Chương 146: Vouivre Delenda Est (12)

Lorimor completed his book of fears the day before Vouivre's coronation.

"Here it is, master," he said, presenting Simon with a small grimoire with his squirmy hands, "The fruits of my labor." Simon glanced at the book. It was black, and made of paper rather than human skin, with its title written in cray on the cover: Darkest Fear: The Thirteen Terrors of Man. Every page reeked of miasma.

"True to your demands, I have organized the fears of mortals into thirteen broad categories and attempted to associate one Zodiac Fiend to each, based on Your Dark Majesty's information.

"You did well," Simon congratulated him as he flipped through the pages. The index was split between an introduction on the concept of terror and thirteen different chapters, each themed after a core fear. The Unknown: Fear of the dark, the unknown, the unseen, and hidden dangers. The Pain: Fear of suffering, mutilation, torture, and blood. The Disaster: Fear of nature, cataclysms, floods, and earthquakes. The Change: Fear of mutation, change, and transformation.

The Lack: Fear of famine, thirst, suffocation, and of lacking something. The Inevitable: Fear of mortality, time, aging, cycles, and repetition. The Wrongness: Fear of strangers, wrongness, madness, and false perceptions. The Loner: Fear of isolation, loneliness, solitude, separation, and enclosed spaces. The War: Fear of war, violence, strife, and conflict. The Domination: Fear of loss of control, humiliation, abuse, heights, and falling.

The Nothing: Fear of nonexistence, oblivion, annihilation, and pointlessness. The Plague: Fear of pestilence, poison, illness, and pollution. The Predation: Fear of predators, dangerous animals, being hunted, and traps.

"I once considered creating a fourteenth category for heights, flying, and falling, but at its core, they form a uniquely landbound fear that many other creatures lack," Lorimor said.

"Mortals on the ground fear the loss of autonomy and control of a fall as much as the impact itself."

"It could be linked to the Nothing too," Simon replied. Exodeos had shown a strange affinity for negating gravity and then sending his targets plummeting down to their deaths, though it could just be an extension of his 'negation' purview.

"So the Scales is Nothing, the Maiden is Domination, the Goatfish is Pain, the Twins the Wrongness…"

"The Two-Tailed Fish is almost certainly the Change rather than the Plague," Lorimor added.

"Its essence seems uniquely attuned to ice, and what is ice but the transformation of water into another form of matter? It does not use plagues or toxins to transform its targets either." The Plague could be the Scorpion then, Simon thought. Its Dungeon was called the Poison Gardens, after all.

"What about the Inevitable? I don't really see the binding theme."

"The Inevitable represents the fear of something that cannot be avoided. It is the fear that we'll all age and die one day, that the world will move on without us, and that there is a pattern to it all… it's the fear of time and cycles." Simon scowled.

"The Inevitable is the Minotaur, isn't it?"

"Your Majesty is most wise." Lorimor smiled with his mouth full of fangs.

"We're all trapped in the maze of time, aren't we?" If only he knew how accurate that statement was… Asterion is the fear of time, of life and death, of passing seasons and vicious cycles, Simon thought as he reviewed the Inevitable chapter. Whereas Exodeos represented existential dread, and the possibility that one would stop existing after death, Asterion embodied the inevitable march of time grinding us towards that unavoidable end. That's why he can sense the reigns and his brethren can't.

Either way, while Lorimor's research might not be entirely accurate and the theme of many of the Zodiac Fiends remained unidentified, his work should allow Simon to see common threads and perhaps guess what abilities they could array against him. Moreover, while Lorimor hadn't managed to identify what fear the Serpent-Bearer represented, it didn't take long for Simon to reach his own conclusions.

From what Simon had seen from the flashes he received from devouring Crestones, the Heroes were entirely unaware of Mardok's existence or true nature as a Zodiac Fiend until he somehow approached Elios Magnos to create the Overlord Class. Even the Oracle couldn't detect the danger he represented before he transformed Abraxas into a comet-sized plague upon the world. Simon had wondered why, but seeing this index of terrors gave him an epiphany.

Mardok was the fear of the Dark itself, of the unknown danger not even an all-seeing Oracle could foresee. Man's oldest and most primal terror. The Overlord Class had inherited his mantle and strengthened it a thousandfold, granting it mastery over all that inspired dread in mortals' hearts.

"I will study your work in-depth, Lorimor," Simon congratulated his cultist.

"You have done well."

"I live to serve, Your Majesty." The cultist blinked with his thousand eyes.

"I beg only for the honor to chronicle the horrors that will befall Beleth once we lay siege to it."

"That you may," Simon replied reluctantly. He had intended to deploy Lorimor in the field anyway to ensure a quick end to the fighting. I can't put this off any longer. I've dirtied my hands too much this reign to back down now. It was time for him to confront Thalas and Anna again. Vouivre decided to hold her coronation on the very plain where she and Simon first met.

While it made strategic sense considering they would be marching on Beleth right afterwards, Simon couldn't help but wonder if there was some symbolism involved; the birthplace of their alliance would be where their war of conquest began. Their main armies had gathered there, a vast mass of collared shifters belonging to all known tribes and forced into their beastly forms. Lions, wolves, foxes, and all the beasts of the earth were now united under the oversight of fake Eoles and scalefolk taskmasters.

A horde of dragonkin ridden by lizardmen had taken position on the hills nearby, ready to incinerate all things in their mistress' path. Vouivre counted hundreds of thousands of troops under her command, with those she deemed to be 'useless' non-combatants—the old, the sick, the infirm—having been forcefully transformed into warbeasts.

Simon's personal forces were slightly less numerous, but far more varied and terrifying: powerful demons, watchers, demodragons, his own cadre of shifters, and goblinoid warriors who had followed Granny Radhag from Uyo. The latter had taken on a more youthful appearance with the Brand of Lust and formed a coven with Pallian and Cassandra; much to Simon's surprise, the three seemed to get along wonderfully well.

He had caught them knitting together at the base when off-duty, and Duchar had apparently begun cooperating with the hag on some potion project. As for Borsh, the demon Simon had merged him with at his request had doubled his size until he could seize a man in the palm of his hands. Simon had forged him a soulbound halberd to further increase his potency. He and Hector would make a fine pair.

A fully-armored Simon watched atop his phantom steed next to Belzemine as Vouivre made her entrance in human form on the plain, dragging a chain holding twenty-five female captives from the various shifter tribes she had conquered. What a supremely disgusting display of power and dominance over a conquered people.

"Citizens of Telluria!" Vouivre declared, her voice carrying through the plain with the help of magic.

"I am Vouivre, heir of Gargauth! Behold your rulers, cowed and chained by my magnificence! I have crushed them as I have crushed all those who dared to challenge me! I hereby declare myself goddess of the land of Telluria, your eternal lord and master! You have no choice but to submit to me or be destroyed!" Simon wondered how often she had made this speech in past reigns, either by using Eole to bring the entire region to heel or brutally oppressing the shifters the old fashioned-way.

Either way, the women and brainwashed chieftains of this enslaved nation could only kneel and lower their heads in submission. And as all of Telluria surrendered to its usurper queen, so did the mana of the land. Energies flowed from its leylines to the plain and gathered around Vouivre like a whirlwind of power. The process reminded Simon of the very same ritual he ran in Magvolia to bind the Stone Muse to his will, and perhaps it served as one.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The mana soon gathered into the spectral shape of a humanoid lion with bulging muscles, bright golden fur, and a reddish maw. His iron crown and armor marked him as a king, likely Tellurian the Great himself or at least an illusion of him. He stared at Vouivre with what could pass for seething contempt for the very brief instant during which he remained visible, before reluctantly raising his hands.

A bright Noble Crestone materialized within his claws in a flash of bright light. The lost Beast had returned. Vouivre's eyes gleamed with greed as she seized the Crestone, Tellurian's image dispelling the moment he lost his treasure. She stared at Simon with a thin smirk of anticipation, and then…

"Hear my call, Beast, Crestone of power pure!" Vouivre boasted, raising her newfound acquisition to the sun.

"Bestow upon me my true form, so that my divinity may trample this world underfoot!" And then Simon saw first-hand why she had craved the Beast Crestone above all others. A cataclysmic pulse of mana erupted from Vouivre, its mere shockwave sending the chained women nearby falling off to their knees or propelling them back. Dust and grass were blown away to the wind as Vouivre transformed into her dragon form… And continued growing.

Her terrifying roar echoed across the plain, splitting into five voices howling at once. Her shadow lengthened to cast her troops and Simon's own in darkness, multiple heads rising to reach out for the sun. Terror negated by Indomitable Crown.

"By the gods…" Cassandra muttered behind him as she covered her mouth, Pallian and the others slightly stepping back. Scalefolk, shifters, and transformed dragons alike either froze or knelt in submission. Vouivre had always been huge, but the creature she had become was a true titan of terrifying proportions. Her wingspan reached over two hundred feet from one end to another, casting much of her troops in her shadow.

She loomed nearly thrice the size of her normal form when standing on her legs, her immense tail whipping the ground with enough power to send tremors rippling through the earth. However, her immense size was by far the least significant part of her transformation. While her body's shape itself remained mostly the same giant of gilded scales, four new heads had sprouted around her main one.

A blue leviathan's sinuous, fishlike neck and maw loomed next to a red-scaled dragon face with a prominent jaw on her right shoulder, while a black, serpentine head and a white, feathered one similar to that of the eidolon Azulbolla shared the left shoulder. Each of them boasted a crown of horns, though none more splendid than the one adorning Vouivre's unchanged, triumphant face.

"Can you feel it, Overlord Simon?" Vouivre declared with all of her five heads, each speaking with her booming voice, all of them staring down on him specifically.

"My magnificence? My strength made visible? My divine power?" Simon looked up to her. He had to admit she had become a terrifying creature who could easily crush him underfoot, and he knew intellectually that she could likely decimate his forces then and there. She had reached the peaks of power that Euphemia and Louis had already climbed. Her ten eyes stared at him, searching for any hint of weakness she could pounce on to enforce submission. And yet, only a single thought crossed his mind…

"Your father was bigger," Simon replied defiantly. In spite of her power, in spite of her size, she was still smaller than Gargauth had been… and he too had proved mortal. That gave Simon the certainty he would inevitably overcome her. Likely not in this reign, but that outcome was set in stone. Vouivre let out a chuckle with all of her five heads. She sounded more amused—maybe even pleased—by his confidence than anything.

"You are brave or mad, Overlord Simon… but neither option displeases me." She extended her wings to take flight.

"Follow in my wake and marvel at my power, then. I shall lead the charge." A flap of her wing sent a terrible gust coursing through the plain, casting down false kish and lesser dragons back to the earth and burying the closest people to her beneath a wave of dust. She took flight with a roar akin to a hurricane, passing over her army and inviting her thralls to follow her.

"What was that? Simon asked his retainers as they prepared to join.

"Did the Beast transform her into a stronger type of dragon?"

"I… I am not sure," Duchar admitted.

"I have never seen that kind of creature… no hydra has wings either… an extinct, primal wyrm mayhaps?"

"That is no normal dragon," Belzemine said flatly. Even she looked a little rattled by Vouivre's new transformation, likely because it reminded her of Gargauth. Lorimor had more to say.

"I have read legends from Telluria that the Beast Crestone can grant people a shape that reflects their inner selves," he explained.

"Wicked souls are punished by being transformed into deformed monsters embodying their ugly nature, while the righteous are granted beauty from their kind hearts." Was that Vouivre's inner self, then? A world-devouring dragon that would terrify even eidolons like Azulbolla? Simon scowled behind his helmet. How much power did she gain from transferring her Vassal levels into Beast ones? Either way, it didn't change anything. The die was already cast.

"Stick to the plan," Simon ordered his troops, both with his voice and telepathy.

"Air squadron, with me. The rest of you follow the army on foot and surround Beleth."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" his troops replied as one. Simon quickly took flight with Pallian, alongside a cadre of gargoyles and watchers. Lorimor levitated thanks to his powers, while Belzemine, Granny Radhag, and Cassandra closed the march atop two demodragons. Duchar, Hector, and Borsh would stay behind to command the land troops The group soon joined Vouivre and her swarm of dragons in the air, moving straight to their target.

Beleth appeared on the horizon within minutes in the dawning sun, its sentries and people unaware of the disaster about to befall their city. Casval was already inside the Academy to serve as an inside man and connect with other loyalists, so Simon focused his attention on other allies as he cast his buffs and had Belzemine add her own.

"Leonard, Meredith, are you with Anna at the Academy?"

"Yes, we are," Leonard replied. Simon noticed he hadn't said 'His Majesty' this time. There was a slight defiance in his tone that had never been there before, but Simon ignored it.

"Keep her there and do not leave the building at any cost," Simon ordered.

"I cannot guarantee your safety if you do." Meredith immediately asked.

"What's happening?"

"War," Simon replied,"Stay inside the Academy at all costs. It's the only safe zone." Every other command center would be annihilated in the first salvo. Simon recalled the first time he laid eyes on Beleth, marveling at its stone fortifications keeping the inner ward separated from sprawling farmfields and its shantytown. This was a city built for war, its forges rolling out endless amounts of weapons to equip troops tasked with Telluria's conquest.

Most had left to wage war with Lore in the west, but a brave few remained to hold the line, with Dassein's keep looming high as a symbol of Endymion's enduring presence in the region. Vouivre took five deep breaths, and then blasted them all away. Each of her heads fired a different attack: all consuming flames, pressurized water that shattered stones, light that burned the sky, a flood of poison, and finally a swirling hurricane.

Each of them targeted a different point of the city, blasting the fortifications open like a hammer through glass, annihilating the forges, poisoning the garrison district, and pulverizing the upper part of the keep with more power than any airship could manage. The toll of bells raising the alarm couldn't cut through the cataclysmic explosions echoing through the city, the detonations shattering windows and sending debris flying everywhere.

Only one thing came to mind when Simon saw this devastation worthy of a full airship fleet's bombardment. Vouivre couldn't be allowed to obtain the Beast again. Ever. It didn't matter whether Simon kept it for himself to devour or ensured it remained lost. Vouivre could never be allowed to claim its power for herself in another reign. The great dragon flew over the city and rained destruction upon it, with her dragonkin slaves splitting up to encircle Beleth in a vast ring of fire.

The sentries had sounded the alarm and a few defenders began to fire with ballistae or spells at their attackers, but the suddenness of the attack was such that their efforts were completely disorganized. Vouivre's aerial forces immediately began to bombard their positions to ensure they had complete mastery of the sky, leaving the soldiers on the ground sitting ducks for the slaughter to come. In the end, it'll be worth it, Simon told himself.

Beleth suffered this fate in all reigns where Vouivre was free to storm Telluria, and he had caused greater destruction in the past when he devastated Magvolia. No matter what end I pick… it'll still be better than this.

"Remember your orders!" Simon told his troops as their group approached the Academy building.

"Petrify and immobilize only! Every single student you find is either a potential hostage or future dragon, so I want them alive and sane!" Cassandra, Granny Radhag, and Pallian split from the group to form a triangle around the Academy and combined their coven's power. A veil of mana fell over the building, blocking all pesky teleportation effects within its confines. No emergency magical gem would let the students slip through their grasp.

Simon ordered the watchers and gargoyles to strike the Academy's ring of black towers and fortifications while he, Lorimor, and Belzemine moved into the central courtyard. As he suspected, the most martially-minded students and instructors had begun to rally there to help in the city's defense. Anna wasn't among them, likely because Meredith and Leonard kept watch on her in her quarters. But Thalas was present. So far so good, Simon thought as he raised a Nightveil-shrouded finger at the crowd below." Petrify."

Lorimor's countless eyes opened to fire paralyzing beams below, while Belzemine assisted with her own spells. Dozens of students and instructors either turned to stone or were frozen in place, with the exception of Thalas, who immediately activated his Berserker outfit and stepped out of the path of Lorimor's rays of power. He looked up and froze upon seeing his attackers.

"Thalas," Simon said from atop his flying horse, looking down on his half-brother while being wreathed in a mantle of shadows.

"We meet again." Thalas' eyes widened in shock, and he tightened his grip on his axe with a scowl when he spotted the plumes of smoke from Vouivre's onslaught rising into the sky. The ruins of the nearby keep alone ought to convey the gravity of the situation.

"Have you come to kill me?" Thalas asked, far more calmly than Simon would have expected him to in this situation.

"Not if you surrender," Simon replied. In spite of everything, in spite of Thalas ruining his time at the Academy, he would rather avoid a pointless fight, especially since he wouldn't get any experience out of it.

"We have come to claim this city, but as acting governor of Beleth, you still have a chance to save its population." Thalas squinted at him.

"Did you hate me so much that you sold your soul and this city to the Abyss for revenge?"

"Are you still prattling on with that nonsense?" Simon scoffed.

"I don't hate you, Thalas, not anymore. I pity you." He half-expected Thalas to explode in anger at this taunt, yet he remained strangely calm besides his deepening scowl. That was… odd.

"Your Dark Majesty," Lorimor said, pointing at the courtyard's doors. Other students had begun to rush through the courtyard's doors, only to freeze upon seeing the garden of statues facing them. Thalas waved his axe at them.

"Evacuate! I'll hold them back as–""There's nowhere to run, brother," Simon said as he had his horse land in the courtyard and then stepped down.

"Surrender your Crestone and this Academy, and I'll spare your life and that of everyone in this building. You have my word." Thalas sneered and struck the ground with his axe.

"Over my dead body."

"You should choose your words more carefully, but honestly…" Simon summoned his morning star.

"I was hoping you would say that."