Godfather's System

I approached the mountain range that covered the horizon, my mind already churning ways to optimize my approach. Technically, I could cut through the beasts, as most of them were merely corrupted giant beasts, only occasionally interrupted by their lord beast equivalents. Neither had the ability to slow me down.

Unfortunately, that approach had its drawbacks. It would alert the observers to my approach, giving them a chance to retreat or set an ambush based on their preference. I would loathe to cede initiative like that.

Worse, with the rest of my Party fighting against the wave, my 'church' had already revealed enough power to alert our enemies — be it cultists or kingdoms. It was already an intimidating display, and I was reluctant to add more. There was a limit for displays of power against the government.

For all intents of purposes, our church was not too different from a gang — an armed organization of dubious political legitimacy. And, back on Earth, I had seen what would happen to gangs that didn't know their limits.

Up to a point, the stronger the gang or mafia, the more careful the government would act, afraid of the losses. However, past that point, a gang would become too threatening … and governments always overreacted to such situations.

In my case, it meant that I couldn't just openly cut a path through the endless wave of corrupted beasts, and my usual alternative, Concealment, was out of the question since it didn't work against the beasts, forcing me to find another solution. "I wish I still had my skill —" I muttered, remembering just how useful Archery of Destruction had been when I was trying to move around in corrupted lands.

Then, I glanced at the beasts, each covered with a thick layer of red, wondering whether I could copy that achievement without the help of the skill. Curious, I found a spot hidden from sight before killing a few more beasts, ignoring the notifications of Authority and Experience. Instead, I stretched my mana in an attempt to capture some Destruction mana.

It was a difficult challenge. Destruction mana behaved more like acid than water, making even the simplest interaction a challenge. Without my previous experience from possessing a skill tied to it, I probably would have to work for weeks to take a step toward success, but familiarity paid off. After ten minutes, I had a two-layered shield around me, the inner layer made of pure mana, while the outer layer was red.

It was an imperfect solution. I couldn't hold much destruction mana, and it would evaporate rapidly. Ironically, the density of the corrupted beasts worked to my benefit. There was more than enough destruction mana to compensate. I used my Charisma to further dissuade the smaller variants, and made a point of avoiding the Lord Beast equivalents, their attitude poor enough to attack me even with the destruction mana concealing me as one of them.

Not a surprise. After all, I had dealt with cultists with that exact habit multiple times.

Still, as I moved, I couldn't help but smile happily. The reason was a particular category in my System.

[Authority: 212,823]

The younglings were performing excellently against the beasts, gathering far more Authority for me than I had expected. Even better, my Experience requirements for the next level had dropped twice. Once after a hundred thousand mark, and once after two hundred thousand mark.

Promising.

Too bad that, with the restrictions they were operating under, they had to retreat. Zolast had mentioned that he had already triggered the first wave of traps he created, and they were about to reach the second wave.

I sighed as I moved forward, wanting to see if I could put a stop to the wave. I didn't want to lose the opportunity to gather Authority of such an incredible scale, our defensive position was not tenable, and the city wasn't geared up for a long siege.

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If the corrupted beast wave continued in the same manner, sooner or later we would suffer horrible losses. From that perspective, it was hard to argue against the timing of the cultists. They chose the perfect time to unleash the wave — and, considering the number of spies they had in the military, only a moron would think it was a coincidence.

It looked like, once the ploy with Somaton had failed, they decided to punish the Princess directly once again. I had to admit, they held their grudge well.

Still, it was nothing that couldn't be handled, I thought as I continued to move forward … until I received another message from Zolast. An army of walking corpses had appeared from the tunnels under the city and were attacking our soldiers.

I asked Zolast to split his forces. Send Takis and Marhuss back with Terma, the latter to carry the former two, while he did his best to slow down the attack with Karak, Limenta, and Silas. I had no idea why the undead were attacking, but it wasn't a stretch to realize it was linked to the cultist attack.

Whether it was an ability of theirs or their allies wasn't an important question, at least in the short term. We still needed to deal with things. I asked Zolast to put our towns to alert in case it spread, and continued to move.

I hated dealing with simultaneous disasters.

Soon, I arrived at the mountain range, and saw a scene of battle that surprised me. Cultist presence was not a surprise, though the fact that they had built a castle was. It was an ugly structure that reminded me of a horror movie, complete with blood red stones and eerie shadows as it sat right in the middle of two mountains, the beasts constantly spilling out of it to create a wave.

However, that was not the biggest surprise.

No, the biggest surprise was that their castle was already under siege … by creatures of shocking scale. Endless critters, thousands of giant monsters, at least a hundred Lord Beasts. Yet, none of those was as shocking as the humongous snake that was at the center of the attack, darting among the destruction attacks as it repeatedly struck at the wards.

Its presence felt surprisingly similar to the beast that had chased me under the sea.

"No wonder the kingdom hadn't expanded their reach into the mountain range," I muttered as I watched the snake attack against the cultist castle repeatedly. I paused, watching the beast dance between the crimson waves easily, its scales glowing in fascinating patterns whenever sunlight hit … except several spots that had been darkened by destruction mana.

Darkened, but otherwise intact, which was a scary idea. Destruction mana might be a volatile and disgusting variation of mana, but when it came to the capacity to do harm, no one could argue that it was unfairly named. It was called destruction mana, because it destroyed.

Yet, the snake was shrugging attacks that would have seriously injured a Lord Beast.

Worse, the humongous snake was dangerous, and not just because of the shocking physical capabilities it possessed. No, it was scary, because around it, the other beasts moved with a steady precision I had never seen them display before. They were not rushing forward mindlessly, but moving with a strategic pattern.

Admittedly, it wasn't a genius strategy by any means. Nor could it even be called a strategy. They merely moved back and forth with some distance between each other to make the ranged attacks less useful.

No wonder the Kingdom of Ralum didn't try to expand into the mountains. The beast was already strong enough that dealing with it would have been a difficult challenge in a straight up battle. More importantly, its limited strategic capability was enough to avoid the attacks from flying castles by using the mountains.

I couldn't help but wonder whether cultists had expected such an attack. I had no doubt that they were aware of its presence, or they would have built their castle deeper into the mountains, where it was more defensible. Instead, they chose the outskirts.

Yet, that didn't mean they expected the attack. I approached closer, enough that I could hear their priests trying to set up a summoning ritual hurriedly. Their attempt was disorganized enough to confirm that guess. They had not expected the attack.

I thought about my earlier discussion with Zolast. He had guessed that these King Beasts — a reasonable name for them considering their abilities — were awakening as a response to the Calamity.

If that was the case, it made sense why cultists didn't expect the attack. After all, the evidence had been suggesting that kingdoms had slowed down their attempts to trigger the calamity due to the lost hero, giving cultists the courage to act.

And, they didn't know about the other mysterious organization acquiring a Seed of Calamity through kidnapping Jertann.

"I hope that I'm wrong," I muttered as I continued to approach the castle. My guesses were not exactly baseless, but I didn't like the picture that they drew. We had been expecting the Calamity to hit in less than a year, which should be more or less aligned with what cultists expected. And, since they misread the signs of the Calamity, it showed that their guess about the Calamity had turned inaccurate.

So did ours…