Chapter 71: Cruelty Of War

The following day after the attack, many minotaurs were up and bustling still confused as to how the conflict ended.

Four humans in one of the centermost tent were conversing recent events and discussed what they should do. "we should return to base as quickly as possible, we need to report this." A young man in heavy armor said with an authoritative voice, he was confident in his decision and almost wouldn't take no for an answer. Beside him was an older looking man, who nodded in response.

“if we do, we should go separately and take different paths. That god might send the red witch after us but he can’t go after all of us.” A young woman on the opposite side of the table said. She pointed to a few places on the map, these points were some distance apart and separated by large natural barriers.

"that may be true, but that witch can most likely take us out anytime she wishes, the question is why didn't she dispose of us yesterday." The one who spoke was the fourth human, his handsome face didn't look like a warrior's at all but out of everyone present, he was the strangest. None of the others had ever met him before which was rare since the kingdom wasn't very large and it was common that among twelve people, one could discover who was who with ease.

The handsome man was the very same one whose leg had been cut clean off, though after some time he managed to reattached it. the young woman's eyes glistened for a moment, wondering who the man truly was. "what do you mean?" the older man asked. "I'm just curious as to why the red witch left us alive, to Scitus, our death should be much more beneficial, its possible that something happened right after she knocked us out." His ocean blue eyes turned to the woman. She could feel the tent walls closing in and her breath

momentarily grew heavy but she quickly calmed her beating heart and stared the man down.

The handsome man only looked at her for a brief moment before turning to the others one by one as if trying to identify something. "I think we should go together," the handsome man said one last time. the old man and the young man looked at each other for a moment. "no, we can't afford for all of us to die." The young man sternly said.

The handsome man smiled and calmly stood up from his chair. "we don't have to worry too much, the red witch is likely to be occupied today. Scitus stated that if the minotaurs did not withdraw that today they would be destroyed. The leaders here won't listen to us and they certainly won't temporally disband and we can’t stay here or we’ll get caught up in this mess. At the same time, we don’t have enough time to call for reinforcements, there are only a few people who can cast mass teleportation and headquarters will probably be unwilling to reveal that today.”

In the godless kingdom, three mages stood at the top; Terat, Ormab, and Sivan, those three could cast a variety of magic, though all of them had an area of expertise. All their spells could in one way or another assist them with their true magic expertise. Those three had also learned spatial magic as most powerful mages trained in. Mass teleportation was mostly practiced by those who specialized in spatial magic but stronger mages eventually learned it too. however, its cost was massive, especially for those that didn't specialize in its use. Therefore the cheapest and most effective way to use mass teleportation was to create a teleportation circle which was in some ways superior to teleportation gates in the fact that two magical anchors were not required. As long as the caster knew the location and used the teleportation circle as support, the spell could be cast at a significantly lower cost however greater distances would quickly outweigh the cost of a teleportation gate.

Everyone in the godless kingdom already knew that great teleportation circles were being built, their size encompassed large swathes of land and its material cost was significantly higher than ordinary; all because they lived in a low mana zone. The circle had to be much larger and therefore required more materials and laborers.

The other three couldn't help but agree. It was pointless to remain in the minotaur territory, it would only end in their death and asking for reinforcements was also impossible, their kingdom was a few days distance from their location and even at full speed by their faster troops, it would take a few hours for them to get to their location and by that point the red witch would likely return and cause massive chaos. If they wanted to defend against her, they would need their leaders to resist her but their leaders couldn't come in person and potentially decrease their strength in the upcoming battle.

Fighting against the red witch was suicide, their leaders’ plans were likely to distract her with a massive army and attack Scitus while he was unprotected.

After a few more minutes of discussion, the four humans left the camp and headed towards their kingdom.

During this time Scitus’ was not simply biding his time, he was already enacting his plan to make the minotaur problem go away.

All across the minotaur territories, tribes were being destroyed one by one, especially with those with ties to the minotaur army. The invaders were comprised of four people. Sia, Eveline, Scitus, and Hera. Eveline, however, was no longer permitted to act alone and at that time was accompanied by Scitus.

The plan was simple, suppress any and all tribes.

Whenever Sia arrived at a location she would first burn down all buildings and nearby forests, she would then demand for a surrender if no one surrendered she would then proceed to cripple the resisting minotaurs until everyone in a tribe was suppressed, at which point she would cast an imprisonment spell, which was a combination of a location and a suppression spell, on them and forced them to march towards a predesignated location.

Hera's arrival was often accompanied by a cold wind, and she made her body appear to be that of giant, her face was hideous and a long-horned adorned her head while thick grey skin coated her body, she was fifty feet tall and with her intimating stature alone she would command the minotaurs to surrender, those who refused found themselves fighting their kin, sometimes their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers or sisters. For whatever reason several of their kin would turn against them, this was often enough to force a full surrender. Those who still refused were crippled beyond recognition by her massive hands. she would then escort them to a predesignated location were they would be trapped by enchantments put down the day prior.

Scitus and Eveline worked together to take down tribes, they did not ask questions. Eveline would remove the legs of the minotaurs while Scitus suppressed them with his shield, trapping them into several boxes which slowly merged into one larger invisible box. At first, there would resistance but after experiencing Eveline's terrifying display of brutality, the remaining minotaurs would often flee towards Scitus who showed much more mercy in his manner of suppression. They would then be escorted to the predesignated location.

After nearly fifteen hours of constant combat, the four joined together in a prior meeting point. Nearly all tribes had been captured and forced into a small square, they were separated into 470 tribes, their size varied from 50 to 100 and the average tribe size was 75. The tribes were further divided into 12 factions. Among the minotaurs, there existed 12 major systems of culture and hierarchy and therefore needed to be separated as such.

After a few hours of organization, Sia came with an announcement. “each faction may choose one leader who may speak for your people. Scitus will meet with all of them at one time. all of you have an hour to choose.” Sia then left the prisoners to decide their leaders.

The chosen leaders were, Emkar, Simok, Dorkil, Gortan, Mior, Kast, Ronil, Orko, Jath,Terith, Poril, Sakar. Ten were men, two were women. Sakar was the youngest leader while Kast was the oldest. The 12 leaders self-segregated into three larger factions, these 3 factions were comprised of 4 factions which were not always enemies, if they belonged to any other big three factions, they would always be enemies except in the case of an attack from another territory. These larger factions were separated by the root of their belief, the first was known as the [path of Sun], the second was the [path of Moon], and the last was the [path of earth]. Of course, Scitus was not very familiar with these complex systems of belief and Sia only understood that there existed three major belief systems which tangentially formed peace.

The twelve walked down a small path escorted by Eveline who eyed them with some hunger.

When they reached Scitus, he sat upon a large chair made of thick stone, upon his head was a small crown made of some unknown material. He wore thick red robes made by the lamia. To Scitus, these things made him uncomfortable but he also understood that his clothing made a statement. He was the ruler of a kingdom and more importantly, he was the one with the knife at their throats.

The twelve leaders separated themselves into three groups. The twelve proudly stood amongst each other, refusing to be intimidated by Sia who was at Scitus's side.

However as they reached him, they became confused, at his right was a young humanlike girl and yet she didn't look human. she was only four feet tall with ears similar to that of an elf, her skin was a tinge of orange but was almost fair like a human's. That was Seresa who was slowly becoming something close to a legend among those of the goblin race. She, who stood beside Scitus the most, experienced the largest speed of transformation. Sia knew little of her form, she had read of something beyond the hobgoblin form, but she had never researched it in depth. Seresa was still classified as a hobgoblin but she was already close to stepping onto her second evolution, her evolution wasn't just for show, her rank had changed from that of a higher civilian into a full-fledged greater high monster, she was only a couple of steps away from becoming a lesser celestial. However, despite her astronomic rise in rank, she was still weak compared to most humans, she hadn't trained in any form of combat and only practiced magic in her free time, most of her time was consumed by managing people and making sure resources reached their proper destination as well as scheduling Meetings for Scitus and the other leaders. The greatest and only benefit she had thus obtained was a greater clarity of mind. those with greater ranks could learn skills faster, it wasn't simply a matter of an increased amount of talent, it was also an increase of mental and physical capacity. She could keep an entire hours' worth of conversation in her head for several minutes without much trouble, she could remember what she did a week ago at a specified time with some ease and her ability to calculate numbers was at the level of an accountant in training.

"kneel," Scitus commanded and so the minotaurs obeyed almost instinctually.

"Do you know why I've burned your homes down and forced you to come here." Scitus looked down on the leaders with a cold gaze. The minotaurs remained silent, they could feel an invisible pressure pressing down on them as he spoke and for a moment they feared to speak aloud.

The first to speak was Simok, he stood up from his kneeling position as he stared directly at Scitus with an angry gaze. "You!!" before he could finish what had to say he felt a sudden force press down on him, it forced him on his knees and then onto his stomach and even then the force did not let up, Simok began to feel his bones creak under the pressure. "Who said you had the right to look at me." After another painful second, Scitus released the shield he placed on Simok. Simok gasped for air as he clenched his fists trying to swallow his anger.

“allow me to spell out your situation. Among your people, there are 700 with heavy injuries, among these injured 300 hundred of them cannot be saved without my help. I can add to this number with the snap of my fingers. Now I’ll ask you again, why are you in this situation?”

The minotaurs gulped as they forced their gazes down, fearing a worse punishment than a few seconds of suppression. "you attacked us because we allied with the godless." Kast said with a weak voice. Scitus sharped his gaze and responded, "exactly."

"I didn't attack the minotaurs, and in fact, I took some in, I protected your people from a minotaur who betrayed his race and used your people like puppets and yet you point your blade at me and join with my enemies. THIS WILL STAND!!!" he shouted and deepened his voice. then just as quickly as the anger flared, his voice became gentle and calm. "but there is a way I may pardon your crimes." The minotaurs quietly waited for what was being asked of them.

"You will become my hostages; I will free your most able-bodied children and they will join the minotaur coalition and then they will act when I tell them to act. If I tell them to fight, they will fight."

"for every tribe that declines I will kill one person for every day they refuse, they have a month to agree to the deal before that dead person's soul will be beyond my grasp. For every person who tries to rebel, I will kill two people." Scitus turned to Sia, "put a slave mark on them." Sia smiled and began to cast a few spells that burned a mark on them. "disobey my orders and those marks will dig into your flesh and burn your intestines. Go tell that coalition that they now work for the kingdom of monsters."