CHAPTER 217(Siege and Spoils)

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)

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CHAPTER START---

---Above Valua, Capital City of Rakia...

"What the fuck..." Yang mutters quietly, already having dropped off their witness at the outer limits of the city both he and Welf were now flying high above the districts watching the chaos.

Valua was a city designed to be defended from the greatest armies.

Three massive squares walls, made entirely of stone and two hundred feet tall. Each is as wide as a house and completely concentric. The deeper into the city you go the more defended you are as you travel from the outer to inner layers.

The Rakian Palace is located in the center of the smallest and innermost square, as well as housing all of the higher nobility of the country.

At the moment the normally peaceful atmosphere of the city was non-existent.

Fire and death were all they could see from above. Massive fires tore through the districts, and the proud unbreakable walls separating each layer of their social ladder were in shambles.

Yang could easily trace a straight line from the main entrance of the city, shattering the outer wall and crumbling almost a hundred-foot wide section of it, then the attack tore through the lower district within the city.

Houses and businesses were in splinters if not currently ablaze. Where the road lead to the second wall they could see a massive trench, not dug out but cut into the earth, the telltale sign of a 'Wind Blade' attack as Yang calls it.

Looking down Yang saw people scrambling about like ants without a leader, a desperate few soldiers trying to gather buckets and douse the flames. Scared citizens take whatever they can carry and run toward the inner districts, hoping to higher powers for safety.

Part of Yang wanted to wave his hands and bring rain to the city, but he fought that part down.

'Welf needs his point to be clear so Rakia doesn't step out of line again,' he reminds himself while looking ahead.

At the second defensive wall they saw much of the same, only this time there wasn't a collapsed section, instead a perfectly carved hole starting a dozen or so meters above the road.

The hole itself was as wide as Babel Plaza, and on the other side of the wall was a sea of rubble.

'Whatever Thalie did shot all the stone from the wall like buckshot into the middle-class district...' Yang realizes as he sees houses splintered to pieces and people crushed beneath rocks.

"Hokori is working well for her," Welf says in a voice void of emotion as they approach the final wall.

"Thalie's being excessive," Yang says. Looking at all the damage in the middle-class district he sees areas completely out of the direct path where she left her mark.

Swaths of stone and buildings are gone, entire open spaces painted red, bits and pieces of soldiers and civilians strewn all over courtyards.

War crimes in his world, an everyday occurrence during conflicts here. Waging war in this world means betting your civilian population, anything goes after all.

Arriving at the innermost district, within the large square walls, they see the palace standing in the middle. Made of stone and built with a design that screamed power, painted red, black, and gold to match Ares familia scheme. With a black iron fence and gate standing tall, separating it from the other nobles, or where Yang was told the other noble houses would be.

Around the palace within the district was dirt. Not stone, no roads or buildings. Just simple dirt. The land appeared to be dug up, massive trenches carved into it as if a giant slashed away with a blade.

At the far walls away from the palace were the noble houses. Literally, everything but the palace was reduced to rubble and slammed into the walls of the square district. A garbage pile that was once the symbol of Rakia's wealth.

'God damn it Thalie,' Yang gimaces at the sight.

Shifting his gaze to the palace courtyard he descends behind Welf. As they approach a large crowd of people he notices men and women in fine clothes. Jewelry and precious items all across their persons. Men in expensive suits and women in luxurious gowns.

As Yang and Welf land, they spot Ares, finally gagged and captured. The king, prince, and queen, as well as a level-three general and whatever concubines the king has, are all at the front of the crowd.

The king and prince with their legs broken while the general seems to be knocked out and laying on his face. All of the royal family still wore their crowns even as they were gagged, casting murderous gazes at The Trifecta as Thalie approached her partners.

"No kids?" Yang asks Thalie, gesturing to the crowd of grown men and women.

"Figured that would be too much for either of you so I just sent them to the middle district," Thalie shrugs. A clever lie, she'd separated them yes, but executed them as soon as the crowd got into the middle district. "Hope that's alright with you two?" she asks her team.

"Mhm," Yang nods.

"Doesn't matter," Welf growls out as his eyes focus on Ares and King Rakia. His pupils dilate as he immediately reaches back and grabs Mosoka.

In one smooth motion, he swings down as the flames build up to execute the nobles.

Reacting quickly Yang reaches out and grabs the one prong on Mosoka with his left hand. A massive torrent of fire blasts out and melts one of the palace towers, luckily Mosoka wasn't lowered enough to hurt anyone.

"Why'd you save them!" Welf demands.

With a bored look, Yang lets go of the weapon and summons some water to cool his hand, the heat of Mosoka being one step away from burning the skin on his forearm -his left hand is metal- and doing actual damage. "Ares is in the crowd dumbass," Yang says as he walks toward the terrified nobles.

Ignoring the gagged and whimpering people, he walks up to the royal family and doesn't even look into their eyes, taking the crown from the crying queen, desperately being consoled by the prince, he stores it in his inventory along with the king's and prince's crowns.

"You're coming with me," he singles out Ares, dragging him by the hair away from the crowd and to the side next to Thalie. "Alright Welf you-"

Yang's words are interrupted by the unceremonious sea of crimson flames crashing into the nobles.

Instantly cremating the crowd and melting the stone courtyard of the palace. Ares squirms in Yang's grip only for the adventurers to ignore him entirely, focused on the wrathful expression on Welf's face.

While Yang was focusing on not losing his breakfast over the scent of burnt flesh Thalie only raised a brow. "No grand speech just right to the action, I respect that," she nods proudly. Training Welf to cut the grand gestures from his fighting style had been particularly difficult because of how grandiose his personality is, this was an achievement in her eyes, no use talking to dead people after all.

"Ares," Welf's voice is a low growl as he sheaths Mosoka on his back and walks to the small audience. Looking down with manic eyes at the terrified and heartbroken god he speaks clearly and calmly. "One chance, Rakia stops hunting demi-humans and other races or I'll come back, and next time there won't be a city left. The Elves hired us this time, but I'll work for a single worthless coin if it means keeping you in line. Now get out of my sight."

With Welf's message delivered Yang releases Ares and shoves him toward the gates leading out of the courtyard. Not taking his eyes off Welf for even a moment as Ares was still very much within Mosoka's range.

"Hmm, I expected him to at least give us a rant," Thalie says as she watches Ares run away. "Maybe something like 'you mortals can't do this to me because,' something like that."

"Yeah me too," Yang admits.

"Ares knows when he's beat," Welf says. "Now let's finish up and get out of this damned country."

"Here you go," Thalie wastes no time in handing Yang the tracker for Welf's swords. "You two hit the vault and I'll go loot the office," she leaps from her position toward the top of the palace.

"After you," Yang looks at Welf and gestures for him to enter the palace, wanting to keep an eye on the smith just in case.

Walking down the empty ornate palace halls both men mostly ignore the expensive red carpet and the art decorating the walls. Yang looks to the lamps on the walls however and notices something.

"The lamps use magic crystals in the palace but not in the streets right?" he asks Welf.

"Right," the smith answers as he continues following the signal to the vault. "Orario and Altena are the only cities where street lamps and indoor lamps are magic crystals. Orario has the dungeon so we have pretty much endless crystals, and Althena is where the crystals go to get refined so they can be used in magic or in utility items like that. Every other country can only get their hands on enough to have them in the capital, or in Rakia's case, in the palace. Especially since Rakia is on the 'no exports' list for magic crystals. Probably got them from a shady dealer."

"Hmm" Yang considers this information for a moment. "That explains why no matter how many crystals we get from the dungeon the guild never changes their value. One city supplying our continent and twelve other bigger continents, plus however many islands, it's impossible to meet the demand even if there were few more teams like us."

"Pretty much, that's why adventuring is so alluring. Guaranteed payment if you can survive, and you know you'll always have a job."

"Mhm, and speaking of surviving, how are you feeling now that this whole Rakia thing is done?" Yang asks, carefully monitoring Welf's body language.

He sees Welf's shoulder drop and his gaze lower to the floor. A small frown on Welf's face as he considers his words very carefully. "You were right, feels like shit."

"But at least Rakia won't have any more crusades, right?"

"Hopefully," Welf says. "They definitely couldn't if Ares was gone," he grumbles.

"OK, you kill Ares, he reforms in a year or two and returns, then what?"

"Then I kill him every time he returns," Welf says plainly.

"You know what happens when you kill a god. They mark you and if they choose to punish you they can lock you out of heaven so you can't reincarnate, or personally torment your soul. Hopefully, we got lucky with Adrestria giving Thalie a pass because she's her champion, but we'll have to wait until she reforms to see how that turns out. But I know Ares would never be forgiving with you."

Welf released a deep sigh, "right, you're right. I was being a dumbass."

"Mhm, and your girl would leave you if Ares suddenly appeared on your Falna because of that."

"That's a disgusting thought. But hey I've got a question for you," Welf says.

"Sure what is it?"

"How are you with all this killing business?"

"Mmm," Yang ponders it for a moment before answering. "I think of Rakian soldiers as Nazis, uh, that just means really really bad people in my world. Makes it a lot easier. I still won't hurt innocent people for my adventure or any of ours, but I don't think I've hurt any innocent people so far."

"Elfy?" Welf immediately reminds him. "Although that was more of a self-defense thing. But what about Lefiya?"

"Lefiya?" Yang asks, partly confused.

"Slept with her, killed her best friend, dumped her, now you're sleeping with her mom," Welf says with a mischievous grin.

Yang rolls his eyes and shakes his head, "fuck off..." he mutters, but seeing his friend smiling and feeling better did help put his mind at ease.

Welf's soft laughter could be heard in the quiet hallway as they finally approach the vault, tucked away below the palace.

Stopping at the door both men look up at the fifteen-foot tall circular door. Grey metal with the Rakia sigil carved into it, at least three feet thick with no handle or any indication that it was anything but a slab of metal on an otherwise stone wall.

"Alright, here goes," Yang takes a combat stance and pulls back his hand. With a deep breath, he activates his Elemental Wheel and Mage Armor. Blue flames rage on his body before being condensed onto his right fist. The blood-red pattern of his Chaos Mark shines through his armor and clothes as it wraps around his body.

Flame Strike!

CRACK!

The entire palace shakes.

"Ahh fuck!" Yang recoils as he takes a step back, feeling his bones rattled and some of his fingers broken. "What the hell is that?" he asks while withdrawing a potion, seeing Welf snickering to the side.

"Hahaha, it's Orichalcum."

"What?"

"Think of it like this, Mythril is level 1, Adamantite is level 2, Durandal is level 4, Orichalcum is level 12," Welf says with a wide smile on his face.

"You could have fucking warned me," Yang says through gritted teeth as he pours the potion into his gauntlet.

"I wanted to see how you'd do," Welf gestures to the door which has a small crack, roughly two inches long. "Honestly the fact that you did this is terrifying. Only about three more feet to go and you could break-in," he jokes.

"Ha.Ha. Very funny, how do we actually get in?" Yang asks with an annoyed look on his face.

"Orichalcum can't be intricately carved like the other things I listed, that means no small hinges or joints or locks. Everything that moves it has to be enchantment based, and if it's an enchantment," he withdraws Ikari from behind his back, always sheathed at the back of his belt. "I made this for more delicate work, and to work on enchantments and hexes, just give me a minute," he says before walking to the door.

As he's working the enchantments show themselves, small glowing runes completely covering the door.

"Alright, shit, this may take a while," Welf admits.

---3 Hours Later...

"Yang!" Welf's voice is the first thing he hears.

"Huh?" Yang looks around from his spot resting on the floor to see Welf gesturing to the now open vault. "Holy fuck..." he says in awe at the large stacks of gold bricks, jewels, Adamantite, Mythril, enchanted and Duranral weapons, and these were only the things he could recognize.

Judging by how Welf was constantly moving from one item to the next like a kid on Christmas he could tell a lot of this was going well over his head.

"How much can your inventory take?" Welf asks as he walks to one specific part of the vault, which honestly was more like a small warehouse.

"About thirty crates, maybe a bit more if I get rid of some stuff," this would translate to roughly four SUVs worth of material, when packed in crates that is.

"Well first things first," Welf reaches a small weapons rack and sees three longswords, all black and crudely carved from metal with a red edge to indicate the blade.

"Are those yours?" Yang asks. "They look like trash..."

"Well," Welf pouts, "when I was younger this was the best I could do at the time. I left Rakia when I was twelve, I'm twenty now, developing a skill like smithing takes time. And even these swords are better than what most smiths can make...even if they do look like trash."

"Right, we taking them?" Yang asks.

"No," Welf grabs one of the swords and easily shatters it over his knee. The metal shatters and becomes embers on the floor as the magic spills out and dissipates. Welf's level-6 body is enough to break adamantite just like most physical-combat-based level-6 adventurers.

As Welf shatters the two remaining swords and watches their embers scatter across the floor, he takes a deep breath before letting go. Feeling a weight lifted from his chest as the final anchors to his past are shattered.

"Finally free," he releases a deep breath with a content sigh. "Let's see what we can take from this vault, this is mostly Ares person items anyway, the banks around the city keep the liquid assets for trade."

Hearing this Yang smiles brightly, "alright let's pack up..."

END CHAPTER---

Volume title has been added, Five Crowns, referring to Dungeon Emperor Yang Shen, King Rakia, Emperor Safi'Jiva/ Queen Tiamat, King of War Ottar, and King Alv(Riveria's dad)