Chapter 821 – Encirclement (Patreon)

Percy and his allies had more or less expected their enemies’ numbers.

It was no secret that the Great Houses had spent the past decade and a half rallying almost every single noble family on Remior against the Alchemists’ Guild. The sizes of most Houses were public knowledge, and it wasn’t like their numbers could have changed that much in so few years.

Still, it was one thing to talk about the enemy army, and another thing entirely to witness an ocean of powerful mages that stretched as far as the eye could see march toward the Fungal Spire with the intention of destroying everything Percy held dear.

By his estimates, there were about a hundred and twenty thousand Greens, close to five thousand Blues, just over a thousand Violets, and exactly six Whites. There was nobody at Yellow or lower, as they would have only held the stronger fighters back.

The six Great Houses had divided their forces into separate sections. Each was positioned beneath a different banner, with the smaller families forming orderly divisions around their new masters. The Divine Root occupied the centre, while Houses Asclepius and Ypnos advanced along its flanks. Drachma, Laurion, and Amphitrite were spread farther out, their armies gradually curving around the mountain in both directions.

They weren’t merely approaching the Fungal Spire. They were surrounding it.

More frightening than the sheer size of the encroaching army was the way the presence of the enemy mages distorted the very air around them. Each noble’s body was alight with the glow of their element – some were shrouded with azure bubbles, others burned with orange flames, while still more trailed cyan ribbons, wore films of electricity, were caked in thin layers of dirt, or walked amid green gales of wind.

There were even a few individuals scattered among their ranks who wielded rarer and more familiar affinities, like the soldiers encased in ice and surrounded by magical snowstorms, or those whose mana coalesced into silver wisps that danced erratically around them.

Every single mage was using the full Dance of the Savage Gods.

Percy watched with fascination as the colourful motes falling from the giant mushrooms flowed outwards and got devoured by the approaching army, as though the ocean of ambient mana were draining into a ring of bottomless wells. The clouds above the nobles swirled and split under the joint influence of their boosting arts, forming giant maelstroms in the sky. The only clear spot was the area directly above the mountain itself, causing the sunlight to bathe the shrinking island of safety like a golden pillar on the verge of being swallowed by darkness.

Even from several kilometres away, Percy could hear the deep rumble of tens of thousands of footsteps. The sound merged with the distant howling of wind, the crackling of lightning, and the crashing of magically manifested water until the approaching army resembled a natural disaster more than a gathering of humans.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to help?” Archibald asked, standing next to Percy at the top level of the Fungal Spire.

The other leaders were nearby as well, though they didn’t react to the spectacle in quite the same way.

Periphetes – the patriarch of House Etna – kept turning the enchanted rings on his fingers, causing the jewellery covering his body to clink softly whenever his hands moved. Fyn’s ruby-coloured fingernails dug into his giant palms, causing equally massive globules of blood to trickle down his knuckles and forcing the normal-sized people by his feet to shield themselves with mana or willpower. Orin and the other Guild elders stood in grim silence along with the rest of the alliance’s Violets, their eyes fixed on the encroaching army.

“What would be the point?” Percy asked with a sigh.

There were plenty of powerful mages on his side, and they weren’t children – they knew well enough what they would be getting into. Percy wouldn’t have hesitated to involve even his grandfather and cousin if he’d thought that they could make a difference.

The problem was that the Great Houses had amassed enough power to give even a weaker deity pause.

Well… that was merely in theory, of course. While each promotion typically tripled a person’s strength, it was safer to assume that it would take five mages to compete with an opponent a grade higher due to inefficiencies in their teamwork and other such issues. In practice, even that shorthand calculation broke down when the gap was too wide. No number of Greens and Blues would ever put a scratch on a god, even if they technically wielded more total mana and fought together as well as they could.

Regardless, even if Machaon’s army wasn’t quite capable of besieging a Concept mage effectively, they could certainly rival the combined strength of a quarter of the Order’s demigods if the Green-borns didn’t activate any boosting arts of their own. No matter how Percy sliced it, this battle would be decided solely by his wasps and the enemy nobles.

“Keep everyone inside the settlement,” Percy commanded, infusing his willpower into his voice to ensure the entire Guild heard him. “If anything goes horribly wrong and I end up captured or killed, just surrender. Their main goal is to eliminate me and take back the hive, so I don’t think they’ll massacre everyone else.”

Through his Saint’s Sea, Percy saw a few of the allied mages shift nervously and whisper in each other’s ears back on the cobblestone streets of the settlement. Clearly, they didn’t think that his “offensive formation” – or whatever lie Nesha had fed them – would be enough to defeat the massive army. But he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, those people should be glad that he was planning to leave them out of the fight and finish everything by himself.

“Be careful out there,” Nesha warned as she hugged him tightly.

Percy wrapped his arms around her, feeling her fingers bunch the fabric of his robes against his back. Her body was trembling ever so slightly, so he gently caressed her hair to calm her down.

“It’s a bit funny if you think about it. We’re about to end this right where it first began – albeit a few levels higher up the mountain,” he muttered. His light-hearted comment clearly had the desired effect because the corners of her lips curled up slightly, though she said nothing as she took in his warmth.

“Don’t let them catch you,” Elaine added. “If it looks like you’re going to lose, just escape with Micky and Nephthys. You’ve already proven that you can protect yourself from anyone and everyone, and you can always establish a new hive as long as you have a Ruby Queen by your side. Don’t do anything foolish for our sake.”

Fyn opened his mouth, probably preparing to object, but Archibald raised an arm to stop him. Periphetes gave Percy a long look before nodding reluctantly, while the Guild elders and the rest of the patriarchs exchanged a few quiet words among themselves. It was clear that nobody liked leaving everything up to Percy and the wasps, but they understood that joining the battle would accomplish little beyond giving him more people to protect. Percy had done them the courtesy of revealing his third core and explaining his plan a few minutes earlier, so everyone was slightly calmer than they would have otherwise been.

That said, Micky was the only one who seemed to face the approaching army with as much confidence – and even eagerness – as Percy.

Percy nodded in response to his cousin’s advice, though he had no intention of leaving nor delaying the battle any longer. Machaon and the lowlifes who had joined him had kept messing with his plans and projects for decades. It was time to end this stupid war once and for all.

Before he had the chance to move, the enemy patriarchs split off from their army to fly closer to the top of the mountain. They stopped in the air a few kilometres away from Percy and watched him and his allies carefully.

Theseus, the burly leader of the Divine Root, flew at the centre of the group, the transparent markings covering his exposed skin occasionally warping the light around him as gravity mana passed through them. Morpheus, the patriarch of House Ypnos, hovered at his right, his lanky frame draped in simple black robes while azure bubbles seeped into and out of his skin.

The three Whites whom Percy had never met were positioned on the other side. Pheidon, the leader of House Drachma, was a narrow-faced man wearing immaculate white robes, a pale coin making crisp sounds as it rolled across his ice-coated knuckles. Argyros of House Laurion was shrouded in opaque steam from head to toe, making Percy wonder whether he was even wearing clothes beneath his mana. Finally, Nauplius of House Amphitrite floated inside a rotating sphere of mud, his long, blue-green hair drifting around his head as though he were standing at the bottom of the ocean.

Meanwhile, Lord Asclepius – the instigator of this entire conflict – was smugly flying ahead of the rest like a human-shaped comet of purple plasma.

Percy returned their cold gazes with a defiant one of his own, his eyes lingering on Machaon’s deformed mug. The bastard looked about as ugly as a person could be, with his scarred skin stretched and plastered over his skull and lips fused to his gums.

The enemy patriarchs probably didn’t know that Percy had grown strong enough to take all six of them on, because he had hidden the glow on his forehead under his hood and dialled the flow of his mind affinity down once more, while the Huehuan had taken similar precautions to conceal his gravity core. However, nobody seemed to be in a rush to attack.

Percy’s strongest allies were still by his side, and everyone understood that their battle wouldn’t be decided before their forces reached them, so the winning side would inevitably be the one with the biggest army.

Machaon looked like he wanted to say something, but Theseus spoke first using the same trick as Percy.

“It’s over. I commend you all for keeping us on our toes for so many years, but we assembled the greater force in the end,” he stated loudly but calmly, making sure that both his own subordinates and the people in the settlement heard him. “If you surrender now, only the Guild’s six elders and the patriarchs of your Houses will die today. Everyone else will be allowed to return to their territories while suffering minimal economic penalties, provided that Percy releases you from the spectral contracts binding you to his cause.”

The declaration elicited some movement from the settlement below, but Theseus continued before anyone could respond. “Percy will be allowed to live for exactly ten more years under our close supervision. During that time, he will peacefully transfer ownership of the Fungal Spire to the original Starry Princess and give up his knowledge and assets to the rest of Remior.”

Percy felt Nephthys’ and Micky’s anger flare through their connections, though he wasn’t as bothered by the patriarch’s ridiculous demands.

“Finally, he will be required to sire several hundred children to maximize the chances of preserving his bloodline. That way, we can minimize our planet’s losses and satisfy the gods without allowing a single family to monopolize his legacy. Unfortunately, Percy himself is too dangerous to leave alive forever, so he will still be executed once the decade passes,” Theseus concluded in grim condescension, sounding almost certain that they would accept his shitty terms.

“Will you be supplying my consorts?” Percy asked while failing to suppress a chuckle.

The unexpected question caused Morpheus to raise an eyebrow. Pheidon’s coin stopped between his knuckles while Nauplius appeared positively delighted.

“We can if you want us to,” Theseus casually responded with a smile of his own. “I’m sure that there are countless women who would kill for a chance to bear a child with your bloodline, but we can help you identify the most suitable mothers depending on whether you would prefer to stick with soul affinity users or experiment with other elements and bloodlines.”

Percy’s grin turned feral. “Why don’t you all go fuck yourselves?”

The whole province shook as countless black pillars erupted from the steep slopes of the Fungal Spire, the undersides of the giant mushrooms, and thousands of concealed holes scattered throughout the surrounding fields.

Millions of furious wasps ranging from human-sized Starry Soldiers to house-sized Starry Commanders poured into the sky, their beating wings transforming the air into a deafening storm as their towering carapaces blotted out the sun.