Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 123: Neighbors

“I seem to remember that you possess a gravity array, is that right?” Alyn suddenly said, bringing Zac out of his musings.

“Yes, it’s currently placed in my camp. I can bring it over if you want it,” Zac nodded.

“I would like if you upgraded it as well, I want it to cover the entire Academy Area,” she said with a smile.

Zac frowned and opened up his town shop, and found out that the upgraded small scale gravity array cost 500 000 Nexus Coins. It wasn’t a huge fortune, but also not negligible since it was 5% of his current amount of nexus coins. He expected that quickly bringing the army up to a decent power would cost millions on top of that, and he couldn’t wantonly spend his money.

“It’s a bit expensive, are you sure it’s needed at this stage?” he tentatively asked.

Alyn simply smiled at him, and something about that smile gave Zac a hair-raising feeling, and he could only sigh and acquiesce.

“Follow Alyn’s commands. You can consider the first week with me a warm-up, the real training begins now. It might be grueling, but the path to power is paved with blood,” he said after turning to the newest citizens of Port Atwood.

Alyn nodded approvingly at Zac’s comment while Alea simply rolled her eyes.

“By the way, Alea said you had some idea regarding the hive?”

“Yes. When the warriors traveled through the hive we found that a new queen has been born,” she said.

Zac immediately frowned and looked toward the huge structure in the distance.

“Don’t worry, the queen is still an infant, and is still busy incorporating the old body into itself. It will take years, perhaps decades without nurturing, before it can start creating new warriors,” she added.

Zac could only sigh in relief at the news. He was in no mood to fight another ant-wave on top of the third wave.

“So what was your idea?”

“You need Beast Tamers, people with a Class that’s based on controlling beasts,” she explained.

“It would be extremely beneficial. The biggest boon would be that we might be able to tame the Ayr Hivequeen. That would essentially give control over the whole hive. It would also be good for you, with all these barghest around. They’re currently slowly turning feral, as we have no beast tamers with us who can keep them in line.

“They aren’t very dangerous, but they can still become a good weapon. The barghest with us are just youth, and with the help of a good trainer they can get stronger, the alphas even reaching E-Rank with time” she kept going, some excitement glistening in her eyes.

“Do you have means of guaranteeing them getting a Beast Trainer class if I can get some more people to train?” Zac curiously asked.

It sounded like a pretty good idea. There was an extreme amount of barghest in the forest, and from what he learned they would start multiplying in a few years when they became real adults. If he could use the dumb beasts as meat shields in battle with incursions or others it would protect the lives of his people.

“Well, no. Clan Azh’Rezak didn’t possess any heritage of that type and hired experts from an Association to take care of their beast hordes. But I have a few ideas that might work. I think if you can recruit a few of those beastmen I heard about it would be for the best. They might have a better affinity for those kinds of classes,” she said.

“I will see if I can get some more recruits,” he said with a nod before leaving the burgeoning academy.

Of course, with Alyn at the helm, it might turn more into something like an Agoge, the Spartan training regiment. It seemed that Alea chose to stay behind as well, and Zac didn’t mind. After he pawned off his new squadron to Alyn he went to find Adran.

Since Ogras was still in seclusion the portly administrator would be the one with the highest authority. There were also the generals, but none of them really cared about management and preferred to focus on their own training.

“I heard about the mixed results of the expeditions,” Zac started as he sat down in a chair in Adran’s office.

“Yes. Mostly it went fine, with the exception of the last group. Nasty things, that species. Not something we’ve met or heard about before. However, insectoid species are usually the same. There generally is a queen in command, holding absolute power,” he answered.

“They’re called the Zhix. They’re insanely aggressive from what I’ve heard during my excursions. Anything that comes close gets relentlessly attacked, no matter if it’s a native or an incursion,” Zac added.

Adran frowned at that information.

“I’m sorry to add to your troubles. But I’ve talked with our remaining earth mages a bit. They say that it’s technically possible for there to be tunnels between our island and theirs. The Nexus vein beneath this island has hardened the subterranean walls, and they should be able to hold even under the sea. So if those things keep digging, following the thickness of cosmic energy, they’ll end up in our mountains sooner or later,”

Zac groaned at the news. The prospect of hyper-aggressive ant-men flooding out from his crystal mine was something that sounded like a real pain in the ass, both to his wallet and his town. Besides, who knew, they might dig for the vein and ruin it as well, which would make Port Atwood a far less valuable piece of property.

“How strong were the warriors?” Zac suddenly asked after mulling things over.

“Not too strong. Their attributes were equivalent of someone somewhere around level 20 to 25. They were assisted by quite hard bodies though, which should count as at least an additional 30 or so endurance. And there were a lot of them. Our scouts killed quite a few while they fled toward the vessel, but they simply kept coming,” Adran answered.

“Very well. I will travel there myself,” Zac said with a grimace. “Perhaps I can get someone of them to talk if I display my power. And if they don’t want to talk, I’ll just chop down their numbers a bit. I am in need of some battle in any case.”

Adran looked surprised, but after considering it for some time nodded.

“A tip, if you can get them to as an ally you should. Insectoid populations are usually quite strong in the multi-verse. They have high reproduction rates and high average powers. The queens of the higher species are extremely feared, being able to channel their whole hive’s power into devastating attacks,” the administrator added.

“What about the other islands? Anything of interest?” he continued.

“It is clear that the nexus vein beneath our island has affected the whole region to a certain extent. Most of the islands have higher concentrations of cosmic energy than usual. Together with the temperate climate, it means many can be made into farming islands that can provide Port Atwood with a continuous supply of food and cultivation materials.

There is also a mountainous island not too far that look promising for setting up a mining operation for metals. We still haven’t found anything of the sort in our own mountain, and need supply to keep our industry going,” Adran answered.

“All in all 18 of the closest islands were scouted. Surprisingly we saw signs of habitation on 10 of them. 7 were humans, 2 were the beastmen, and the last the so-called Zhix. We suspect the total populations to reach roughly twenty thousand, excluding the insectoids, of course. There might be people on the other islands as well, and we simply didn’t find them.”

“TWENTY thousand?” Zac exclaimed shocked.

It was nowhere near the population of places like New Washington, but most larger towns had been fragmented into smaller bits, and a population of twenty thousand would be respectable at this stage of the world. Of course, it was just a fraction of the millions required in a population that most of the proper buildings in the Town Shop required, but it was a start.

“Yes, but most of them are concentrated to three larger settlements, two human and one beastkin. The largest town alone has an estimated population of over ten thousand,” Adran answered.

“How are their quality of lives?” Zac asked.

“Mostly pretty wretched. The largest human settlement I mentioned earlier has organized themselves at least and erected a decent wall around a coastal village. The rest are barely hanging on, and we even got a few requests of them to come with the scouts, even though they were demons. We did hide our appearances under hooded capes though.”

It seemed that it wouldn’t be impossible to gather a real population to get his town up and running. He wasn’t sure whether it was better to start gathering people immediately or wait until after the third wave though. He still had no idea what to expect from the third wave, but he couldn’t imagine it would be easier than the last two. At the same time he felt that with his power and equipment there really shouldn’t be a lot of suspense unless the System went crazy.

He still had a couple of days before the auction started, and about a week before the last horde arrived. Time was limited but it might be a good idea to start building Port Atwood in earnest. He’d start with the Zhix though, as that was the most pressing matter. The hive had been right under his nose for months, who knew how far they had dug by now.

It didn’t take long until Zac was sailing alone on one of the Creator vessels. He’d gotten the route from the fishermen, and it was only an hour away. He hadn’t even checked in on Emily or his camp, eager to set sail. The vessels were as quick as speedboats but far more stable, so he pushed through the waves like an arrow.

What he said to Adran was true. He still felt stifled with his emotions in turmoil ever since Greenworth, and he almost hoped that these Zhix kept up their hostility. He had forced himself to keep it together for his new recruits, but he really needed the solitude of this excursion.

He wasn’t very worried either, as from all accounts he wasn’t in any real danger. If a fisherman and a few of the normal demons could fight them off and leave, though with some losses, then he wouldn’t have any real trouble. These Zhix were just like humans, newly integrated into the system, and there should be almost no warriors their kind that could match his power, especially not the ones stuck on an isolated island.

Just as the fishermen described he arrived at the island in roughly an hour. It was far smaller compared to his own, and he judged it might just be a tenth the size altogether. The climate of the island was essentially the same as his own, but there was less vegetation as most of the island was covered by a large mountain. It almost looked like a large volcano with some jungle on the edges of the island, but he wasn’t able to tell whether it actually was a volcano or if it just looked like one.

He disembarked at the closest beach and threw his creator vessel into a Cosmos Sack and headed inland. From what he understood the Zhix were mainly subterranean, so they should be somewhere in the mountains. As he walked further inland toward the mountain he was having a somewhat unsettling déjà vu from the first time he entered the mountain valley all that time ago. The island was deathly silent, not a single chirp could be heard.

Until suddenly a twig snapped, and all hell broke loose.