Beastforged Bond

The Council did not gather often. In recent times of peril and war, it was almost impossible to pull the greatest forces and brightest minds away from the front lines. But when they did gather, it was time to socialize.

Connections had to be made, promising deals offered, and treaties signed.

To most, it looked like the Council and its Rulers were one unit. A group of the greatest that humanity had to offer, united against their common enemies. But it was not that simple. It never was when it was about humans and their drive to rule and control.

Sometimes they fought each other to undermine their rivals, but that rarely happened nowadays. The fights of Rulers were a thing of the past. Now they rallied forces and gathered personal strength in the shadows. As for their reasoning… only the Rulers themselves would know.

Several Council members were certain the Antic party of the oldest Blessed desired to regain full control of the Bastions. That they were tired of sharing. That they wanted to have everything for themselves. Others just wanted the best for humanity.

But how were they supposed to provide the best when the Bastions were not working together, when a single decision, a simple deal, decided whether the civilians of the war-ridden Bastions were given refuge in the less endangered Bastions? It was foolish to think a deal was required for something that should have been obvious.

Yet past incidents had decided this. That the Lords of the Bastions had to give permission first…and that they could decline help even when they had the means to offer such.

In times like the current, the Bastions should help each other openly. The Rulers, Grandmasters, and those with the wealth and authority to help in other ways should spread their wings to do just that. But they did not. Their focus lay elsewhere; on politics and schemes. Trickery that would help them gain something as soon as the wars with the Outsiders ended. To make sure they would emerge stronger than others from the war, no matter how many other people would have to suffer.

It was disgusting.

“Are there any new noteworthy discoveries regarding the Fithar Alliance’s resources?” A young, slimy-looking Blessed asked. He was no Ruler yet, but his voice and posture resembled that of the Antic party’s greatest Rulers.

He looked like he was already one of them, when he could not have been further away from their greatness.

“‘Resources’? What a despicable term to call the desecration of the Fija and Tarthon’s corpses.” A middle-aged woman snorted. “Let us not talk around the bush. We do not have to use flowery words to understand what you want to know.” The corner of her lip curled upward as the slimy Blessed’s brows furrowed. “You wish to know if our experiments to use our enemies’ corpses against them have resulted in rewards?”

The slimy Blessed did not answer, but that did not stop the middle-aged woman from continuing.

“Yes, we have,” she said loudly, clicking her tongue. “We learned a lot about the Fija and Tarthon. Even better, we studied their corpses and are fairly certain to have found a way to use their corpses in a new series of Potency serums. Serums that provide a similar effect to human Worlds. We are still in the pre-Alpha phase of testing, which is rather unfortunate, but we are confident in our research.”

She cleared her throat, satisfied with the pairs of eyes turned to her and the ears perked to her words. “In a few years, we will have a mostly secure method to nourish our Soulkins. Extend their racial limit and increase the probability of advantageous mutations as well as evolutions.”

The woman continued to ramble. Her sales pitch was perfect. She attracted the eyes of many, which was not only owed to her alluring voice, but her ravishing body as well. Of course, that only helped her already flawless product earn more attention. Enough to attract the curiosity of all those old men and women whose Soulkins had been at their racial limit for decades. They were her target; the perfect investors.

Her organization did not only need more funds to continue with their research but also corpses. The corpses of the Fija and Tarthon. Eliminating them would not only be a necessity to protect the Bastions but it would provide them with the resource needed to strengthen mankind as a whole – or the wealthy investors.

Jen, the middle-aged woman, did not need to protect humanity as a whole. All she required was power. And since her World was broken, damaged beyond repair, she could not gain that power on her own. She needed powerful allies. A force that would sacrifice itself and its Soulkins for her, if necessary.

It would not be easy, but Jen was confident. In herself but also in her product. It was something everyone needed, yet only the oldest Blessed were desperate enough to offer invaluable favors in return for the promise of power.

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Jen continued with her sales pitch, her smile perfectly controlled as she garnered the interest of the people around her.

In the same room where no less than one hundred of the most influential and powerful men and women of the human race were gathered, not everyone was interested in politics and schemes.

A small group of men and women had gathered on the other side of the room, far away from the schemers and close enough to the liquor and snacks to reach them quickly. They enjoyed themselves and relaxed for the first time in a long time. No fight was waiting for them. Tomorrow, maybe, but today they would not have to fight.

But that did not stop them from talking about their fights and the incidents that had befallen them, their Bastions, and their people.

The Ruler of Steel had just finished a story about his unit’s scathing battle against an army of Bakurean. The aggressive race took them by surprise, attacked them in the middle of the night, and killed the Ruler of Steel’s people with deadly precision. He emerged victorious, his power and that of his Soulkins surpassing that of the strongest Bakurean on the battlefield, yet it was astonishing nonetheless.

Maybe it was just the way the Ruler of Steel spoke, or it could have been the pain and struggle in his voice, but everyone listened intently to him.

“Fortunately, I didn’t have that many problems in my Bastion.” Wale, Bastion Lord and Ruler of Peace, sighed. He patted his chest as if his heart was threatened to stop after listening to the Ruler of Steel’s intense story.

“I heard the Outsiders had struck your Bastion. And that you were hiding rather than helping your people.” The Ruler of Steel snorted. He wasn’t even trying to hide his disgust. “Raffael had to come with the Strikers to eliminate the headquarters of the Outsiders that played with you and your people for months. How disgraceful.”

Wale met the Ruler of Steel’s eyes without an ounce of shame. “I am not a fighter. You know that. I cannot fight. But that does not mean I didn’t help anyone. I watched over the soldiers and guarded them to the best of my ability. I restrained more than 2,000 beasts, protected as many soldiers as I could, and worked on the Dome to use it again in a timely manner.”

“You are weak. Your power is not worthy of a Ruler.” The Ruler of Steel grunted. “If you were a real Ruler, you would have been strong enough to crush the Outsiders and stop the invading beasts. Yet you didn’t. Not because you did not want to, but because you are simply too weak. Instead, you watched your soldiers fight for you when you could have done it instead.”

Wale sighed deeply. It was not that he didn’t want to fight. He simply couldn’t. His traits were powerful. They transformed him into a being that was near indestructible. Unfortunately, they barred him from fighting. Any act of violence was punished greatly, weakening the greatest of his traits to an extent he could not afford.

Wale had improved his traits for most of the past century, and he was unwilling to give that up. He could not, or the Bastion would have fallen a long time ago. Even if people had to die, he had to survive. As brutal as it was, so was reality.

“I am just happy with how my soldiers turned out to be. Even the reserve members performed exceptionally. It was a good decision to call for a general conscription.” Wale said, not even batting an eye at the Ruler of Steel as he continued to snort and grunt.

He thought back to the Outsider’s attack and smiled. Even though he could not fight, that didn’t mean he didn’t cheer for his people. Wale tried to help them as much as possible, but some hadn’t needed his help. One man’s fight, a young member of the Warden reserve team, resurfaced in his mind.

He couldn’t have been much older than his youngest grandchild. If anything, his grandchild was probably older than the boy had been, but they couldn’t be compared. Because the young man was a Master. His combat strength was on par with the Scions, even more so after unleashing those flames that burned through the Master-ranked Outsider.

He protected many citizens, and watching him made Wale’s heart beat faster. It had been liberating to see the younger generation fight for the Bastion’s ongoing survival, but also for the outskirts’ unBlessed and weaker Blessed.

Thinking about the young man, he opened the video he’d downloaded. It had later been deleted, which attracted his attention. As usual as it was for Rulers to delete Nexus recordings about their Scions and the other powers they’d trained, it was interesting to learn more about the boy.

Adam Savier. UnBlessed for most of his life. Accepted as the first and last Scion of Ruler Kazriel not even one year before the Ruler died–for Raffael Torch.

Wale grimaced as he was reminded of the Ruler of Fire’s immeasurable arrogance and uncontrollable temper. Bad as his temper may be, Raffael did not kill Adam. The young man survived and was even given his master’s inheritance, which was not all that common either. Often enough, Rulers claimed the possessions of recently deceased powerhouses. Why? How?

Because they could. No one could stop them…except for other Rulers.

Did someone stop Raffael from taking Kazriel’s inheritance? Was he forced to surrender it to Adam Savier? If so, who had the authority to force the Ruler of Fire? If not…why would Raffael give Adam the inheritance voluntarily?

It was not difficult to attract Wale’s attention. It was fairly easy. Knowing that, it was no surprise to see Wale watching Adam Savier’s video of the fight against the Outsider.

But he was not the only one watching. Several men and women, drunk or bored to death, noticed what he did and joined him. They saw Adam going up in flames and wings of deadly force spreading out from his back.

“That’s not a sacred flame.” A low voice echoed through the corner of the Council room. Wale looked up to see the youngest of the Rulers, Xadrak, stare at the holographic screen with wide eyes.

Beside him stood a woman with narrowed eyes, nibbling nervously on her lower lip.

At that time, the Ruler of Peace, Wale, did not know the death and destruction a simple video recording could cause to his Bastion.

For his Bastion would once more transform into a battlefield.