I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1334: The Tempest Spire

After the evening with Roma... he couldn’t exactly call it lively, but it had been enjoyable in its own way. And if he was being completely honest with himself, it was the most fun he’d had in quite a while. A strange thought, given everything. But true nonetheless.

Morning came quickly, and Northern had to move the Thunderhead Dreadnought to the land allocated to him.

He departed at dawn, flying the massive vessel over the mountain to the territory that had been provided on its far side. The air was still and cold at this hour, the world painted in shades of gray and gold.

Perhaps most of Ryugan was still asleep. But surely a few early risers would have noticed—a shadow vast enough to swallow the sky falling over the mountain, blocking the golden light bleeding out of the horizon. The kind of sight that would stay with a person. The kind they’d tell their grandchildren about.

The shadow did not stay for long. It soon disappeared beyond the peaks.

Ryugan rested upon an enormous mountain. Within it were cavern channels the Kingdom had never fully explored, and deep forests blanketed the southern and eastern slopes—regions where Ryugan had not expanded, lacking the resources to tame the field monsters that infested the land. It was wild territory, dangerous and untouched.

Northern had offered to settle right in the middle of this disastrous place. He’d promised to help them tame the region while he was at it.

Not only was he offering to help them win the war with the Empire—he was also offering to conquer one of their own lands, a region that had remained unconquered for decades.

A truly generous person through and through.

That was what the people and nobles of Ryugan thought, anyway. Many still doubted the genuineness of his words and the strength he claimed. Skepticism was a healthy instinct, Northern supposed. Especially when dealing with strangers who arrived on flying fortresses.

Many nobles were already creating contingency plans of their own. Even if the King and Queen trusted this stranger so completely, they did not. They couldn’t afford to.

All of this fell within expected reactions. It was too early to be overseeing them all. But the single noble Northern had already observed had made him want to oversee the rest. He wanted to be keenly aware of what every noble was doing and how they were taking the news. Knowledge was leverage. And leverage was everything in the games that were about to unfold.

So aside from Caladhel, Northern decided to summon more humans.

For this, he had to account for the number of souls he had killed. Both humans and elves accounted to around seventy-four, including Caladhel. The majority came from the Drifters he’d killed in the Dark Continent and the Elves he’d killed at Arcadia. Seventy-four souls. Not a small number. But not nearly as large as it would eventually become.

Northern had a brilliant idea of what to do with each of them.

He wanted to rebirth the Tomb Kings in his possession, and for that he needed vessels. But he didn’t want to use just any echo. He wanted them to prove themselves first—to demonstrate they were worthy of such elevation. Resurrection was a gift. Gifts should be earned.

Their being humanoid echoes was a natural requirement. He also had to account for the fact that, like Bairan, the rest of the Tomb Kings might eventually remember themselves. Memory was a curious thing. It had a way of surfacing when least expected.

Being an Echo would bind them to him. Being humanoid would make them cherish their existence more. And they would grow endlessly, because he was practically the Origin of Endless and the Demon of Form. The potential was staggering when he actually thought about it.

’Either way, these Tomb Kings are in for quite a ride once they’re reborn.’

Northern almost felt envious of them.

While these thoughts turned through his mind, he stood at the highest floor of the Thunderhead Dreadnought as the massive vessel began to shapeshift.

The clouds surrounding it screamed and tore at themselves, giving the appearance of a vast and vicious black smoke—rolling in and out of itself, as if trying to rip something free from its own depths. The sound was like fabric being shredded on a massive scale, a violence that resonated in the bones.

Meanwhile, the structure of the vessel was rooting into the ground. The base slammed into the earth with a tremor that traveled through stone and soil, and a myriad of black fog cascaded into the forest, rolling between trees, spreading further and further into the darkness beneath the canopy.

Low-rank monsters—fiends and savages—met their ends from the sheer overwhelming pressure of the black storm the Tower released. They didn’t even have time to flee. The storm simply erased them.

Northern used the storm to propagate his gateway, letting his echoes retrieve the corpses and funnel them back into Soul Forge. Waste not, want not.

There wasn’t much that the carcasses of Savages and Fiends could do for him personally. But they could do much for low-rank Drifters and mundane soldiers who would be fighting against the Empire. Resources had a way of becoming relevant in war.

That was right.

Northern was thinking of going all the way in this war with the Reimgard Empire. Not as a supporter from the shadows. Not as an ally providing aid. But as something far more involved.

The Thunderhead Dreadnought settled into its base shape—the Storm Bastion, and more specifically, the Tempest Spire.

A tall, massive black tower rose from the southeastern reaches of the forest. Several levels of arching windows punctuated its surface, each emanating a ghostly azure light that pulsed faintly against the surrounding darkness. It looked ancient. It looked like it had always been there, waiting to be found.

A perpetual dark storm surrounded its base and filled the forest, creating a perimeter of roiling shadow that stretched for miles in every direction.

Monsters fled immediately. Even high-rank creatures grew cautious at the storm’s edge, not daring to approach. Instinct told them what their minds could not comprehend—that something far beyond their understanding had taken root in their territory.

With the Tempest Spire rooted in this region, in just a single day, the ecosystem began to adapt. It accepted the presence of the strange and ominous Tower as if it had always been there—as if the forest had been waiting for something to fill the void at its heart. Life, it seemed, was remarkably accommodating when given no other choice.

Northern stood at the balcony of the highest floor, looking down on the vast dark forest spread beneath him. From this height, the world seemed very small. Very conquerable.

’How gruesome...’

It scared him a little to discover that he alone carried a power this devastating. Could he really march to Reimgard alone and take the Empire for himself without anybody’s help?

The question didn’t feel rhetorical anymore. It felt like a genuine possibility. One worth exploring.

He was curious. And his curiosity was edging him to actually try it—to see if he actually could. What was the point of having power if you never tested its limits?

Northern smiled, a strange idea taking shape in his mind.

’Maybe I should do that on the way to the Northern continent.’

His smile widened, satisfaction settling into his expression like warmth spreading through cold limbs.

’I should fetch Nyssira.’