The burst of fire, coming from within the Guardian's insides, never stopped. Even weeks after the thing died, the corpse just sat where it had been killed and vomited a multi-colored light into the sky like so kind of cursed lighthouse. At night, it was pretty, I had to admit, but up close, it was like an active mini-volcano. The air shimred from the heavy heat it was emitting, so much so that anything made of flesh could get closer to it than about fifty ters or start feeling the skin start getting burned. But at least it wasn't stinking and was pretty much odorless. It seems we inadvertently created so kind of magical furnace, trapped in an endless loop... But as long as it didn't explode or expand, it was contained in that body... We can deal with it. Kind of. Um...
The only thing we could do was to stay put and wait until it was done burning out. But it was sothing. After rlin recovered enough from his knockout, his first thing was to start examining what was happening to the corpse. I was notified that there was no CC dust coming out of the fit, that there was no slow poison spreading, and neither around the corpse nor on the ground was any residue detectable. It was safe, going by his report. His idea was that all the dust was used to move the bone monsters, and after the thing died, any remaining residue was dragged into its body due to the continuous burning. Good... At least the worst-case scenario was avoided, and we were left with a gigantic, rave-party-thed ornant.
Maybe I should organize a sumr festival? Hehe... Okay, I won't. But it would be kind of funny. Focus Leon... I had to keep my mind in the present.
After knowing that it was all right to approach it, I was also beginning to focus on what to do next. Calming the Khulmani troops worked, although I had to allow a good number of them to leave, head back to Khulman to start the procedure to coronate their newest Khan... Haaah... Sure, sure. Go. At least Rashira went with them to ensure things, and it gave the opportunity to send so of Yuri's people with her as assistants. And Bakhi. Who, knowingly or not, beca one of my first foreign agents because he would have had to stay in contact with us. There was no escaping that anymore. Funny thing is, neither he nor I was in a position to say no to anything that was happening at the mont... Heh.
On the other end, though, the railway had finally arrived.
Okay, not to the battlefield and not to the Third Pass, but it did reach Horringar. It was one line for now, but it was being implented into the city itself and would loop around to establish a second line back towards Avalon, while also splitting off to go straight towards the entrance of the Third Pass. With that news in mind, most of the army also retreated as it was ti to switch up the crusade we were having. We have achieved our main objective and reached the Pass; now we can focus on cleansing the continent of all monsters.
In the days after the news of the trains arriving, most of the army returned to Horringar. It was followed by a massive reorganization, repairs, and resupplying, as the next step would be sothing that would utilize the capabilities of our amassed, massive army in a different way. We needed to split up and scour in every direction, spook the beasts with our sonars, and hunt them to extinction. Sothing humans are good at, even in this world, so I had faith in us.
It also ant that every leader t up within Horringar, except the Khulmans, as they lost their Khan. The new structure we had set up was logical and straightforward, worked out by Lucca, Oleg, and . We ford mixed regints, with their units' core composed of Avalonian elites, two chs, Ishillian veterans, and a handful of chanized escorts and artillery teams. And of course, the Khulmani riders who were still with the army, acting as the herding force. Each regint was designed to be self-sufficient, with scouts at the ready, engineers for Avalonian technology, dics from Geth, and a small, permanent logistics cell from Sar.
The idea was to create independent cells, coordinated from Horringar, from the acting HQ. With our current losses tallied up, I had decided to send my air force back to Calot, as they needed to rebuild first and foremost. As for Mirian, she also sent the Judgent ho for very much-needed repairs that couldn't be done out here. With that many flying units lost, my remaining airships would act as the foremost scouts, finding the beasts en masse and serving as the relay between Horringar and the troops on the ground. For most missions, they would stay high in the sky, not exactly fighting but acting as an all-seeing eye.
In essence, the commanding officers would organize from Horringar, and it would be this headquarters that would designate the imdiate locations to scour. It would receive the reports from the ground and record whether each zone was swept clean or not. They would categorize the level of infestation, determine the required strength needed, and send reinforcents accordingly. It sounds chanistic because it was. It was nothing more than implenting modern warfare, utilizing all that we have ever managed to introduce and implent, slowly removing the generals from the battlefield, setting them up, so to speak, so they can overview the battlefield and make decisions from a vantage point.
Just like how Seltana played her wargas. She will slot into this new kind of commanding by the ti she finishes her courses.
Once everything was done and the system began to operate, I left it to the others, as my focus was on the Third Pass. We were closer to autumn than spring by now, and after that... winter was coming. Which made every day feel like it was passing faster than it should, just to fuck with . If a horde were to find the Pass now, it would have no issues flooding in and breaking through, especially with the Guardian now dead. So, we began preparing for the building of the future fortress to make it an impossibility. For now, the initial plans were about finding the perfect position for it. As for the previous, supposed fortress that had to be there once... nothing remained of it. I an nothing. Everything was gone, leaving only faint marks where once a tower or building had stood, causing the earth or rocks to have a different coloration... But nothing else... which was a spine-tingling thing to think about.
So, I usually didn't question it and focused on exploring the Pass, which was easy. Flying in with the Calot, it turned out that this one was the widest of them all, at least twice as wide as ours in Avalon. Which was not good news... Fuck. More than that, it wasn't twisty, nor was it steep or bumpy like Markoth's. It was flat with a recurring curve, but mostly going straight through the mountains without much change in elevation or direction. It was honestly just a bunch of elongated, S-shaped paths strung together.
Which ant that this fortress needed to be thick. If anything, there would be hordes of monsters running at the walls, as far as I was concerned... Hah. It was kind of fun to sit down once again and just draw.
It was my kind of ditation.
I spread the paper across my table above the Calot, sitting in my private quarters, and then I began tracing the lines of the entry to the Pass itself. Considering the shapes and the form of the mountains, I decided to build a wall here, but make it more than just a wall. I was thinking along the lines of making my own Verdun... with a mix of Helm's Deep sprinkled in. With that idea in mind, the first decision was evident: a curtain wall fortress was needed for it to work. Make it thick, with towers projecting forward at intervals, where we would house most of our cannons, allowing them to fire far into the distance, right at the mouth of the first curve, or just directly at the field straight before the wall. If the Pass is flat and wide... I am going to turn it into an artillery kill-zone and bomb the living shit out of anything that tries to reach it.
But because they may reach it... I pressed the walls a bit further in because I decided to add so layers to the whole thing. I sketched a gatehouse in the center with double portcullises, murder holes above, and a drawbridge that could be torn down if needed. We would make sure that we dig the earth out and fill it with spikes made out of bones. Let them fall into it and die. Of course... It may not do much, but... better than nothing. It would still count as sothing if they break through.
Then, I added secondary lines behind it, another line of wall with bastions, and offset towers that created overlapping kill zones if anything breached the first wall. The second line would be connected to the first with retractable bridges in the air, allowing the future soldiers stationed there to abandon the first layer and retreat into the second if needed, preserving their lives in the process. To add further reinforcents, I drew watchtowers cut into the mountainsides, similar to what we had in Avalon. They would also be connected with ziplines, and people there would mark the faraway positions for the Artillery, warning us whenever beasts were coming.
It took less ti to finish the initial design than I expected. Looking at it, the plan was ugly on paper, but in my mind, I could already see it working. Now... The only thing I needed was to make it appear in real life and decide how we would manage the army stationed there. Haaah...
In the end, after a few more revisions and allowing Sasha to review it, the logistics, which were the actual battle for making it happen, began to move towards us. The Calot and the Excalibur beca the workhorses for the project as we constantly carried supplies, people, and materials over. I spent more nights than I liked at the bridge, coordinating what we needed and studying the maps, marking the areas from which we would extract resources: stone, wood, and anything else we required. I even ordered Avalon to bring our boring machines over; it was ti to dig into the mountain. We can't waste ti...
While we were working on that, the rest of my n began preparing the landscape for the new fortress, as if it were the simplest task. They even got used to the lightshow coming from behind them, watching the Guardian's corpse with curiosity after the initial shock and fear died down. I even heard that they began betting on the date, gambling on which day it would be when it finally burns out and goes dark.
Hmmm...
Should I establish the first casinos? We are not hurting for money, but... Haah... Perhaps I should do it before so mafia-style businesses begin popping up, and do it before I do. If it is inevitable, it's best if I monopolize it first.
While thinking about it, I also watched as Horringar grew into a new kind of city. With most of the locals shipped away to reunite with other Markothians, those who remained behind could watch as the temporary tents and workshops were quickly replaced with permanent ones. All those empty streets and run-down buildings were gone as new ones were being erected, almost daily. Looking at it, it was not really a city... it was turning into a thick, well-equipped military base. Still, the work will take years to finish blooming...
But it would happen. And we would cleanse our side of the continent. As for what is behind the mountains? Haaah... That is... Future Leon's problem, not mine! Well... not yet.
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