Chapter 20

Since I didn't have time to invade the palace, instead I decided to learn the locations of the other cities. At least I'd be able to stop knowledge of a city-destroying monster army from spreading. Cities stopped contributing to the wizard's grand library all the time, but cities being destroyed by an organized force was something else entirely. The rest of humanity would notice eventually, but I'd make sure it looked like the result of some calamity-type monster. I'd need a bit of research to find one that could destroy a city fast enough the wizards couldn't report it, but there had to be one that I could imitate.

I put the risks of provoking a connected and vengeful species out of my mind and concentrated on what I could do. The requests would have already been sent, which meant I needed a new signal. It took a while to figure out a plan that could end how I wanted it to.

One of my pawns was near the palace walking next to a guard as a means of alerting other pawns to his location. Instead of merely watching, I had it kill the guard and feed it to me. It took a while to find the right opportunity as the guard was walking in the middle of the street, but before night fell I got the opportunity I was looking for.

Once I had a guard at my disposal, I had it rush to the palace gates. "Urgent news…for the…Lord!" I had him pant. "Urgent!"

The guards on duty reacted very quickly, ushering my guard exactly where I wanted to go. They used some spell to check identity, but it was looking at the identity of the body. Had it been checking the will, I may have had an issue. I ate several servants we passed on the way, starting the destruction of the centralized command structure and stopping my need to infiltrate again once the invasion started.

It was remarkable how easy it was for this to work. I had expected a few more failsafe measures or protections. I was ushered into a bedroom and I understood why it was so easy. As soon as I entered the room I had the urge to hide my will, but I needed to be able to react so I merely spread it much thinner than normal and held most of it inside. Detail was hard to see, but I'd know if my guard was in danger. Before me was a woman radiating so much mana it was killing the man she was currently riding. The guards announced my presence, but she merely raised a hand and continued until the man was little more than paste before screaming her own release. A common guard was absolutely no threat to such a being. I marveled at the waste as Adrian CMXXVIII climbed off her bed to glare at my guard. "You almost ruined that for me, peasant. If it isn't worth it you'll be next." Given the reactions of the two behind my guard, there were worse ways to die. I really didn't want that to happen to my guard, though. He wouldn't die and that would be suspicious. I could try to replicate what I'd witnessed, but I doubted my single look with weak will sensation would be enough to avoid the suspicion of someone who did it regularly.

"An update on the approaching menace, Lord!" my guard dropped to one knee in the proper salute. I had wondered why the most basically advanced humans radiated their tiny amount of mana from their knees, but I understood now. Maybe it had something to do with running, but the priority was probably making bowing as painless as possible while being as sharp as possible. Corpses don't care, but humans wouldn't have been comfortable with the slight crack that opened in my guard's femur. "They have…tamed hounds. Dire hounds were the worst we saw but there could be others. I was ordered to relay that we need additional cavalry reinforcements."

My original plan of killing the Lord once I knew where the other cities were went out the window. I'd need to have a third composite hold her down as I pummeled her with everything I had. I was getting much more worried about the status of the wizard tower. Five or six of her caliber and my invasion would fail. I'd take over the means of communication instead. Even if my invasion failed, I wouldn't let anyone know there was a force capable of organizing monsters against human cities. Hopefully, it would take them longer to repair whatever I broke than it would for me to organize a second invasion.

Adrian CMXXVIII didn't seem that bothered with my report. She simply waved her hand, sending out a pulse of will that connected to an amulet nearby. Avoiding the collision took a lot of effort on my part. The amulet shot into her hand and started accumulating mana. My operation had just become much more dangerous if she was capable of noticing the flow of will. A tiny tendril slipped across the ground, flowing through the leather that coated the floor. Once I felt the mana start to flow in a more controlled way, I immediately sped up into the amulet. A beam of mana shot out of the room, carrying a shred of my will on it. It traveled twelve thousand leagues before stopping. I spread the shred as loose as possible to keep it from being detected. It was in a similar amulet in a similar room next to a similarly powerful being. As the similar being picked up the amulet, a mana image of Adrian CMXXVIII appeared above it. "Celius, we need cavalry support as well. They've got hounds too. The wizards here will get involved if hells are there, so you don't have to bow to them."

Celius nodded and turned the amulet over, ending the connection. My shred immediately fled the room to establish a beachhead in this new town. I would be much more cautious this time. I didn't want to lose a foothold if I lost against Adrian. The process was identical when Adrian called Agatha, another vastly powerful man, the main difference being that Adrian CMXXVIII cut off the call while Agatha tried for more conversation after acknowledging the report. Each city would be equally difficult to take. Or was Adrian CMXXVIII ruler of the weakest city? I'd have to assume it was the weakest city. The largest difference between Agatha and Celius was that Agatha had a paste person on his bed.

Now that I considered it, the signature of their power being so similar was suspicious. Were they following the same template? It definitely wouldn't make sense for both of them to coincidentally choose similar enough circuits throughout the entirety of their bodies or wills that their leakage felt exactly the same. Adrian CMXXVIII wasn't the only one that was hornier than worried about the livelihood of a single peasant, but she may be the only one to choose a different template. Either that or there was enough difference between males and females following the same template that it came across in the mana leakage.

Adrian CMXXVIII tossed the amulet back onto the table it had come from and looked forlornly at her bed. She shook her head and turned to the three guards still standing at her doorway. "You have a post, don't you? Get someone to clean this up."

I hurried to taint the amulet as my guard left the room. I could erase her mana from it, but that would alert her if she tried to use it again. Instead I found the link between this amulet and the other two and shoved myself into it, making it a link to me instead of them. I could replicate the two men well enough that she shouldn't notice over a short call. Agatha would be more difficult as he seemed to have something he wanted to communicate, but Celius couldn't be easier.

I immediately started planning how to eviscerate the wizard tower without damaging their knowledge. It was a very tricky problem. With the mana all of my pawns throughout the city had managed to gather destroying the tower itself was beyond easy. It was the largest structure in Adrian, but I had a lot of mana. That would destroy the books, though. I wanted their knowledge more than I wanted their destruction.

How could I kill humans without ruining what they'd made? Then it hit me, I'd been created in a circuit that had a similar function to what I needed. The difference would be that instead of infusing mana I'd want to remove it. I needed the intent within the books to survive…most will runes didn't affect intent. The shackles meant to keep me an eternal slave would work well enough for the wizards, though I wasn't sure what they'd do to a human. Maybe all of them would die. I was excited to find out.

It was good that night had fallen by now. The fewer people outside, the less likely that the city would notice my pawns assembling. I had tens of thousands at my disposal now. Tens of thousands of former people with more mana available to them than any wizard I'd seen yet. I might lose out in quality and skill, but I found it highly unlikely that I'd lose out in quantity. The sun was full the next day before my bodies were where I wanted them to be.

For the first time, my magic was visible to naked human eyes. Pillars of luminescent mana erupted from each of my people, ripping into the air. As the pillars rose, they split and warped into lines that wove into a miraculous circuit. Each line three pedes in diameter made of pure mana, perfectly aligned with the circuit as a whole.

As the circuit came alive, the powerful impact it had on the ambient mana was so strong it shattered buildings, sending people tumbling and rolling through the streets or burying them in the rubble of their homes. I felt wonder at my own creation as I saw the circuit erupt with supremacy over the area. Perhaps it was the first time such a magnificent circuit had ever existed in the entirety of the world. It was powerful, but it was also spread over a large area. I had to pull out all the stops to make sure no wizard could shrug off the will shredding, even if they did find a way to reinforce their will instead of merely use it. If this failed there was no hope for my invasion. If it didn't, my ogres would soon be visible from the walls.