Welcome the Abomination (III)

When I saw this, I gritted my teeth. An unsuspecting variable had appeared before us. It was now the ape who was attacking the Blood Dryad. I knew that this could go bad if it goes around killing the Blood Dryad.

"Quickly! Change your aim towards the Giant Ape!" I yelled. "Don't let the Blood Dryad die!" I ran past the soldiers and got into a more favorable position.

It was a complete three-way slugfest between the Ape, Blood Dryad, and the humans. The humans took this chance to counter against the Giant Ape first because it was more of a nuisance from its powerful, stunning effect from its roar. It took a while for the soldiers to unfreeze and retaliate back.

This time, I wrapped multiple magic stones around the arrows in a hurry. Tightening it as best as I can, I raised up my bow and took a steady aim. With a twang, the arrow flew across the sky. Firing another right behind it, I yelled. "Activate!"

Boom!

Crackle!

Bzzzt-!

The cacophony of magic all simultaneously went off at once, creating quite a spectacular magic show.

The Giant ape was stunned temporarily, giving the Blood Dryad a chance to strike with its arm that had warped into a spear. A large gaping hole appeared in its chest, leaving behind a dead ape. Transforming its hands, it shifted and changed into an alligator jaw, completely swallowing it up in multiple bites.

Soldiers who were once fighting with the Blood Dryad shifted their aim at it instead, but before they could even kill it, arrows flew downwards and pierced them. The Blood Dryad took this chance to gobble up the injured soldiers completely, cleaning out the remaining squads that survived.

"It makes me shudder every time I see the Dryad eat them up." The archer right next to me voiced his opinion in a shudder.

"Yea. I am glad that we have that monster's on our side." Another archer spoke with a nod. "Without these Identity Cards, who knows what would��ve happened if we were down there." Patting his chest where his pocket laid, he stared down towards the Blood Dryad with relief.

It finally hit me. I completely forgot that the people were issued two kinds of Identity Cards embedded with magic that Duke Jeremy has. The Identity cards are unique cards made from the magic inside my castle. A piece of the Eternal Flame that sleeps in the middle of the castle was brought to the Town Hall.

The Eternal Flame isn't like any other fire, supposedly it never has gone out and can record information. Especially in controlling the magic around the city. Sending out a small flame towards the City Hall was to deviate the people from entering into the castle and hiding the main fire from everyone else. Coco stated that the Eternal Flame was like the heart of the city, and I needed to take care of it well.

Plus, every time someone new comes into the city, a temporary card is created the moment they pass through the gates. From the Eternal Flame's fire, an origami bird appears and flies towards them. It will then magically unfold itself, absorbing their signature energy as it turns into a flat card.

The neat thing about the temporary card was that it has a countdown, issuing how long they could stay. It's always a month. When the month passes, the card will change into a red color, bursting into a flaming bird as it flies up into the air, marking the person as ineligible to stay for too long.

That person wouldn't be able to trade or live in the city any longer, and they would have to go to the nearest Civil Building to renew for another month or apply for citizenship. If three days pass without any change, the card will alert Duke Jeremy and his guards to find them.

The soldiers will arrive and ask the person if they want to stay longer or apply for citizenship. If they don't apply, the person will be forcefully kicked out of the city. One of its benefits of the temporary card was that it also has a "safe" feature, in which it tells the Main Eternal Flames that they are someone not to harm, especially getting eaten by the plant defensive magic.

It has become a solid rule that one needs to keep their ID on them at all times because, without it, getting 'eaten' by the plant was very high. No one wanted to take that chance. Also, the card's main feature was that it would show the owner the safest way through the Forgotten Forest without getting lost or eaten by a monster.

Luckily, the citizenship card can only be used by the individual, so it becomes pointless if another has it. Not only that, both cards have a 'safety' features imbued on the card itself, where the moment 'murder' is committed the card is flagged down and informs the local army.

Murder inside the city wall is an all-time low, one does happen a couple of times a year, but they are quickly dealt with even then. How could I forget such a simple solution that was right in front of my nose? Maybe it's because I don't have an ID card nor need one, so it didn't matter.

So far, nobody had questioned me about one, during my whole stay inside the city walls.

Plus, without my consent, living inside the city without my knowledge was impossible. This whole city was my space where no one could enter without an ID card, which could also be exploited by issuing out Temporary ID cards by the dozens. The problem lies in when the enemy soldiers pass the wall. The Eternal Flame has a few important jobs: one was to issue out the cards and create new IDs. Other than that, if it's not turned off, then we have a serious problem.

The ID maker will continually make cards if the enemy soldier passes through the walls and enters the city, allowing them to be immune from magic unless they kill someone. Luckily right now, the ID doesn't flag the citizens as murder when facing enemies outside the wall. Enemies attacking the city walls are automatically labeled as enemies and don't count, only when a citizen or a temporary citizen is killed inside the walls are a different story. I was already getting a headache just thinking about it.

I quickly ran down the stairs and towards the castle. My goal was the Eternal Flame at the castle, not the one at the City Hall. The reason is that the Eternal Flame in the City Hall can only do certain things. I knew that turning it off was impossible, but creating a new rule was not. The only problem was that I had to manually override such a rule. I felt stupid for not realizing this sooner. With frustration, I ran until I saw a man pulling on his horse.

"Sir! Let me borrow your horse for a bit! I promise to send it back!" I jumped up onto the horse, snatching the reins out of his hands. "I'm really sorry!"

Spurring the horse forward, we blazed through the open fields and eventually made it into the city. The distance to cover from the wall to even the Southern district's tip was no joke that lasted a while. Though cutting straight through the middle and going up through the northern district was done half the time.

Jumping off the horse, I ran into the castle. The doors automatically open, letting me through without much worry. Running past the lobby, the hundreds of rooms, the garden, and finally down a flight of stairs. I came upon a large, heavy door decorated with intricate design. No one was able to enter into this room except me, not even the maids.

With a groan, the doors shook open, letting me in. In the middle, the giant room was a bright blue and white fire that flickered powerfully with life. One could say that the Eternal Flame was a part of my heart and where magical energy freely connected to me. The closer I got, the more powerful and complete I felt. Even the blue flames became bigger, welcoming me back home.

Small fire origami birds were flying around the room. My instinct told me what I needed to do. I raised up my hands in front of the giant fire, connecting together with the flames and eventually, a numerous amount of rules and codes passed through my head. Everything made sense, and I knew what to do. I had to think about the new rule that needed to be inputted into the Eternal Flame.

The first was during massive invasions and war times that no new temporary IDs will be created. A second rule was not to allow any new cards given to possible legendary monster descendants without going through me first. Right now, I searched through the memory bank of all the citizens that were living here in the city.

"I found you," I smirked. I eventually found Crow and Raven's card and revoked their privilege to stay. This allowed them to be found, even if they were invisible. "Now that's done."

I pulled my hand away from the fire and rushed back out the castle ground. Hopped onto the horse and sped my way back towards the city wall. Missing a single moment of the war was bad enough; I wanted to stop the enemy from breaking through.

The streets were busy with people, rushing back and forth, getting the supplies ready as they sent it towards the front lines. Even the children were helping out during the wartime, doing miscellaneous tasks that they could handle.

"Berry!" Siva's voice shouted as I rushed past.

I stalled the horse just in time before I completely blew past her. The horse reared and eventually calmed down.

"Siva?"

Siva rushed over. "Berry, please take this to my husband!" She had a charm in her hands.

I quickly took it from her. "Where is he?"

"He's near the east wall."

"Okay. Is there anything else?"

"None, please tell David to come back alive!" She worriedly stated. "You as well, my lady."

"Thanks."