Chapter 101: As One Wanes, the Other Waxes

“By command of His Majesty Barit, your duchy is to send grain to the front immediately!”

A coarse, unrestrained voice echoed around them. A hard-faced knight with thick, scarred features glared down at an old man before him and barked the order.

The old man took the missive with trembling hands. As soon as he read it, he recoiled in shock. “So much!”

He looked at the giant before him in disbelief. “Your Honor, have you mistaken this? Our duchy has only just marched out under His Majesty Barit to campaign against Aditsu. Our army is still engaged on the front line. How could we spare this amount of grain and manpower to send to His Majesty?”

“Hm?”

The giant narrowed his eyes and smiled coldly. “So you are refusing to deliver them?”

As he spoke, a trace of killing intent slowly rose from him, startling the old man. At the same moment a surge of combat qi flashed by. In an instant, the old man felt himself drop heavily, a sharp wave of pain tearing through him, and then—while the world blurred—he crashed into the wall behind him, blood rising at the corners of his mouth.

“Milord!”

The guards around him gasped and, at the cold-smiling giant opposite, drew their swords in one motion.

He only smirked, then drew his own blade as well.

“I am the logistics officer appointed directly by His Majesty Barit. If anyone dares strike me, try it.”

So speaking, he ignored the danger and brought his sword down. Driven by battling qi, he cleaved a guard in one stroke, red spray scattering across the ground.

“Enough!”

Withering pain still hammering through him, the old man roared, “We obey the Emperor’s orders, of course we do! We will deliver the grain on time.”

“These grains?” The big man sneered. “Who told you they were all?”

He turned away, then reached back and drew the bloodied sword half a heartbeat, speaking with disdain. “In addition to what is written in the order, take another half there as well. Send it to my camp.”

The whole scene erupted in alarm. The old man, furious, forced himself up despite his wound, a faint pulse of combat qi gathering upon him.

For a breath, as if some late thought had surfaced, his mouth twitched. After a long silence he finally gave a reluctant nod.

Scenes like this repeated again and again around them. By Barit’s command, the small city-states that had once submitted to Indeli all came to ruin in turn, crushed beneath relentless forced levies. The greed of petty and high officials alike only sharpened that suffering. In short order, formerly loyal city-states and nobles began to waver. Yet under Endeli’s overwhelming might, none dared rise in rebellion.

...

Elsewhere, night deepened and stars began to flicker across the sky.

Adis stood upon the city wall, silently studying the tightly ordered camp below.

“Indeed,” he murmured. “After such a long stretch of war, though they still stand on old foundations, their momentum has begun to ebb.”

As he watched, in each of the two opposing camps a colossal heavenly pillar rose.

The Wolf Deity ahead was roaring in a frenzy, its wolf eyes carrying a faint spectral glow tinged with purple. Though still powerful, a blood-colored sheen already bled through its form, an omen of misfortune and fatigue.

Across from it, an ancient tree drifted in stillness, its branches swaying in the wavering air as it slowly gathered power. It too bore that same blood tint, yet over it lay a heavy cocoon of light that held it from behind. The Light of Faith condensed grain by grain into fresh strength, pushing the blood color away.

“In a normal war between two armies, enduring this long under such a ferocious assault—even if they can still hold, they would already be at the edge of collapse,” Aedis murmured, his eyes deep with shadow. “But when the opposing side has a priest wielding sacred arts, that law does not apply.”

“First, with the Faith of the Nature God as its root, their support within the army far exceeds that of ordinary troops and cannot collapse before the final hour. And there are the priest’s divine arts in every other respect as well.”

“A wounded man of the same severity over there can only lie still. In this world’s medicine, he can do nothing but wait for death. Under the priest’s sacred art, he can be healed completely; even a light wound returns to the field in a few days. The difference between those who enter and those who return is staggering.”

“This burns through divine power on an enormous scale—almost beyond measure. Yet with the reserves accumulated in their true self, and with inexhaustible support of source-force, holding this battle poses no difficulty.”

At this thought he gave a slight smile, cold in expression. “Months of relentless assault have consumed not only men and morale, but vast reserves of source-force within the celestial rank. Almost all of it has been spent here.”

“Even if one is a Son of Destiny from the North, and one of the candidates for the Child of the World, with a great store beforehand—how much force can remain now?”

Even a being bearing a rank, even a chosen vessel of the Child of the World, does not have unlimited power to waste. It cannot exceed its limit. If it is squandered beyond measure, one must begin again, building strength back slowly over time.

Aedis focused on a distant shard of starlight drifting in the void. It was vast, carrying the temperament of the world, and shone with its own strange radiance. In its waves, slender threads of source-force constantly dripped down, flowing into one of the heavenly pillars and strengthening it.

Yet even so, what Aedis saw was clear: the pillar’s once boundless supply had been drained by more than half, now propped up by little more than a thin layer of violet mist.

He gave a cold laugh. “Since you failed to fell me at the outset, what comes next is only gradual exhaustion.”

At his intent, the tree that had floated silently in the void stirred slightly, a dim spectral light flowing quietly around it.

...

Not far to the north, on the open wastes, figures were galloping hard across the plain.

The force was not large—no more than five thousand men—but every single one rode a horse, an almost unimaginable sight.

In this world, livestock is precious, horses especially. Even some nobles cannot own one, much less so in such numbers.

One could say even if every horse from all the city-state armies of the northern lands were gathered together, it would amount to only a little more than this force. Imagine how extravagant it is.

Of course, if one includes the mounts privately kept by nobles, that number would be far greater.

This army thundered through the wilderness, each rider wrapped in a faint wave of divine power, riding hard toward the city of Secel.

At its head rode an old man, holding a staff, dressed in the seven-colored robes reserved for the Pontiff, staring toward a distant shadow of trees. Across his eyes passed an abyssal stillness, deep and unending.