Chapter 306 War For Larm Pt.XIV
The war ogres on wyvern back swooped down on the mansion in the West, flying around and performing a good survey of the entire house. There weren’t guards protecting the mansion, but they could both smell creatures in the buildings – weaklings, running around and cowering in fear at the sight of the wyverns.
Kobolds that ran, weak goblins that refused to fight, pregnant mothers and children, all hiding in the mansion as if those outside couldn’t sense them. There were a few soldiers, but they didn’t count for anything. In other words, none of these creatures mattered.
Only one did. The war ogress that was hiding on the first floor. She was setting up some sort of electric field around her and it was growing. If they allowed it to continue, the barrier would be big enough to cover the entire mansion.
So, of course, they didn’t allow it. Both jumped off their wyverns onto a balcony with a closed glass door. Pass the glass door, they could make out the blurry figures of creatures hiding in the room there. One was noticeably bigger than the others.
Without hesitation, Karon punched through the door and marched forward, half-surprised to not have been hit by any sort of magical defence. Then again, if they had the resources to spare for such a thing, the war wouldn’t have been nearly as messy for them.
Past the door, leading into a massive room clearly meant for the master of the mansion, there were two creatures standing alertly. One was human-sized rat man and the other war ogress on the small side. A group of kobolds were cowering in fear behind these two and behind all of them was an egg that none would ever be big enough to hide.
A crystal-like oval-shaped rock was the only way any of them would have been able to describe. Rather than calling it crystal-like, calling it an actual gem seemed efficient. It was reflective enough to even allow Krull to get his own image, and even then, there was something eye-catching about it. Maybe the size was a ‘woah’ factor, but the rock gave off a certain alluring aura one couldn’t quite explain.
“Kala, get over here now.”, Karon dragged Krull out of his daze with an order thrown at Kala. Krull shook his head a moment and blinked for a bit before returning to reality.
“W-What are you doing here, brother?”, she stammered at first, but got bolder at the end. It wasn’t something Krull was expecting to see, but that all the more made him feel he was right in his decision to kill her as soon as possible.
“I have come to take you back home. Now come over to me.”, he stretched out his hand to her.
The look in Kala’s eyes alone were more than enough to tell anyone that saw her what she thought of this request, but Karon wasn’t able to see it. He was waiting for her to jump into his arms, crying about how much she hated being so far from home. It never came though.
“No.”, Instead, he received a shocking reply.
“Eh?”, dumbfounded, the word escaped his mouth.
“I-I… I refuse!”, with a stronger conviction than before, she rejected his proposal loudly enough for it to echo off the walls in the room. At her side, the rat man grinned triumphantly.
“Now that you’ve heard her response, leave!”, Boldly, he pointed towards the opening behind them. Karon’s brow started to twitch as his arm plopped down lifelessly.
Krull silently monitored this entire scene unfold before his very eyes, waiting. Karon requested he be allowed a chance to convince her peacefully, but that had clearly failed. Brushing aside Karon, Karon took some steps forward.
The rat man jumped at him, but he sent him flying with a single smack like the bug he was. Unbothered, he kept marching till he stood directly before Kala, towering above her like a monstrous giant. A choking amount of steam erupted as his nostrils flared. She shut her eyes and braced herself.
“Your mother begged for me to keep you alive the day you were born.”, Kala’s eyes widened, surprised to be hearing anything about her mother instead of losing her head. “In exchange for hers a few years later, you were allowed to live. How stupid I was to take that deal instead of killing you on the spot.”
Stunned, Kala warily looked up to Krull’s face. His red beady eyes looked at her, void of any affection possible.
“You see, I knew your mother would do this kind of thing, so I set in place measures to ensure you could never become strong. You aren’t even worth my time. Pftt.”, He lost his composure and broke down into an uncontrollable laughter. Wheezing for air and trying is utmost to keep himself from falling. “How does it feel Kala!? Your daughter will never inherit your abilities now!”
Kala on the other hand was very confused, trying to put one and two together, but nothing made sense. It took a while, but Krull’s laughter finally ceased, then he raised his cleaver above Kala. Swiftly, he brought it down.
However, the cleaver did not make contact with her head.
“What is that jewel.”, He looked past the group of cowering kobolds at the jewel, glaring at it greedily. The kobolds shivered even more after hearing the question. Only one of them shakily stood up in a defensive manner as if to hide the rock from his view.
Krull sniffed it, but still couldn’t figure out anything about the rock, except that it called to him to take it for himself. Then, an odd image popped into his mind. The figure of an annoying avian that foiled his plans once before and was supposedly doing the same again just now.
“Where is the chicken?”, No one responded, but a heavy pressure descended.
“That? That’s the chicken’s state right now? Kuhahahaha!”
By no means was he filled with uncontrollable laughter or amusement.
Although Krull was acting in such a manner, he had a very different plan in mind. Most of Krull’s enemies’ greatest mistake was assuming he was simply a mindless brute. When he got serious, even he could play mind games on his opponent. His favourite being to shatter their psyche.
“Very well then. I shall deal with it first.”, At that declaration, Kala flinched, giving Krull his response.
“Wait! Fight me!”, Kara spread her arms, glaring at her father. The ogre snorted then pushed her aside.
“Fight you? You aren’t even worth my time. Do to her as you wish, Karon.”
“You… you terrible… ass!”, Kala fired off a bolt of lightning which Karon casually absorbed with his cleaver, without even facing her. She fired off a few more, but he easily cancelled them out and kept walking forward. Kala, feeling desperate tried to run after him, but her older brother caught her.
“Let go of me! Let… go… Karon! Please!”, Her shrieks didn’t even tug at Krull’s heart strings as he neared the egg. Most of the kobolds had already run away from the direction of the egg, with the exception of one.
It was a white dog-faced kobold. Shakily, but with conviction, she held up her arms as if to block Krull. Cruelly, the war ogre brought down his cleaver to split her in half, but his attack was halted as a blood red spike shot out of the ground beneath him, almost puncturing his skull from below.
The war veteran easily avoided this attack, stumbling backwards. As if on cue, vines sprouted all around the room, all aimed at his limbs, but the ogre displayed grace on par with a ballerina as he twirled around, correcting his stance and instantly cutting up all the vines that shot at him.
Stealthily, two blood red lean trees darted in quickly, one going up front and the other throwing projectiles aimed for his head from behind.
Krull, having noticed this quickly prepared a counter measure, by releasing a lightning bolt he absorbed earlier towards the spike aimed at him, then charging like a freight train towards the tree in front of him. The tree transformed both of its arms into blades, ready to swing at Krull, but he was also ready for it.
“[Battle God Technique: Cleaver]!”, Krull’s fist produced a shockwave with the edge of an extremely sharp blade that cut off one of the tree’s arms.
“[Way of the Wind: Act Three – Twisting Cyclone].”, his body performed a very odd 180-degree turn, setting him into the perfect position to encounter the monster coming from behind him.
“[Battle God Technique: Straight Right]!”, His fist connected with the tree’s face knocking it back, but before it could fly anywhere, he grabbed its leg.
“Way of the Wind: Act five – Flow].” Upon activating this technique, the tree behind him took a stab at him, but missed by a hair’s breadth. Krull somehow narrowly twisted his body in a manner that allowed him to avoid being hit. He continued this unorthodox movement of his into a flip one wouldn’t expect of a person his size, then slamming the tree in hand into the one below him.
Before, Krull would have simply taken the attacks like they weren’t worth anything, but considering the state of things now that he no longer received power from blessings, he was being very mindful with how he took things.
Grabbing both of their legs, he smashed them into each other, before throwing them out the door. To ensure they wouldn’t be returning, he fired off all of his remaining lightning bolts at them. Even if it didn’t kill them, it would delay them for a bit.
‘Hmph… those two are the perfect soldiers for war. I want them.’
Fast, stealthy, powerful and filled with zero emotions whatsoever, they were the embodiment of the war ogres Krull grew up with. If anything, he now wanted to make those two submit to him. But that would have to wait.
Now, he had to destroy the potential threat to everything he had been waiting his life for. The stupid chicken that completely derailed his life. He really wanted to keep that egg to himself, but Krull recognised this feeling. All his reasoning was telling him that the egg contained something very dangerous and if he didn’t destroy it now, he would be doomed.
He prepared himself, sending in all his aura into his right arm as he raised his cleaver. With this one strike, he aimed to completely shatter the rock.
“Now that, is simply in poor taste, Krull.”, A new presence entered the room. Right before him, a dryad had appeared bearing an eerily calm smile. However, Krull could never mistake this dryad’s eyes for anyone else. The way she looked at him cunningly, like there were thousands of calculations going on in her mind at a second made him shiver.
“Since when do you partake in these sorts of things?”, He asked, stopping his initial attack preparations.
“Potential rulers of Larm won’t be allowed defeat in such a manner, so long as I am around to stop it.”, She said blatantly.
Krull wasn’t a fool. Acting against her was the equivalent of acting against the very forest. Most dryads didn’t matter, but Diane in particular did, being supposedly the oldest dryad, existing since the first ages of Larm. Weighing his options and eventually deciding a fight against the oldest dryad would end in failure, he changed his target to the original one.
“Does that apply to everyone else in this room?”
With an unbothered smile plastered across her face, Diane shook her head. “Their fate is beyond my control. What happens to them, happens.”
Krull looked at Karon holding up Kala and muffling her. She was still squirming about in his grasp, but Karon was far stronger than her.
“Bring her over to-”, before he could finish his sentence, he heard a grunt from Karon. Looking at him, Kala had just bitten his arm and he let go off her.
“I’ll come to you myself!”, haughtily, Kala declared. She took some bold steps forward, an attitude completely unexpected given her situation and personality.
As he looked at her figure, images of his time with his flashed through his mind. She was older, far older, than he was, but through circumstance, they ended up together. His mind flipped through all the time he spent with her and it just made him remember just how much he hated her.
Now looking at Kala, she was acting just like her mother did. He tried his very best to keep her from developing in this way. The threat of a war kishin was far too terrifying to allow to exist again.
He put her in the worst environment for development. Fed her mana circuit damaging substances and weakened her bodily constitution to the point she could be bullied by C+ ranked human adventurers, although she wouldn’t die at their hands. She was never going to grow stronger, Krull made sure of that.
So, what was with that fiery look in her eyes. There was something off about her. The look in her eyes wasn’t one of someone who was very noticeably weak compared to every other person in their life.
The way she looked at him was the sort of gaze only the strong should give to the weak. The condescending glare that made him feel lower than a worm. The sort of gaze her mother once wore.
For the very first time since Kala’s birth, Krull looked at her and saw her face. She bore a striking resemblance to her mother. No, rather than that. Krull could feel her mother over her. It was a sickening feeling that only a war kishin gave off.
Doing something like that should be impossible normally, but for a war kishin, Krull couldn’t deny the possibility. Right now, he could see a faded image of Kala’s mother walking next to her as she came face to face with him.
Krull had assumed she was dead, but Kala’s mother, Kala, had been around this entire time. Rather than dying, she escaped her physical form permanently, becoming a spirit. A spirit that was blessing Kala and doing her best to keep her safe from death for as long as possible. Without anyone being aware, she was giving subconscious orders to the others that made them avoid harming her.
“That bitch.”, Upon this shock, Krull grabbed her by the neck instantly without waiting to allow her to talk. “She lied to me. She was going to make you the next war kishin even after our agreement.”
Karon grabbed Krull’s wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Do not harm her. She’s still confu-”
Krull dropped his cleaver.
A ‘SMACK’ followed after the ‘Thud’ of the cleaver, then Karon’s body flew across the room.
“She has already affected both you and your sister. Both of you will instinctively feel the need to protect her, although considering her current state, it manifested in a twisted way for you in particular.”
Krull waved her around like a lifeless doll as he brought up his cleaver.
“You know, while I said I do not care what happens to everyone else in the room… and that is true, I am not particularly averse to the idea of prolonging her life.”, After witnessing what just unfolded, Diane spoke up once more. Krull glanced at her from the corner of his eye his eye met hers. That look of hers sent a shiver down his spine.
“And why is that?”
“Well, she does possess some essence of Lady Hinotori in her after all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Rather than responded, Diane just looked at Kala. Specifically, her stomach. Krull looked at Kala closely. He sniffed her from head to toe till he caught an odd scent. He looked at her again, with wide eyes.
“You… when did you get pregnant?”
Kala clawed at his hands, trying to break free of his grip, but she couldn’t. Her squirming was getting on Krull’s nerves.
“When did it happen!?”, he roared, saliva spreading across her face. “Answer me! And to the chicken!? Of all things!?”
It wasn’t as much the fact that she got pregnant without his knowledge as it was the fact that she could have possibly given birth to a war kishin before he found. If there was going to be another war kishin, it was going to have to be him and no one else.
Her fingers twitched with lightning, but they were cancelled out. Her magical power wasn’t working because she couldn’t properly focus on a particular spell to cast.
“Before there is another! I will end this.”, As he roared, Krull brought her face closer to his mouth and opened wide. In order to at least increase his chances of become a war kishin, he would consume both mother and child.
“No! Stop it! Stop it! Please!” Kala was shrieking, doing her utmost to get out of his grasp. Krull paused to see if Diane was making any moves, but she was absolutely still, pretending to not see.
‘Either way she won’t interfere, eh?’
In the corner of the room, Karon had been knocked out cold by Krull’s punch, the tree monsters oddly enough hadn’t re-emerged into the room, even though they should’ve recovered by now. Well, whatever. None of those mattered.
Once he ate her, there was a chance he would undergo an evolution to become stronger. As a War kishin, he would be on par with the gods themselves. He just needed that one evolution to get there.
Kala’s screams were muffled out by his excited thoughts as his mouth widened to absurd proportions. Slowly, he begun to shove her into his stomach. Her head went in first, followed by her body until…
New novel chapters are published on fr(e)ewebnov(e)l.com