City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

The New Generation

Richard immediately had someone rush to Faust and bring over the equipment Nyris had based on the market price. It wasn’t until then that he realised just how large the prince’s collection of female armour was.

Senma was quite powerful in battle, by no means just a pretty vase. That was evident in the fact that Gaton assigned her to guard the Resting Orchid Plane by herself. Even if this was a small plane, it was a plane nevertheless. To obtain all that for just a single set of armour was an amazing deal.

So long as one was willing to pay the cost of teleportation, their efficiency would skyrocket. By the same afternoon he handed the armour to the Blood Paladin, causing her to jump up in joy. The radiance of this ornate sub-legendary armour dazzled her eyes; she had never even dreamed of having such a set in hand.

Richard watched on in satisfaction as she grabbed hold tightly, rushing away like the wind. That same evening she was showing off the new armour to him, but now it was completely changed. Some parts had been removed and some of the sharper lines blunted to make it more beautiful, but Richard just couldn’t bring himself to appreciate her craftsmanship. The armour was more eye-catching, sure, but that was at the cost of a comprehensive design in its abilities. The sub-legendary set had been mutilated, now no different from any other epic equipment.

It was only now that he understood just why her old armour had been so pitiful. Of course Gaton wouldn’t give his followers such flashy things for no reason, this was all her work. Still, it was her business what she chose to do with it. No matter what had been done to the armour, the intended effects were achieved: Senma was now formally a follower of his.

……

All of Richard’s followers finally gathered the next day, and Lina was done with the portal as well. With his rune knights and the shadowspears in tow, the small army headed through the portal.

A cold wind hit him in the face as he walked out of the portal, causing him to shiver a little. He hadn’t experienced winter in a long time, and it made him recall the Deepblue and Rooseland. Winters in the mountains were always extraordinarily cold; they had been the first things to teach him perseverance.

Senma was the first one to walk out of the portal after him, showing a subtle difference between her and Lina. While the Blood Paladin seemed to be all brawn and no brain, she was actually quite adept at handling the little things. Lina, for all her intelligence, was an airhead that had almost caused him to suffer great losses in the Forest Plane.

The teleportation gate was built within a small hall in their base city. The place wasn’t magnificent nor luxurious, lacking even the most basic of decorations. Even protection from wind and rain wasn’t a guarantee. Just the sight of the narrow hall that only covered a hundred square metres made it clear that there were no plans to invest in this plane. At most a dozen people would come in and out of the channel at the time, so the place wasn’t built to be particularly large. This showed the biggest weakness of Gaton’s reign; he likely never thought he would have the funds to send hundreds or thousands of people over.

There wasn’t anything wrong with Gaton’s approach either. There weren’t any specialty products found here despite occupying nearly half the entire continent, so the entire plane could provide a few hundred thousand gold a year at best. Since that was the case, it was better to just hold onto what they had instead of investing crazily to approach the snowy, mountainous north where there was likely little of value.

Richard himself was only doing it because of the oddness of the plane’s shape and dimensions. It gave him a strong sense of foreboding, that there was something he could find here. On the other hand, completely occupying this plane would also free up Senma to guard Blackrose Castle. In addition to Lina, the defences of the Archeron territory would be strong enough for him to unleash the true beast in his stable, Alice!

*Krrrrkk!* Tiramisu was the next one out of the portal. The two-headed ogre squeezed out and immediately took a breath, stretching his body. However, the Medium Rare head immediately crashed right through the ceiling, and a confused voice rang out “Why is it suddenly dark?”

Richard couldn’t stop laughing for a good minute. The ogre was now over four metres tall, a veritable behemoth on the battlefield. He was already being squeezed just standing, and it was likely impossible for him to make it out of the door without more destruction.

Eventually, he managed to recover and call over to a guard by the door, “Get some people to demolish this place!”

The guard’s eyes went wide in confusion. He didn’t know who Richard was, nor why they would take down their teleportation hall. As a warrior stationed in the Resting Orchid Plane for many years, he simply didn’t have the chance to visit Norland and thus had no information about Richard.

“What? Why?” Senma asked doubtfully. In Gaton’s rule, even this hall was a luxury facility.

“The place is tiny!” Richard ranted, “How am I supposed to get my army through here? Tiramisu, start dismantling the place, we’ll get a new one built later.” Richard just waved his hands, not even asking how much such an endeavour would cost. This was already his style, showing a deliberate separation from the way Gaton did things.

Tiramisu shouted loudly, ducking his head before rushing forward a few steps and slamming into the far wall. Compared to his strength, the walls here were like paper. Even despite the cramped space stopping him from using full power, the wall collapsed in an instant. He then walked out and pulled his epic-grade warhammer, starting to turn the hall to dust.

The movements of the ogre were extremely eye-catching. Many people heard the sound and watched his huge figure raging through the ruins of their teleportation hall, subconsciously clenching their weapons but not daring to make a move. Many of those here were veterans, and they clearly had an idea of his tyrannical power. Ogres, giants, trolls… many such creatures could be judged by a simple standard, the size of their bodies. The bigger a creature of these species was, the more power they could wield. Tiramisu was already much larger than a common ogre, and was of the rare two-headed variety at that. If they chose to fight, he could just end up taking hundreds of them down with him.

Richard’s eyes widened as he saw Tiramisu head towards an adjacent building, “OI! Stop! You’re done, that’s it! Leave the other buildings to the rest!”

“I’m not tired, Master!” the ogre shouted.

“I know! Now go to the side and let everyone else come out.” Richard forced him away from the vicinity of the portal.

With Tiramisu finally gone, Richard’s other followers managed to get out. They came in a variety of shapes and sizes, but each one was powerful beyond compare. The onlooking veterans of the plane subconsciously held their breaths; having fought on the battlefield for a long time, they knew quite clearly how terrifying opponents with such auras could be in battle. The number of soldiers walking out right after also spoke volumes in and of itself.

The gazes on Richard turned from hatred to fear. Whispers had already spread out that this was Richard Archeron, Gaton’s son, but that meant nothing to them. Gaton had many sons, and not all of them were worth respect. For this one to demolish their teleportation hall the moment he stepped out naturally made them unhappy.

Of course, Richard himself couldn’t care less what they thought. He had the incoming soldiers start cleaning up the ruins in front of the portal even as his followers continued the demolition. Senma eventually went to help as well, and while the veterans were still hesitating about this sudden change of ruler two more buildings had been cleared out. A large, open square had been formed in front of the portal.

It was then that the rune knights started to walk out. They assembled into formation as they left the portal one by one, the full 100 standing together enveloping the area with frightening killing intent. Following them were the shadowspear knights; although these were much less powerful, their robotic air was far more daunting as well, especially with their numbers. Even Richard’s own rune knights were a little uncomfortable; they had heard of the shadowspears’ battle against Earl Goliath’s rune knights, and word was already spreading through the Alliance about these rune knight grinders. Power could mean very little in the face of hundreds of enemies who didn’t care for their lives.

100 rune knights and 400 shadowspears. All assembled together, they could make even this chilly winter day colder.