The Cyborg System-Chapter 67: Les Chevaliers

They were gathered in a grand castle built in a clearing of the Black Forest. The base was, by all accounts, supposed to be secret; however, it was known amongst the other pillars, who had their own spies and ways of gathering information. And so, while not exactly entirely hidden, the number of people who knew of its location was at least limited. The building itself was magnificent, modelled after the famous Eltz Castle destroyed in the AI Wars.

What separated it from that beautiful medieval castle was two-fold: Firstly, its construction materials had been imbued with cores of several monster tier beasts. While this might seem excessive, this gave the Leader and Council somewhere safe to home their families, where anything up to a predator tier would struggle to cause significant damage before their men could respond, even if the main force was deployed elsewhere. Secondly, there was a giant cannon sat at the highest point of the structure, which spun on a gyroscope and was capable of firing predator tier shells. Again, this was not the most efficient use of spirit weaponry, as only the spirited could use them to their full potential. Instead, this relied on the residual essence and passive effect of the cores which had been used, but some experimentation had been conducted among the research division ofbthebfaction, working in tandem with Spirit Tech, and the cores selected were picked based on their relatively high damage passive effects. Fire, lightning and poison beasts’ cores were especially coveted for this reason.

In the War Room, the council sat waiting for their leader at a large round table. It was an unplanned meeting, and so, Victor had been summoned while in the middle of training. When an orange portal opened up inside by the door, the Council of Twelve put their hands to their various weapons, just in case. Their leader fell through the orange disc of light, landing softly on his feet. He’d come directly from Xeno Major, fresh from a kill. His black collarless shirt was covered in dark blood, a great sword sticking out of the sheath on his back.

"Why have I been summoned?" asked Victor.

"Western Alliance satellites have noticed a significant increase in the number of portals opening up around the beast planets," said Adina, the single representative from the School of Illusion.

"How many?"

"In the last 24 hours, over 300."

"Earth?" asked Victor.

"No, they seem to be moving small forces from one planet to another. The pattern is unusual, unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s making it hard to know where exactly we should concentrate our forces, or if it’s even a ploy to get us to send more men away from Earth."

Victor grunted. He did not buy the fact that the beasts were capable of such cunning. He’d fought with enough monster and demon tier creatures to know they were more intelligent, more capable of defending themselves, or even picking up and using primitive weapons on the battlefield like tools, but the idea that they had complex battle tactics felt like sacrilege. They were no better than chimps. In Victor’s eyes, the portals were simple opportunism, beasts creating links between the worlds because they were capable and needed food. Why exactly the portal creatures and those with other affinities worked in unison was unknown, but to explain it as a complex set of chess moves, predicting their opponents and setting traps seemed like a stretch.

There was always the possibility that there were more intelligent creatures in the rank above. But not much was known of the Nightmares. Such beasts could not be studied, dissected, and understood, simply wiped out with great effort and cost. Victor himself had seen the damage caused when Nikandros of the Olympians took out a nightmare beast. He had not been at the battle itself, being too young, but visiting the aftermath and scorched earth was a pilgrimage that many powerful warriors took once they had reached the status of national-level hunters.

"What do you wish to do, if anything?" asked Adina. Her eyes betrayed her disappointment. She thought that Victor was not taking such a situation seriously. Perhaps it was her illusion abilities alignment with secrecy and deception, but she often saw through what others dismissed.

"We’ll put it to a vote," said Victor. "Those in favour of carrying on as usual?"

Six of the twelve raised their hands. Victor’s followed. "Majority rules. We will carry on as usual. The tournament will take place tomorrow. Once the outcome has decided our newest national hunter, we will send them along with some of the others to set up an independent outpost on Xeno Prime. This is an important moment for us and our faction. We will no longer leave the Western Alliance to defend a single outpost, but create a second one nearby. This will be a source of many new monster and demon tier cores for our faction."

A few of the others shifted in their seats. This was an aggressive approach, they all knew that. This decision had only been made by a single vote, as today. Those loyal to Victor were consistent at least.

"Speaking of which," said Victor, pulling a pouch from his waist. The others all looked closely, curious at what rank it would be. A large egg-shaped core, the size of a melon was pulled out. It had swirls of grey energy moving around inside the clear shell and was clearly of the demon rank. His squad must’ve been hunting big game, likely losing a man or two in the battle.

"Sharpening?" asked Marcellus of the School of Brawn, hoping for another axe to add to his collection.

"Better, hardening," replied their leader. "Have a shield made to replace your own, Greta. That should be more fitting." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The woman nodded. She had been one of the six to leave her hand down when they had voted, essentially going against the leader’s wishes. Still, she was the only one of the three council members from the School of Stone still relying on a monster tier shield. Such a state had to be remedied as soon as possible. After all, they were at war.