Alma 102 The Eve of Ruin

It was all but guaranteed that the outcome of the coming battle would change the fate of the world in some form or another, regardless of victory or defeat.

Things would change. The world would not be the same as it once was.

A great unease filled the silent room.

Reed absentmindedly raised the cup of coffee in his hands and took a sip. It tasted bitter. He grimaced and threw in a couple more sugar cubes into his cup. If there was one thing he genuinely detested, it was bitter coffee.

Not because of the taste; he'd long since been accustomed to the taste of black coffee. He hated black coffee because it reminded of the past. It had inadvertently become associated with the life he'd lived before he had arrived in Mulia.

It reminded him of the bleak outlook he once had about his life. The creeping weariness that arose when one's dreams started to fade away into mist.

"…I owe you guys an apology, you know. You were right. I should have listened. Instead, I insulted the three of you and brushed off your advice," said Reed as he stared at the pitch-black reflection of his cup. He couldn't look at them in the eye.

Astor sighed and said, "As if we were any better than you, Reed. We ran away. Scared of the consequences, we came up with convenient excuses and told ourselves that there was nothing we could do."

"If recklessness is your sin, then cowardice is ours. Therefore, you need not apologize. We are all to blame. If anything, your efforts bore fruit — unlike the three of us who idly stood by and did nothing. You saved Sebastian. That counts for something," said Astor.

Was he not a noble prince of the North? Was he not a contender, one of the Chosen?

Astor laughed at himself in self-derision and said, "We are no gods, only miserable pretenders. For all that we have been afforded, we couldn't even muster the strength of will to save two people. And now, we've been tasked to protect the realm from this sudden invasion? Unbelievable…"

Horatio clenched his fists in frustration and said, "What can we even do in this situation? We are still grossly outnumbered, even if we have the Four Empires banding together for this operation. More than half of our forces are still out in the Shadowlands, completely unaware of what is happening right now."

"But we have no other choice! Either we fight with what we have or risk letting the Infestation grow further than it already has. Had we waited, they probably would have set their sights on the entire North and then, the whole continent," said Ophelia.

She was right. Had the Four Empires waited, the Infested Pupa would have not waited for them to attack. It would have continued to collect until it had taken everything in the North. From the strongest conqueror to the smallest blade of grass, nothing would have been spared.

It would've amassed an army nearly a hundred million strong, capable of taking the continent in one fell swoop. At that point in time, nothing would have been able to stop it, regardless of whether or not the Four Empires were at their full strength…

Lu'um grabbed another sugar cube, put it in Reed's coffee and said, "The Will of the World chose all of you for a reason. I do not know for what reason, but it had good reason to do so. It would not have given you an Alma had it judged you unfit to bear it, even if you had been given the Mark of the Chosen. It has the final say in the matter — not the mark."

Reed took a sip of his coffee and said, "I have no doubt that we'll win. There will be losses, but this continent will live to see another day. We are duty-bound to do what we can for the people who have no power — that is the responsibility we've been entrusted with in return for our strength."

"If you want to live up to the power you've been granted, resolve yourselves here and now to do what you must. Be better — make proper use of what you have been granted. If not, stay here and do not participate in the coming fight. You will not live to see tomorrow if you are not prepared for what is to come. The millions of Infested out there will not wait for you to gather the courage to fight. Falter in the upcoming battle and you will surely be killed."

"Do not make attend your funerals. I have lost enough," said Reed.

An alarm suddenly blared in the room like a banshee and a cold voice said, "Attention! The Eastern and Southern fleets have arrived! All conquerors and contenders are to report to the main bridge-hall ASAP and await further orders!"

The time to fight had come.

Reed and Lu'um stood up together and said their farewells to Astor, Horatio, and Ophelia before they left. When they stepped out of the room Reed said, "What do you think their chances of survival are?"

Lu'um furrowed her brows and said, "Less than ten percent, at best. But you have to consider that they won't be going alone. With a semi-competent conqueror as their captain, I suppose you can bump it up to twenty-five percent? Even then, they're going to have to do their very best in order to get numbers like that…"

The arrangement of the North's forces had already been formed during the wait for the other fleets. Conquerors would be assigned their own squads of contenders to lead. Together, they'd be deployed onto the battlefield after an initial barrage by the fleet's supercruisers.

They'd been assigned to clear out what remained of the warships' bombardments and push the offensive line forward to the Reef, where the heart of the Infested lay.

The true objective of the operation was to destroy the unknown Class-A Extradimensional Entity — the source of the invasion's forces.

Reed felt the fluctuations coming from the ship itself and knew that it would not be long before the fight would begin. The warship's Anima reactor had begun to spin faster — it was starting to power up in order to handle the load of maintaining its shielding, among other things.

The Silver Winter had come equipped with heavy Animpowered accelerator cannons capable of laying waste to scores of Infested at a time, something not seen on other ships in the fleet. The accelerator cannons and the warship's experimental shielding required an enormous amount of energy — as a result, the ship was built with twin Majestic-class Anima reactors.

It was designed as an ultrheavy supercruiser at heart, one that could withstand a fight against multiple opponents in its class and survive. In essence, it'd been created to combat other warships in the event of a possible war against another empire. Of course, that was not what the Kingscrown family had said it was for when it'd been first unveiled.

According to the Kingscrown family, it'd been designed for deep-range exploration into the Shadowlands without additional assistance. A titan of a ship that would be capable of venturing into the unknown regions of the Shadowlands in search of new Ancient Mulian artefact hot-spots. An exploratory ship, they said.

Needless to say, the other empires never bought the excuse. They knew what it had been created to do.

"Do you feel that?" said Reed. "I can feel the storm getting stronger, even from here. They're waiting for us on the other side…"

Lu'um nodded and said, "It's going to be a tough fight. The abomination has had plenty of time to prepare for us. It is likely that it has already created defenses of its own."

"Don't think that it'll be last time. You caught that one early when it had barely descended before it'd built any of its defenses. This one has already had ample time to prepare itself for whatever we have in store for it. These abominations become increasingly harder to kill the longer they had time to grow…"

Infested Pupae were monstrosities that fed upon stars themselves for sustenance, after all. Once mature enough, they'd become nigh-unkillable leeches that'd drain the life out of entire planetary systems at a time. They would enclose space-time around themselves and their prey, forming a cocoon of warped reality, a shield of sorts that was almost impossible to pierce through.

It would only release the shield until its work was complete or if it had been killed from the inside.

Wherever these eldritch gluttons traveled to often went dark after they left.

In that way, the Ancient Mulians had been able to plot the movements of the Infestation during the early days of the Great War. They'd track the disappearances of the stars in the night sky. At first, it had worked with great success but as the war raged on, fewer and fewer stars shone in the night sky…

Until the day had come that there were no more stars.

Chapter end