Ideally, every single one of the fortresses, even the ones that were supposed to be decoys, would be equipped with a teleportation gate.

That way, the decoy fortresses would stop being decoy fortresses and become legitimate ones instead. With every single fortress possessing a gate, there would no longer be a need to think about garrison distribution. If one fortress was under siege, then it could simply be supplemented by the garrison from other fortresses or bolstered by reinforcements from Lageton itself. Hell, the reinforcements could come from the kingdom, too.

Of course, Samsara would be in quite a pickle if Argonia amassed an army so large that they could simply besiege every single fortress all at once. The Samsaran defenders may be forced to stretch themselves thin trying to cover every single point of attack. And even worse if their numbers were so superior that victory was assured on every front.

But that was unrealistic. The empire certainly had the numbers for it. That was never in doubt.

However, taking a fortress was useless if one couldn't hold it afterward. Taking all the fortresses meant that they had to defend every single one afterward, leaving a portion of their troops to garrison them all. If they didn't, Samsara would just take the fortresses back, one by one, and then establish a base behind any Argonian troops that chose to advance to Lageton.

Also, if the enemy's forces were so superior that defeat was certain, then Samsrara could simply avoid defending the wall and its fortresses altogether, pull back all the garrisons through the teleportation gates, and then blow the fortresses to kingdom come when the Argonians inevitably attempted to occupy them. That would also get rid of the teleportation gate, ensuring they remained a secret from the enemy. Naturally, that was a last resort because it would not be easy to complete a grand undertaking like the Samsaran Bulwark. Even Aizen would balk at wasting all of the effort, resources, and time spent to create the wall if they could avoid it.

Realistically, Argonia would amass one or two armies and attack two separate points—with each point far enough away from the other that they couldn't send reinforcements to the other. Maybe they'd even bring three or four incredibly large armies to attack that many points, too. The sky was the limit.

'Equipping each fortress with a gate isn't in the cards yet, however.'

Setting up a teleportation gate was difficult work. The materials were available to him any time, and so were people who could assemble them.

The problem was that they couldn't be set up en masse.

Reivan didn't know how it worked exactly—and really, nobody did because teleportation was still quite new—but teleportation gates had to undergo a phenomenon called "rooting" after they were assembled. They were useless before they finished this process. Once rooted, however, they could theoretically connect to every other gate in existence.

Rooting took anywhere from a full week to three weeks.

But that wasn't really a problem. The problem was how a finished rooting messed up the spatial coordinates of everything nearby. Meaning any teleportation gates that still hadn't finished rooting but were still in the process of doing so would have to start completely from scratch. Hence, gates couldn't start rooting if they were too close to each other. Also, the unpredictable variable of how long it took to complete rooting made it impossible to synchronize.

Teleportation gates were extremely convenient. But they had their inconveniences as well.

Samsara was forced to play around this by carefully selecting which fortresses had priority to a teleportation gate, and these fortresses would be the first set of legitimate fortresses that would actually have proper garrisons and enchanted formations protecting them. The entire span of the wall would get these enchantments, however, so on that note hiding within the walls would be safer until the fortresses were completely set up.

"For now," Reivan pointed far to the northeast, then to the southwest, and then somewhere toward the middle. "Three gates are being set up simultaneously and have started the process of taking root, each one as far away from the other as possible. Once they're done, getting materials to the border will be a lot easier."

"Yes, but setting up the gates will still take time.” Hector sighed. “Not that it concerns me much. I’m not going to volunteer for the garrison. Why would I intentionally want to be apart from my precious girls?”

“With the gate, you could just go home every evening, no?”

“That’d be way too wasteful. I’d feel terrible. Activating a teleportation gate still costs resources, right? Some of us commoners can still feel shame, you know. Unlike you, Your Highness, who used gates so very often back when we were younger.”

Reivan couldn’t help but frown at the verbal jab. Not because he was offended, but because he couldn’t refute that he had used them very frequently when he was younger. Too much, one could even say. In more recent times, however, he managed to find some shame and self-restraint. Having a flying mount with him at all times also helped reduce his needs.

“Anyway,” Hector’s face hardened to a more serious one. “We didn’t fly here for half a day just to look at long walls and barely finished fortresses, right?”

“That’s half the reason, to be honest.” Reivan chuckled sheepishly. “I wanted to personally take a look at the wall’s state. Isn’t it a bit much for the literal head of the nation to have never seen the wall?”

“I guess you have a point…”

Zouros was out in full glory at the moment, its gigantic appearance visible to everyone nearby. A massive obsidian serpent with wings as dark as the void, patrolling the walls and occasionally disappearing from the naked eye.

Soon enough, it would create the illusion that Zouros was always there, even when it wasn’t. At the very least, Argonians would be wary of an attack from a gargantuan spirit beast. Truly, size alone was sometimes enough to intimidate people into avoiding a fight.

‘Zee’s existence has already been revealed to the enemy, so I may as well make use of it.’

Hiding his comrade no longer served much of a purpose now. It pained him to think about how he'd lost a hidden trump card like that, he would adapt. Now, it was more advantageous to utilize the sheer fearsomeness that creatures of its size generally produced. No matter how brave one was, a giant monster was still a giant monster. Mundane soldiers, particularly ones who were nowhere close to unlocking their qi, would be demoralized to the point of despair. Perhaps they might even flee their own camps at night, afraid of facing such a titanic creature.

If Reivan was in their place and he wasn’t a half-ascendant, he would also run as fast as his feet could carry him and hope the mountain-sized snake went after someone else—someone far away from him. Because no matter what he did, that giant snake could kill him just by rolling over. Or "lightly" bumping into him with its tail.

“You said it was half the reason,” Hector recrossed his legs, making himself more comfortable while sitting atop Zee’s black scales. “So what’s the other half?”

Reivan pointed toward the other side of the wall. “Our forces uprooted a couple of imperial settlements nearby, but that just seemed to attract more attention. Argonian scouts have been surveying the wall.”

“And?”

“They haven’t tried any assaults on the incomplete wall or the people constructing it, but we think that an attack is imminent.”

“Huh. So...we’re here to make the first move or what? Just us?”

Reivan shook his head. “No way. I’m not that courageous.”

To that, Hector scoffed before a grin turned into a mocking sneer. “Says the guy who infiltrated the Spirit Tower solo. And then snuck into an imperial coalition’s camp to save hundreds of prisoners. if you're not courageous, then what does that make everyone else? Pussies? Clits?”

“...That’s a bit different.” Reivan cleared his throat with a light cough. “Anyway, I’m here to make sure those scouts didn’t leave behind anything normal people can’t see. My eyes are pretty good, remember? I’m also here to observe the terrain and whatnot. If it ever comes down to it, we’ll be fighting here, after all.”

With that in mind, Reivan asked Zouros to bring them a little closer to one part of the ramparts. Not to the fortresses, since the ones that were finished weren’t even equipped with anything yet.

Once they were at a reasonable dropping distance, both Reivan and Hector jumped off their giant mount and landed firmly atop the thick crenelated ramparts—which was as thick as the royal highway back in Aizen, where more than ten carriages could easily fit side by side.

“White marble…” Hector lightly stomped on the floor and knocked on the nearest merlon. “Is this what I think it is?”

Reivan nodded. “It’s the same material used for buildings in the capital, harvested from those giant things called Whitestone Tortoises. You know, the ones we hide under the Wolf's Jaw.”

“Oh. Before coming here, I thought they’d just raise the stone from the ground and use that to build the wall.”

“In emergency situations where repairs are necessary but materials aren’t available, then that’s probably what’ll happen. But I wanted the initial wall to be made of good stuff. Same with the fortresses.”

“Huh,” Hector grunted as he sat on one of the crenels, facing toward the direction of their enemies. He peered downward, then pointed at something. “Those arrow slits look a bit too big. Or are they not for arrows?”

Reivan smirked. “They’re for cannons.”

“Cannons…? There are too many slits for that. Are you sure all of them can be manned? The manpower needed for it would be crazy considering the length…”

“That’s because we won’t be using manpower.”

The deeper foundations dug for them aside, the ramparts were set at fifty meters tall. They could have been taller, but Reivan didn’t want to completely deplete the royal treasury’s stockpile of whitestone marble for something that may or may not be abandoned or blown up.

On the outer and the inner side, were four layers of cannon slits. With how extended the ramparts were, there must have easily been hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of cannon slits.

Aizen’s cannons were relatively advanced, but they were still sub-optimal when operated by only a single mundane. Ideally, one person had to be in charge of preparing and loading the ammo, then another person had to aim and fire the weapon. That meant at least two people would have to be assigned per cannon. If Samsara wanted to have a man on every cannon, they would have to garrison tens of millions of soldiers. Which was a bit unrealistic.

That problem was solved when Automata were finally perfected, however.

‘Production is already underway.’

It would take a while, perhaps a month or two, before Aizen could send enough Pawns—Automata that were sized similar to a very tall human—to man all of the cannons, but it would coincide with the border construction’s completion. Then he would place Rooks—the giant variants—along the outer side of the wall with a uniform distance between each one. They would be decorative and intimidating, on top of being an emergency means of security and defense.

Reivan could already see it now.

Millions of Argonians arrayed in front of the walls, charging in like maniacs as every cannon in range of them fired a volley of death. Their bat-like abominations would be riddled with bullets courtesy of the gun turrets that would be mounted atop the walls or the guard towers that would be placed along the wall every so often. And then the giant walking homunculi would be intercepted by the countless Rooks outside before being focused down by mortars behind the gun turrets.

Ideally, nobody could get close enough to attempt scaling the walls, but Argonia wasn’t bereft of decent warriors. So their pesky Imperial Vanguard troopers would inevitably slip past and make contact with the wall, where knights would be waiting to sell them an all-expense-paid trip to the afterlife.

Then, when the sky was free of enemies, sky arks filled to the brim with sorcerers who would sally out from the nearby fortresses and rain even more death on the armies below. If darkin or battlemages with avian spirits beasts were available, then they could also join the air strike.

While Pawns were vulnerable to an esper’s poltergeist ability, their sheer weight would make it hard to affect them too much. The Rooks were outright invulnerable, given how large and presumably heavy they were. And besides, the walls were protected by an esper-killing formation.

Argonia couldn’t just target a less-defended spot either, because the presence of a teleportation gate meant reinforcements could flood in from everywhere, no matter where they chose to stage their assault.

‘Looks pretty good.’

Once everything was set up, the border defense would have an answer to literally everything the Argonians have thrown at them so far. The problem, of course, was if Argonia pulled out something else. Which was quite possible, unfortunately.

Reivan explained his vision of how the defense plans would be developed moving forward. And his friend understandably whistled in admiration.

“If we completely ignore Ascendants,” Hector shifted so he was leaning back against one of the merlons—which, Reivan mused, was akin to a rampart’s tooth. “Then isn’t this wall more equipped than the three fortresses around Aizen?”

“Well, yeah…” Reivan scratched his head and thought about it. “But that’s because we’re only defending against mortals. Most of the stuff on or in these ramparts won’t affect Ascendants at all.”

“That's fair, I suppose…” Hector nodded in understanding before he grew pensive. “Anyway, do you think that Axion guy will attack the wall before it’s completed?”

“I honestly have no idea at this point. It's best to assume that he will. Then all we need to do is prepare for that as best as we can.”

“He roughed you up last time you fought, huh? I'm sorry for reminding you of such an awful memory.”

Reivan frowned. While that was true, one shouldn’t ignore the context. “Yes, he took an arm from me. But I couldn’t fight back at the time because I was surrounded.”

“But if it came down to a fight... would you lose?”

He was just about to answer confidently, but Reivan chose to be humble and realistic. “It would have gone differently if I didn't have to flee, that’s for sure.”

Hector grinned with his arms crossed. “Well, look at you. Mister Confidence isn’t so confident anymore, huh? What happened to you, man? You used to strut around in the sparring areas like you were the cock of the town. Like nobody could beat you... except for my sister, and she doesn't count because losing to her obviously shouldn't count.”

“Hey, I'm serious here. You weren’t the one who exchanged blows with that Axion fellow.” Reivan shrugged. “He’s no pushover. If you encounter him, try not to fight him on your own.”

“Wouldn’t he be completely fucked if we fought him together? I’ll use my ability to halve his strength.”

Reivan nodded with a complicated expression. “That would be ideal, yes…”

The practical side of Reivan, the one raised as a knight whose only purpose was advancing the kingdom’s interests, knew that eliminating Axion with Hector as support would make things extremely easy. It'd be like waiting for the sun to rise or for a woman to break a peaceful silence—he wouldn't have to do anything at all, and the problem would solve itself in due time.

But the warrior side of him saw Axion as a challenge to overcome.

Prey to be hunted and mounted on his wall. A most worthy opponent to use as a whetstone, sharpening his fangs like never before.

Using Hector’s special ability, [Underwhelm], would decrease Axion’s Might by 150% of its base value. That would be more than enough for Reivan to slay the imperial prince with ease. To put it into perspective, Reivan’s current base Might was currently at 1300 when rounded up. But when he activated Advanced Magic Power Application, Qi Reinforcement, and his Beast Gate in addition to the benefits of wielding a Soul Armament, he could reach 3800 outright.

Since 150% of 1300 was 1950, then Hector’s [Underwhelm] would put him at 1850 flat.

Reivan would become so weak that even a Junior-grade knight could match him, much less Hector himself.

‘The problem is if Axion’s power comes from some kind of doping ability and his base Might was actually really low.’

Axion, judging from their last exchange, was just as strong as Reivan, if not a tiny bit stronger. But if his base Might was, say, only 800 and the other 3000 came from various boosts, then [Underwhelm] wouldn’t affect him much.

Of course, that was highly unlikely.

Based only on the imperial prince's physique, Axion seemed to be martially inclined. He was obviously a half-ascendant or close to it. If Reivan assumed that the imperial prince had qi reinforcement and perfect mana augmentation capabilities, then it could be inferred that Axion had some kind of doping method that equaled Reivan’s [Beast Gate] and the power from his Soul Armament.

Which was crazy to think about.

‘Actually, my base Might is higher because I’m a hybrid between a human and a warbeast. But Axion should be full human, no?’

It seemed that on top of [Beast Gate] and armament energy, Reivan also had to throw his innate racial advantages into the mystery pool.

‘Seriously, what the fuck is that guy on? And where can I get it? I want some.’

That homing javelin attack was also something he’d never seen before. It didn’t feel like an aetherblade art or sorcery, so it was likely something else entirely.

“I know that look…” Hector gestured at Reivan’s face with an exasperated chuckle. “You want to fight that guy on your own, huh? Fair fight. Man-to-man, that kind of thing.”

Reivan reached up to touch his cheek. “I make that kind of face?”

“Of course you do. Same face you make when I take a round against you during spars. Or when Helen wins.” Hector’s gaze sharpened for a moment even as he remained smiling. “It’s also the same kind of expression I see in the mirror when I think about you and my sister pulling ahead so far that I can't keep up.”

The friendly but everburning rivalry between the three of them was still there, Reivan noted with satisfaction. “Helen and I are holding ourselves back so we can keep having kids, so it’s a good opportunity for you to catch up.”

“Brother, I want to have kids too, so I’m in the same boat.”

Both of them laughed at that. Becoming fathers had made them even more thankful they didn’t rush their ascension. Otherwise, they never would have experienced the happiness they currently have. The advice from regretful Ascendants who advanced so fast that they never had the chance to sire children still reverberated in both of their minds sometimes. And they were glad that they followed the counsel of their elders.

Sometimes, they had said, the chase for greater power and immortality made one blind to the beauty of life itself. And sometimes, that realization came when it was too late to turn back. That regret? That longing?

It would stay for a long time. Especially because of the immortality that they now had.

‘It’d be cool if the three of us became Ascendants at the same time…’

Honestly, it was possible if Hector was lucky. But even if that didn’t happen, Reivan and Helen were convinced that Hector wouldn’t be far behind.

Reivan watched as dusk settled across the land and the orange-tinted skies were gradually painted a deep and darker blue. He basked in the beauty of this moment, something he didn't get to truly appreciate these days. And once that moment passed, he cleared his throat. “It’s about time we continued. There’s a lot more of the wall we haven’t seen yet.”

“We’re not seriously going to take a lap around the entire thing, right?” Hector grumbled. “That’s unreasonable. Maybe if we were on mounts, it'd be fine. Actually, I could probably do it in a couple of hours if I can use aetherblade arts...”

“Relax, we’re not going to take a lap. That’d take multiple days since this isn't a race, it's an inspection. Tomorrow, I’ll send Zee on its own. We won’t have to come along.”

Zouros, who was levitating far above them, unhappily flapped its gigantic wings to send a gust of wind toward them that messed up Reivan’s hair. Hector was left untouched because he’d formed a barrier of air in time—a barrier that didn’t include Reivan in it.

“You rats…” Reivan pointedly grimaced at both of them as he began fixing himself up.

As he did, Hector’s voice was suddenly stained with anxiety as he pointed at something in the distance. “Uh, Van. I think you may want to take a look at this…”

“Yeah, I’m not falling for that. Give it a rest, man.”

Hector jumped off his seat in the crenel and grabbed Reivan by the jaw, yanking his face up to see clouds of dust being thrown up into the sky. Squinting, he managed to see something through the sudden sandstorm—the ground was being deformed as something tunneled closer and closer toward the walls.

A moment later, one could feel their impending arrival as the earth itself trembled.

“Oh…” Reivan left his messy hair as is, the cogs of his mind immediately turning at an increased rate.

The Argonians were attacking the unfinished border defenses. And Reivan had to do something about it.

Right now. Right this instant.

‘Worms? Or maybe moles? Those are huge, so maybe it's a new variant of homunculi. How the fuck do they keep pumping those ugly fuckers out?’

In any case, wasn’t there only one way to answer the appearance of such large creatures?

Answering his mental call, Zouros released a soul-shattering shriek before charging into the incoming underground horde. The fragment of a world-devouring serpent inhaled deeply, immediately lifting up the barren ground and sucking in the clouds of dust. Tonnes of gravel disappeared into its bottomless stomach as the surroundings were forcefully cleared.

With the ground overturned, the mysterious subterranean creatures were revealed to be giant centipede-like abominations.

‘Oh, god. It’s a sandworm, but uglier…’

There was no other creature that matched its likeness more in Reivan’s mind.

It looked strangely draconic, except for the countless centipede-like legs. A segmented carapace of what looked like stone covered its long body, as the hollow eye on its “face” shone with an eerie red light. The eye was just above their gaping maws, which had rows upon rows of sharp teeth seemingly designed for grinding rocks to dust.

Strangely enough, its armor-like stone carapace made it look like it was also wearing a helmet that had four blade-like forcipules on the side of its mouth and another, much larger, set of teeth that seemed to serve a different purpose from its biological teeth.

Once again, Argonia did not disappoint. They had revealed yet another one of their horrors.

‘This one isn’t the only place being attacked.’

In a way, he was both lucky and unlucky that he was here just in time for it. Lucky because he could help rebuff the assault. And unlucky because he could have literally just had a normal afternoon if he stayed in Lageton.

And there seemed to be dozens of these things, even here.

Hoping for more information, he used [Supreme Insight] on the nearest one.

 

 

‘Oh! So they aren’t homunculi…? They’re tamed monsters of some kind.’

That changed things a little bit. Homunculi were artificial, so that carried the notion that they could be reproduced infinitely—as long as whatever materials needed to make them were available, that is. On the other hand, monsters used for war had to be raised from childhood to adulthood—and such a thing took time. And that meant there might not be a whole lot of these creatures.

Looking at the thing's gargantuan size, Reivan immediately assessed that the giant creature was too slow to even attempt hitting him. Which was good, because a blow from something like that would likely hurt like a bitch.

A quick peek at the extra skills revealed that [Feast of Stone] allowed them to eat rocks to repair their carapace and [Terra Carapace] was what they used to form their carapace in the first place. Nothing fancy, but the simplicity was actually troublesome because its solid defense would be hard to get through. That carapace was highly condensed rock.

“Merciful god…” Hector muttered as he leaned forward, peering out from the crenel. “What the fuck are those!?”

“Monsters, not homunculi. I just checked. And judging from their body’s structure,” Reivan offered, even as he equipped a full set of armor instantly. “They mean to dig out the foundation of the walls and fortresses, collapsing the entire city from below.”

That would put Samsara in quite a pickle indeed. And that meant it was mainly Reivan's problem. Because why the hell wouldn't it be?

The foundation dug out for these walls was very deep. But if these giant worms dug enough, then they’d eventually get to the bottom.

‘In fact, if they dug deep enough from the start, we wouldn’t have seen them coming. So why the hell didn’t they…?’

Argonia wasn’t completely full of rapists, imbeciles, and rapists who were coincidentally also imbeciles. So there must have been some other reason. Maybe the monsters couldn’t dig too deep? Were they ineffective against bedrock? That seemed unlikely. Their strength alone should easily allow them to plow through even the hardest natural minerals of this world unless they dug even deeper than that.

“Ah.” Reivan’s attention was grabbed by its glowing eyes. There was something unnatural about it. Plus, its disposition and favor revealed that it was entirely indifferent toward him, who was essentially an enemy.

There was no such thing as ascetic monsters who felt no emotion. They had to feel something. Something feral and primitive, but it was something.

‘Is it mind-control…’

It was a reasonable assumption, he mused to himself. Checking the other stone divers revealed that their dispositions and favors were exactly the same, solidifying Reivan’s conviction even more. If the mind-control had some kind of maximum range, then that would explain why the stone divers didn’t dig deep enough to be undetectable. Hell, maybe the mind control power was less effective if the victim was too deep in the earth because all the minerals interrupted..

“Hector, I’m going hunting for a bit,” Reivan said with urgency. “Try to support Zee and wait for me, alright?”

“Wha—”

Not bothering to wait for his friend’s reply, Reivan turned into a bolt of lightning that shot across the battlefield. He completely ignored the giant monsters fighting his giant monster, charging into what seemed to be an empty field.

Convinced of his assumption, he didn’t stop until he finally sensed a faint presence—the shallow sound of breathing and the pungent stench of a man sweating his balls off in this godforsaken heat.

‘There!’

Hundreds of miles away from the walls, Reivan found a hole in the ground. He bolted atop it, immediately seeing a man within, sitting with his legs crossed and eyes closed in focus.

His violent urges almost made him kill the man or crush the glowing rod on the man’s lap—which obviously controlled the swarm of monsters because nobody would see that stick and think it was ordinary—but he stopped himself just in time.

He didn’t know what would happen if he destroyed the control artifact. If he destroyed it and the monsters fled back in the direction from which they came, then that would be great. But if they just went berserk, attacking the wall anyway, then he may as well not have done anything.

And if they completely dug past the wall and eventually reached the populated areas of Samsara…

“Cocksucker!” Reivan cursed in Argonian as he grabbed the mysterious man by the neck and pulled him out of the hole. “I suggest you stop those monsters right now, or I'll rearrange all four of your balls.”

The man grabbed at the iron grip on his throat before he was eventually thrown to the ground, stealing the air from his lungs as the artifact he held fell out of his hands.

Reivan glanced at the mysterious tool and used [Supreme Insight], immediately confirming that it was used to give mind-warped creatures orders. And just as he surmised, there was a limit to its range of effect. If the monsters strayed too far from the artifact, all orders given would be rescinded and the monsters would be left in a dormant state, awaiting further orders.

The Argonian man was still in a coughing fit, trying to catch his breath, but he still made a grab for the artifact.

Unfortunately, there was one other person there who wouldn’t allow him to.

Reivan used [Formless Will] to suck the rod into his hand before observing the look of despair on the Argonian’s face. His gauntlets dissolved, allowing his bare fingers to feel the rod’s surface better.

‘Silver… It’s just a smooth silver rod. Except it has red veins all over it that glow for some reason.’

After fiddling around with it, Reivan realized that he wouldn’t be able to figure out how it worked. At least, not in a minute. There weren’t any buttons on it or anything either, nor did it respond to his words.

Glancing at the Argonian on the ground, who seemed to be waiting for his demise, Reivan flicked the rod with his other hand and asked. “How do I use this? Tell me.”

The man sneered, spitting on Reivan’s feet. “You think I’ll tell you just because you asked? Go stick your cock up your ass, dog of Aizen!”

Reivan coldly looked at the saliva on his boot before kicking the man in the chest just strong enough to break a few ribs and send him flying a few meters back. “Tell me.”

Wheezing, the man’s sneer grew deeper even as blood dripped from the corner of his lips.

Just as Reivan conjured a whip with his soul armament, he received a very strange telepathic message from Hector.

“The monsters stopped moving,” it said.

Reivan stared down at the rod in his hand, unconsciously smiling. “So if the rod changes hands, the controlled monsters just freeze? Huh. Even if the new owner doesn’t know how to use it… or rather, is it because I don't know how to use it?”

That changed things.

After mentally ordering Zouros to eat the dormant stone divers, Reivan divulged his discoveries to Hector, who would then spread that news around. In a matter of minutes, the news would reach every single knight on the border.

Some damage to the walls or unfinished fortresses would be inevitable, but it could have been much worse. Though he supposed it could always be much worse, in this indie game we call life.

Reivan flicked his arm and suddenly, a nearby rock flew into the Argonian’s head with enough force to knock him unconscious. Pulling out some rope, he tied up the foreigner up before he spat on the unconscious man’s face. It wasn't just to get back at him, of course, because his spit turned into medicine before landing. And soon the Argonian’s injuries started to heal.

‘A living test subject isn’t easy to come by.’

Reivan lifted his prisoner like a grocery bag, intending to send Grimharbor Penitentiary’s secret lab another test rat.