Dragon Gods Reign

[Monster territory]

Slowly Darganth's worry rose, with each village he passed having no hints of Alicia's presence. The often rather large distances between the settlements also meant that his pace had slowed down considerably, with the increasingly powerful vampire castles as well as the monster groups that were led by an intelligent chief further slowing him down.

The saving grace amidst this was that the armies he had initially shadowed had even more trouble with these obstacles while also not being aware of all settlements. This allowed him to put some distance between them even if it meant even less regular updates to their movements.

This decision was nonetheless easy as this deep into monster territory this tactic was starting to lose in efficiency. Both monster hordes and the terrain regularly forced them to change direction, making investigating each time futile.

By the time he set out for the largest settlement, one that could no longer be called a mere village and was closer to an actual city, these factors allowed him to get ahead of the closest army by nearly fifty kilometers. Though this wasn't much and could be bridged within a day or two, that was without the presence of the monsters and the undead.

Additionally, with the invasion now going into its fourth week, the news of it had surely reached the far south of the supercontinent where the vampire lords and a handful of exceedingly powerful and intelligent monsters reside. Slowly but surely they would have gathered their armies and marched north to meet the invaders.

Similarly, the seats were likely rushing south for fear of exactly that. Holed up in their fancy cities, that much Darganth had to give them, they hadn't been able to stop many nobles from joining this fight, as much as they would have liked to. But no matter the risk it carried, now they had to join them to prevent too great of a slaughter.

Sadly for them, the army had marched mostly unopposed until they were multiple hundred kilometers past the original border. This shifted the advantage far towards the monster's and undead's side, so far in fact that these armies were already seen as a lost cause.

Instead of pointlessly risking their lives in the attempt to save them, they started fortifying the border cities in anticipation of their former kin returning. Whether they would do as undead under a vampire or having mutated into a monster was of little importance, but one of the two was practically guaranteed.

Thus the vampires would find little opposition once they arrive, a state of affairs that Darganth would gladly exploit. Leaving both groups that were after Alicia to fight amongst themselves, he hid his presence and made his way straight towards the city.

Using the moment of comparative relaxation to check in with Jennia and Allaire, they talked telepathically to pass some time. Compared to him they still had a few villages more to cover, lacking wings to fly without expending mana, but were also slowly approaching the last ones they knew about.

At the same time, they also reaffirmed their decision for the two of them to spread out from there and cover the east and west respectively, as much as he was tempted by Jennia's idea to just grab both side's leaders and have their men search in their stead. But in the end, it was too risky, with one mishap or overzealous individual resulting in risks to Alicia's life.

Still, having them give out the locations of their search parties, if they even had any, wasn't too bad of an idea so they kept the plan in the back of their minds.

Transmitting the smile she had at the prospect through their telepathic connection, Jennia said, 'Then let's pick up the pace to not let your sister wait too long. Besides, I'm starting to miss you so the faster we make sure she's safe the better.'

'Then let's hope for the best.' Darganth answered her.

After a few more moments of saying goodbye to both, he dipped below the black clouds covering the sky. At the same time, he cast a powerful invisibility spell on himself, hiding him not just from the naked eye but also from mana based perception, a vampire's blood vision, and hundreds of other forms of detection, whether common or not.

Letting his gaze wander over the forest-covered hills below him, he found himself being positively surprised by the city. Despite sitting openly atop the highest point within kilometers, even he needed a few seconds to see through the barrier that shielded it from detection. Its effect was similar to what his invisibility provided, though powered by multiple times the mana.

This allowed the illusion to be real in all but its effect. If it were to show a fire, one could see, smell and sense it as one with little to nothing being off no matter the sense, supernatural or not. As long as one remained within the range of the illusion, its flames would even cling to anything they touch, lacking only the ability to burn anything when compared to real flames.

Despite all of this, it proved to be lacking when faced with Darganth. Light magic-based illusions had one glaring weakness in that they were incapable of hiding something. They could overshadow it, extremely well even, but whatever illusion it created was only painted over reality. To truly hide something fell under darkness magic, showing the extent to which the two elements complemented each other despite being opposites.

But with the barrier not incorporating this aspect of darkness magic, Darganth had a far easier time seeing through it than if it did.

When viewing the world through his dragon eyes, even the tiniest of details registered in his mind. And as soon as the illusion failed to completely cover anything he managed to see through it. Within moments his vision shifted to replace the empty hill, now slightly smaller, with a city of about thirty thousand inhabitants.

The previous sight still existed, but his mind automatically combined the sight with and without the illusion. Thus they combined into one picture where illusion, untouched by illusion, and hidden by the illusions are only separated by being highlighted differently, just like it happens with each type of perception he could achieve.

Looking through the illusion of earth that covered parts of the city, Darganth searched for a good spot to teleport to. Not wanting to cause chaos inside the city, his choice fell on a remote alley a small distance from the main gate.

Returning to his human form before teleporting, he didn't stop for a moment before casually making his way out of the alley. Without anyone noticing his unorthodox arrival in the city, he walked along the main road without care.

Slowly but surely his steps carried him towards the barracks that stood near the gate. It hadn't even taken him a moment of deliberation before he settled on this direction instead of the city center as he believed that those that manned the gates would have a better idea who recently entered the city.

Taking a look around the city in passing, he immediately noticed two things. Firstly, how many non-monsters were present, roughly equaling the number of monsters. The second thing was just how good the monster inhabitants were at keeping their twisted instincts at bay.

At their base, monsters were driven by an insatiable appetite to destroy, eat, and corrupt. There was no grand goal that drives these actions, they were simply a thorn in the side of everything else.

But even this mindless, instinctual destructiveness was a part of the natural order. That what becomes rotten will either heal under the pressure of the monsters or be destroyed to the root. And as soon as the cleansing wave stalls, it will start collapsing in on itself from the unstable nature of monsters.

Slowly the monsters will whittle down their own numbers until only one remains. This last one either emerges as an even greater threat to everything else or miserably starves to death from a lack of prey. With it the last source of corrupted mana will also die, allowing the previously corrupted area to experience a fresh start.

In a sense, this meant that this city’s inhabitants violated the natural order, just like the aptly named high-order claims they, and monsters in general, do. But to their luck, Darganth cared little for this. Had he, its inhabitants stood very little chance even though he was surprised by their average power.

On his way to the barracks, he had quickly noticed that quite a few of the individuals stationed there were monsters that had been born as such, only gaining intelligence after sufficient time. But even then it was rare to see them fight back against their instinct, more so to succeed.

It was one of these monsters that noticed his approach first, spotting him soon after he left the main street to turn to the barrack. Initially, he only watched Darganth carefully, but after the latter came continuously closer to the barracks, he notified the other soldiers.

Not caring for this, Darganth continued walking closer to the main entrance of the barrack. Stopping before the small gate in the wall that separated the training field from the outside, he knocked against the wooden door.

Waiting for a few seconds until the door was opened, he was greeted by a group of six armed soldiers. Four of them were humanoid monsters of various builds, while the last two were a human aura user and an elven mage.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” The one who opened the door, an extremely mutated humanoid, asked.

“You don't need to know and I am searching for someone. My sister to be precise, does any one of you know whether she arrived in this city?” Darganth answered him, holding up one of Alicia's wanted posters.

Sparing it a glance, the man smiled slightly when he saw how large the bounty the high order had set on her head. But though he was happy that his enemies had new problems to deal with, he still looked at Darganth with the same dismissive look.

“No idea. And we can't search all of our records or question the men for each minor request, so I'll have to ask you to leave.” He said.

“I promise you, just by virtue of it being my request it isn't a minor one.” Darganth said.

“Sure, sure. Your family has some fancy titles, now you think that you are the center of the world. But let me tell you, snobs like you are insignificant in the grand scheme of-”

Releasing his dragon's fear, Darganth caused the man to choke on his own words.

“Now tell me again whether my request is worth your time or not.” Darganth asked with threatening calmness.

Shaking, neither the man nor any of the other soldiers could bring themselves to answer his question. Instead, they scrambled for their weapons, prompting Darganth to release a disappointed sigh.

Just as the first managed to get a grip on his sword and was about to swing it, which would also have resulted in Darganth finally attacking, a shout echoed through the yard.

“Stop, thats an order!”

As soon as these words fell, the six men tensed up and froze. Continuing to stare at Darganth with fearful eyes for just a moment, they spun around to the new arrival.

Standing there was a man in his fifties, wearing expertly crafted metal armor and carrying a large broadsword on his back. And despite his age, he had an overbearing presence that even nearly matched Darganth's.

“Huh?” This surprised Darganth considerably, even if he was only equal to his presence while polymorphed. Achieving even that in such a weak world wasn't an easy feat.

“How about you come in good sir and we start these talks anew?” The man asked after silently chastising his subordinates for a moment.

Seeing no reason to treat him badly for the attitude his subordinates had shown, Darganth nodded in agreement.

“Then follow me, my office is a better place for such talks.” The man said, turning around and walking towards the barracks with Darganth following him.