The messenger of God (3)
Within a throne room upon his grand imperial throne, sat Emperor Basham II "The Lord of Wolves", unlike most Terrans, Emperor Basham II had black hair, and dark brown eyes, to his left and right, sat two dire wolves, these dire wolves had mainly black fur but on the under part of their bodies was silver-colored fur, these two wolves had glowing electric blue eyes, these wolves also had the occasional blue spark come out from their bodies.
These two were tempest wolves, the tempest wolf is one of the paths a magic wolf can evolve into, while magic wolfs are what most dire wolves can evolve into once, they reach the right strength.
Just like intelligent species, beasts can also go up in tiers, but they do not start to feel mana or aura until they have evolved at least once.
Anyway, Emperor Basham II was currently conducting a meeting with his advisors and generals.
The Man who is in charge of the whole Vraetia army besides Basham is Duke Nauld IV from house Anvidr, he stood to the right of the throne.
Just like the founder of the house and his namesake, Duke Nauld IV was a brilliant strategist and equally as great in martial prowess.
At the young age of 361, Duke Nauld IV is a 7th-tier aura user, the only man stronger than him in the whole empire is none other than the emperor himself, who is 518 years old and a 9th-tier mana user.
The duke stood at 190 cm tall, he had a bulky frame with broad shoulders and toned muscles made for war, under his state-of-the-art bronze knight armor, he wore a turquoise outfit befitting of his house colors, across his right eye he had a three-cut scar from a dire wolf that he gained in is early 100s, around his neck and shoulders he wore a wolf skin pelt from that same dire wolf that scared him.
Usually, after more than two centuries, something like a pelt would have started to degrade, but thanks to magic it looked as good as new.
To the left of the throne, stood a man who was 185 cm tall, he had a skinnier build than Nauld but if needed he could still fight.
This man wore black leather armor and a blue cloak, he had dark brown hair and electric blue eyes.
This man is the main advisor and the head court magician.
He is also the younger brother of Emperor Basham II.
He is Archduke Alaric Vraetia, who at the age of 482 is a 7th-tier grand sorcerer.
Although most vraetian emperors stop having kids after their first son, the previous emperor, Emperor Belhorn III had two sons.
Most emperors do not have more children after their first son due to the story of Emperor Rigurd and how the then Vraetia Kingdom had been split in a succession war between him and his brother.
Other than those two, there are 6 more people present in the throne room, 3 military strategists, and 3 royal advisors.
At the moment, the group of men was discussing the threat that the Khoria Kingdom posed to them.
"Your majesty, if I may, while we could easily decimate the Khoria Kingdom's troops, that all changes with the addition of the Caer Kingdom and the Theryn Kingdom who have both come to the aid of the King Khorian II." said an advisor
"While that may be true, with the difference in strength between the armies we could still crush the triple alliance." spoke up another advisor
"They number 150,000 all together and we number just over 100,000, however, we have a way more sophisticated and powerful mage unit, plus the addition of the small army of wolves and other magic beasts under the control of his majesty, we could steamroll through Khoria before their allies even knew what happened." said a strategist
"Yes, that method could work, we could focus our attention on one country at a time, we crush Khoria then, if the other two kingdoms don't back off, we could invade them and turn them into vassal states." said the last advisor
While the advisors and strategists were bickering over what to do, the emperor, his brother, and Duke Nauld IV were discussing what to do.
"Brother, if you let Duke Nauld and I lead our forces, we could bring back the head of our treacherous cousin within the year," said Alaric
"As he said, if you would give the armies of Vraetia and I a chance, we could take over the rightful land of the empire and then some," said Duke Nauld confidently
"Hmm, although my cousin is an idiot, those two old monsters of kings are both 9th-tier grand knights, and I doubt I could take them both by myself."
"I think I have just the answer to your plight." said a cloaked figure walking into the throne room
...
Back up north in the lands of the Elora Empire, the armies of Elora were getting ready to reclaim the lands that were lost in the barbarian invasion.
Within the royal chamber, Emperor Zandrek was inspecting his new divine weapon, the "Blood Axe".
For the past few weeks after Abraxos left, the emperor had been trying to figure out what metal this weapon was made from, it was like nothing he had ever seen.
While he was deep in thought, a messenger quickly ran to his chamber and knocked on the door of Zandrek.
"Your majesty, our scouts have come back, it seems the barbarian hordes have completed the process of arming their forces with better equipment and are in the process of preparing for a full-frontal assault."
This alarmed the emperor as his armies hadn't finished gathering yet, right when he was thinking of what to do, that's when he remembered a vital detail.
His own strength, while he wouldn't dare to take on the whole army and Dreikr by himself before, now that he has the "Blood Axe" as long as he cuts down enough grunts, he could become virtually unstoppable on the battlefield.
That's when he made the decision to go out there and stall for time until his army was ready, who knows, maybe he could kill Dreikr while he was out there.
"I need you to run down to the barracks and relay this order to the generals present."
"Start getting the troops into formation, and tell them to go with plan 3 in case I do not return, but if I do, then proceed with plan 1 unless I say otherwise, you got that?" asked Zandrek
"Yes sir!" saluted the scout as he ran back down to the barracks
"*Sigh* I hope I am not overestimating myself before this suicide mission." thought Zandrek
...
In an open field near the capital, there were tribal tents as far as the eye could see, outside of these tents was a massive wave of warriors getting ready for the upcoming battle, some were equipping their new bronze armor, and others were sharpening their weapons.
In the middle of this sea of tents, was one giant tent that without a doubt belonged to Patriarch Dreikr.
"How much longer until the men are finished!" boomed Dreikr
"Just a few more hours Patriarch, it takes a while for 200,000 men to equip new armor." said a tribal elder
"Hmph, they better be ready in two hours, we have come too far to lose due to being caught off guard."
As the Patriarch and his council of elders were talking about battle plans, a rider appeared in the doorway of the tent.
"Patriarch, I bring news, our scouts just sent word that there is a man walking across the bridge out of the capital." urgently reported the rider
"How many men follow this brave man?"
"T-that's the thing, no men follow him! he seems to have come out by himself while wielding a weapon made of a weird metal."
"What! this man dares to come at us alone! how dare he!"
"Where is he now!" yelled the Patriarch
"He should be clos-
"Enemy attack!" screamed a warrior outside of the tent
Hearing this, Dreikr was quite surprised, either that man truly came to them and is fighting alone, or this was a ploy by the empire to catch him off guard.
Either way, Dreikr would never pass up a chance at a good battle, after all, the Frost Fang Clan and most of the nomadic tribes and barbarian clans follow a shamanistic religion resembling the Asatru faith of the Vikings of earth.
"Haha, tell me, what does that man look like, I wish to fight him!" ordered Dreikr while laughing
"He is wearing full body armor with a helmet that has two horns on it, he is carrying a shiny grey axe that has red accents on it." responded the rider
When Dreikr heard the outward appearance of the man, he immediately knew who it was.
"So, the emperor himself has come out to play, it seems he wants to go down as a martyr, well I'm happy to oblige!" laughed Dreiker as he ran out of the tent with his two trusty bronze axes
As Dreikr ran through his camp towards to sounds of battle, he heard a symphony of cries of pain, agony, and death coming from his men.
"He must have brought his army." thought Dreikr
Little did he know that he was in for the shock of a lifetime.
...
As Dreikr was quickly coming towards the battle, Emperor Zandrek was completely annihilating the enemy horde.
Every swing of his divine iron axe claimed at least two victims, it was that effective.
And this was just the beginning, every man he killed with the axe drained the blood from him and Zandrek got a boost of power along with a refreshing feeling that could let him battle all day without getting tired.
"It's like cutting through butter!" thought Zandrek
"Come at me you barbarian bastards, ill slaughter you all down to the last man!" roared Zandrek
A warrior would jump towards Zandrek's left and would get decapitated by the axe, while another would try to come from behind only to get impaled by the three spikes on the back of the axe blade.
This happened like clockwork over and over again until it got to a point where Zandrek had to move due to the number of bodies that were piling up.
After a few more minutes of carnage, Emperor Zandrek had slain a number of roughly 20,000 warriors, and he was still going.
Zandrek would continue his slaughter until an elder from the council came and tried to intervene.
"I don't know where you got such a fine weapon, but I'll take that off of your hands." said the arrogant elder
"Come pry it from my dead body!"
"Well, that is the plan!"
The warrior who had confronted Zandrek was the 3rd elder, he was 893 years old, unlike other Terrans, who all look like they were in their twenties, this man looked like he had passed thirty, which means he had entered his last 100-year of living.
The elder planted his foot and launched himself toward Zandrek using all of his 8th-tier aura.
Zandrek chose to respond to this attack with one of his original spells, Wall of Blades.
Wall of Blades was a spell Zandrek had created back when he was at the 8th tier of magic.
Essentially, what this spell would do is conjure over a thousand swords made of ice and he would launch these swords at his opponent, hoping to either maim or disorientate them.
When the elder saw this massive attack coming at him, all he could do was stop in his tracks and put up the strongest aura shield he could muster.
Not willing to give his enemy a chance, Zandrek appeared behind the elder as he was taking the full brunt of the attack.
Zandrek slashed down with the "Blood Axe" while imbuing his mana, hoping for a one-shot kill.
By the grace of Tristan, the elder managed to dodge by a hairsbreadth and regrouped his thoughts.
"What the hell was that, fist he sent that devastating spell at me, and all of a sudden he shows up behind me and almost annihilated me with one swing."
"This man's a monster!" screamed the elder in his head
However, soon after that, his view suddenly inverted, and he saw what seemed to be a headless body with Zandrek standing behind it.
that's when it hit him.
"I-I died?"
That was the last thought to go through his head before the eternal darkness took him.
Once Zandrek killed the elder, he immediately got back to slaughtering the barbarian warriors.
Zandrek swung his axe decapitating three warriors, then parried an attack by another, following up with a well-timed magic ice spear through the warrior's head.
At first, Zandrek had solely been using the divine weapon he was granted to slew the masses of warriors, but he was getting bored, so he decided to speed up the process by utilizing his magic, after all, he wasn't a 9th tier grand sorcerer for nothing.
After another hour had gone by and another 50,000 warriors had been killed, Dreikr had finally gotten to the forefront of the battle where he confronted Zandrek.
"Zandrek, I've come to battle!" boomed Dreikr
After eviscerating another 7 warriors, Emperor Zandrek looked back at the voice and smiled.
"Finally, you've come Dreikr!"
"Our battle will be legendary!"
And with that, the two bitter enemies launched at each other.
(Picture of Duke Nauld IV --->)
(Picture of Archduke Alaric Vraetia --->)
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Authors Note:
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter!
I just wanted to make the announcement that this will be the last chapter for the next few days, I'm going out of town tomorrow and I won't be able to bring my computer along with me.
But once I'm back I will immediately start writing the next chapter, so look forward to it!
If you have any suggestions or feedback, don't be shy, comment it in the chapter or on a paragraph, all types of feedback are helpful.
And don't forget to leave a review and add this novel to your library, hope you guys have a good weekend and summer!