Standing at the edge of the massively expanded settlement from hence I first arrived here, I looked warily at the line that indicated where I could take no step further. Beyond that line, was the outside.

 

But with determination, I took one assertive step across. The moment my foot landed outside the settlement walls, a wide and crooked smile stretched across my face.

 

With a howl of joy, black wings as dark as midnight sprouted from my back, the shadows spilling off them like vapor. I sprung to the sky, climbing high before my ascend stopped and I turned to watch the settlement below.

 

It had grown a lot. From the now towering walls that ran more than two meters thick with hardened stone and reinforced with some un-Earth-ly metal, to the large buildings running down the streets.

 

I had been busy, but in the last few days, the plan I had initially set out to do finally came to fruition.

 

Normally, RTS games were the mental gymnastics of micromanaging everything and creating the correct balance between force and economy. On one side, the more you ramped up your economy from the start, foregoing any or most military options, the faster your entire settlement would grow exponentially. For most games of course.

 

On the other side, if you invested too much into the gathering of materials and wealth, some other player could easily come right in with just a small army and swoop everything away you had done within the blink of an eye. Almost like what had happened to me with the unexpected military rush from the gorillas.

 

But still, the correct choices in almost all of those games were always to play for the late game, and keep costs of defenses and guerilla tactics against your opponent to a minimum. As such, I had done exactly that. And now, I stood in overwhelming amounts of materials and food. That meant the second phase of my conventional strategy began. 

 

Pumping out as many grunts as feasibly possible.

 

With that, only a few days later by the now expansive settlement itself were rows upon rows of strigoi and blood puppets standing at attention right before the gates.

 

With various buildings, certain units, and more, I've boosted and upgraded practically any and everything I could. Especially my military capabilities. That included a legion of warriors and other than standard units.

 

Standing right outside the gates on the snaking path leading down the mountain, were a group of figures, no more than a dozen. They were all strigoi, fourth-tiered. But unlike normal strigoi, they all shared a significant difference, one amongst them even more so than the eleven others.

 

They were all much more imposing and their clothing reflected their superior ability to that of their weaker brethren. But the one who stood out the most was the one outfitted in red and black colors, her eyes shining a light that radiated command.

 

I needn't but a mental thought and the dozen strigoi sprouted similar wings to that of mine. They too joined me at my side as we watched the small army of strigoi exiting the tall walls encircling the settlement.

 

-Codex!-

 

 

Eleven officers, and a single captain.

 

This captain unit was the one reason why I could take a step outside the settlement as it provided the boon of allowing the leader to go with any given war party as long as the captain was accompanying me. But not only that. The captain also bolstered any units under its command with a variety of powerful offensive boosts.

 

It was the highest rank of unit you could get, and as opposed to tiers, this type of upgrade could only be bought and trained. In terms of just statistics, she was close to being as powerful as me, which was quite a pleasant surprise when I sacrificed such an ungodly amount of resources to produce her.

 

Being just a tier-four monster myself, I had quickly realized that my worries of going into the trials without having evolved were not unfounded. It had given me a severe disadvantage in the fact that I could not summon any fifth-tier monsters or units. Me myself being at the fourth tier apparently restricted my units. This disadvantage was especially prominent when looking at that damned gorilla beastkin who must've started straight out with fifth-tiered units to command from the get-go.

 

That was not also just considering that there shouldn't be more than a handful or even fewer fourth-tiered lords that had entered these trials by my guesses.

 

And unfortunately, being trapped inside the settlement meant that I was unable to gain enough experience, or any at all for that matter, to hit the threshold and evolve. Even the units of the Brueltar, the gorilla beastkin that had attacked the settlement, gave no experience, much to my ever-increasing chagrin.

 

On that note, those annoying artillery-like apes had rained attacks down on the settlement on three other occasions over the last week, ever since they initially blew a hole in my wall. They were seemingly trying to widdle down my defenses and evaluate my strengths. Seeing if whether or not it was feasible to launch a full-on attack.

 

Their attacks were rather frequent, barely an entire day's cycle between each assault. But three days ago, all appearances suddenly stopped, and even the hunting parties were no longer going missing as they occasionally would.

 

That could almost only mean one of three things.

 

They had given up on trying to prod and take down my settlement, they suddenly had their hands filled with other more pressing affairs, or they were no longer amongst the living.

 

Either way, in any of those situations, I wanted to take advantage of their wasted efforts and split attention as I was stronger than ever.

 

We set out, four officers and the captain flying ahead with me and the seven others hanging back to lead the legion of nearly five hundred strigoi and blood puppets.

 

Unfortunately, it was only the officers and above that were able to make the most use of their magic. Generally because it tended to be out of the reach of grunts like the strigoi and even more so pitiful for the strigg.

 

That was not to say that they couldn't use their dualed magics at all, but just that conjuring complex things like shadow wings and blood puppets were entirely outside their wheelhouses.

 

As the many peaks of the endless mountain range moved by, I finally picked up a bunch of powerful lifeforms. But as we closed in on the location, the scene we arrived at was not what I had expected.

 

Expecting to find the gorillas' encampment as I guessed it would be the closest, and that we had gone in the general direction from where the beastkin had been seen come from and retreat to, I remained confounded by the sight of not the gorillas' settlement, but instead a full-on siege of someone else's. By the gorillas, against some very short humanoids who tried desperately to save their settlement from the endless bombardment of the apes.

 

Curiosity spiked, and the gleaming light of opportunity glinting in my eyes, we got closer to the scene.

 

I hadn't the slightest worry that they might discover us, since both myself, the officers, and the captain, were fully capable of shrouding ourselves in darkness and melding into the shadows, so we got quite close to the action. 

 

Within a good range, I took stock of the situation.

 

In the soggy landscape of a quagmire cradled between two particularly large mountains, a settlement much smaller but much more well-built than mine rested. The construction and grade of everything were simply better in every way compared to mine, and it appeared that I hadn't been the only one heavily investing in the economy from the start.

 

But even so, the small humanoids seemed at a disparaging disadvantage against the beastkin as they rained hellfire down upon the settlement from every direction. And while it definitely seemed that the settlement had no lack of defenses or even troops to fend off the hulking apes, they were still losing.

 

Watching the siege unfold, it quickly became apparent as to exactly why.

 

Not only were the beastkin abnormally suited for exactly the purpose of sieging as they kept well clear of any retaliation the small humanoid might've been able to put up, but those gnome-like people were clearly not suited for an aggression role.

 

They were all mind mages.

 

-Codex!-

 

"Halflings... huh, could've sworn it was going to be gnom-oouh!" I winced as the status screen abruptly closed due to the halfling suddenly becoming nothing more than meat paste under a car-sized rock that landed directly on her head.