Devourer

Chapter 152: Testing the Living

I looked down at the fight below and I was honestly quite surprised by how weak the Zariman’s were. The Elysians and the Volerians were weak but at least they had the resources to power their defences. So I guess you could say the Elysians were weak but rich, while the Zariman’s were weak and poor.

For all the emphasis that Mahaila put on these scaled weaklings I was honestly expecting more. I suppose Mahaila acting as this kind of hype woman probably inflated my expectations a little. I knew they were weak but I didn’t expect them to be this poor. They couldn’t leave the wall barriers on, if they were in the old world their entire fort would be blasted to pieces by magic. The ancients were powerful enough to sustain a barrier that size just as individuals. A single Watcher could probably cut that fortress in half, a single spell from them could level the current day cities. The only reason that the old cities survived was because every inch of the cities were enchanted. 

How do I know this, well simply put a lot of the old world was buried and I mean that literally. I actually found an ancient Elven City buried beneath the dirt just south of Averlon. I’m still excavating that and I have some interesting things to send to the Mage Academy in Averlon which as per agreement was run by Istland. The Royal Academy of Sorcery was this little quasi independent institution in the middle of Averlon.

The Zarimans were severely lacking, if this was all they could manage then they were definitely screwed if I wasn’t here to help. Well I knew that already but I didn’t expect such expedient screwing if I was absent. I thought they would at least last a week. These guys would be lucky to last four days and that’s if the Vampires decide to take the weekends off, it is Friday after all. Or at least this world’s equivalent of Friday but the auto translation in my head just makes me hear Friday.

Those Blood Knights are doing a number on the Zariman. One of the Blood Knights just took a swing at a Zariman Warrior priest. Honestly I find the priests to be a bunch of upjumped fools. They lack the intelligence and wit to properly navigate the world. They are mostly just useful as zealots to hurl at the enemy, for that task my Hive is far superior. At least the Wardens are kind of good examples towards others but if you hang out with the warrior priests for too long your brain cells start committing suicide.

Anyway the Blood Knight that took a swing at the Warrior Priest had just removed the warrior priest’s head. As they say, a fool and his head are easily parted. It seems it’s about time I sent those riders in. They have been hanging out at the edges of the fight since I have a little surprise for the Vampires. I know the leaders Ordias Derenge and Rosa Maledicta view this whole war as an audition. 

Honestly for me it was an audition too and I would rather not break the actors. You see the Vampires are extremely treacherous by nature and they only listen to strength but yet they are not above schemes. But I suppose an ability to scheme was also a form of strength.

In short I do not want to destroy the Vampires, I want to recruit them. I already have a group of man eating rapidly evolving beasts and an underwater army of genocidal snake people under my control. If anything, recruiting the Vampires would be very on brand for my army. The Angels are cautious of the Vampires for good reason, because at the end of the day they can just hide in their crypts and chip away at the Angels. They can’t use that strategy against a burrowing hive since I can just tunnel into the catacombs but Angels rule the sky so there was little they could do against the Vampires.

The Angels cut a deal with me saying that I will handle their Vampire problem. In their minds we will slaughter each other and the best case scenario for them would be that we weaken each other severely. But you see the Angels don’t have spies like I do. It was common knowledge that the Vampires mostly keep to themselves because they spend most of their time infighting. 

However, I realised that two of the most powerful Vampires have seen which way the wind was blowing. These two were none other than Ordias Derenge and Rosa Maledicta. The other Vampire Lords and Ladies were not over enthused about the prospect of bowing to me. So the plan was to recruit these two and use them to smash any resistance in Necoronas.

This recruitment changed things drastically for the simple reason that Necoronas was such a cursed land that nothing other than a Vampire would find the place inhabitable or even remotely useful. So if I wiped out the Vampires then I would have no usable land to take which means no expansion. But if I had Vampires on my side I could just smash the rebel forces and then plant those two as leaders, effectively adding two new dukedoms to the Empire. 

There was one other thing that really interested me however. I realised that the Firstborn did not really bother with Necromancy, well at least most of them didn’t anyway. After all they have dominion over life and with all of them having hives as well as being functionally immortal, Necromancy must not have been a subject of interest to them. Necromancy could arguably be considered a solution used by the mortal races, hence the lack of interest.

But here’s the thing, I don’t know anything about Necromancy beyond the most rudimentary techniques. Heaven confiscated most of the good stuff and seeing as Necromancy was so dangerous most of the books are usually destroyed on sight. So if I got my hands on a master necromancer and one as good as Rosa Maledicta then things could change dramatically. Afterall, imagine what I could do if after you finally kill one of my soldiers it just revives as an undead creature and gets back up. Imagine having to kill my army twice…

Well but before I get to that part I need to test these two Vampires first. The first requirement you need to achieve any success against a Hive was to be adaptable. So let’s see how they react to my curve balls.

Now go my living armour soldiers. The plan was rather simple really, I needed the Zarimans to thin out the trash zombies so that my soldiers could have room to manoeuvre. There just wasn’t enough space on the wall.

Then I gave the order and my Living Armour clad soldiers began moving onto the walls. Their mounts allowed them to vertically scale the walls which would give them the element of surprise. The best thing about the Living Armour helmets was that it allowed me to transmit orders directly to them in real time. No more stupid flag waving, runners with rolls of parchment or easily interceptable magic messages. These messages go right through the Hive Mind and anyone who tries to tap into it just gets garbled nonsense that sounds vaguely like singing. The hive’s internal communication was only comprehensible to another hive creature. It was one of the vestiges of the first Hives since the Firstborn didn’t want anyone to listen in on their hive’s communications. 

You do not spy on the Firstborn, they spy on you…

The soldiers reached the top of the walls and they immediately leapt into the fray. To say the Blood Knights were caught off guard would be an understatement. A few of them only had time to turn their heads before they were impaled by the bone lances that my soldiers held. The lances were made of the same material that made up my bone spines. Mahaila confirmed that this material would pierce even her personal armour.

The bone lance went right through and started injecting their venom. These lances were technically alive. They were smart enough to know when to inject their poison so that the weapon doesn't accidentally kill one of my soldiers just because someone touched the blade. The moment my soldiers ripped the lances out, the holes in the Vampires chests started to smoke from the venom. 

Vampires were usually immune to most toxins but this toxin was a unique cocktail that contained Plague Manticore Venom. The very same venom that Beatrice used to melt my feather. It was a rather insidious poison, designed to flow through the blood dissolving everything around it. Since it took awhile for the acidic properties to take effect so it would spread before dissolving the blood vessels.

Sure enough the impaled Vampires started collapsing as black fluid started dripping from their smoking wounds and helms. One Vampire ripped off his helmet gasping for air and it revealed a grisly sight. The Vampire had black bile dripping from every orifice as the poison dissolved him from the inside out. His red eyes started to dim as the poison reached his eyes and then the red glow went out as his eyeballs started to steam before erupting, spewing black bile. The Vampire then collapsed to the ground twitching as he started to gag up more of the black bile.

The nearby Zarimans looked on in absolute horror. Even though the Vampires were enemies this sight still greatly unnerved them. The Zarimans all shifted their gaze from the dead Vampires then to my white clad soldiers. What was worse than death? A painful death.

Behold weakling, behold the forgotten horrors of the old world.

Now that the Zarimans knew what they were dealing with, they would be less likely to rebel. Which would make them more likely to… run away?

Why are they running away?

Ok I might have gone a bit far with the horror thing. You know what no I didn’t go too far, the Elysian Knights handle it just fine, these guys are just pussies. At least the warrior priests and the knights were still fighting. This was why I didn’t allow conscripts into my army, they were useless. If they start running they start getting in the way.

Case and point one of the conscripts was trying to climb onto the mount of one of my soldiers. I’m just going to assume this one thinks that my soldier was going to carry him away from here to safety. The mount got annoyed and slammed its body to the side. The Zariman soldier was bashed with enough force to break most of his front teeth. His body then went flying off the wall and right into the mass of zombies below. So technically he did get sent away, just not to safety.

But so far it was working well, my soldiers were holding up decently well against the Vampires. The Living Armour allowed a mere human to match the speed and strength of a full fledged Vampire. I saw one of my soldiers parry a strike from a Vampire with enough force to knock the Vampire off balance. The soldier’s mount then leapt forward and with a quick slash of its claws it tore the Vampire’s chest plate open along with his rib cage. The beast then closed its jaws around the Vampire’s head and ripped it clean off.

It was clear from what I was seeing that my Living Armoured soldiers were far superior to the average Vampire. This was honestly a great result considering the fact that these soldiers were just prototypes. I haven’t even put the seed into these ones yet. I did a lot of work on these soldiers, to make them worship power. Adventurers were an easy choice since most of the time they were just glory seeking mercenaries. So promises of power and wealth were a very attractive prospect to them. Furthermore these ones were used to danger and they knew having an advantage in combat was invaluable if you wanted to stay breathing.

This mentality would make them very receptive to my future overtures and with this battle they would keenly feel the power I promise. Just wait till I tell them this was just a test run for them to try out the most rudimentary of improvements. 

These simple improvements were already able to push the vampires back towards their siege towers. They were being forced back on all fronts, the attacks of my soldiers were just too powerful for them to resist. Most of the Vampires have lost their shields, the black metal long ago torn to shreds by the bone of my soldier’s weapons and the beast’s claws.

Well I guess it’s time to end this opening act. With that I sent a command into the hive mind and it was transmitted to all my soldiers.

Send them home with a present…

The soldiers reared on their mounts and they charged. My white soldiers smashed through the wall of black and red. Their weapons flashed and my soldiers discarded their lances for curved swords once they were in the thick of battle. These swords were far more suited for close quarters combat and the Vampires were quickly put on the defensive. The curved swords wicked edges were designed to go through steel as easily as flesh. It took only a few strikes before the weapons of the Vampires were reduced to shredded scrap.

“RETREAT!” one of the Vampires commanded and to the Vampire soldier’s credit they retreat in a rather organised fashion. Or as organised as they could be with a group of white cavalry carving their way through their ranks. 

Once most of the Vampires were in the siege tower my soldiers threw satchels into the closing opening. There was a flash from each of them and most of the siege towers exploded from the inside. The shrapnel flew in all directions and though it bounced off the armour of my soldiers it did end up impaling many of the surrounding Zarimans.

But not all the siege towers exploded, and there was a blue flash as the surviving siege towers were teleported away. This looked like the bombs were defective, but in truth it wasn’t.

It was just on a very delayed charge, a living charge in fact. A creature was embedded inside the frame of the satchel charge that would know what was the best time to explode. The best time didn’t take very long to pass considering less than a minute later I felt a slight tremor and a muffled boom emanate from one of those giant floating pyramids.

I switched vision to one of my infiltrators who were currently inside the ziggurat and what I saw was quite satisfying. In truth this was quite a nice way to serve vampires.

Nice and crispy…