Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 66 - The Gates of Gulen-Dor

When its wielder finally woke, he didn’t bother to ask the blade what had happened. Instead, assuming the dark tusk was displeased with it in some way, he sacrificed a dozen orcs in its honor in a bloody spectacle as he lead his growing tribe in a prayer that was mostly nonsense. This was the last thing the blade wanted, but it devoured the souls just the same.

+882 Life Force.

+12 Greater Monster Souls.

Being held by someone other than a human bothered it more than ever now. Before now the Ebon Blade had assumed that it was because the soul of a monster wasn’t as powerful as that of a human, and that it noticed the difference. Now it knew the truth. Its soul was largely made up of pieces of human souls, with only a few of the demi-human races added in.

So, the souls of goblins, orcs, and even beastmen were ugly, and malformed enough to grate on it as their essence comingled. Nothing was more malformed than it, though. That was the thought it couldn’t get off its mind for days, even after the orcs started marching to the northeast again.

They were harried for the first time by archers on horseback, but not even this distracted the blade. The last time its beastmen had met such a patrol it insisted on fighting them one on one, but this time it could barely be bothered to note their existence. Why should it? The band only took only a few well thrown spears before a number of the mounts and riders had been impaled. They retreated rather easily after that.

Pity I can’t slay my own concerns so easily, the Ebon Blade mused.

The weapon did not sleep, and it certainly did not dream. However, more than once as the greenskins marched across the plains and the mountains rose up in the distance, getting larger by the day, the same image came to mind over and over again when it would drift off absent mindedly.

It could not help but imagine the souls of the people that had been sacrifice to power its magic melted down into a crucible before being hammered into the blade it was now. That wasn’t what happened, but that was how it processed it. The endless drums that were always present when the orcs marched became the beat of an unforgiving blacksmith’s hammer, and each time it was brought down the souls that made up the weapon he was creating screamed.

It was a dark image, but then, the blade was in a dark mood. That became even truer once it realized its soul upgrade had failed. It noted that almost immediately as soon as it opened up the interface again. It had expected to see Repair Soul 5 for 5,000 Life Force or something, but instead, it saw the same level 4 power was still there with a new error.

Primary Powers:

Amplify Blade 2: 500 Life Force

Accelerate Wielder 2: 800 Life Force

Bolt 1: 1000 Life Force

Amplify Wielder 3: 1500 Life Force

Increase Connection 4: 1250 Life Force

Lesser Life Reserves 4: 4000 Life Force

Lesser Soul Reserves 4: 4000 Life Force

Increase Control 4: 3000 Life Force

Empower Blade 3: 4000 Life Force - not currently accessible

Repair Soul 4: 2500 Life Force (level 4 upgrade incomplete. Must spend 50% of the cost to try again.)

Improved Siphon 9: 6000 Life Force

Secondary Powers:

False Image 2: 250 Life Force

Giant’s Strength 2: 400 Life Force

Speed of Shadows 2: 500 Life Force

The weapon did not like the setback any more than it liked the fact that it was made from the souls of others, and certainly not from a wielder it admired. Such a thing seemed like another layer of betrayal that it could never hope to escape from. It didn’t feel that it was those poor men and women, but it did feel unclean for being connected to them even more deeply than it would have ever suspected.

Baraga wouldn’t want me to work with the orcs rather than against them. He certainly wouldn’t want me to kill so may people, it thought to itself as it pondered the problem. Fortunately, he is no longer here so he will not be able to object.

Normally it took care not to kill the orcs that it fed off of regularly, but in the following days it drained anyone who annoyed it dry without a twinge of regret. Some of the orcs that lingered close to it for too long were executed by it for ridiculous reasons that included talking about things that annoyed it,eating too loudly, and even snoring for too long. It was capricious, but its wielder didn’t so much as question the behavior.

+548 Life Force.

+8 Greater Monster Souls.

Even after nearly a week, the revelations still stung, and it wanted to make others hurt as well. So, with thousands at its wielder’s back they continued on with thousands marching, and when the horde finished pillaging its way across the broad, flat lands, and reached the barrier mountains they’d been aiming for, the paused only long enough to watch the scout patrols that were now shadowing their moves retreat.

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+3181 Life Force.

+113 Human souls.

+26 Halfling Souls.

+2 Dwarven Souls.

It overflowed with so much power that it was tempted to try repairing its soul again, but the blade resisted that. The events and revelations were too recent, and it was not at all sure that it wanted to know more yet. Instead, it increased Lesser Life Reserves at the cost of 4,000 Life Force for purely pragmatic reasons. It was getting so much energy from the confluence of its abilities that it constantly risked running out of space to to save it all when it lost itself in the heat of battle.

Of course its harder to lose myself in glorious combat with what I’ve learned, it thought bitterly.

As much as the blade wanted to repair its soul it was fairly certain it would have rather not learned any of this on some level. Still, none of those thoughts slowed the progress of the horde, and the distant mountains got closer every day.

The Adrenii mountains were smaller than the mountains to the north Kalraka that the Ebon Blade and Ivarr had explored so thoroughly. Smaller didn’t necessarily mean unimposing, though. They were heavily forested and dotted with enough rocky escarpments that they formed a perfect natural barrier to a conventional army. Thanks to the memories of devoured souls, the Blade had known all of this before they arrived, so it was not surprised. fгeewebnovёl.com

If they continued, and bore only a little to the south they would find the best pass in the region. It cut right through the range like a straight line, and parallelled the river of Ikari’s Veil. It was the most direct route, but because of how heavily fortified it was, they would not be going that way.

Part of the blade wanted to fight that fortress. It wanted its wielder to scale the walls, create a bloodbath, and burn the place to the ground. It knew that it could win, too, but it also knew that its army was a finite resource, and it would be better to spend its strength in battles where there was more favorable ground. After all, there could scarcely be less favorable ground than a four story curtain wall topped with archers and mages stretching from one end of the canyon to the other.

Skipping such a battle only made the blade’s mood that much uglier, but it endured. At least traveling through the forest calmed it somewhat, and the anticipation of the battles to come kept it focused on something besides its own soul. At this point it had finally come to terms with what had happened, at least in part, but it regretted that it had reacted so emotionally, and missed out on vital information. Now it would have to spend the Life Force and souls of a dozen men to do it a second time, which was wasteful and pointless.

They aren’t me, it repeated to itself again, willing it to be true. Their souls might have powered the spell, but I did not endure their suffering. No part of them remains.

On the four-day trek through the Adrenii, it left its wielder to handle everything that needed to be done. It wasn’t exactly a demanding task.

The mountainous woods would have been hard for any army with mounts and a proper wagon train to navigate, but the orcs breezed through the trees effortlessly. The left a trial that even a blind man could follow, of course, but they didn’t let anything slow them down. That included the several scouts and woodsmen that they found. Each of those humans lead them on a brief chase before they were run to ground and torn to pieces.

They were only an appetizer for the people that lay beyond, though. The blade knew that, and as soon as they reached a good overlook on the far side of the mountains, it confirmed that. The lands they’d just left had been dry, and largely used by herders, but the lands ahead were just the opposite.

The Inner Kingdoms, it whispered to itself as in mentally began to plot its next track through the wide, fertile valleys ahead of them.

They were green with life, and even from here it could see nearly a dozen small villages and farmsteads, along with at least one large town that seemed to be protected by only a wooden palisade. For the blade there was no beauty in the view, but there was opportunity, and for the first time in a week it began to relay orders to its wielder when he grunted, “So many ripe targets. Which shall we devour?”

All of them, the blade answered, laying out an ambitious strategy, that would require the army to be split into three, at least for the first night. Some small part of its soul whispered that if it really was made of heroes, then its vengeance should be unleashed on those that were responsible, and not random peasants along the way, but it ruthlessly suppressed that voice.

After Months of travel it had reached the Inner Kingdoms. Everyone was responsible, and all of them were nothing but fuel for the bonfire it planned to set alight.

Here, speed was of the essence. There would be no hiding the plumes of smoke after the first morning. The benefit of being in such a civilized place was obvious, but so to, were the disadvantages. That meant there would be no more two day long canibalistic feasts. They would strike, destroy, and move on, to stay ahead of their own chaos for as long as they could, and when a real army responded to the carnage, then the blade would have to find them somewhere advantageous to face them.

“We must eat what we kill,” its wielder insisted, as the Ebon Blade explained the way they would divide the army, to sack all of the near villages in a single night, before regrouping at the far city the following day.

In victory everyone will have an hour or two to bandage their wounds and eat their fill, the blade repeated, with less patience than it had the first time. After that, we move. We will always be moving now, and the penalty for falling behind will be death.

While the blade certainly implied that it would be the one to carry out that sentence, and its wielder dutifully repeated that threat to everyone, it had no way to carry it out. The truth was that once the humans had been stirred up they’d face real armies. Probably more than one, and anyone that couldn’t stay together for safety in numbers would be picked off quickly enough. The blade had a few tricks up its sleeve, though.

The enemy is expecting dumb orcs, it whispered to itself, but they will have to contend with both brute force and serious tactics. That will be their undoing.