City of Sin

Book 8, 31

Fight In The North

When Richard stepped out of the portal following Sharon’s aura, he realised he wasn’t near Faust but instead a few hundred kilometres west. Julian was standing in the skies before him, a look of shock on his face, “Why is it you?”

“Where’s my master?” Richard asked.

The man shrugged, “If you’re talking about Sharon, Her Majesty intercepted her here and they’re heading north to fight in duergar territory.”

“Oh?” Richard beamed in mockery, “Apeiron intercepted Master, did she? Does she also have the power to see the future now?”

Julian stroked his moustache and smiled, “Nothing is impossible, Her Majesty’s true power is beyond what you can fathom. She has now recovered and can unleash her full potential; do you think just anyone could be more powerful than Emperor Philip himself?”

Richard had already stopped listening, silently flying towards the north, but Julian flashed over to block his path, “Why are you in such a hurry? Take your time, you can clean up Sharon’s corpse later. Oh, maybe the grey dwarves will be interested in it? A lot of their people died in the Deepblue War, after all.”

“I really will kill you, Julian. Fuck off!”

Despite the belligerence, Julian smiled calmly, “It’s too late to go now. Maybe you’ll see Her Excellency in the hands of the grey dwarves, I hear they’re interested in human women.”

“Fine then!” Richard took a deep breath, the anger on his face dissipating into cold ice. Blue flames burned in the depths of his ice as he drew Moonlight, his mouth chanting an unknown curse.

Once the three faces appeared, Julian finally stopped smiling. His sight was suddenly swamped by darkness, everything twisting about as auras of life, destruction, and chaos rammed into him. He curled up and activated his defences to try and fight the power, but in only a moment he screamed and flew a hundred metres away with flames burning him all over. Seeing Richard’s silhouette appear right before him and disappear all in one moment, back in his original position as though he’d never moved at all, the legendary warrior ran away without another word. His body sank down a little as he flew, but he fought the weakness and rose up into the sky.

Richard remained standing in his original location, but blood dripped down Moonlight’s blade to the ground. As the three faces disappeared, he paled before blushing unusually and spitting out a mouthful of blood. Bloodlust radiated from him as he turned to Julian and wanted to give chase, but even knowing he’d catch up he was more worried about Sharon and soon turned north. Downing a number of healing and mana potions, he opened another portal and headed north.

......

The Far North of Norland was filled with snowy mountains and frozen plains, a scant few river banks thawing in the summer to form some sparse greenery. The barren land was quite vast, containing hundreds of species like the duergar, dragonblood gnomes, and orcs. There were a number of humans as well, with some powerhouses having set up dukedoms, but most humans here were considered slaves or even food.

The lands here were loosely controlled by a conglomerate of the most powerful races called the Frozen Court, one of Norland’s six great empires that was no weaker than the Sacred Alliance or the other two human empires. Most of the Frozen Court was located underground, forming a maze of passageways that were rumoured to originate at the boiling flames down below. The food issue was solved with blackell mushrooms grown underground, relying on the heat from the flames instead of sunlight and water.

Because blackell mushrooms were so abundant, the duergar controlled an army of millions and soundly defeated the orcs, taking up a full third of the seats in the Court. The dragonblood gnomes used their wealth to take up another fourth, while the rest were divided amongst dozens of other powerful races and legendary beings. Any race or tribe without representation was considered free to enslave or rob.

The border between the Far North and the Sacred Alliance were always filled with conflict, countless aggressive tribes trying to kill and steal their way to a livelihood. They had tried marching south and taking the lands of the Alliance, but being a very loose coalition they were beaten back soundly every time.

Flamewood City was a town at the borders that gathered many outlaws and criminals, a hotbed of criminal activity with more than a hundred brawls and a dozen murders everyday. It was a big node in Norland’s slave trade, controlled by the cure black dragon Lord Tegras.

This day, there was a huge commotion in the city during dawn. Someone had seen two humans outside the city, and both of them were young and beautiful women! A young woman was worth a pouch of gold in this city, while beautiful ones were worth ten!

Duergar, orcs, blackiron dwarves, and harpies all rushed out of the city, heading for the women facing each other in the skies. Both were utterly beautiful, almost to an unbelievable level, and that caused blood to fill their eyes. The grey dwarves especially were so excited that it looked like they had gotten drunk, shouting and cursing as they leapt towards the piles of gold.

However, they didn’t manage to get anything; the two piles of gold weren’t on the ground, but flying a hundred metres in the sky. These weaker dwarves couldn’t fly, or even throw their axes up that high. Only the harpies could reach them, which was why the duergar were directing the foulest of curses to try and threaten them into giving up a portion of the profits. The mostly female race of eagle-bodied humanoids were quite powerful, but they were barely smart enough to be considered sentient and lived under subjugation.

A strong harpy lifted up into the skies and flew towards the two women, but she was still eighty metres away when her body suddenly went stiff and fell to the ground with a thud. The entire crowd immediately went quiet as an orc rushed over to inspect her, announcing loudly, “She was scared to death!”

The dead harpy’s body was still in perfect condition, but her heart had exploded and left tiny red dots on her chest. The orc himself was shocked by the diagnosis; the aura required to do such a thing could only come from someone on the level of a true dragon. Even as one of the weakest dragons in existence, Lord Tegras could still rule this entire city!

“Is Lord Tegras here?!” someone exclaimed, sending the duergar into chaos even as some harpies flew up to inspect the vicinity. It wasn’t long before one of them confirmed these suspicions.

Three black spots appeared on the western horizon, zooming towards the two women. Even the blackiron dwarves with poor vision quickly recognised the enormous body of Lord Tegras, as well as his smaller red dragon guards. He arrived above Flamewood City in only a few moments, huge globs of saliva dripping down onto the town below; this was two human powerhouses, and the black dragon’s favourite hobby was to fool around in his humanoid form.