The Hundred Reigns 263: King of Spiders (5) (Patreon)

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Experimenting with the dracolith yielded interesting results.

While it held a dragon’s soul and likely many others, it didn’t count as ‘alive’ like the Zodiac Fiend crystals and could thus fit in his Inventory. It also held phenomenal quantities of mana Simon could potentially harness to fuel mighty artifacts.

And most importantly, it reacted strangely to pictobox technology.

Slotting it into the machine and printing the results on mana sheets constantly showed a beautiful temple full of cherry blossom trees, where a great, serpentine golden dragon slouched atop a hoard while adored by hundreds of scalefolk and goblinoids. Simon assumed this was the pseudo-afterlife wyrms promised to their devoured followers. He wondered if they were happy. 

Spending eternity worshiping a dragon sounded like a special kind of Hell. 

Experimenting with dracolith pictures taken on miasmic sheets led to some very interesting results, too. Whereas using a normal manalith core usually resulted in demon subjects being captured inside a picture-prison, Simon’s attempt resulted in yet another landscape image of the artificial afterlife; except with a sacrificial imp having now landed in the middle of the congregation. Destroying the sheet didn’t release the demon either, and future pictures showed it being captured by the wyrm’s angry followers. 

A dragon’s soul never let go of anything. 

I wonder how many souls a dracolith can hold, Simon thought as he studied the pictures. His office wall was drowning in them at this point. Would it turn black after absorbing too much miasma from the demons? Can one channel the dragon’s spirit inside somehow? 

This field of study continued to fascinate him. Simon had also experimented with using Valravn’s crystal as a pictobox’s core, which yielded the same results as when he used Lotan’s core in the past reign: pictures of that hellish landscape, with a corrupted vision of the Musan Sniper staring back at him. This suggested that the technology worked the same no matter which Zodiac Fiend powered it, though he couldn’t confirm it without further testing. Asterion’s crystal might yield different results.

If only he could cross over into the miasma pictures. They always shattered whenever he tried to cross over into whatever section of Hell they observed. Truly maddening. 

“You’ve accumulated quite the collection,” Velvet mused upon popping out of the shadows like she always did. She grabbed one of the pictures off the wall as if she owned it. “What’s this?”

“The Musan Sniper,” Simon replied. “Or at least something close to it.”

“And here I thought they were a man with a very big mana cannon. Of course it would be another golem.” 

“Would you believe me if I said the current Crafter is the Mechanical Tower itself, with the Crestone serving as its brain?” 

“That sounds outlandish, but considering you can see the future, I won’t take that bet.” Velvet kept the picture rather than return it to its place, silently daring Simon to take it back. Her brazen attempt to get a reaction out of him amused him more than anything else. “Renal told me you got him four levels in one hour for free.”

“I did.” Odd that she heard it from Renal rather than Silk. Simon recalled that she did keep Velvet in the dark when it came to her betrayal a few reigns back, which spoke volumes about how little she trusted her other half. “Voltobauta received three and your sister only one, since she denied the exp boost I offered the other two.”

“Very generous of you,” Velvet replied with a hint of sarcasm. “What’s your game?”

“I told Silk before, we will inevitably wage dangerous battles in the future and I need stronger allies.” Simon sat behind his desk. “I can offer you the same deal.”

“I am interested,” Velvet admitted. “I’ve been lagging behind my sister when it comes to levels, since an Assassin has fewer opportunities to gain experience than the Rogue.”

“I assumed as much.” Silk could level-up from participating in intrigue, disabling traps, and robbing places, whereas her sister’s Class required her to murder others. “We’ll soon claim another Dungeon of our own in Uyo whose population you can massacre at your leisure, and my spymistress can provide you with a target list.” 

“So you get rid of problematic people while strengthening your little attack dog,” Velvet said, her gaze turning suspicious. “How crafty of you.”

“No one is forcing you to follow through. I’ll be happy to provide an experience boost no matter who you choose to sharpen your claws on.” Simon changed the subject to something more urgent. “Speaking of assassinations… Did you deliver my invitation?”

“I have. The prince all but laughed in my face when I said he could use our escape route to flee an unwinnable situation.” Velvet smiled wickedly. “I like confident men, and I do appreciate him for humiliating Verney in the past, but he’s too full of himself.” 

“Agreed, his overconfidence will be his downfall.” Helped along with a trap, of course.

“I couldn’t help but notice all the explosives your goats carried through the Attic on my return trip.” Velvet’s smirk faded away. “Why did you keep me in the dark? I don’t like being used.”

“Louis is uncannily perceptive. He would have noticed your dishonesty and picked up on our trap. You had to believe the offer was genuine for him not to execute you on the spot.”

“Charming. Should I thank you for your deceit?” Velvet sat on his desk. “Why kill him, though? Valravn sounded convinced we could use him.”

“I won’t make that mistake.” Not again. “My brother is too dangerous to let live, and anyone who thinks they can control him is fooling themselves. He has to go.”

After transferring Patriate’s levels to Odette and delivering him to Chrom Cruak, Simon had entrusted Elaine to Shabram after erasing their encounter from her mind. His spymistress delivered her in turn to Euphemia to serve both as proof of the elven conspiracy, and a bargaining tool to pressure her aunts into obedience. Her missing memories and Patriate’s disappearance aroused the empress’ suspicions, but Shabram skillfully blamed it on the Oracle’s security measures. 

With the Goddess’ Judgment deadline having passed, Euphemia would finally try to arrest Louis with all the forces at her disposal. Simon wouldn’t leave anything to chance this time. He had cut off the prince’s escape routes and set up traps based on his actions during the previous reign. Louis would find no hidden reinforcements nor secret hideout to retreat to. He would have to stand his ground to the bitter end.

“And if he dies without us needing to spring our trap?” Velvet asked. “It would be such a waste to let it go unused.”

“We’re the Prince of Spiders, Velvet.” Simon clasped his hands. “We’ll never run out of enemies to kill.”

—--------------

The operation started on the 2nd of Nivose, two days after the canceled elven attack on Marthrone. 

Simon hid in the center of the Attic surrounded by loyal cattle guards, as his Voyeur Title would put him in a vulnerable torpor. His mind wandered to Shabram and Belzemine, the former he used as an intermediary to see what she did. They had gathered in the throne room with Euphemia, Mastemo, Maublanc, and most of Simon’s siblings except for Norbelle. 

“We are about to begin, Your Majesty,” Shabram warned him telepathically when a certain Warrior entered the throne room with the imperial generals. “Prince Louis has arrived.”

“Proceed as planned, but don’t expose yourself,” Simon warned her. He didn’t want her or Belzemine to perish in the crossfire. “Stick to buffing Euphemia.” 

He watched through her eyes as Euphemia and Louis spoke to each other. The lack of auditory information convinced Simon he ought to learn how to read lips, but Shabram’s telepathic messages translated the situation well enough: the empress accused him of murdering his father with a smuggled elven weapon in front of the court, and then produced the chained Elaine Malphas to prove it. 

Simon remained tense through it all. Although he knew how things should go based on a previous reign, this was a moment of truth where much hung in the balance. His attention focused on Dassein and Lauriane, whose decision on whether or not to intervene would determine if this confrontation ended in either peace or civil war. 

Please don’t choose him, Simon thought as he observed his siblings. He had done his best to sow doubt in their hearts, and Euphemia’s evidence should be airtight. Don’t choose this madman.

Louis mocked Euphemia’s accusations, but then fell silent when she ordered him to allow others to check his Armory for the weapon. Simon saw the horror on his siblings’ faces when Louis denied such scrutiny, even from the likes of Lauriane. One could cut the tension in the air with a knife, with Simon gripping his chair and everyone slightly adjusting their postures. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

Realizing he had been caught in an ambush, Louis opened up hostilities by firing off a Storm of Blades at Euphemia and her allies. The well-prepared Church Party countered by having Mastemo raise a defensive barrier, at which point Euphemia quickly summoned an eidolon. A colossal creature composed of a house-sized worldsphere topped by a mechanical torso with trumpet-feathered wings materialized in the middle of the throne room, before blasting Louis and his followers with window-shattering soundwaves.

Elohim, Universal Ordinator

Level 80 Eidolon of Judgment, Celestial Movements, and Guidance.  

Elemental/Divine

Simon vaguely recognized the entity, having seen it fight Vouivre’s forces in a past reign, but he didn’t know it was one of Euphemia’s own eidolons. He guessed she never summoned it against Helel for fear of losing control of it. 

The throne room quickly devolved into utter chaos. Shabram began to dance to empower Euphemia, Maublanc used his Commander Tactics abilities to prevent Louis from teleporting away, while everyone else began to fling high-Tier spells at each other. Generals Leraje and Andras sided with Louis as the trio charged, but both Dassein and Lauriane were too shocked by Louis’ culpability to take sides in the struggle, leaving the crown-prince outnumbered three-to-one. 

Not that Louis let that stop him. He strode across the throne room in a flash of steel, avoiding the eidolon to go straight for Euphemia in a frightening dash of speed. He swung a mighty claymore in an attempt to strike her with Magic Eraser, only for a bolt of heavenly fire to strike him the moment he began the motion. 

Euphemia issued a Law against Techniques. Clever. She had single-handedly shut down the most dangerous part of the Warrior’s arsenal without crippling her allies’ use of weapons. No other Class can restrict its opponents like the Judge. 

Euphemia’s hammer clashed with Louis’ sword and smashed it to pieces, with the two flying upward towards the ceiling; the Warrior leaping from one newly summoned shield to another with his superior agility while the Judge gave chase on her gilded wings. They exchanged no banter or pleasantries, their faces betraying no emotions. 

This was a fight to the death. 

The rest of the battle was near-utter chaos. Simon relied on his allies’ senses to observe it, and there were so many things to keep track of as high-Tier spells and projectiles flew across the room. He caught glimpses of Thalas clashing blades with General Leraje and Ronah Andras summoning undead spirits to attack Euphemia’s eidolon, which Mastemo swiftly banished, while Dassein carried a shocked Lauriane away from the whole mess. Maublanc himself entered melee with a curved sword to support Thalas, his blows strong enough to split the ground with each strike. 

Simon switched perspectives from Shabram to Belzemine to glean what he could from Euphemia’s battle with Louis, with his elven friend focusing on healing the empress to improve her survival chances rather than go on the offensive. The Warrior was far from powerless without his Techniques, his hands constantly cycling through different weapons he empowered with elemental spells. He charged other weapons with power through some Perk, refining and infusing them with magic, before launching them as projectiles that exploded upon impact with devastating force. Euphemia countered with a mix of Prayer-powered rays of light and her own hammer blows, adjusting her stats with Judge Vows as needed. It was a truly beautiful dance.

One with a clear conclusion. 

While peers in power, Euphemia had the slight edge in experience and strength due to Louis lacking a war to empower himself; an advantage which all of her allies magnified. Shabram’s Performances buffed her stats, Belzemine’s spells healed her wounds as soon as Louis landed a blow, and Maublanc’s Commander Tactics ensured no friendly fire. The Church Party’s spells and attacks simply didn’t harm any of their allies caught in the crossfire. 

The empress eventually smashed Louis in the chest with her hammer so hard he crashed through a wall, bleeding from his brow. The eidolon had already slain Andras, and Thalas and Mastemo would soon do the same with Leraje. 

Simon caught a glimpse of the rare anger on his brother’s face. Belzemine’s gaze caught it all: the frustration at being soundly beaten, the cold realization that his siblings wouldn’t come to his aid this time, and the humiliation at having to swallow his pride to fight another day. Louis fled through the hole Euphemia had bashed him through and into the corridors, with his pursuers hot on his tail. 

“Give pursuit,” Simon ordered his branded allies. “He’s taking the bait.”

“As Your Majesty wishes,” Belzemine replied. She switched her Healer Class to her Pyromancer one to fly after Euphemia, who smashed through walls in her pursuit of Louis. The empress’ expression was as cold as her resolve. The Judge would offer only death to Louis for the crime of patricide. 

The crown-prince proved quicker and reached his quarters’ door first, his hand reaching for it with haste. He was only one second away from survival, as he had been in the previous reign. 

His hand turned the doorknob with a clicking noise, and triggered the trap.

Louis’ quarters were directly connected to the Attic, which had allowed Simon’s followers to smuggle alchemical explosives inside the moment the prince left for the audience before closing the portal behind them. 

All of them triggered the moment he opened the door and blew up in his face. 

A cataclysmic blast of flames and acid swallowed Louis whole, melting the skin off his flesh and bones, incinerating his clothes, and causing his Warrior Class outfit to fizzle out. The blast devastated his quarters and threw him back at his pursuers. 

Such are the wages of treachery, brother, Simon thought with no small amount of satisfaction once Euphemia and Belzemine caught up to Louis. You should have stayed in your place. 

He only caught a brief, near-instantaneous flash of what followed through Belzemine’s eyes. He saw a disfigured Louis look up at Euphemia, his face now a twisted, hateful glare of molten flesh. He swiftly switched his disabled Warrior outfit for his Hellblade one and raised a sword in one last attempt to fight back, but his wounds proved too crippling. 

Euphemia smashed his head into the floor with a blow so strong it shattered the ground, and his skull along with it. 

Simon knew it had killed Louis from the rush of experience coursing through him; not for slaying Louis himself, but for engineering his murder from afar the same way he had once tricked Vouivre to murder Thalas. It was a small contribution compared to all of his other machinations, yet enough to push him over to the next level.

Level 81 Overlord Perk: Warmonger IX (Passive): Your evil can wound even the gods. Your attacks with weapons inflict Godslayer damage against Divine Type targets.

He’s dead. Simon’s heart pounded with a mix of joy and utter disbelief. Louis is dead. He’s finally dead!

After so many reigns, so many disasters caused by his interference, and so many last-minute escapes, his maniac of an elder brother had bitten the dust at long last. His Class outfit faded off his corpse, his brain matter and blood flowing through the cracks in Frightwall’s floor. 

It was such an entrancing picture, such a rare and fleeting moment in the history of time, that Simon missed the swords for a moment. 

As it turned out, the Warrior’s Armory worked very much like the Merchant’s Inventory. A lifetime of accumulated weapons materialized out of Louis’ corpse in a rising tide of metal. Spears, shields, swords—including the one that slew Balzam Magnos—and countless other legendary items appeared. 

And among them were live bombs.

Louis had taken a leaf out of Simon’s book and stored a deadman’s switch of his own in his Armory; unstable elemental manaliths, lit alchemical fire bottles, and ticking explosive devices flowed out, each about to detonate.

“Belzemine, retreat!” Simon telepathically ordered his friend. “Re–”

He saw light, and then his eyes burned. 

The mother of all headaches seized Simon and jolted him back to his body, causing him to nearly fall out of his seat. 

“Rancher-Shepherd!” His mephisgoats rushed to him in concern. “Rancher-Shepherd, are you well?”

“I… I am…” Simon rasped back. His telepathic and mental contact with Belzemine had been brutally severed, which didn’t bode well at all. “Belzemine? Belzemine, can you hear me?”

No answer. Not even a Devil Brand feedback.

No… no, no, no… Simon turned his attention to Shabram. “Can you hear me?”

Shabram’s brands were still active, but she wouldn’t respond to his telepathic inquiries. She must have been knocked unconscious. Simon immediately grabbed his Attic puzzle box to check and swiftly confirmed his suspicions.

An entire wing’s worth of doors hidden in Frightwall had vanished from the maze. 

—-----------

It would take two days for Simon’s agents to fully gather everything that had unfolded, and for Shabram to recover enough to give a report.  

Louis’ final act of spite had blown up an entire wing of Frightwall, killing dozens of servants and guards while injuring a hundred more. The smoke could be seen from Marthrone’s shores and informed everyone in the city that a brutal battle for supremacy had unfolded. 

One that cost many lives. 

Belzemine was a high-level Pyromancer immune to Fire, but Louis’ Armory unleashed more than conventional explosives. His unstable elemental manaliths carried lightning, ice, poison… everything a one-man army could need to deal with any kind of opposition. Euphemia had survived the same way she survived the much stronger Goddess’ Judgment, but Belzemine had perished either from the blast itself or falling debris. Shabram herself had sustained heavy wounds, and only narrowly survived thanks to Mastemo’s healing. 

But he was dead. Louis, leader of the War Party and one of Simon’s most vicious foes, was dead.

There was no doubt about it. What remained of his corpse had been magically identified, his two Crestones and weapons recovered. The Warrior’s luck had finally run out through careful planning, and he would trouble Simon no more this reign. 

At what cost? Simon wondered. Belzemine’s death was a loss, not only because Simon cared about her, but because of how important she was to peace with Illusea. He had no idea whether or not the Oracle would agree to a treaty with Endymion without her. Will Louis’ death still convince her to negotiate? Or will Belzemine’s loss infuriate her enough to renew hostilities? 

Simon couldn’t tell. He was in completely unknown territory at the moment. Louis had been such a constant presence and threat throughout the reigns that his disappearance would divert the river of time one way or another. 

Next time. Next time, I’ll trap him in the Attic and then blow him up inside it. Simon would engineer the perfect assassination one iteration at a time. Every reign makes it a little closer…

“The White Unicorn is watching carefully, Your Majesty,” Lord Albert said when Simon summoned him to give a report on activities on the ground. The man’s cover remained airtight for now. “Her Grace is in control of the capital, but many worry what her stepchildren will do now that Prince Louis is dead… some say we should exploit the chaos to retake Magvolia before the empress can consolidate her authority; others say we should wait. There’s no consensus for now.”

“I see,” Simon replied. He hadn’t considered how Lauriane and Dassein would react to Louis’ demise either, especially the former. They could get behind arresting him, but his death might have been too much for them to accept in spite of his crimes. “Keep an ear on the ground for now.”

Simon could only be certain of one thing: with Endymion temporarily weakened and Louis no longer a concern, Euphemia would soon turn her eye to Telluria to assert her authority. Vouivre was sure to make a move, only to find herself vulnerable when confronted with the empire’s full might. She would probably find herself in a listening mood once cornered. 

It was time to bring the dragons into the fold at last.

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