are taken care of as soon as possible. And now that there are rituals covering it as well, that means I'll need to reach out to Agne and see if the infernals can't lend me a Warlock or two."

"No, I think we're done here," Spur nodded, motioning for Vin to hang behind as Phil and Alice got to their feet.

"Vin, a word before you go gallivanting off on your next adventure?" The other three council members left, and Vin rolled his eyes as Alice mouthed what clearly looked like 'you're in troubleeee' before closing the door behind her. Curious as to why Spur had asked him to hang back, he looked at the Commander and semi-official leader of Terra.

While the five of them all shared equal power as the five councilors, they all seemed to unconsciously agree that Spur was still just as much the unofficial leader as he was when they first set foot on Edregon.

"What's up?" Vin asked, noting the tired look on Spur's face.

"I was hoping to do a quick sweep across the known fragments and see if I can't find any of the missing Earthers. I didn't actually see the ritual this time around, but seeing as there are even more Earthers missing than there were from the last wave, I figure there's a good chance I can find at least a handful."

"I won't keep you long then," Spur said, rubbing at his eyes and letting out a world-weary sigh.

"Searching for the missing Earthers is more important, but once you're done with that, would you mind swinging back by town and speaking with Christina? She's the crafter who designed the printing press we use for the newspapers now."

"Sure, I don't mind," Vin said, curious where he was going with this.

"Any reason why?"

"Terra is growing rather big, rather fast," Spur said, as though that weren't obvious.

"It's getting to the point where the majority of Earthers haven't even traveled more than a mile or two beyond the town walls, let alone to the border of our fragment. Most people only really know about Edregon's strange make-up from what they've heard of others talking and, I don't know, the fact that our new society doesn't seem to fully grasp what Edregon is just rubs me the wrong way. I was hoping you could team up with Christina and help her mass-produce a simple map of the fragments you've explored thus far.

Maybe a bit of a description as well."

"I can do that," Vin nodded.

"I've actually been meaning to chat with her for a while now, actually. I give the whole 'welcome to Edregon' speech far too frequently, I wanted to see if they could use the printing press to make me some pamphlets."

"…Part of me thinks that idea is ridiculous, but you know what, you've got a point," Spur said, shaking his head as the two of them stood up.

"Thanks for still being willing to help out around town so much. Oh, and one last thing. I know you mentioned you just spent almost two straight weeks learning the basics for dream magic, or whatever. Please give me a warning before you invade my dreams. I get enough trouble from everyone during the day."

"Don't worry, I haven't actually learned Dream Walk yet," Vin said, laughing at the relieved look on Spur's face at the news.

"But I'll make sure you're one of the first ones I visit when I do!"