章 45: 26
Chapter 26 Lashing Out
I was pretty excited when my zeppelins reached Volantis. I can't scry past their walls and I had never gotten around to just visiting. Seeing how Daenerys had dragons with her I'm very curious to see if they have any more. After all she did have children.
When the walls cracked and the city finally appeared my impression was very very mixed. Volantis was gone. Sure the buildings still stood. It was the people who were gone. Everywhere I could see was positively crawling with manticoremen, many of them obviously not fully grown.
I guess I know how so many of them appeared so quickly now. Volantis didn't secretly breed armies of them. They lost control of them. Between the walls and large population it was the perfect breeding ground for an infestation. I guess it also explains why they never attacked Volantis. There wasn't anything there to attack.
While it's a bit horrifying to see such an enormous number of new manticoremen about to appear, at least this means there won't be any more threats from New Valyria. The zeppelins continue their attack but I can already tell it won't be enough.
Worse the cracked walls had freed the enormous swarm trapped within it's walls. Seeing the seething masses rushing towards the gap in the wall reminds me of the starship troopers movie. Not really sure why I still remember that.
There must be at least a million of them. All now free.
I need more information.
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I send a full century of samurai out. They're assigned two of the autos, short for automatic wagons, which is what everyone was calling them based on an offhand comment I had made. I don't even remember saying it, but it stuck. I get a few odd looks when I grin every time I hear someone call them that. They also have a half dozen cloud ships along with a razorwind.
The mission is simple. I need them to probe the swarm. I have no idea how effective my current set up will be. If possible they need to capture a number of them for testing.
They take with them a number of my newest potion. Using milk as an ingredient along with a few other steps somehow a potion of antidote which removes poisons and disease. Not sure how that second part works it's a nice addition.
The initial clash was not promising. The airships opened up first, showering them with arrows. The manticoremen just kept charging. They only stumbled the few times an arrow lodged in a joint. I was glad the windlances at least managed to kill a few.
Once they reached my samurai was incredibly glad armor doesn't follow game logic. The armor was easily able to stop most attacks. That's where the good news ended. The few attacks that still managed to get through almost instantly dropped them. They didn't even get a chance to drink their potions.
They didn't die at least. I could see a few twitching on the ground. Without anyone to pull them back it didn't really matter. I was very glad they only attacked a small swarm. The fight ended quickly enough to force the potion down a few of them. The rest had died already. The manticoremen venom was incredibly strong.
Still they won. And even better they captured several specimens. After taking losses even when they had every advantage no one seemed to mind returning. It was a much quieter and serious force that came back.
People already were aiding me with projects such as the air fleet, but it seemed more out of obligation or pride. After how powerful I had already proven many of them didn't really feel threatened. That changed quickly once the samurai returned.
Word of mouth was always taken more seriously than any official announcements, even with my habit of honesty. Everyone worked with much greater urgency now that they believed the danger. The problem was I didn't have the numbers. With the baby boom well underway there wasn't many people who could be spared.
It was while they were transporting the captured specimens back that a new problem surfaced. The dragon ship was attacked. Quite seriously too.
The samurai reported flashed of light underwater even as a variety of creatures climbed up the sides. Not just the undead octopods were attacking. Fish people fought alongside them. Giant krakens, while staying in the sea, lashed out at anyone too close to the sides.
They still won, but it was close. The ship was listing badly by the time it reached port. The ambush was costly, killing several samurai. Once back I confirmed that the fish people were Deep Ones. They looked just like the statues I had found. The perfectly round holes burned into the hull also matched the lasers that guardians use.
Looks like they followed us back from the Thousand Islands.
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While I could just needed to identify the bodies at the docks, testing the manticoremen required much more elaborate facilities. I had them all moved into the End. I wanted the results from the testing as fast as possible.
The results are not promising. Their shell is a beautiful piece of work. It's light, strong and fire resistant. Good enough to substitute for shulker shells as long as I'm not creating the boxes. Basically tailor made to withstand everything they've seen me use.
Bad right now, but potentially very useful in the future. I can easily see myself using the shells for a variety of purposes. Although I might have to wait a little, people get hung up on things sometimes. Which is fine since I can probably make something similar to use in the meantime. A simple color change is easy enough to arrange.
After all the few they caught wasn't enough to run all my tests. Turns out nearly mindless creatures can be bred in captivity fairly easily. I end up with plenty of eggs.
The testing proved that they are much stronger then their size would indicate. They can easily stab through most armor. They're four legs make them stable and fast. They don't even have hands. Their arms just end in stingers.
Their power came at the cost of limitations on their movements though. They're fairly awkward trying to almost anything else. Things such as jumping and climbing are almost impossible. Turning in confined spaces and other maneuvers requiring agility and flexibility are completely beyond them. They seem designed to just charge forward and attack. They really are just killing machines.
Their venom supports that view. Not just their tail is poisonous. Their mandibles are as well. And of course the stingers on each arm. The venom is incredibly painful, enough to lock up all the muscles. It's also lethal, killing most creatures within a minute.
About the only good news is that they aren't actually sentient. They really are a fairly mindless swarm. They can't overrun the planet. Well they can, but they can't hold it. After a short while they'll starve themselves out of existence.
They also can't swim so I at least the islands are safe from them. Of course Westeros isn't safe. Not anymore.
When I finished testing them I shipped over an entire boatload of eggs. The hell was I going to let Aegon recover while I dealt with an existential threat one of his allies unleashed. I suppose that's one way to deal with the white walkers. Just have all the humans eaten before they show up.
Since my razorwinds are fairly useless against the manticoremen I feel free to direct them against my other enemies. I split them up. I make sure to send the original razorwind and icestorm back to guard the Wall and send a pair of razorwinds to attack King's Landing. Another pair was directed to Dorne and a third pair towards the Riverlands. I even send a fourth pair to Casterly Rock, because fuck Lannisters.
The remaining razorwinds I send out to start sweeping south and wiping out every settlement that wasn't mine. It might be a bit callous, but the manticoremen can't eat rotten meat. Without food they'll either starve or be diverted. I won't stop all of them, but every little bit helps.
On that note I finally got around to setting up teams of golems to build a wall around the empire. It was a simple wall, ten feet high and six feet thick and made from dirt. It had a wide shallow ditch in front.
It was meant more to give the samurai something to defend than actually stop anything. The Firestorm helped by clearing out all plantlife for a mile in front of the wall and a ways behind it. Combined with the patrolling cloud ships and autos my military should hopefully be able to stop any invasions.
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With my empire's responses well in hand I turn towards new schemes. Projects and ideas to safeguard my empire. The first and easiest was gunpowder. Despite the dangers I need the advantage it brings. I even have ideas on how to control it.
It takes less than a day to finish my tests. I'm not sure whether I should be happy or disappointed that infinity doesn't work on guns. Since I'm not willing to share the formula I shelve the project again. Besides it would take far too long for the knowledge to be usable without my powers boosting progress.
Still, I wasn't about to completely abandon my idea. I just had to adapt what did work. It didn't take long to find a compromise I was satisfied with. I adapted the concept of a gatling gun into a dart launcher.
It used a heavy spring which had to be made from Valyrian steel or it would wear out too quickly. I also had to use a separate infinity enchantment on each barrel. Apparently it has a limit on how fast it can generate ammo. Between the spring and the dispenser enchantments the dart launcher was pretty powerful.
Not economical in the slightest though so overall a failure. Still that doesn't keep me from making four of them to replace all of the other weapons on my quadcopter. A bit of a waste of time, but fun.
My second idea ends up taking a trip. I visited Slaver's Bay. My bargain was simple. I needed troops. They will give me all their Unsullied or I'll destroy their cities.
While Astrapor is the only city that trains Unsullied I wanted to weaken all of them. So the others were forced to provide support for Astrapor as part of this agreement. In the end I managed to gain a full five thousand Unsullied.
Once I had command of them I brought them back. I tested a few and confirmed that a health regeneration potion will fix their castration. Thankfully their training and discipline means that they don't act out despite their returned hormones.
I free them and bring them into my army as a new branch. Underwater combat without my powers requires different movements even with an Aqua Affinity enchantment. Spears are ideal for this and the Unsullied are masters with them.
I equip each of them with lightly enchanted leather armor and spears. They also have several potions and other equipment. I give them a thorough orientation and a short trial run. Then I send them all into the sea. I promise to completely restore all that return. They don't cheer, but they march into the water at a much faster pace then usual.
Hopefully they at least buy me time. It's the best I can do since golems stop working underwater and undead just flounder helplessly. Sometimes I'm really tempted to just drain the sea.
My last scheme was an extension of my plan involving the razorwinds not in Westeros. Like Lorassyon I intended to scour most of Essos free of animal life.
The first part was to raid the Nether. Over and over again. Collecting every blaze spawner I can get my hands on. Since I figured out Nether fortresses spawn where settlements are it's pretty easy. I even sneak into Westeros to use the Nether there.
I'm very slightly ashamed to find out the manticoremen are flourishing there. Very slightly.
It's amazing how quickly guilt fades when you catch Aegon giving a speech blaming me for their creation. Bastard.
Then I start seeding them across the land well south of the wall my people are building. I bury them very deep and use travel gates since I don't want to chance them being destroyed even by accident. I mark each location with a large stone and iron tower housing a beacon set to Harm.
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Qohor rose up against me. They stated it was in response to my terms but the timing was suspicious. I'm fairly certain it was more opportunistic then that and they felt I would be too distracted to care. Of course they didn't say any of that. Instead they assassinated all my ambassadors and arranged accidents for all the traders from my empire.
I'm not sure how they thought they would get away with it. Between my signal towers, ravens, spie network and scrying division I pull off a fairly terrifying impression of 'big brother'. My troops were moving the same day they started killing my people.
I could have used blazes or any number of other methods, but wanted the people to feel a part of it. The more popular support I enjoy the easier it is to rule. I pulled all the cloud ships together for the assault. I take my quadcoptor since I wanted to use it at least once.
I have no doubt the cloud ships lived up to their name the next day. There were so many giant white balloons in the sky they blotted out the sun. From a distance they made the sky look overcast.
Qohor seemed to panic. People screamed and ran in circles and on every corner it seemed some loon was trying to sacrifice random people to appeal to their god. The warriors trying shooting, but their bows were pathetic. They were reduced to shaking their weapons at the fleet above.
In stark contrast my fleet slowly advanced in perfect silence. The effect was pretty intimidating. Slowly the city below grew quiet, all of them staring and waiting to see what would happen next. I was more than happy to show them and signaled to attack.
The thrum as thousands of windlances all shot simultaneously was deafening. The sound as the bolts crushed the city below was even louder. I was surprised the sounds couldn't be physically felt they were so intense.
I kept watching. As entertaining as the barrage was what I really wanted to see came next. There. Dark shapes flitted through air as they descended on the ruin below.
Vexes. One of the creatures summonable through shadowbinding, but requiring a sacrifice. Unlike in the story you don't have to birth one. Sacrificing a baby also works. Recently however I had found a work around.
It was the manticoremen that inspired me. Insect based beastmen were the problem, but maybe they can also be the solution. The main problem of spreading the types of magic I know are most of it requires sacrifices. Human ones at that.
While I don't mind killing anyone I consider an enemy, cold-bloodily slaughtering thousands of people production line style was a bit much. However I have no problem performing to same ritual using eggs.
So a bit a testing and soon enough the first ant beastman queen was born. She grew fast and soon enough was producing a constant source of sacrifices. More than enough to magically equip all of my troops and then some.
The eggs also allowed me to really experiment with some of the magic I had avoided until now. An egg was perfectly capable of serving as an incubation chamber for growing a shadowbinding summons. Vexes, enderman and more could easily be created that way. Even better, combining shadowbinding with the warlock arts allowed the egg to be turned into a tattoo.
Instead of a bright blue the tattoo was a dark purple and only glowed when used. Since it was the color I was using to represent me I had restricted it a new military order. Along with the Warging Helmets they became the symbol of my Shamans.
That word is meaningless here, but I felt it was appropriate. They bond with animals and can summon spirits or at least a close approximation. What more is there?
With their powers they were perfectly suited to serving as scouts and skirmishers. Not to mention that summoning was incredibly draining. Thanks to the tattoos it no longer shortens the summoner's lifespan, but aren't could someone handle summoning more than one creature and still fight.
It was paying off now. Since they had no need to risk themselves it seems most of the sentinels had summoned a second vex. It was good call. They wouldn't be capable of much besides pacing or meditation, but on a ship that was perfectly fine.
I'd have liked to send more, but this is the first real test of them and all of them are based off my natural wargs. At least the ones willing to sign up for military service. I couldn't really justify creating more until I know whether it was worth it. I more than made up for it though.
Since I don't feel fatigue I didn't seem to have a limit. My tattoos were almost blinding in intensity when I activated them and allowed me to summon thousands of vexes. A tornado of wings surrounds me as my vexes spread out.
A small army of birds and vexes scour the city for survivors. With their ability to pass through walls no place was safe from the vexes. Guided by the possessed birds they made sure there weren't any survivors.
We stay for several hours to be thorough. Periodically the fleet bombards the city again, smashing the ruins ever flatter. The Firestorm swings be at the end to bathe what's left in fire.
I no longer aim to conquer my enemies. Instead I plan to exterminate all of them.
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