Book 7, Chapter 56

Intuition And Survival

The broodmother was quick to show him just how much she had learned from Zangru. Analysing the bastard demigod’s blood had given her a deeper understanding of creation, to the point that her drones now lived almost half as much more than they used to. On top of that, she had also stored enough blood to be able to create beings similar to Zangru, although not nearly as powerful at only level 16. These fake demigods would be instinctive creatures that only knew to kill and eat, but every round of extraction gave her enough blood to create three.

The worm nest was large enough to hatch over a hundred of these beings, with a batch incubated every ten minutes. Although these false demigods could only live a dozen hours or so, that was more than enough in case of an emergency. She already had enough blood stored up to create 4,500 of them, a terrifying temporary army in any plane.

This information shocked Richard; he had never thought Zangru could have been so useful. That being said, this also meant Zangru had been drained dry more than 1,500 times; such torture explained why the arrogant demigod had grown so humble and obedient. He didn’t want to be a follower; it was just that he would do anything to get away from the broodmother.

Scanning their positions, Richard found that Zangru and the broodmother were almost in the same location. He shook his head and sighed; while this gain was extremely important, Zangru had definitely contributed greatly and had to be rewarded as such. Going over the information a few more times, he asked, “How important will he be for your advancement?”

“He can directly influence the chances of success, and could also affect the truename I awaken,” she responded.

“So he’s basically indispensable… Fine, you can have him until you’re done. Just make sure not to hurt him too much.”

A wave of joy spread from the broodmother as she explained, “Master, Zangru is a bastard demigod, not an ordinary human. The harsher we treat him, the better he will behave.”

“NO! I’M NOT ANYTHING! I’M A HUMAN, MY SOUL IS HUMAN! I JUST HAVE A BIT OF DIVINE BLOOD IN ME!”

“Then I have to extract your blood more often to make up for the concentration,” the broodmother immediately stopped the interjection.

Shaking his head, Richard went through as much of the information as he could. All of her criteria for advancing to level 10 had been met with an actual excess of divinity; a result of his followers achieving great success in the barbarian planes as they subdued the allied armies further and occupied two more shrines.  All items from these conquests that possessed divinity were naturally sent over to the broodmother.

At this point, the broodmother had more than a hundred thousand possible changes to her body alone, the number doubling if one considered abilities. If he had to make every single decision himself, Richard would be left with nearly a thousand choices to make that ranged from how she breathed to the texture at the tip of her claws.

Thankfully, her own body hid an enormous brain that didn’t lose out to his; she had already spent a long time mixing and matching, coming up with three main directions she could take: survivability, drone creation, and reproduction. Each of these main paths also had three different options within that decided the degree of focus. For example, she could pour all of the acquired energy into strengthening her body to the point that there would be no change in her drone creation capabilities at all. On the other hand, she could also spread this energy a little more evenly. As such, Richard himself didn’t have to go through the trouble of deciding everything.

He almost instinctively told her to strengthen her unit production— after all, that was her greatest value— but a moment later, he suddenly thought of the Doomsday Imprint that was meant to signify Faelor’s death. The mythical reapers would soon enter this plane and destroy all of it, but the only accounts of them came from questionable sources or weak divination. The only thing he knew was that Faelor could be destroyed within ten years, so he had to prepare for that possibility. After some thought, he told her to focus on survivability.

“Master, why?” she immediately sent over a wave of confusion, “I do not fear anyone below the legendary realm!”

“I need you to be confident even against legends,” Richard said.

“The half-demigods are very quick, they can even fly. I can drag a legend down to their death,” she replied earnestly.

“Then you need to be prepared for a group of them!”

“What group of legends will we find here?”

Richard didn’t answer. Ferlyn’s warnings had been stuck in his subconsciousness for a while now, and he himself felt an odd sense of danger in Faelor that he could only call intuition. With his power, such intuition was similar to prophetic magic.

The broodmother fell silent for a while, but then she seemed to come to a realisation, “Are we about to start a divine war?”

“Soon,” he nodded.

She went quiet once more as she made some calculations, “I do not believe we are prepared yet, but I can begin the initial stages of preparation.”

“Get on it once you’re done advancing.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Oh right!” Richard thought of something, “I’ve brought some powerful beings for you to analyse, send a cloned brain over to collect them.”

“Thank you, Master!” she replied with glee.

By this time, the rune knights had already crossed through the portal with a few hundred infantrymen who had proven themselves loyal in previous wars. Every single one of them carried enormous chests of resources to be used as war supplies. Grabbing a magic chest inscribed with the volcanic world tree, Richard made his way to his room in the back of the new castle.

After many years of development, Bluewater had been transformed into a sprawling citadel with over 200,000 permanent citizens. On top of this number were the merchant caravans going back and forth, alongside a large number of refugees and adventures that numbered even higher than the registered commoners themselves.

The place was now under absolute control, with caravans requiring permits to even approach the city. The core was also a site of constant construction as the city grew. The area that housed the Lighthouse of Time was no longer on the fringe, instead now a central section of Bluewater. Gangdor had marked out a huge swathe of land and built a castle to serve as the capital of the Crimson Dukedom, containing anything one could ever need. This place was guarded purely by the soldiers brought over from Norland and the broodmother’s drones.

Outside the castle, the original core district of the oasis city was in a state of rapid development. With the water source stabilised, a number of low-level mages had realised the potential for gold and settled down; the environment here was changing by the day. Wide, clean streets were lined on either side by enormous foliage, with exquisite buildings and gardens all around. One could see a few warriors in full armour slowly patrolling the streets, youthful infantrymen whose duty was to keep the peace.

Each of these warriors was around level 10, a luxury that even the nobles of large kingdoms normally didn’t get. Besides, the greatest value of these soldiers came from their identity; they were direct soldiers of the Crimson Dukedom and attacking them was a declaration of war. Of course, the residents themselves bore this cost, paying for every expense these soldiers entailed.

The commander in charge of this city was the mysterious Andrieka: Raymond Joseph. Managing an enormous city like this was no easy task, especially for a place with no laws to speak of that was being built from the ground up, but from defence and politics to cleanliness and the mundane things like attitude towards beggars, he had built everything up from scratch. Gangdor was nowhere near qualified for this task, but a Mage of Soremburg was almost trained for such things.