The Hundred Reigns 277: King of Spiders (19) (Patreon)

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Bert had always expected his ‘father’ would come to destroy him one day, and had prepared accordingly. 

His manor’s walls were reinforced to withstand mana cannon fire, and hid automated defenses like turrets ready to deploy to defend the property. Simon sensed them activating through his link with his Dungeon, and he quickly used his Lord of the Demon Castle Perk to peer through its walls at the outside.

He gazed upon the garden with window-eyes to find it trampled under mechanical feet. 

The Musan Sniper had demolished the metal fence surrounding the property and exchanged fire with the turrets, while a cadre of golems followed in its wake. That alone would have been cause for alarm, but this force was only one of many. Simon swiftly spotted a group of soldiers with manalith rifles exchanging fire with a small regiment of toy soldiers from the south, a second before Alphonse of Lore charged alongside them and tore the automatons apart at blinding speed. 

Meanwhile, elven mages bombarded the manor from afar alongside a cadre of Musan bombardiers. One of their fireball spells hit the roof with enough force to blast the uppermost floor to rubble. 

“What’s happening?!” Renal inquired the moment Simon woke up back in his body. 

“We’re under siege,” he replied with frustration. He had expected a counterattack of some kind after the tower’s destruction, but not so soon nor so fiercely. The Oracle clearly hadn’t taken the Crafter Crestone’s theft well. “The White Unicorn and the Musan government have allied against us with support from Illusea.” 

Many angry eyes turned in Voltobauta’s direction, with Borsh outright grabbing him by the cloak. “Traitor!” the werewolf snarled. “You’ve led them right to our doorstep!”

“Back off, hound!” Voltobauta repelled Borsh with a Chaos Wave that threw him across the ballroom. “It wasn’t me!”

Simon didn’t think so either. If Voltobauta had any qualms of conscience, he would have likely betrayed them before the attack on the Mechanical Tower to prevent him from stealing the Crafter’s Crestone in the first place. It was more likely that intel about the Bert Trading Company’s dealings with the Godmind made its way to the Oracle. 

Alphonse’s presence among the attackers also suggested a certain possibility Simon didn’t particularly want to face, and that which might threaten his escape plan…

Elsa had picked up on it too. “It’s her,” she informed him through telepathy so the others wouldn’t hear it. “Your bird flipped.”

“Or they forced her to talk,” Simon replied, mostly because he didn’t want to face the alternative. The White Unicorn’s oath might have revealed her true affiliations to her teammates the same way his burgeoning friendship with Alphonse once led to their shared downfall in a past reign. “I have to confirm it. If she turned… if she turned, there will be consequences.”

“Now is not the time to fight among ourselves,” Shabram argued. “We must worry about our foes outside.”

“How many enemies?” Chrom Cruak asked Simon with professional detachment.

“Hundreds, maybe more,” Simon replied. “I will slow down their advance.”

Simon called upon his Unquestionable Ruler Perk and telepathically triggered the manor’s defenses. Non-Attic doors shut closed, slumbering automatons were jolted awake with orders to defend the place, and an impenetrable fog arose out of nowhere to swallow the garden. The mists enveloped the manor in a thick blanket, seeping over the windows and entrances to obscure those access points too. This protection wouldn’t stop the bombardment, but it would prevent the likes of Alphonse and other ground forces from entering the manor on foot and slow them down. 

“The feast is cancelled,” Simon informed his allies. He gave a telepathic order to his cattle warriors to grab anything that wasn’t nailed down and flee. “We will evacuate through the Attic, using the routes leading to our safehouses in Fablan or Endymion.”

“My manor has a self-destruct system,” Bert pointed out. “We can bury them along with all the evidence.”

“Yes, that would be the most elegant way to resolve this,” Simon conceded. He was half-tempted to cast an Edict and wipe out all of his pursuers, but it would also devastate the region and kill countless innocents. 

Simon had already destroyed Muse once. He would rather not make it a bad habit. 

Chrom Cruak showed some reluctance. “We should stand our ground and wipe them out… I can deal with the mages.”

So eager to taste elven blood? “If you want a fight, then come with me,” Simon said. “Our group will go through the Rosanne pathway. There’s a strong chance that this particular passage might be compromised.”

Voltobauta’s head perked up, his eyes widening in alarm. “I will come with you.”

Simon hesitated for a moment, before nodding sharply. While he didn’t believe him to be behind this attack, he would rather keep him in his sights; and he might somehow be able to talk things through with a certain Adventurer. 

And if his loyalty proved fickle, then Simon would be better off eliminating him the moment he confirmed his treachery. 

“Then it’s settled,” Elsa said. “The undead can go with our Prince of Spiders while the rest of us take alternate routes.” Then she added through telepathy. “I’ll stay in his shadow.”

Cunning little Rogue. “You know what to do if he proves unfaithful.”

His allies separated after that, with Elsa slipping into Voltobauta’s shadow after pretending to leave him to fool everyone else and Shabram guiding the others through another set of pathways. Simon had continued Valravn’s policy of limiting knowledge of Attic routes on a need-to-know basis, so any compromised Weaver wouldn’t have full knowledge of entire maze. 

Simon teleported alongside Chrom and Voltobauta to his office, then opened the Attic door to move towards their safehouse in Rosanne. They walked through empty corridors, with a simple unanswered telepathic message to his demotaur guards on the other side confirming most of Simon’s worries. 

“My lookouts have likely been petrified to prevent them from warning me,” Simon warned his allies once they reached the doorstep to the outside. Lauriane had used a similar method to prevent his imps from sounding the alarm once. “They’re likely waiting on the other side.”

“I will go first,” Voltobauta said as he put on his Necromancer outfit. “If it’s her, she might hesitate to shoot.”

“Suit yourself,” Simon replied as he summoned his armor and Deathmace before shrouding himself with a Nightveil. Chrom Cruak had summoned a small metal box in one hand and a curved, burning glaive in the other. The demonic runes on the latter’s blade shone with miasmic power. At least I might get a chance to see how he fights up close. 

The Necromancer opened a door into the back of the Rosanne shop where everything began, and found two familiar faces waiting for them on the other side. 

“So it was true. You did sell out to the Overlord.” Simon had never seen Alcyone Hyades look so pissed before. The dark glare full of anger she sent to Voltobauta from over the counter was almost intimidating in its intensity. “To think I defended you so many times...”

The ‘butcher shop’ front safehouse was so small that only a counter separated Simon’s group from her, with another figure standing beside her; a winged kish whose own expression was torn between guilt and resolve. 

I knew it, Simon lamented as he issued telepathic orders to his remaining demotaurs. “The Tellurian and Rosanne-related pathways are compromised. Condemn them immediately.”

“I didn’t betray you,” Voltobauta replied with greater calm than Simon would expect from someone in his situation. He must have foreseen that this confrontation was inevitable. “He already knew everything from the moment we met.”

“Right, so then you had no choice but to help him launch the biggest terrorist attack in Muse’s history and steal the Crafter Crestone while at it.” Alcyone shook her head in disgust, her hand gripping her copy of the Mana Sword. “I thought you were a better man than that, but you’re just another pirate in the end.”

“I make no apologies for what I am,” Voltobauta replied with a shrug. “Besides, I did come to you first. You knew that tower was alive when it built your airship for you, yet you wouldn’t believe me when I told you about the puppets.”

“Because it is pure nonsense.”

Simon scowled in irritation. Carlo of Muse had been excellent at covering up his crimes, especially with his government’s support. Why did people like him always get the benefit of the doubt while would-be heroes always pursued him with zeal?

“It was true. I saw it with my own eyes.” Voltobauta sneered. “Frankly, it’s annoying that thing was even allowed to operate for so long. The law never gave me that much leeway.”

“Assuming you speak true, there were still dozens of better alternatives than blowing up Muse’s industrial center and surrendering its Noble Class to the goddamn Overlord.” Alcyone scowled so hard it strained her cheeks. “Don’t tell me you think letting the Overlord keep the Crafter Crestone will end in anything other than disaster?” 

“This is a waste of time,” Chrom Cruak said as he took a step forward to kill the Adventurer on the spot, but Simon stopped him with a raised hand. He had his own case to plead. 

“I’m very, very disappointed in you, Eole,” Simon admitted. He loved her enough to wait for an explanation, but his heart already ached at the betrayal. “You swore you wouldn’t oppose me, yet you revealed the existence of this pathway to my enemies.”

Eole at least had the grace to look him in the eyes. “I meant it back then. I didn’t want to renege on my word, and I kept your secrets…” She shook her head. “But when I saw the tower tumbling down, after that awful plague… I realized I couldn’t look the other way. Not even for you.”

“The plague?” Simon frowned behind his Nightveil, his hands clenching at the implications. “The Fleshplague wasn’t my doing.”

“Don’t play innocent, Magnos!” Alcyone snapped at him, having guessed his identity in spite of his protection. “We know you’ve faked your sister’s death and allowed her to refine her weapon!” 

What kind of nonsense was that? How did they figure out he had saved Lauriane? Had the Oracle guessed she had survived under his protection after he put her under Anathemic Secrecy, and then drawn the conclusion that the entire plague was somehow one of his plots? 

“We intend to have her craft a cure for the Fleshplague,” Simon argued, ignoring the look Voltobauta sent him. He had done his best to hide Lauriane’s survival from the rest of his organization. “I have no interest in spreading a worldwide pandemic.”

“Really?” Alcyone raised her sword at him. “Then how do you explain the new strain then?!”

The… the new strain? 

Simon heard a dismissive scoff coming from behind him, deep and wheezing like a dying man’s last rattle. He peeked over his shoulder at Chrom Cruak, whose gaze glimmered with something far, far more terrible than his malice. 

Satisfaction. 

“What have you done?” Simon muttered. 

“I turned your lady sister’s hammer into a scalpel…” Chrom Cruak was too humorless to laugh, but each and every word oozed with cold and cruel delight. “The Elven Tribe will suffer as I suffered.”

Realizing something was terribly wrong, Simon summoned a teleportation gem from his Inventory and attempted to teleport his allies to a secure location where he could interrogate Chrom Cruak at his leisure, but he immediately sensed a tension in the flow of mana. Space warped around him as a familiar trap threatened to close its jaws on them. 

Timebox activated. You are being seal—

Chrom Cruak pressed a button on his metal box, unleashing a counterpulse that disrupted the System message before it could run its course. Space snapped back into place, cancelling both the emergency teleport and the sealing attempt. The ripple in the fabric of reality shattered most of the walls around them and threw Eole back against one. 

Alcyone weathered the assault and attempted to teleport away, likely to summon reinforcements, only for her blood to stain the butcher shop’s floor. Elsa’s blade had proved quicker than her Party System, surging out of the Adventurer’s shadow and swiftly beheading her in a single, vicious stroke. Assassination-focused Perks, backed by buffs and Simon’s strength-enhancing choker, pierced through all of Alcyone’s defense and instantly slew her on the spot.

“No!” Voltobauta screamed in anguish as he caught Alcyone’s falling head in his hands, far too late even for his powers to do anything. 

Simon himself could only watch in disbelief. Besides the fact that he actually liked Alcyone, he had seen her escape countless close calls in the past. She had managed to evade even Louis, but one clean strike from Elsa had taken her out before she could even react.

The Rogue was every Adventurer’s bane.

Simon sensed a surge of mana nearby. Quickly guessing what was about to follow, Simon used Darkflight to fly forward, grab Elsa and Eole, and then burst through the shop’s front door in an instant. No sooner did he do so that the entire building exploded and collapsed on itself—alongside much of the surrounding houses—as a Comet spell hit it. 

Simon shielded his allies from the shrapnel as they landed on the docks, and found much of them cordoned off by adventurers of the Monoceros Guild. Mages and archers—which included both Frea and Mel—opened fire at them with a deluge of spells and arrows.

Simon quickly opened his Inventory and summoned four of his stored shield-golems, which immediately protected him and his allies from the bombardment. Most of the Monoceros Guild’s members were simply too weak to leave a dent in his automatons, but Frea channeled a blue-white ray of frost magic straight from her staff that instantly turned two of his defenders into snowmen. 

That’s a new one. Tier VIII at least. Simon cursed under his breath. Heroic Destiny must have pushed Frea past a new spellcasting threshold. 

“Eole, don’t you see that you’ve been had?” Simon asked his former friend. “They would have killed you along with us!” 

Eole bit her lip. “I volunteered.”

Simon’s blood turned to ice, at which point he realized his words would fall on deaf ears. “Why?!”

“Anaximander and the others in my home were the first to turn.” Eole glared at him with tears in her eyes, and beneath her rage, there was grief. “The wind carried your poison straight to Boreas.” 

Anaximander? A chill traveled down Simon’s spine as he finally realized what Chrom Cruak had done. He cast Gold Petrify on Eole to better transport her for interrogation later. 

“You should have killed her,” Elsa said coldly, and from a utilitarian perspective, she was probably right. “A traitor deserves death.” 

“I would usually agree,” Simon said as he glared at the pile of dust that used to house their base in Rosanne. “But in this case, I fear there may be external circumstances.”

And the likely reason burst out of the safehouse’s ruins. 

Chrom Cruak flew out of the rubble with metal wings growing out of his back, and swiftly pointed his glaive at the mages. Unlike Simon, he showed them no mercy and channeled magic through his weapon in the form of a terrible spell. A ghostly wail erupted from his blade in the form of a sonic wave that snuffed out the lives of nearly all of those who heard it. Everyone except for Frea and Mel fell dead on the ground in an instant. 

Chrom Cruak then followed through with his attack by using a similar Technique to the late Alfador, throwing his glaive like a javelin straight at Frea at lightning speed. Even Mel wasn’t fast enough to get her friend out of the way in time. 

Both vanished before the glaive could hit. 

They reappeared a few feet away, with a third person in tow; an elf so ancient his ageless face showed slight wrinkles, with a thick white mane and beard covering most of his visage. Although he dressed in ample, plain white robes and bore little more than a simple crown of laurels upon his head, he exuded a certain aura of calmness and overwhelming power.

Moreover, he eerily matched the description of the elven archmage Louis had confronted in Valne. 

“Myrddin…” Chrom Cruak’s tone oozed pure resentment. “You court death facing me.”

“You cannot defeat me, Chrom, no more than you could back then,” the mage replied with absolute disdain, lightning gathering in his hands. “Lady Lysandra should have destroyed you when she had the chance.”

“Yes… yes, she should have.” Chrom Cruak called the glaive back to his hand. “Look behind you… my curse.”

The elven archmage, Myrddin, actually turned around as Mel screamed. Frea held her chest and vomited blood, her flesh melting like wax in front of her powerless ally. 

The sonic attack from earlier, Simon realized in horror. Chrom Cruak had coated his weapon with a mutagen before channeling his spell through it, causing Frea and Mel to accidentally inhale dangerous fumes. No… not a mutagen. 

No mutagen was airborne, nor affecting only elves without touching humans. 

“Panacea!” a horrified Myrddin swiftly cast on Frea in a vain attempt to save her, but it was already too late. The pathogen had already taken root.

“A living death upon you…” Chrom Cruak taunted them. “Upon you all!”

Frea screamed as her body twisted upon itself, as a modified strain of Lauriane’s own creation warped her flesh.

And the world wept, for Chrom Cruak’s revenge would shake it to its foundations.

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