Chapter 2 - Part 4 of 5 (Patreon)

“If every leader in the First Realm doesn’t know about the mana wave coming from the Beast Mountain Range by now, they must have no friends or be on the other side of the planet,” Elan said.

Erik felt his entire body tense, hot blood pumping through his chest.

“Have they taken action?”

“We haven’t seen anything on the surface. Secret meetings have been going on. People are talking to one another. We need to come up with an excuse and quick,” Elan said.

“Aditya wants to change how people are looking at this. This is an opportunity to use the Consortium. Use it as a way to get the interested parties to fight one another and not fight the people of the Beast Mountain Range,” Elise quickly interjected. “We need to get ahead of this.”

Erik nodded, his head still resting on his hand as his eyes flicked to Glosil.

“All units have been activated and are on high alert. All reserve force members have been placed on notice.”

“If we need to evacuate everyone from the mountain range?” Rugrat asked.

“We can evacuate them within fourteen hours, less if we move more people out now,” Delilah sighed and looked at Elise.

“Most of the people in the mountain range that are ours are traders. If we were to get them to evacuate then the whole economy would collapse. People would panic. We’d kill the Beast Mountain Range,” Elise said.

“We’ll only do it if there is no other option,” Erik said.

He took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. His eyes fell on Blaze.

We’re already fighting one war across the realms, we don’t  need to deal with one on our doorstep!

“For now we cover it up, increase the trade, increase the number of mercenaries allowed into the area. Send out patrols to ‘discover’ what happened. What am I not thinking of?”

“We should keep the outpost leaders in the dark. It will make sure that people don’t see through them. Have the Consortium step up.We need them to show their power.Have more people join the school with powerful backgrounds. I know some people in the First Realm whose children would increase the school’s popularity.”

“If the Trader’s Guild puts out a message that joining the school will be harder than becoming a nation’s King,” Elise gave a shadow of a smile.

“We can send more Adventurer’s Guild members, have them back up what Aditya and his people are saying,” Blaze said.

“We will need something for them to discover,” Yui said. “It needs to be something that will be enough to interest them, but not crave it so much that they are willing to take it at any costs. This is still the Ten Realms.”

“Okay, what can we do?” Erik asked.

Delilah tapped her finger on the desk, thinking. “Release some of the weaker beasts that we have raised into the surrounding area without contracts. That way other forces will think about the losses they will take if they want to exploit the range. It will improve the strength of the Beast Mountain Range people. Then second, release a small dungeon. This will gain interest, but admittance is low. So even if one power was to take it over, while they would get some benefits it wouldn’t be massive.”

She looked to the people in the room.

Erik nodded, the plan was a risky one, but it gave just enough benefits and hindrances that it should work.

“When we tap that ley line there is no knowing what the hell is going to happen,” Rugrat said.

“Does anyone have any ideas?” Erik looked around.

Jia Feng raised her hand.

“Go on.”

“Prepare a story now for the people in the Beast Mountain Range. Have the formation masters work on creating mana focusing formations. There are mana storing formations on every level of the dungeon, we need to repair them, put in Earth or Sky Mana cornerstones if we can. They should weaken the blast. The dungeon was created for this a few hundred years ago. We need to expand as fast as possible. The dungeon cores are growing faster than before, increase the dungeon floors, upgrade them. I can direct all of the schools to help, Alva school will do the practical, the other schools the theoretical. With everyone working on the problem I don’t think we can’t solve it.”

“This is Alva after all, we don’t need to do everything ourselves,” Rugrat grinned.

“We also need to look at every possibility,” Delilah looked from Rugrat to Glosil. “Commander Glosil, what would happen if a group was to attack the Beast Mountain Range?”

“Depends on the attack. Primary standing orders are to work with our Intelligence Department to know before whatever attacks happens. We will use anything in our power to make the journey from their places of residence to the Beast Mountain Range as unpleasant as possible using non-Alvan weaponry and personnel, unless cleared.”

“Once they reach the Beast Mountain Range we can insert our people into the Beast Mountain Range Military to aid them and bolster their numbers. With the Adventurer’s Guild we can increase our fighting force’s power again. Then we clash with the enemy. If things are going badly, we must decide whether we want to devote more of our personnel or we collect all of our people and have them pull back to Alva and seal the entrances to the First Realm.” Glosil took a deep breath. “I must warn you that if we devote too much of our force, or we resort to our true weapons of war and tactics, then we could be revealed to not only the First Realm, but the rest of the Realms. Others have seen us use mortars, they know our emblems and our armor. They might not connect all the dots but they could figure out that Vuzgal and the Beast Mountain Range are somehow linked.”

“Well, then I hope that Lord Aditya’s plan works. I will not have innocent people dying for our problems,” Delilah said.

Glosil bowed his head.

“Elan, your people will have their work cut out for them to make sure that this goes through.”

Erik smiled to himself seeing Delilah take charge, she didn’t look to him for confirmation once. She’d truly grown into her role.

“Yes Council Leader,” Elan smiled.

“Seems to me that there is nothing that we can do in the short term. So we might as well deal with the second matter. The Willful Institute.” Erik said.

Elan cleared his throat.

“Head Foster [mc9] of the Willful Institute has made it clear that he’s not happy about the inner strife inside his own group. While he is the Head, he is but one person and the overall Institute is made up of thousands of people. He is a large rock, but his comments are being tossed into a lake. Not many people in the lower realms have ever met him. They know the power of the people around them. What has happened in other cities is not related to them. This has worked out well for us. The Willful Institute’s different factions are fighting one another all over the place. With their focus internally it has allowed us to make external advances,” Elan opened his hand to Glosil. The two men worked closely together, operating as a single unit.

“Meokar was the floodgates. As soon as the Third Realm city collapsed, groups that were on the fence have come over to see that maybe the Willful Institute isn’t as strong as it once was. With the work of the different teams, the Adventurer’s Guild, crafters, the traders and the massive role that the intelligence department has played, we’ve been gutting  their bottom line, creating tensions and breaks in their alliances. They have been burning their wartime supplies in some places because of other issues. Now with war upon them, they’re isolated, few friends or lines of support. I think that it is now time for phase two; as Captain Kenoa calls it, Operation Doomsday.”

“Operation Doomsday?” Delilah asked.

“A crippling strike against anything that is possibly vulnerable, our final deep hitting attack before the Institute has the time to put up their defenses,” Elan said.

“Go on,” Erik said, he had been briefed but not everyone in the room had.

“Any and all actions that will create confusion, and anger within the Institute; active assassination missions, attacking supply lines, andtaking out bandit groups under their command. We just gut out everything that they control. If they are bidding on anything, we beat their bid and take it from them. If they send out a supply caravan, we pass that information to bandits or we attack it. If they try to issue orders we take out their messengers. We take overt and direct action. We show that everyone is ganging up on the Institute.”

Delilah looked at Erik and then looked away with a pale expression.

“How extended are we?” Erik asked.

“We have two Battalions deployed at this time under Colonel Domonos. We have a battalion of  the Air Force, and seven Army battalions in reserve. That is not including the reserve forces, which number forty thousand strong -- traders, teachers, healers, farmers andpeople in the Adventurer’s Guild. The Adventurer’s Guild has grown and matured. Those that operated in Meokar will be spread out into the new units that are heading out to fight the Institute.” Glosil said.

“Have some veterans among them all to stiffen them up,” Rugrat said.

“Creates better command and control. So we’re not just relying on the Alva Military members. I reduced the hiring costs for the Adventurer’s Guild. That should allow us access to more battlefields,” Blaze said.

“How are things within the Guild?” Erik asked

“Do I dare say excited?” Blaze sighed and sat forward, resting his bulk on the table. “They were angry for a long time, all of them knew the story. Knew what the Institute did to us. Now they want to get their own back. Want to fight for one another.Want to show that we won’t be stepped on. Recruiting is through the damn roof. A guild taking on a sect, people love an underdog story.”

“What do you think?” Rugrat asked.

“I think that we’ll need those veterans, need to introduce them slowly. War isn’t something to rush into. If we take in green units, they’ll collapse. As you said, the veterans will know what to expect, somewhat. Give them a spine and make sure they don’t go do something stupid,” Blaze shrugged.

“How many people can you call on?”

“Four hundred thousand fighters, can get two hundred and fifty thousand fighting in a couple of weeks,” Blaze said.

“Fuck man, really?” Rugrat sat forward raising an eyebrow.

“Everyone is a fighter in the lower realms, no other path. Death is cheap and everywhere, unlike the higher realms. Eighty percent of our members come from the first two realms. Given resources and training, they’re more loyal than the higher realm members. You give the order and they’ll do what needs to be done.” Blaze looked Rugrat dead in the eyes.

Erik felt the heaviness of command and the power that came with it. Glosil, Yui, Elan, Elise, Jia Feng, Delilah, everyone in that room, they would follow Erik and Rugrat wherever and carry out their orders to their last breath.

It was a heavy burden and Erik hoped it was never easy to shoulder.

“What about new recruits?” Erik asked, looking at Colonel Yui. He had taken command of all training as his brother was leading operations against the Willful Institute with Kenoa and his Air Force in support.

“At the end of the month we will have nearly four thousand recruits turned into soldiers, and a thousand into air force members. Every three months afterwards we should have the same amount of people graduating. We are also secretly training the people of the Beast Mountain Range Military. We’re teaching them similar to how we train the Adventurer’s Guild; working on smaller unit tactics and with class abilities, so ranged and melee units.” Yui responded.

Erik’s eyes slid to Glosil and Elan.

“What do you need to begin phase two?”

“Permission,” Glosil, seemed unaffected. But there was a hunger, a cold determination, in his eyes.

Erik looked at Rugrat.

“Fuck ‘em, we give them more time they’re going to pull together. Operation Doomsday needs to be carried out sooner rather than later.” Rugrat said.

“If we get discovered?”