Chapter 5: To hide a leaf within a forest

Things may have seemed as though they would escalate to a proverbial tangent there when the bold soldier got ended up with his head somehow managing to fly in all directions however, everything still ended up okay.

It took murdering a squad mate of his to finally understand that I could not hear a word of what he said. In the end, he mumbled a few unintelligible words before shoving a fully automatic anti-mage rifle in my hands and gesturing for me to follow him. 

Looking at the gun in my hands, I couldn't help but frown.

Anti-mage rifles together with all AMDF towers and anti-magic weaponry could only be developed by the great Grisalian Empire. It was a great many years before I was born that huge Antinite deposits were discovered under imperial lands. 

This special ore had a unique characteristic that nullified any spells, superpowers and mage craft it came into contact with. The special giveaway of this ore was that it could make an alloy with any metal and any resultant alloy would gain the nullifying properties as well. 

The genius scientists of the empire coated bullet tips of guns with Antinite alloy and the result was just as instantaneous as it was horrendous. The previous guns which had become obsolete due to the advent of mage graft and superpowers once again made their glorious come-back into the hands of mankind. No number of spells, magic shields nor super power force fields or physical body augmentation either by superpowers or by magic could stop the tracks of a single normal bullet with an Antinite alloy coated tip.

Another one of the mad-men decided to build radio equipment utilizing Antinite alloys and the results were these very AMDF towers that suppressed the use of any magic or supernatural ability over a long range. Luckily these had a very short wavelength as opposed to the wavelength typical radio waves had resulting in them only suppressing a few hundred meters around them thus the need for them to be set up in large numbers. 

With the use of AMDF towers, mages and superpower wielders who could do crazy stuff like moving at hypersonic speeds and manipulate space, time, fate etc. found themselves stripped of all their powers within the range of these towers becoming nothing more than normal albeit slightly stronger people which was useless because the Antinite alloy modded bullets and guns could make short work of them. 

My grandfather…. The then emperor of the Great Grisalian Empire and one of the chief architects of our misfortune and misery had the inner Hitler within him unleashed when he discovered how scaringly effective his new toys were against the magic and superpower dominated world. 

Like any good sovereign of a nation…. He made sure that all those outside of the imperial family who knew the exact locations of the Antinite deposits became the empire's new batch of good guys. That is, their entire families were slaughtered and over exaggerated tales were spun concerning their heroic demise as they fought against bandits, disease and randomly spawning wildlife. Even an elementary schooler could sniff out something wrong with these fables but everyone kept their mouths reasonably shut. The message couldn't have been any more obvious.

They were basically saying, "If you know what's good for you, you better shut up or we will immortalize you as a national hero."

Forever faithful to his inner Hitler, my grandfather launched a massive militarization campaign before launching his Schlieffen plan to conquer the entire northern super continent. Nations were razed to the ground and buried under a carpet of Antinite shells and bullets overnight. Man once again became helpless under the overwhelming might of the guns as sages and high-level superpower users were butchered like pigs. 

Their flying battalions composed of sages who rode on the backs of mythical dragons, thunder birds and phoenixes were shot down and blasted to smithereens under the salvos of surface-to-Air hypersonic Antinite missile installations and hyper-precision close-in-weapon-system (CIWS) artillery. 

'Negotiations' with enemy heads of state were done with them being presented with only two options… To roll over or to die. You would think that the Empire had demonstrated their overwhelming power more than enough and would not stoop to any underhanded tactics during negotiations but that's where you are wrong.

Negotiations were done in an open space with the enemy heads of state needing to make a prompt decision with multiple sniper rifle laser sights trained upon them. They really meant it when they said the enemy had to either roll over or die. 

The military expansion of the empire only started stalling a few months before I was ultimately captured when imperial Antinite ores and weapon blueprints started to 'mysteriously' find their ways into the hands of black-market dealers and weapon smugglers working for other countries.

I was obviously responsible for that since my plan at that time was to give the empire a hard time by evening out the playing field a little bit and the very fruits of that plan were literally being held in my hands right now.

If even small fry rebels like this could afford to get their hands on anti-mage rifles… it meant that Antinite had spread far enough amongst the resistance and rebel forces to become easily accessible. The Empire would find it too difficult to swallow the remainder of the pie they had yet to conquer and now that I am now free, I can make efforts to slowly but surely chip away at the seams holding the empire together.

Large territories under one hegemon always hid the bitter truth that all the annexed territories would be far from unified in their views towards the conquering hegemon. There was a reason why all the largest empires in histories ultimately collapsed. The collapse never came from outside…it always came from within.

The empire had especially utilized tactics like 'the red terror tactic' where anyone caught spreading the slightest ill-rumors about the empire would be shot and killed on the spot regardless of evidence or social standing. Mass shootings and hangings were very common where being caught at the wrong place, at the wrong time could spell your doom with no one giving two shits about why you were there. All annexed territories' former royal families and citizens were tasked with spying on each other and any rumors of rebellion or dissent were immediately met with massacres and purges by the imperial forces.

The royals had it especially rough since if any signs of dissent were reported to them, public show trials would be initiated where groundless claims and testimonies would be presented as 'indisputable' evidence against the accused and they would be asked to defend themselves with the results always leading to one conclusion… public humiliation using extreme methods like torture rape, being forced to shit in public or being forced to 'serve' the animal pets of the soldiers regardless of your gender. Ultimately, they were gruesomely executed before their corpses where fed to the pigs and dogs.

Although this method of using fear to quell any dissent was effective, it has the adverse effect of fueling even more rage and dissent beneath the surface. All it takes is one nation summing up the courage to speak out and the rest would follow like falling dominoes. I want to stage the biggest rebellion this world has ever known and I had the right targets in mind to get started on this plan. 

Before I get started though, I need to get rid of these extras. I will officially 'die' today although when my other 'unique ability' is taken into account by the Imperial family, they would no doubt know that no artificially induced death could ever 'truly' kill me. It was the very same reason they failed to kill me in the past as I can only be killed by natural causes. 

I had no doubt that they would keep my abilities a secret from the world because everything they held dear would be at stake should they be exposed after all, the ability to cheat death is a special ability unique to the imperial bloodline. 

Today would do the Imperial family a little favor by hiding the little secret of my existence in an entire forest of secrets.  What made for a better forest for hiding secrets other than the corpses of everyone on this island?