Chapter 94: Chapter 94: The Warlord Legacies
Chapter 94: The Warlord Legacies
SQUELCH. SQUELCH.
The heavy combat boots of the Special Class sank into the toxic mud of Sector 44-J. The twelve-hour trek back to Bastion Seven had begun.
The atmosphere within the squad had fundamentally shifted. The petty rivalries and the arrogance of the Vanguard elite were completely gone.
In their place was a terrifying, cold cohesion. They moved as a single, lethal unit, guided by a new, absolute faith.
And at the center of their formation walked Draven.
They treated him with a profound, unspoken respect. Aegon no longer barked orders without glancing at Draven first.
Lucien cleared the path ahead, eager to prove his worth. Even Bram, the stoic giant, offered Draven the clearest footing through the ruins.
The expedition had been brutally effective.
Surviving the dense Miasma, butchering the Hive Mother, and fighting their way through the endless red fog had pushed their limits.
Aegon had broken through the Level 50 threshold. Reina, Lucien, and Bram were sitting comfortably at Level 48.
The rest of the squad hovered in the mid-forties. They were growing exponentially.
But Draven walked among them as a Level 92 apex. The gap between them was an ocean.
"Zero," Natalie Tokks spoke up. The timid sensory archer was walking close to Estella, but her eyes were fixed on Draven’s back.
"You told us we need to grow stronger... but why are we rushing? The Beast Wave is over. The Vanguard has secured the walls. We have time to train at the Academy, don’t we?"
Draven didn’t stop walking. He kept his pitch-black eyes focused on the red fog ahead.
"Call me Draven. Time is an illusion the Vanguard sells to keep the populace calm, Tokks," Draven answered, his voice carrying the calm, absolute authority of the Void God’s herald.
"The Cult of the Eternal Eclipse and the wild beasts are just the rot on the surface. Something much older, and much worse, is watching this world."
Nyx melted out of the shadows of a ruined building, falling into step beside Draven. She twirled a blood-stained dagger between her fingers.
"Worse than a Corpse Titan?" Nyx asked, her dark eyes narrowing. "What is coming, Boss?"
"An apocalypse," Draven stated flatly. He didn’t sugarcoat it.
"A true collapse. The entities backing the Cult will not wait forever. We have roughly one year before the sky tears open. If we are not strong enough to stand on our own by then, Bastion Seven will be wiped off the map, and your Vanguard titles won’t mean a thing."
A heavy silence fell over the squad. One year. The timeline was suffocating.
"How?" Lucien demanded, gripping the hilt of his rapier.
"How do we bridge a gap like that in twelve months? We are barely Level 50. Kings are Level 200. We can’t just farm monsters in the mud until we reach the apex."
"You won’t have to," Draven replied smoothly. He tapped the side of his head.
"When we were in the Sanctuary, our Lord bestowed upon me the knowledge of the Old World. He granted me the exact coordinates of the lost Warlord Legacies."
Aegon’s breath hitched.
"Warlord Legacies? You mean the hidden tombs of the pre-fall Heroes?"
"Exactly," Draven nodded.
With his Mythic World Map perfectly mapping the continent in his mind, he essentially held the cheat codes to every hidden dungeon and mythological weapon buried in the world.
But attributing it to the Void God cemented his divine authority perfectly.
"The Vanguard has spent decades looking for them and failed," Draven continued.
"But I know where they are. Tombs, armories, and isolated inheritances untouched since the Fall of Humanity. Each of you has an affinity that perfectly matches one of these Legacies. It is fate that you were chosen by the Embracing Hands. I will lead you to them, one by one. You will claim their power, inherit their skills, and artificially force your evolution. You will awaken the Seed of Valor and will reach Level 100s and that should be enough for the Apocalypse coming in a year."
Nyx’s eyes gleamed with lethal excitement. Tokks clenched her fists, her fear replaced by a burning determination. Aegon simply nodded, his golden eyes blazing with absolute loyalty.
"What are your orders regarding the Blueprints, Draven?" Aegon asked, shifting into tactical matters.
"If we hide the Miasma Tower USB from the Vanguard, we won’t be able to use their forges or their engineers to study it."
"We don’t hide it," Draven answered, surprising the Captain.
"We are going to show it to Lord Commander Goldmane."
"Are you sure?" Cole asked, his brow furrowing.
"If the higher-ups take it..."
"They won’t take it from Aegon," Draven calculated smoothly.
"Aegon is the Hero of Bastion Seven. By handing over the greatest discovery of the century, you solidify yourselves as the undisputed elite of the Vanguard. Lord Commander Goldmane will give you unlimited access to the military forges, resources, and freedom to leave the Bastion whenever you want. We need the Vanguard’s resources to build our strength. Do not make an enemy of the apex when you can use him as a shield."
Aegon smiled grimly.
"A parasite strategy. Understood."
"Come on! Don’t call it that and demean my good intentions." said Draven as he locked the co-ordinates of the Legacies he knew from the Novel.
---
The sun was bleeding over the horizon by the time the massive, impenetrable silhouette of the Great Wall pierced the red fog.
KRRRR-CLANK.
The colossal steel gates groaned open. The squad marched into the pristine, well-lit safety of the Bastion’s inner courtyard, their armor scorched, dented, and caked in toxic mud.
Waiting for them in the center of the courtyard was a man who radiated the sheer, suffocating heat of a dying star.
Lord Commander Helion Goldmane stood tall, his heavy white and gold coat billowing in the wind.
"Welcome back, cadets," Helion’s booming voice echoed across the concrete.
His piercing golden eyes swept over the eleven students, registering the dramatic spike in their mana levels.
"You survived the red fog. And you look heavier for it."
Aegon stepped forward, rendering a flawless military salute.
"Sir! Special Class reporting back," Aegon declared loudly.
He reached into his pouch and pulled out the perfectly drawn topographical maps of Sector 44-J. But he didn’t stop there.
Aegon reached into his coat and pulled out the Old World USB.
"Lord Commander. We breached an unrecorded subterranean pre-fall research lab," Aegon reported, his voice echoing for the Vanguard Knights to hear.
"We engaged and eliminated a Rank-A Hive Mother, and recovered this. It is the Project Eden Blueprint. The theoretical schematics for a Miasma Clearing Tower."
Helion Goldmane froze.
The massive Level 200 apex predator stared at the tiny metal drive in Aegon’s hand.
The ambient heat radiating from his body spiked so violently that the puddles of rainwater on the concrete instantly hissed into steam.
"A Clearing Tower..." Helion breathed, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. He reached out and gently took the USB.
"You better not be joking Aegon. Because if you are lying for petty achievements, I will not spare you." Lord Commander said as he could not believe his words.
Miasma Cleansing Tower was a technology kept totally secret from the Populace. Researchers have been trying to get hands on this technology for years but were unsure of it’s location.
They had even tried to replicate it but failed miserably and then this Project was abandoned in the registers.
Goldmane snatched the USB and looked at Aegon in the eyes looking for falsehood, but he did not shake even for a bit.
"Do you have any idea what you have just brought home, Logcheville? You have brought us hope."
"We serve humanity, sir," Aegon replied flawlessly.
Helion laughed, a massive, booming sound of pure joy.
"The Student Council President was right about you all! You are the finest generation this Academy has ever seen! You will all be highly rewarded for this. Full access to the inner armories!"
As Helion praised the squad, his sharp, golden eyes casually swept over the students standing behind Aegon.
His gaze landed on Draven.
Draven was currently utilizing his [Blank Canvas] skill to its absolute maximum. To any normal scanner, he appeared as a perfectly average, slightly exhausted Level 45 student.
But Helion Goldmane was not normal.
As Helion looked into Draven’s pitch-black eyes, the Lord Commander felt a sudden, inexplicable chill run down his spine. The boy’s eyes were too dark. Too deep. For a fraction of a microsecond, the space directly behind Draven seemed to warp.
In Helion’s mind, the terrifying, cosmic silhouette of a gargantuan God made of starlight and nebula flashed behind the quiet student, looking down at the Lord Commander with ancient, indifferent eyes.
Helion blinked hard, staggering back a half-step.
’What the hell was that?’ Helion thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He looked at Draven again. The boy was just standing there, wiping a speck of mud off his Vanguard rifle, completely unremarkable.
Helion rubbed his temples, exhaling a long breath.
’I am losing my edge,’ Helion grumbled internally.
’Seeing phantoms in the shadows. I really need to lay off the Bastion whiskey. My nerves are shot since the Beast Wave.’
"Dismissed, cadets!" Helion ordered, shaking his head to clear the illusion.
"Get to the medical wing. Rest up. Tomorrow, present me a detailed report on this matter!"
Draven offered a polite, standard salute along with the rest of the squad. He turned and walked toward the inner city, a faint, cold smirk playing on his lips.
The Vanguard had the blueprint.
The real game had just begun.
