Chapter 5: XCVIII — The Lost Empire

  Five days had passed, and Kayode looked at the progress he’d made in that time and found himself filled with frustration.

  [—Level 3—]

  [Class Skill ? Iron Fist — I — Passive: You are well versed in the ways of combat. All unarmed attacks deal 1.3x Damage.]

  [Feat Skill ? Goblin Bane — I — Passive: You have exclusively targeted and slaughtered goblins in a short timeframe. Minor goblins are instinctively unsettled by your presence and will flee. Greater goblins recognize you as a threat and are drawn to confront you. (+10% Damage against Goblins)]

  The latter Skill was a testament to just how many Goblins he had begun squeezing into his seven hour timeframe, and it only made the fact that he had Levelled a mere two times over the course of gaining it hurt more.

  This was going to get him nowhere and he knew it. The Duke knew it too. That was, of course, why he had chosen to limit Kayode in the first place.

  Thankfully, he had secured an arrangement for an alternative source of Experience, and today was the day it was going to be delivered.

  Until then, however, Kayode had other matters to address. The most pressing among them was finding out as much as he could about his Class. In truth he should have done that already, but had instead opted to spend any hours not hunting, thinking of and about hunting. Not efficient, not smart.

  Fortunately, as he had an Experience-filled Orc waiting for him tonight, he didn’t feel half the pressure to do that this afternoon.

  So he was in the library, at a table, going through as many books as he could find on the Kingdom Maker. The Class itself, he could not find, for he was several hundred years removed from when last it was wielded and pretty much every record trying to describe its actual abilities was riddled with mythologised hokum.

  So he instead chose to look into a book on the history of Velúndé. He settled on an old dusty thing titled ‘The People of the Sunken Continent.’ Written roughly three hundred years ago, the authors were Divination Scholars— people who most certainly had a bias in favour of the Kingdom Maker, but the alternative was a book written by the Priests of the Church of the System, who scorned the day the Great Houses landed on their soil.

  Kayode opened it and began to study.

  He didn’t gloss over anything, even the parts going over sections of history he knew already. If there was even a chance that anything here might give him information he did not already possess then he was not going to risk missing it, and seeing this with the context of actually knowing what a Kingdom Maker’s primary advantage was, looping, meant he couldn’t know what trivial detail would prove crucial.

  It started with the Seven Great Houses arriving from the sunken continent, and Abayomi the Kingdom Maker beginning his Conquests upon the Kings of Velúndara.

  ‘It was a small court, and yet the Savager Kings were no match for it. Under the leadership of their Kingdom Maker, the Houses earned victory, after victory, not losing a singular battle,’ The book went.

  Though Kayode had heard all that before, he’d always thought it a fairytale, a bastardization of the truth meant to make his people feel great and the population they conquered small. Now, knowing what this Class could do, he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘In two decades all of Velúndara had bent the knee—with a forty year old King ruling the continent and raising an Empire from the mud. The Kingdom Maker ruled till ninety-five, when all forms of Rejuvenation magics could no longer keep him alive and he passed from old age.’

  Kayode turned the page, eager to find out more about the Class and what was theorized about it.

  ‘After the death of Abayomi, his grandson, Kunle, the Kin Eater, inherited both the throne and Class.’

  Kayode’s fingers went cold as he remembered what happened next.

  ‘His reign was brief but endlessly catastrophic. His power was sudden, explosive, never before seen. But so was his madness. At first, it was dismissed as excess—an heir drunk on absolute power, erratic but not unheard of. He was a manic thing, giving orders that contradicted one another. Punishments were handed out unevenly. Old feuds were reopened without explanation. Then the killings began. Family. His parents. His siblings. Some were executed, others were boiled alive. Their deaths were made public, their bodies displayed as warnings that no one but their maker understood.’

  Because he was punishing crimes made several Loops ago, Kayode realized it all with a dawning horror.

  ‘It did not end there.

  Those closest to him—trusted allies, longtime advisors, friends who had served his house for decades—were accused of betrayal without evidence. They were burned at the stake, one after another.

  And when it was discovered that he had been consuming the flesh of the dead, all attempts to explain him ceased. The Great Houses united to kill him, and succeeded.

  And yet, they had already failed.

  For when they entered Asoburgh, they found the Kingdom Maker Class Stones in the throne room shattered—destroyed beyond recovery, their powers lost forever.’

  Kayode knew what followed next. The Stone Wars—when the seven Great Houses warred over control of the remaining Ayédán Class Stones for over a hundred years. Losing swathes upon swathes of land to the Savager Kings, who had grown bold as the Kingdom that once trampled over them tore itself apart. He knew of the ‘Reconciliation’—when the Houses decided to stop warring only when most Ayédán Class Stones had been spent, lost, or destroyed, and Velúndé was a fraction of its former size.

  And then came the Reclamation War of just over a decade ago.

  A conflict against the Northern Kings—one that Velúndé ultimately won. The kingdom became the largest it had been since the Stone Wars.

  It still held only half the continent it once ruled in totality.

  And that was what his Class had done. It had made one man a god, and turned another mad. Now what would it do to him?

  He suddenly felt far less interested in looking into the Kingdom Maker, and shoved the book aside.

  He pulled out six pieces of paper, each a copy of the random symbols and codes written into the Grand Duke’s book.

  From what Kayode could see, there were four recurring symbols; a square, a triangle, a circle, and a diamond. Each tended to be associated with a string of random numbers and letters.

  Clearly a code communicating something, but what that was, Kayode could not for the life of him decipher.

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  Well, staring at it intently wasn’t going to change anything, but it wasn’t like he was swimming in options.

  “Oh, you’re studying Ancient shorthand?” came a voice from behind.

  Kayode jumped, whipped his head around, and found an apologetic looking native woman behind him. She lowered her head profusely. “Apologies, my Lord! I did not mean to startle you.”

  Kayode took in the sight of the woman: dark haired, pale freckled skin, wearing a uniform, and with large Rimmed glasses around her eyes. Essentially, not a threat. Probably.

  She looked at him as if fearful he might strike her down. however. A healthy terror to have of Nobles.

  Especially when serving around Femi.

  “It’s fine,” Kayode reassured her. “I’m just in a rather jumpy mood.”

  That calmed the woman’s nerves somewhat. And then she blinked, as if remembering something. “I am Edith Marrow, Level 20 Liberian, and I am at your service for anything you may need in this Library, my Lord,” the lady introduced herself.

  She could be one of The Grand Duke’s spies. But she also could be the key to decoding these papers. For a moment Kayode was conflicted, and what ultimately had him decided was the fact that she had already seen the papers he was studying—a damning enough thing if she was a spy that nothing from here on out could mitigate the Grand Duke’s wrath if she planned to report it. He might as well act as if she didn’t.

  “Edith,” he called, “What do you know of these symbols? What do they mean?”

  “It’s Ak?k?, an old form of shorthand. It’s meant for travelling tradesmen, but the last time it was used is closer to the Maker’s reign than the present,” she smiled, seeming genuinely excited to talk about it, and Kayode let her.

  “So, what do these mean?” he asked.

  She thought a moment before answering—trying to recall. “The string of numbers at the top represent the time down to the second, the symbols represent the quality of goods, and the letters next to it represent locations.”

  Trading? Why would the Duke be Trading at a time like this? “Okay so what do they mean, I mean exactly mean.”

  “Well, I’m not fluent in Ak?k?—but that’s what libraries are made for,” she chirped, a giggle slipping out as she stretched out a hand. A book flew from the shelf and landed neatly in her grasp.

  Then she remembered herself.

  Color rose to her cheeks as she realized she stood in the presence of a noble. The giddiness vanished at once. She placed the book on the table, composed herself, and motioned her fingers through the air as if flipping invisible pages.

  The book responded.

  It opened on its own, pages turning rapidly as Kayode watched.

  She stopped at a page that had strings of numbers, and next to them words. “You can find direct translations here.”

  And Kayode got to work, with Edith alongside him, first learning to associate what number and letter sequence meant what, and then the meaning of each symbol.

  Square means wooden crates, triangle iron ingots, circles are barrels of grain, and diamond means luxury cargo.

  In the translation book, they were often next to numbers that Kayode now knew represented multiples of tens. But in the Duke’s the goods were moved in multiples of fifty. That was the first clue that something was wrong.

  The other came from Edith. “Oh, that’s odd, half of these locations haven’t been trade posts in decades,” she hummed.

  “What do you mean?” Kayode asked quickly.

  She gestured to the Duke’s writings and then the translation book. “These strings of letters here refer to Omukiri—it hasn’t been a trade hub since my mother was a girl.”

  So it wasn’t going to trade hubs, and it wasn’t in merchant multiples. Because these were not goods movements, but those of troops.

  Kayode followed the route and realized the Duke was mapping out nearly a month’s worth of travel for ten thousand men, pushing steadily toward the cities of the Zorande Duchy—House Ojo lands. That the Greater House had voted in favour of Okechukwu was not a fact lost on Kayode.

  Such a movement into Velúndian lands, without a declaration of intent, was illegal. But who was going to enforce the law upon a Grand Duke—especially when he had an entire city surrounded?

  But which city?

  There were several viable targets, at least from what Kayode could see, and the Duke had not yet committed to any of them. What was clear, however, was that his forces would not be able to advance much farther without choosing a target and striking.

  Kayode had a feeling the next entry would make that target clear.

  “Thank you, Edith,” Kayode said stiffly, folding the papers and stuffing them into his pocket. “But I have to leave now,” he said, standing up and heading for the door.

  “Really?” She wore her disappointment openly. “But we were just about to get into the special symbols,” she said. “A pentagon was used to transport exotic beasts.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow,” he told her, heading for the door.

  “Tomorrow,” she nodded, seemingly eager for it to arrive.

  ###

  “I have to retrieve something from the Grand Duke’s room,” Kayode told Miss Rowe, and she dutifully stepped aside.

  Kayode entered the room and looked up at the Grand Duke’s portrait, staring down at him, lecherous as ever.

  He reached behind, grabbed the book, placed it down and began copying its letters. He’d memorised just enough Ak?k? to recognise the symbols associated with the general location the Grand Duke had placed his forces. So when Kayode saw one thousand men scheduled to attack fort Nalefan—the first bastion of House Ojo’s Zorande Duchy he knew what he was looking at was true.

  But Nalefan is well fortified. Why would he send so many of his men into such a meatgrinder so early into the conflict—

  “I fucking knew it!” the door swung open with a sound like rolling thunder. Standing in front of it and glaring up at Kayode was the furiously triumphant form of Lord Femi—the younger, the stupider, the fucking pain in his ass.

  “I can expla—”

  “Fuck your explanations!” Femi snapped. “I knew you were up to no good. I knew it—I knew it, Iknewit.” He jabbed a finger forward, breathing hard. “But Father ignored me when I demanded you be locked in your room. So I followed you. Slipping through all those little trick doors and passages scattered across the palace that anyone else would have lost you to.” A grin split his face, sharp and ugly. “You thought you were so smart. But you forgot one thing, Blight Lord.” He laughed. “I grew up here too.”

  There would be no talking his way out of this one. Kayode drew his blade.

  Femi laughed and grinned. “I’m going to enjoy this,” his eyes glowed with a cold blue energy, hands crackled with pure, unrelenting magic. The man’s clothes were billowing with his mountainous power, and Kayode could feel the static of magic reverberate through his core. He wanted to turn—he wanted to run and flee. But he would never give Femi the satisfaction of seeing him cower. In this life or the next.

  He took a step forward, and imagined the brat cut in two.

  [—Skill(s) Acquired—]

  [Relic Skill ? Edge-Kindle — I — Active: You channel intent into the blade’s edge, awakening the mana bound within it. For a short duration, the weapon’s cutting surface is wreathed in a steady, pale glow that enhances your cuts. (Your weapon’s cutting damage is increased by 25%)]

  Molten gold crept along Mercy’s edge, thin and precise, settling in an edge so fine it was as if the steel itself had decided to cut.

  He would let it.

  Kayode swung. The blade struck Femi square in the side of the neck—and shattered.

  With unblemished features, the noble smirked.

  Kayode pulled back and swung a punch—the boy caught it, trapping his wrist between two fingers. And then with that alone he snapped Kayode’s arm in two.

  The pain drove him to his knees—but Femi caught him.

  A whip of lightning snapped out, coiling around Kayode’s ankle and yanking him airborne before slamming him down onto the desk. Wood exploded. The impact nearly did the same to his spine.

  He hadn’t even begun to process the pain when he was lifted again. This time there was no gap between his falls.

  Femi swung him around the room—into walls, the floor, shelves, chairs, the glass ceiling—each impact a fresh rupture, with only the brief transit between them as reprieve.

  He felt bone crack, then snap, then stab into his insides. He felt pain explode in ways he had never once imagined it could, and last far longer than any sensation of such strength should have. Femi’s cackling told him he was still conscious. The fact that he could do nothing to stop it reminded him he was still weak.

  Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, his torturer dropped him, and Kayode went flopping to the ground. He landed on his back, a wheezing chunk of meat, feeling his lungs fill with blood where ribs had surely stabbed into them. He tried to move and just felt pain flare up in the few muscles that could still respond. He tried to speak and coughed up blood. His skull was throbbing with impossible pain and unnerving pressure, surely he’d cracked something open there—and the river of warmth that ran down the side of his head confirmed as much.

  Above him stood Femi—smug, confident, elated. "You always underestimated me! Thought you were better than me! Well, who's better now.”

  For the second time in his life, Kayode could feel his consciousness, drifting and drifting. Death at the door. “I’m going to kill you,” he promised himself. Fluid ran down his chin as he said it, chunks of what could have been teeth or jawbone tumbling out with it.

  And Femi laughed. “Of course you are.”

  “What’s going on here?!” Came a voice. The Grand Duke’s voice.

  “I caught the worm snooping!” Femi said proudly.

  “You idiot!” the Grand Duke roared. “You should have questioned him first! Step out of my way, I need to heal him before it’s too late!”

  Kayode tried to breathe.

  But the Arch Arcanists’ spell never came. Its target was already dead.