BXBX NOVEL Book 2, 129
Wherever the manticore passed, everyone stopped looting and gave it wide berth. The beast wouldn’t favour these people just because they had fought tirelessly for its master; clawing up everyone it bumped into and fiddling with them like they were toys. Given its poisonous claws, there were no chances of survival.
One of the mages approached the manticore’s side, reporting the aftermath to Sinclair. 2800 enemy soldiers had been completely wiped out, with less than a hundred escapees. There were no captives this time; the troops who had grown dejected the moment Salwyn fled were immediately massacred by their men, while the rest had fought all the way to the end. After all, the men of the Bloodstained Lands were all bandits; they naturally wouldn’t show mercy. Sinclair’s own side had their losses as well, with 3500 dead while half of the rest were injured.
The girl waved her hands in annoyance, “I don’t care about that trash, it doesn’t matter if all of them die! How are my knights, that’s the most important.”
“Six dead and four seriously injured. Two of them can’t be saved,” the mage replied with respect.
“Meaning I’m only left with 31 men who can continue fighting?” Sinclair furrowed her brows.
“Yes, we’ve faced too many losses...” Sinclair waved him to a stop before he finished.
She thought things over for a moment before sighing, “It looks like my game is at an end. I need to get more serious. Things come back to what we talked about before; whether there are real legendary beings on this plane. Anyone can call themselves a saint, but legendary? That’s a different matter altogether. Only those who reach level 21 can unlock a legendary ability.”
“Perhaps the so-called legendary beings of this plane don’t have any legendary abilities, just calling themselves by that name like those mock saints. They might just be level 17 or 18.,” the mage conjectured. This is what Sinclair had been thinking as well.
“No!” she eventually shook her head, her fingers subconsciously twirling the manticore’s fur, “I’ve already killed two of those mock saints, three if we count the one today. There’s also the two level 16 priests as well. We haven’t even been here that long, and this isn’t even a powerful region of the plane. How could there be so many level 16 individuals if the plane greatly restricts such power? Faelor feels vaguely similar to Norland, I already feel like I’m going to advance again.”
A look of surprise painted the mage’s face as he rejoiced, “That’s great!” If Sinclair managed to advance to level 16 at this age where strength was everything, it would greatly increase her standing and ability to win planar wars.
However, the girl herself wasn’t all that happy, “It’s nothing! The only thing it means is that the upper bound of this plane encompasses legendary might, and those rumours are all true! With how we massacred this army, we might end up facing a true elite of this plane. I may be a grade 3 rune knight, but that won’t mean anything in a fight against a legendary!”
“Perhaps we should start integrating into the plane,” the mage suggested after much thought, “At least we should branch out into the human kingdoms that aren’t theocracies.. After all, the gods of this plane are our biggest enemies.”
Indeed, that was one of the ways to invade a plane. However, it was a move that reeked of desperation.
When one entered a new plane to explore it, there was a limit to the power of the people that could be teleported over. For example, a secondary plane limited at level 18 would only allow stable passage of those at level 15 or below. Any higher and the portal would grow unstable, giving rise to rifts in spacetime. However, the support of runes allowed the invading party to go head to head against the powerhouses of the new plane, or at least hold out against them for a while.
Most expeditions failed due to one of three reasons. First and foremost would be direct interference from the gods of said plane. Second was human wave tactics from the residents of the plane. Last and most unlucky of them all was entering a plane without the resources to build a portal back. Those parties ended up being trapped unto their deaths.
However, Sinclair had met none of those issues. Her problem was that they had come to an unknown plane, the standard of which appeared to be far higher than most other secondary planes. This posed a great disadvantage to her; her individual strength was rather poor for this expedition. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine the ending if she were targeted by one of the powerhouses here. Thus, the best plan now was to move discreetly, only expanding when she had enough power and influence.
Nonetheless, the mage wasn’t able to understand how she felt. As a user of the Dark Sacrifice rune, she was extremely sensitive to the passage of time. The Eternal Dragon would never extend her life, making her unwilling to waste ten years of her existence on a plane like this. That was ten years of her precious youth!
But it didn’t seem like there were any other choices now, causing her to be in a terrible mood. She laughed a sultry laugh, containing the charm of an enchantress that could smite tons of men and women. The mage didn’t feel too good at the sight; he knew this meant she was in a bad mood. He also knew better than to speak in a moment like that.
The other mage arrived just then. He hadn’t been cleaning up the battlefield, nor was he pursuing their enemies, instead going around and interrogating a bunch of people. He rushed over to Sinclair and said in a hurry, “My Lady, there’s news about Richard!”
“Richard? Which Richard?” She has been so relaxed and reckless this entire journey that she had almost forgotten the target of this expedition.
“Richard Archeron! I heard a handful of people talking about him just now. Damn their stupid language, it was so hard to decipher it. They talked about the magic equipment bought by some sword saint that greatly increased his power. Apparently it was a device that was fit onto their body. Mistress, they’re talking about runes!”
The mage was particularly excited, “I asked around, and found out that Richard was at Bluewater Oasis for a while, having built quite a reputation for himself in the Bloodstained Lands. The information on him wasn’t kept secret; the deal had been quite expensive and involved a lot of high-profile people. As long as we catch him, we can get the coordinates to go back!”
Sinclair shook her head, “It won’t be that easy. If I’m not mistaken, Richard’s team should have met with the same accident we did. Even if we catch him and find his base, we’d only find an extinguished Lighthouse of Time like the one at the Mensa base.”
The second mage was shocked at Sinclair’s words, speaking hesitantly, “So what do we—”
“A runemaster will still be valuable to us, even if his lighthouse has been extinguished! We find him, catch him, and kill everyone around. I want to make him my slave, one that will craft runes for me his entire life! That way I’ll have a never ending supply of rune knights. If he could make such notorious transactions with these locals, it seems like he’s already integrated himself into this plane. That’s exactly what we need at this moment, we can use his status to hide ourselves. We will begin our conquest only when the rune knights are ready!”