Chapter 68: Gathering Forces

Deep within the wyvern valley was the wyvern queen and beside her were two mighty wyverns, larger than any ordinary wyvern normally seen. These two were known as royal wyverns, their lineage was the closest to the wyvern queen and they even had a grain of self-awareness.

The wyvern queen’s silver scales glimmered brilliantly in the moonlight. Her body had been restored to its former glory, although he had weakened somewhat, she could restore herself and even improve in a matter of months.

“I thank you for helping my people.” The wyvern queen looked down on the small human but her voice was gentle and sweet unlike before when it was coarse and irritating to the ears.

With the help of Sia, the fairies, and grain of his power, they were able to purify the corruption from all the wyvern beasts. Some wyverns were, unfortunately, too far gone and perished but the wyvern queen was elated that her kind would not be erased from the oasis.

On that day, Scitus made a deal with the wyvern queen, he would help cure her people but in turn, she and her people would assist him in the coming war. The wyvern queen was hesitant in making deals because the last one she made put her in a terrible situation. However, she had little choice, it was either be cured or eventually die out. “for now, I’ll ask for one hundred wyverns to enter my kingdom. There they will be trained and fed.”

Food was an important matter to the wyverns, while most of their energy came from mana, they would still on occasion hunt other animals, such as fox, or deer or other large mammals, even humans. Though wyverns avoided eating humans because killing one usually meant a mob would come and kill the wyvern.

The situation of food in his kingdom was progressing smoothly, with the monthly use of god energy, all plant-based food resources in his territory could be restored to their peak. Berry bush's that had been picked clean suddenly grew more berries. Fruit trees, grains and especially the farms had great benefits from using God Energy. The animals in the area wouldn't benefit physically but they would obtain more food and therefore could grow bigger populations, the effect wouldn't be immediate but eventually, it would bring a large harvest of meat for the people of his kingdom.

Another thing he learned was the monsters could actually sustain themselves though mana alone, it wasn’t a unique trait of beast monsters, normal monsters could do the same but different monsters did it to different degrees. The lamia had enormous bodies but their consumption of food was actually only a bit more the average human male. The ogres ate almost double that of an ordinary human male, while goblins ate what a child would eat. The rest, their bodies would naturally collect mana in the air to sustain themselves.

Sia explained to him that, in reality, all living things could sustain themselves on mana alone, stronger people like herself could literally sustain themselves from the mana they produced but unlike monsters or fey who did it naturally, mortal races had to train themselves to do so. All in all, most living creatures had to supplement themselves with food, except the fey, at birth the could sustain their bodies on mana alone.

"mana doesn't make any sense. Is it an infinite resource? How could a creature sustain themselves by their own existence?" Scitus asked many questions but Sia did not have an answer, these were simply reality to her and she never actually pondered such a basic idea.

The wyvern queen contemplated the number and then nodded her head, a hundred was a small fraction of their numbers. Although she had heavy losses, she still had several thousand wyverns roaming around her territory.

With this, a hundred wyverns flew to the kingdom of monsters.

……………………………….

Not far from the kingdom of monsters, only a few days travel into he forsaken territory were The Godless. The city was oddly abuzz with movement. Weapon carts here, explosive materials there, a few units sharpening their blades. If someone came in and saw this, they think that the godless were getting ready for war.

Shortly after the battle with Mern's army, the leaders of the kingdom had decided to agree to help Rea and his helper, Michelle on the condition that they would help them deal with Scitus. Rea was god just as Scitus was, and only a god could fight another god to a standstill. There had been stories of gods who were killed by mortals but what they all had in common was that the gods had either been heavily injured, had been just born into the world, or had been outside their territory for too long. The rules of the world did not allow gods to freely rampage were ever they wished, once a god left their territory, they would slowly become mortal. After a year outside their territory, they would become completely mortal until they returned to their kingdom. As such, gods rarely left their territory unless they had to handle a matter themselves such as holding a god back while soldiers were capturing an enemy city.

The only beings that could possibly compete with gods were those in the demi-god order, celestials, heroes and dragons, if enough of them joined together, there would be a small chance of defeating a god. If the godless had their former king helping them, they were sure that killing a young god, like Scitus, would be very simple. But they didn't have their king with them and the longer time went on the stronger Scitus would become, eventually, he would gain the notice of the greater gods and at that time, their oasis would be destroyed.

At that time kaya was with Selene in one of the deep more secured buildings. "I don't think it's a good idea to attack Scitus." Kaya said with some concern in her voice, beside Selene was calmly listening. "I agree with you but this not only concerns the godless but also concerns my former kingdom. My king is alive, Kaya, and I cannot abandon him." Selene was referring to Rea, a great benevolent king who sadly had an incredibly short fifty-year reign. He was surrounded by snakes and it was inevitable that the kingdom would fall. To the north was looming giant Onias, to the west was the glutton Soen and worst of all, although they were separated by an entire continent, there was the demon emperor Cane to the far east. Worst of all, before her god Rea came to power, an old god ruled there, he was from the same generation as Mern and like Mern, he had lost everything to the new gods. But unlike Mern, the old god had always been a malevolent god and he was the worst kind, he enjoyed to torture his populace, no person was allowed to leave the kingdom, all citizens had a god curse placed on them, all orphans were to work in his palace or any other building he owned until adulthood at which point he would choose the most beautiful woman from each generation as his wife. After spending a single night with them, he would abandon them but by law, they were to be outcasted from society and forced to live outside the kingdom's capital. All this for the explicit purpose of prohibiting all men from forming a relationship with women that once belonged to the old god.

The men did not have it much better; after they reached adulthood, the most attractive man would be put to death and all other men were beaten and mutilated after which they would join the army for ten years and after ten years they could have a normal life and have children and be married.

30 years ago, that terrible age ended, in the middle of the night, the old god was killed by a man known as Denarak The Mortal King, this man would later found the godless kingdom and attracted elites from all over the Ferren continent, even after two decades since his departure, every year more elites migrate to the godless kingdom.

"my mother was one of the outcasts, as they were known as, my father grew up with her in the same palace. My father spent ten years in the army growing stronger and stronger all for the singular purpose of rescuing my mother and hiding away from society deep in the wilderness. Beyond all odds, he broke into the city of outcasts, found my mother and stole her away. Even after being questioned by royal guards, after being beaten and tortured, no woman there said a word of that day. I was born a year later, the same rea descended from the skies accompanied by two beautiful Aasimar, Michelle and Augustine."

“I was only a baby but my mother would often tear up when she told me what the aasimar said that day.”

“From this day forth, the people here will be oppressed no longer. Rea was a young new god born in the kingdom of heaven and of all places in this large world, the angels choose to grace our small little kingdom with a god. I won’t allow my kingdom to lose the angels grace. I won’t allow my kingdom to feel that suffering ever again!!!” Selene passionately said trying to hold in her tears.

"I understand, I help you the best I can." Kaya was worried that they would fail and that Scitus would retaliate but she couldn't abandon her friend for something as simple as fear. She had some guilt over the goblin people who were kind to her but in the end, her friends came first and her godless kingdom came before the citizens of another nation. "I only hope that Scitus will have his people flee." She thought aloud. Selene by that point understood that Kaya had gained some compassion for the monsters of Scitus's kingdom, Selene found it hard to believe but she wouldn't distrust her friend's intuition either. When in constant war, you never truly understand the enemy, sometimes its better to never understand them for with each new thing you learn about an enemy, the harder it becomes to dig the dagger deeper into their heart.

"We leave in a month, the leaders think they can get the help of some minotaur's and the lizardfolk across the way, with that it will be an attack from three directions

Little did the godless know that it wasn't just them gathering forces, deep in the Gora kingdom, Mern was at the capital palace waiting for an audience with the king.