Chương 1360: 1390 - End of a Century I

Blade met blade, and so forceful was their meeting that thunder rolled across the plain below them. Lightning surged, bright gold on one side, silver-blue on the other. The air was thick with killing intent, neither side willing to back down. One combatant pressed, and the other gave ground. A series of blows were exchanged, and the clouds above roiled with every block and deflection. The side giving ground shouted in frustration, disbelieving that he had come to this, that this was about to be his final moment.

Terrible lightning, bright as the Origin Spark beyond the clouds, exploded from his body. A thousand bolts slammed into his opponent, rippling across gleaming Adamant plate armor, and then dissipating into a million glittering sparks. And then his opponent lunged, the sword gleaming in his hand, biting deeply into a tiny gap in his wrist armor made by an earlier blow. Joramhal screamed, though whether it was wrath or pain more responsible for the outburst, not even he could say.

But Leon drove deeper, and with a flick of his wrist, Iron Pride took Joramhal's hand off at the wrist. Joramhal had been clad in black-colored Adamant of his own, but in their duel, it had proven no match for Iron Pride, especially when a Universe Fragment was humming with power in the weapon's hilt.

But he was a thirteenth-tier mage, and he could always regenerate a hand; so Joramhal lunged forward himself, trying to push Leon back, to force his fingers into any gap in Leon's plate that he could find and assault him with as much lightning as his body could channel. Leon halted his push with a burst of power and then drew Iron Pride upward, driving the blade into Joramhal's neck.

The gorget he wore melted away before Iron Pride as it shone with silver-blue lightning, and as the Adamant blade sank into Joramhal's neck, Leon's power raced through his bloodstream. Joramhal didn't scream this time. Instead, he gurgled as blood filled his throat. Strength left his limbs as his body, already tired from their battle, burned from the inside out. He wondered, and not for the first time, whether he should've bowed to Leon after the other man killed Anax Alderion.

He'd been heavily advised to, but in the end, he simply couldn't bend his knee and lower his head to a vulture who tore apart Ramin's domain so soon after his death. He chose to fight, hoping that he could find allies. In the end, he fought alone. Storm crystal, he'd been told. Leon had been trading with neighboring Anakes and Basileis, and all wanted storm crystal more than they wanted to help Joramhal. And now, Joramhal came to his end, an end that he had seen coming for weeks, now.

He felt Leon's magic reach his heart, and his soul realm began to shake. He knew this was the end. The last thought that raced through his mind was regret, for now, his family would be left to whatever mercy Leon might find within himself.

'And all for my pride…' he thought as Leon twisted his blade, parting Joramhal's head from his shoulders. Moments later, Joramhal fell to the plain below, dead. Leon hovered over him, watching the body plummet. The ground was scorched from the force of their duel, the fertile fields outside of Hyabronton, Joramhal's capital in the Nexus, enduring much over the course of their clash. When Joramhal's body hit the ground, it broke a crater into the ash and went still.

He sensed no magic coming from the fallen mage, and as he brought Joramhal's head up, having caught it with his magic power, he tore the man's helmet off and raised the head into the air by Joramhal's hair. He raised Iron Pride in the other hand and looked out across and above the plain. Defending Hyabronton had been three thousand arks, a grand fleet loyal to Joramhal, and one that few Nexus Lords would regard lightly.

Leon, however, had brought almost ten thousand, including the thousands of troops transports ferrying dozens of legions. They had fought their way through Joramhal's Nexus territory to reach this point and finally end the man once and for all. Now, with the Basileus dead, it was time to see what those arks would do. Behind Leon, his forces went wild with his victory. The air shook as they roared in triumph, and Leon would've believed it if the Shadow Queen on the other side of the Nexus could hear them.

Leon turned slowly, showing off the head first to his people, then stopped as he faced Joramhal's fleet, the head still brandished. The fleet's answer came piecemeal as leaders of individual elements made their decisions. Some turned and accelerated away as quickly as they could, but there weren't many. Most lowered themselves over the plains, while what looked like Joramhal's personal fleet—rather than those of his vassals or any Lord blow him—made for the arkpads in Hyabronton.

However, before many of those arks touched down, mages came pouring out and accelerating toward Leon, all dressed in more courtly attire rather than armor. Leon smiled, knowing that this conquest was over. The last of Alderion's supporters was dead, and now he was in complete control over all of Alderion's former territory. The dead Anax's vassals either belonged to him, had been killed, or had been put to flight, forced to abandon their holdings in the Nexus for anywhere else that might be out of Leon's reach.

The only thing that now stopped Leon from being as true an Anax as any other was the simple fact that he was still only thirteenth-tier. He accepted those who now swore themselves to him. He had grander plans outside the Nexus that required his attention…

"… but you could've taken them hostage, at least," Anzu protested as the endless fields of the Ancestor Grassland whirled by beneath them. Leon groaned.

"No. Joramhal is dead; that's enough. His family, so long as they remain retired and out of public life, can keep their property and stay around Hyabronton." Disagreement pulled Anzu's lips downward, but he didn't continue arguing. Eager to turn his attention somewhere else, Leon said, "Didn't you say you were going to start looking for a mate? Someone you could start a bloodline with? How's that going for you?"

Anzu's eyes widened and, his voice trembling just enough for Leon to hear it wavering, said, "Would you look at the time, I need to… check my armor…" Despite wearing his armor and it being quite clearly perfect—Leon having forged and enchanted it himself—Anzu hurried out of the room, leaving Leon alone to smile. He stared out of the projected window and reflected on all that had happened in the past century. After killing Alderion, he'd thought he'd get something of a breather. And to some extent, he had.

Unfortunately, a couple years after his victory at the edge of Drum Desert, Archelaus and Illum separately informed him that Alderion's realm was collapsing into chaos and that he had a 'chance'. Despite his temptation to ignore Alderion's former Lords and let them fight amongst themselves, Clear Day had reframed the entire situation as his 'responsibility' rather than a chance. He'd killed Alderion, and so bringing peace to Alderion's lands was his responsibility.

Given that the chaos was starting to spread to the realms of those who had sworn themselves to him right there at the edge of Drum Desert, he knew that it wasn't just his moral duty but also his Royal duty to see that peace was restored to the Far West. He gave Clear Day, Archelaus, and Illum clear instructions: identify those who were willing to submit to him willingly, and those who would never do so. It took years, but Strategoi, Despots, and even two Basileis bowed to Leon, confirming him as their new Anax.

Even now, with Alderion a century dead, it still felt weird to hear it from their lips. Anax. It felt weirder knowing that his neighboring Lords of equal rank largely accepted the title. He was thirteenth-tier—his magical power having hardly changed in a century—and yet they treated him as an equal. He was just as dangerous an enemy and just as valuable an ally, both made even moreso by the fact that he was the last of the Thunderbird Clan.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. A glimmer above the distant mountains interrupted his thoughts. Storm Herald angled upward slightly, too subtly for a mortal to have noticed but so for Leon. They were going to clear the mountains east of Artorion easily, but he knew Anshu didn't like buzzing those manning the city's perimeter defenses.

Looking down as they passed, it was plain for Leon to see that a destructive war had been fought here a hundred years ago. The wall spanning the top of the mountains had been repaired, reinforced, and made better than it had ever been. The towers, too, had been rebuilt, and their numbers increased. There were even talks about adding a second wall below it, and perhaps a third enclosing the mountains from the base. But for all that this area had been rebuilt, it still bore scars left by Triton.

Craters along the slopes and in the valleys, bits of metal glittering where foliage broke, too small to have been cleaned up, and many of the enormous red trees still lying where they had fallen, their trunks burned and blasted by Lancefire. Despite having the magical ability to, Leon had ordered that these signs of the war remain as they were, to remind everyone of the price paid for their city's continued existence.

More conventional monuments had been raised, but Leon found as much, if not more, meaning in the craters and bones left behind than in marble and silver. As Storm Herald crested the ridge, he lost sight of the outer mountains, but the majesty of Artorion reborn sprawled before him. Larger than ever, there was almost no sign of any damage done in the past. Of course, Triton had only rarely gotten good shots into the city itself, but even that damage was gone, and the city had only grown in the intervening century.

The Ten Tribes had, to Leon's delight, grown more interconnected. The Ji Spiders had come down from the mountains to weave their silk in built lairs, the Lions built arenas all over the city, and the Hawks' longhouses could be seen from one corner of the eastern valley to the other. Icy Raven mansions were built amidst beautiful Tiger, Eagle, and Jaguar estates, while the Bison and Bears shared their fields and the Harts their groves.

And between them all were those who bore no bloodlines, millions of them occupying Leon's shining capital. But Leon had not been content to merely rebuild Artorion and let it grow as it would; he had his own designs for his home that were put into place. Enormous towers had been built, and it was one of these that had caught his eye upon approaching the mountain. They were slender things, like slivers of moonlight stuck in the ground, and power whirled around them in invisible storms.

At their peaks, Leon had installed particularly large star condensers, where they could drink in the light of the Origin Spark and provide tremendous amounts of magical power to the city. As a result, Leon's city was dense with magic, and even if they never trained, the average power of the people in his city was startlingly high. Fifth-tier was practically guaranteed, after which only conscious training would allow a mage to ascend. North of the city was where the real reconstruction work had taken place.

So many people had died that the lower Blue Feather River was dotted every two miles with enormous necropolises. Triton had killed hundreds of millions, and even though some were cremated, most were interred within these titanic structures. They dominated the view from every angle, and their macabre skeletal décor amidst the more traditional, if still stern, dignified, and static depictions of the Thunderbird and the progenitor beasts of the Ten Tribes made it clear what they were.

Cities sprang up in new places along the river, only rarely overlapping with the old cities. Much of the rubble was further demolished, and nature was allowed to reclaim the sites, but even then, when Leon settled people back along the Blue Feather River—some from those without bloodlines back on Aeterna, but most of this new population coming from his conquests out in the planes—they had largely avoided these areas. If he were honest, he couldn't blame them.

No one, except perhaps the Harts, wanted to live atop a pile of corpses.

'… he thought, despite knowing he lives above a pit of actual death,' Leon thought to himself, playful self-deprecation tugging upward at one corner of his mouth. He turned his golden gaze upon Westmount. The floating island had changed little in the past hundred years. His palace was already as large as it needed to be, and he'd largely forbidden new construction upon it.

And yet, Mir on the highest peak had wreathed itself in thicker clouds, ensuring that no one would ever see it, while the deathly mist leaking out of the Aesii to fill the basin that the raising of the nine-peaked mountain created was now obscured thanks to more clouds. Those clouds, however, Leon had summoned, after heavily reinforcing the wall keeping people out of the basin.

After learning of his connection to death, he'd grown more and more self-conscious and worried about people looking below his palace and seeing the byproduct of a river to the afterlife… His eyes continued westward, sliding off of Westmount and to the wilder western half of the ring-shaped Artor Valley. Much like the cities of the Blue Feather River, it was nearly unrecognizable.

The fields weren't any different; Leon still had some of his personal estates in the west growing silkgrass and alchemical ingredients under the eyes of the tree sprites, but there had been no expansion there. Instead, it was the forest that was notably different. Tikos' tree was now impossible to ignore, having outgrown even the largest of the already enormous redwoods that covered the mountains.

Tikos itself had achieved Apotheosis, ascending to its equivalent of eleventh-tier, and its tree had grown rapidly in the decade afterward. The forest around it had grown ever denser, with the oaks that the tree sprites used to make thunder wood blanketing the inner slopes and expanding down into the valley. Only the Hesperidic Apple groves were safe from this expansion.

Along with the expansion in thunder wood groves came a meteoric expansion in tree sprites, with more than a dozen reaching tenth-tier and controlling their own smaller groves, each around another of their titanic trees. The western valley now held tens of thousands of sprites, and when Leon and Tikos last spoke, it had requested a few new private, out-of-the-way valleys to expand into, which Leon had been only too happy to agree to.

Even now, in the middle of the day, the western valley was alight with violent lightning—some of that lightning being used to create more thunder wood, but most of it was just the magic being given off from the oak trees as they turned into thunder wood trees. Further west, Leon could see that the Eagles and giants, both of whom had settled in that southwest region of the long mountain range along the coast, had rebuilt.

The Eagles' cities gleamed in the valleys and along the coast, while the giants, now numbering millions, built huge domes and trapezoidal palaces along the mountain slopes in their own valleys. Thousands of new bodies were sent to their valleys every year, along with veritable mountains of thunder wood amber for them to inhabit, as their population had grown so large that they no longer had a specific time when they reproduced and did so throughout the year.

Leon expected their population to continue to grow more and more quickly. Further north, the damage done by Triton's fleets had been repaired as much as possible, with Leon allowing the locals to get rid of any signs of that century-old violence. Unlike him, most of them wanted to get rid of the craters and ruins and move on with their lives. The fortresses around the Lion's Portal had been rebuilt. Culain was not only restored to its former glory but now exceeded its former limits.

Lancefoot had suffered some damage from Triton's northern fleet, but that damage paled in comparison to the Mountainfall, and its population quickly recovered. Queenfall had come out of Triton's campaign the worst off of all the cities in the Far West that were around before Leon's arrival. Nearly burned down to the foundations and having almost its entire urban population exterminated, it had taken Prince Khosrow no small amount of effort to begin rebuilding.

He'd politely, if firmly, refused Leon's offer to divert some of the settlers he had brought in to Queenfall, and instead incentivized much of the population living in the country or in smaller towns to migrate. As a result, Queenfall still hadn't entirely recovered, with a population only about half as large as it had been, and with notable districts still lying in ruins. But as much as Queenfall was still recovering, it was nothing compared to the Seventh Iron Order, which had been completely wiped out by Triton.

Their castle had been levelled and all the warriors within slaughtered by Triton's northern fleet. What few paltry survivors were left had been folded into Leon's military. The Iron Orders had originally been formed as the Storm Lords returned to the Nexus after its last Reconstitution eighty thousand years ago, and then started bickering over power and who might succeed Jason Keraunos. They'd neglected the west, leading to raids by the Ocean Lords.

With Leon back and taking a greater role in defending the Storm Lands, everyone, including the other Iron Orders, agreed that there wasn't much need to rebuild the Seventh Iron Order. Leon responded by building an enormous monument to their bravery and fortitude using the rubble from their castle and declaring that the land around their resting place was forbidden to be developed. Some places had been rebuilt. Others were still rebuilding. Still others would never rebuild.

Nothing was the same as it had been, but as much as that stung, he knew that enough had been done that reconstruction was over. His fleet and army had been rebuilt larger and stronger than ever. He had the support and fealty of dozens of new Nexus Lords. His position in the Nexus was as unassailable as he could currently make it, though he would never stop trying to make it even more unassailable. He had peace in the Nexus and strong vassals and alliances that would keep that peace.

It was time to finally turn his attention back outward, to the planes. To the Great Strand of Rhea, where the ancient Thunderbird Clan once had holdings, and where some of the home planes of the Ten Tribes were located. It was time to get back to rebuilding the Thunderbird Clan even mightier than it had ever been before the fall of Jason Keraunos.