City of Sin

Book 9, 83

The Flag Of The Frozen Court

“I expect to leave around three months,” Richard said casually, “I have a fleet of battleships that should be delivered soon, but I’ll need to make a few modifications of my own to speed them up.”

“Then there’s still time,” Macy smiled with relief, “I’ll ask the Empress to send a few envoys with you. We still have traces of high elven blood, and Lithgalen still communicates with us on occasion. If there’s a chance for things to go smoothly, there’s no need for battle.”

Richard smiled, “Not a bad idea. Tell me when the envoys are chosen, you can just gather at the Deepblue before departure.”

“Alright,” Macy agreed.

Once the hologram started to fade, Richard sunk into deep thought. Neither Lithgalen nor Arbidis would be easy targets; even if he somehow managed to go through the elves with ease, he would still have to fight through layer after layer with a chance of meeting abyssal lords. Things could even come to the point where he would have to kill a greater lord or two.

The very idea of killing a greater demon lord seemed insane, but he knew that this was the kind of strength he would need before heading to Arbidis. He couldn’t possibly expect dozens of lords to simply let him march through their territories, especially when he was heading to the Eternal Battlefield.

The most important thing to do was to familiarise himself with the laws of the abyss. With some free time on hand, Richard quickly packed up and headed towards the ancient battlefield against the demons. His appearance immediately excited the powerhouses fighting there for points, but it left them slightly worried as well. The problem was the same as with the Dragon Plane— there were too many powerhouses and too few demons to kill.

One major difference between the battle against the dragons and that against the abyssals was that there was no feasible way to actually invade the other end. Even most saints couldn’t last long in the conditions of the abyss, to the point that their strength was impacted almost immediately, while demons were much stronger in their home plane. Most powerhouses simply waited outside the portal for whenever the demons charged through, with the minority that did try an assault ending up retreating in minutes. If a lesser demon lord was on the other end, even most legends would have no chance to escape.

However, such restrictions didn’t apply to epic beings like Richard. He passed directly through the portal and entered the abyss, picking a random direction and starting to walk away. He slowly disappeared from view, only returning from ten days, but his aura afterwards was completely devoid of the invincibility he’d possessed when he departed. SIlently heading back through, he took the battlefield’s portal back to Norland.

In the entire process, he hadn’t disturbed a single demon. It was like they didn’t even realise he had existed; knowing just how sensitive these creatures were, those who were patrolling around the enormous passage were dumbfounded by his ability to hide himself from them.

......

Once he was back from the abyss, Richard immediately went to Faelor to begin crafting more runes. He now had more materials than he knew what to do with, and was planning to finish off a number of designs before heading to the alter world. One reason was to strengthen the reward point system, but he also wanted to leave more runes for his descendants just in case. As Norland’s only divine runemaster, he had to cement his position with at least one more rune approaching grade 6.

After going through several runes, he headed back to the abyss once more. His life seemed to grow incredibly repetitive, constantly switching between his workshop and the abyss.

However, this simple life wouldn’t last very long. Only a few weeks later, a fleet of giant battleships appeared on the open sea near Floe Bay, sending the entire Deepblue into high alert. These ships were bigger than anything the sentry had seen before in his life, looking like an entire city moving across the ocean. With seven in total and space for hundreds of ballistae and cannons, they seemed capable of wiping out an entire dukedom from the sea.

The lookout suppressed his astonishment and adjusted his telescope to look closer at the fleet that was closing in, finally catching a flag fluttering in the distance that was a white bear’s head on top of a dark grey background. As familiar with this flag as the rest of the Deepblue, he shouted out in alarm, “THE FROZEN COURT!”

The old mage rushed to the door and smacked the alarm, sending a siren ringing through the Deepblue. All trained mages quickly stopped their experiments and sealed anything dangerous, withdrawing to their assigned defensive positions in minutes. Night elves started marching out from the barracks, preparing to deal with any intruders.

“Which blind rats dare to interrupt my research!” Blackgold’s voice rang out amidst the chaos, the grey dwarf fixing his beard full of grease as he rushed to the terrace. Followed by a squad of fully-equipped night elf warriors, he was given a wide berth wherever he went.

Blackgold was now one of the most important people in the Deepblue. Even if there were other mages stronger than him, he had been close to Richard for a long time and cultivated a strong relationship with him. Especially with the Archerons showing their prowess recently, no one could afford to offend the duergar, not even a legendary mage. After all, people were already speculating whether Richard could break out past the epic realm entirely.

“Sir Blackgold! There’s a fleet of seven large warships on the outer seas! They’re flying the flag of the Frozen Court!” a mage rushed over.

“So many years and my people are still stupid?” Blackgold frowned, prompting the mage to slink back. The grey dwarves were amongst the most important races in the Far North; the incoming fleet would definitely have many of them, so his attitude towards these things was a question.

However, bloodlust quickly seeped into the duergar’s face and he laughed maliciously, “If they thought this was still the Deepblue from Her Excellency’s era, they have something coming for them. You lot, go carry my baby up the tower; I’ll teach these idiots a lesson!”

“We cannot lift it,” the night elves rejected the order immediately.

“Then find more people!” he roared. All ten of these elven drones were level 16, and could lift even a few tonnes together, but that definitely wasn’t enough for his secret weapon. He ran towards the top of the Deepblue, glancing at the grand mages and rune knights already assembled there.

By this point, the fleet was already visible to the naked eye. Some of the mages present could see the flag of the Frozen Court even without the vision array, and were shocked by the sheer size of these warships. Each one was hundreds of metres long, looking like primordial beasts floating atop the ocean. Even though they were a distance away, they still radiated an aura of suppression.

However, none of the grand mages were particularly frightened. After a number of questioning gazes being exchanged, even the cautious Fayr finally couldn’t hold it in any longer, “Do they really want to attack the Deepblue with just seven ships?”

“Perhaps they think His Grace won’t reach us in time, and they want to exploit that,” someone posited.

“They don’t know how wrong they are,” another grand mage sneered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Blackgold grunted, “They’ve brought their toys all the way here, so not one of them can go back home. I get to test my baby’s power today.”

“What? Absolutely not!”

“That thing hasn’t had a single success!”

“Go take it to that mountaintop!”

“Are you trying to kill us all?”

Blackgold’s face turned red as voice of dissent flooded over, and as he snorted the others felt like he was about to spit fire. Even Fayr was against him this time, but he still rolled his eyes and laughed, “It’s too late now, everything’s arranged!”

A few of the professors immediately ran to the edge of the terrace and looked down at the lower platform, seeing a strange machine that was flickering with silver light. A turret was slowly emerging from within, the ten-metre wide barrel enough proof of the cannon’s might.

Dozens of night elves had combined their strength and pushed the thing into firing position, cooperating with druids to place a five-metre-thick winged shell within. The mages and druids took aim, filling the cannon’s body with magic crystals.