“Ten hours in negotiation already. Are they serious or just stalling? What do you think Charlie?” Asks the representative from one of the villages near ours to me.

“Let’s find out,” I reply. As the de facto leader of the strongest village, and the one whole contributed the most to the army, I was the obvious choice to head the negotiations, though I took a step back from the minutia of the contract while a couple of people with more experience in the world of law sank their teeth in the minutia of the contract.

I approach the comm box and signal for them to stop for a moment.

“We are getting side-tracked, we will finish this in a couple of hours or not at all. Unless you demonstrate some willingness to sign the contract, it will be a moot point.” I say.

“But how can we do that?” They reply.

“Well,” I say grinning “you can just sign another document that states you are genuinely interested in this deal, and should the terms be equitable you will sign it, we will also put a time limit, say… another 3 hours.”

For the next half hour, I push until the contract arrives signed and recognized under the system back from the village. Now, they won't be able to stall for much longer. My patience is starting to run thin. The problems from keeping so many disparate forces around are starting to crop up.

Luckily, the noose around Lord Max’s neck was getting tighter.

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Lord Max’s throne room

Well, it seems I won’t be able to stall any longer, though the deal was not bad. The major things have been agreed to with only a few details were left in the air.

It was strange to be setting terms of our following fight. I don’t know why they took this stance, but they gave me this opportunity, and I will make full use of it.

I will be signing the final document soon and be bound to these terms, but so would they.

If it was obvious who would win, the other side was obligated to surrender or face the system sanctions.

Perhaps I can even steal this framework for my conquests. The main reason for this action had probably a lot to do with minimizing their losses. After all, no matter how weak I forces are, thousands of soldiers will be able to put a serious dent in their attacking force. Even being pessimistic, I may even be able to break the command and control structures they have in place. The mixed forces from more than a dozen villages are not used to working together, there is bound to be some way to exploit that.

In the end, they want to have me sign the contract and are giving fairly generous terms. That doesn’t mean I won’t continue fighting to extract the most benefit should I win, and the least restrictive conditions should I lose.

The one thing I am a little concerned about is that much of the weight for the opinion on who would win was predicated on the rank and file soldiers, but I can manage. I have plenty of cards up my sleeve, so we had a good chance. Especially if I get a third new village before the attack. The first two already showed up in the interface. Now all I have to do is wait for the next one.

----------------------------------

“Nash,” I hear someone from behind calling me.

Cracking a small opening in the cocoon and using a bit of mana to light my view, I prompt:

“Humm?”

“Hi,” Says the messenger. He’s one from our village, though I can’t recall his name, we probably never even spoke to each other before. “Charlie asked to inform you that things are on track to finish in about an hour, and the attack will begin immediately after. You may want to get a little rest.”

It has been 13 hours since we got here. One hour is plenty of time to rest.

I thank him before stopping most of what I’m doing.

I connect deeply to Pando but don’t use any Aether or mana. I even stop my experimentation on the sensory rune. I concentrate only on meditating. Waiting until the time for me to act. I am guessing, but it seems clear to me what their intentions are. Have me scare the crap out of the enemy, and force a surrender without sending a single soldier in.

I pull deep within myself and soon my awareness extends to the village. Every single root in a mile radius becomes part of me, and I drink in the sensations.

Resting this way appears to be even more effective than just normally meditating. I can’t push my awareness too far out, but I can cover everything except the tendril extending back to my village easily enough.

Idly, I look over my inner world. If before it was nearly stuffed to the brim with roots and organic matter intended to fuel growth, now only a couple of small piles of ‘compost’ remain and no exposed roots that also don’t form runic workings.

The mental backlog and idle thoughts slowly drift away, as I connect even more deeply with the roots. I reminisce of Pando, and the connection we shared, sometimes for days when I wanted to rest. I start to transmit my senses to Pando’s seed. Nothing else is of concern and in barely a blink of an eye, or so it seems to me, I’m called to action.

Charlie arrives with a couple of the representatives in tow.

“Nash, it’s your time to shine. Make them understand how futile it would be to try fighting against us. How overwhelming our advantage is. You just need to convince most of the soldiers on the opposing side that any fight on their part is futile and the contract should come into effect.” Charlie says.

“Ok, I think I can do that.”

I pull as much mana as I can to me at nearly my maximum rate. Pando’s seed does the same. Being more lavish than when we arrive, 200 mana goes into growing and moving roots in the network under the village.

My next actions are visible to everyone. From our spot, roots make their appearance on the surface slowly creeping in. Eventually, they reach the defenses and start dismantling them. Bridges are formed over the low spots to allow our forces to cross with no impediment.

I add a visual effect to the surrounding of my roots, and a glowing fog follows, obscuring most of the mass of roots, with only the first few meters of the roots remaining visible.

My roots continue to slowly but methodically dismantle all the wire, blades, and wooden defenses intended to make any march to the walls an arduous task. I speed up the process by adding Earth Mana to shift the ground making it nearly smooth. Not everywhere, but in strategic places. Several wide paths are formed leading straight for the walls.

Their mages try to stop this close to the wall and are minimally successful, but they can do nothing further out.

My range may be virtually unlimited but even Merlin, the highest leveled mage I heard of, is limited to working with mana up to 100 meters away from himself. And that was double what the ten next people on the list.

I activate a few runes placed under the village. They are all on fully automated control structures. Everyone, entranced by the attack, barely notices as the walls crack and start to crumble in a few spots. The mages do their absolute best to stop it. They try to hold the pieces of the wall together, and on three of the four spots, they succeed.

But one wide gap is enough. On the left flank, a less experienced group of magic-users tries to fight me, but I simply overwhelm them. Soon a ten-meter wide gap is formed with nothing in between the field outside and the houses inside. They can do nothing to stop me.

As the roots grow around the walls, I start to tangle distracted people. They spend all of their energy trying to futilely cut the roots and stop the spread. To finish it off, I activate the last of my runic workings. Something that will make it obvious they stand no real chance.

They could hurt us, but even with the estimated 6000 fighters inside, they would lose badly.

----------------------------------------------------

Max’s War Room. – Inside Townhall.

Damn, I had hoped Nash was still recuperating in their village. I was surprised when I learned of his survival, but it wouldn’t have been a significant problem if he had stayed outside of this fight. That was why they wanted this contract. With it in place, I will have no choice but to bow down.

Whatever price they paid to Nash, it will be worth it. I observe an overview of the approaching roots moving the painstakingly built and expensive defenses surrounding my village. He has a flair for the dramatic. If I let him continue they will win without a single casualty.

I think about what I can do, the only thing that comes to mind is within my grasp, but the cost is too heavy to bear. A control that only I have access to. I place my hand atop it, and what before was on a screen, something external I could see becomes a fully immersive virtual reality experience.

The walls start to crumble, I know that I need to take action right this instant, or I will lose. I can feel the power, something akin to mana just sitting there. It’s not my power, just a gift from the system and I shouldn't forget that. But it feels…incredible.

“I need to do this. The cost is irrelevant.”

Having decided, I draw the entire energy pool stored in the war room. A mana battery the system supplied. The runes through my “body” invisibly floating above the army channel all the mana in a single attack. The most powerful attack I can use.

There are severe limitations in place, but for every villager under my control, I can add another mana point.

So I use in a single attack the entire 18000 mana available to me. Too bad I could only use my own mana. Even with the ways of transferring mana from the members of my army to myself, it was tiresome and time-consuming to fill all of it. And I can’t trust anyone else with the war room, not even close.

And there was also a long cooldown after using this finishing attack. A whole twenty-four hours.

Something really good I gained early on and never had a reason to use. A reward for being the first in the instance to conquer another village.

As the mana arrives from the control room to this… avatar, I laugh. My imagination had nothing on this feeling. I was not actually up here, nor wielding my own power, but the rush is incredible.

So I just watch as the thunder of the gods heads in Nash’s direction.

Even if I lose, it’s fine at least he will be dead.

----------------------------------------------------

A chill passes over me, and I instinctively know.

If I don’t act, I will die.

Probably a lot of other people too, but I can’t concern myself too much with that. My entire Aether pool leaves me again only days after a similar desperate gamble. I connect fully to Pando’s seed in a way I never thought possible. Possibilities that did not occur to me before suddenly seem within grasp. The certainty that the Aether brings is back, having been muted for the last few weeks.

In an instant, I take a dozen different actions. Some like turning on all of the mana shields I ‘engraved’ with my roots require no continuous attention Just flipping a switch. With the batteries baked within the very structure of the shield, they come into play at once and nearly instantly hit full strength.

At the same time, I withdraw from the inner world the original protective cocoon I grew last time that I thought my life was in danger. It seems almost fitting for me to use it again now. It’s not the same as last time; it now has an integrated mana shield that nearly instantly hits full strength.

I activate the blinding formation I prepared for dramatic effect, and concentrate on blinding anyone looking at us. Along with that, all the automated runic works I can think of start to receive mana. Disruptions, fog, and the elemental ones.

The 3 meters wide cocoon of roots already around me about a half-foot thick, folds upon itself forming a more compact, gapless, and better-defended perimeter.

The main shield covering the entire army, still weak given the low power it had been at, almost collapses, as something hits it. A hole in the middle allows the attack to head straight for me.

As the others close their eyes, squinting at the bright light and having barely moved back a step from my position, something akin to lightning hits the outer protective layer. This strange attack barely notices the second shield, burns through the roots, and manages to almost take down the third shield on the original coffin I modified.

A moment later, the last of the shields, the one supposed to cover the entire army activates at full power. It can’t close around the continuous though much weaker beam, so I take control of the formation, and bend it to protect Charlie and the others from further harm.

I try to move, but most of my roots are dead and blackened.

I feed all the mana I can, hoping the last shield will win out against the remnants of this attack as the beam gets weaker and weaker. Though after a few more seconds it fades.

I sigh and take a deep breath of soot. It must have been only ten or so seconds, but it felt much longer.

After a moment, I stop feeling grateful for my life and start work to make sure that continues to be the case.

I let go of the main shield, and it snaps back into place above all of us, except at full power and with no hole in the middle of it. I grow a thicker cocoon around me forming runes for the most powerful shield I can think of. Connecting it directly to the battery in my inner world. I leave it active at full power, before continuing to grow a few other preparations.

It may be overkill, but that single attack drained well over 5000 mana from the mana shields in place, and in the very first second, and it burned through over a foot of solid matter. It was well beyond anything we have for artillery back in the village.

It’s mostly luck that I survived.

A glance around tells me a couple of other people may not be so lucky.

Just the refraction from the attack hitting me was enough to crisp all the exposed skin on the bodies of the closest people.

I see Charlie and Sarah drag one of the worst injured away. A poor fellow in bad shape and I can’t help him right this instant. There are a couple of things to do, like making the main shield even stronger, further disorienting the enemy, and making them recognize the futility of their fight against me.

That is the best I could do for everyone, make sure not a single more person ends up injured.