The Vastness of Magical Destiny
Chapter 754: Volume 22: Revival and Rise - 14: Secret Passage

Chapter 754: Volume 22: Revival and Rise Chapter 14: Secret Passage

Gazing into the distant North, Komer couldn’t help but sigh softly; everything seemed to be on track, and his own plans were slowly progressing. The confrontation between Katya and Hoffman seemed advantageous to him for the moment, as it made Katya more reliant on him.

Perhaps if Komer asked Katya to offer her body, she would not hesitate to strip and lie in bed waiting for him, as long as he could offer enough benefits to help her ascend the throne. She had waited too long for this and paid too much.

But the affairs of the world are often unpredictable. Just as she was inching closer to that position, the sudden southward movement of the beastmen turned this beautiful dream into a bubble that burst, the brocade stool seemingly floating between her and Hoffman. It appears near, but when you reach out, you always find it just out of grasp.

The news from Maha Gummi was accurate and timely; indeed, the beastmen were preparing to settle in the North of the Kingdom of Nicosia. They began to adopt the mortals’ laws wholesale. It seemed these creatures had a remarkable ability to assimilate, swallowing whole and making do. However, one had to admit that the beastmen weren’t as simple-minded as imagined; amongst them, there were sages with a deep understanding of civilized evolution.

At least they understood that exterminating or expelling all mortal nobility from their controlled regions was an exceedingly wise move. For those worms, which wherever placed were trouble, keeping them within beastmen territory brought nothing but trouble. Leaving behind some simple and impoverished mortals, offering them minor favors was enough to buy their loyalty and possibly achieve a harmonious synergy. That was exactly what the beastmen intended to do.

The fools at the Church of Light would soon realize that their support for the beastmen was a shortsighted act of lifting a rock only to drop it on their own feet. The beastmen could quickly converge with human civilization in terms of lifestyle, governance structure, and production technology, but faith isn’t so easily altered by foreign ideologies. The loss of a vast region in the North and massive population displacement had plummeted the Church’s prestige in the region, just as it had the central authority of the Kingdom of Nicosia. They now needed to consider how to reverse this influence, especially to alleviate the resentment among the disgruntled refugees, lest other sects easily usurp their position.

However, all this was not Komer’s primary concern. An astonishing discovery came through the intelligence system of Maha Gummi: a previously unseen new breed of soldier had appeared among the beastmen during their blitzkrieg in the West and the battle to capture Jazair. They hid within the ranks of archers, using the guise to conceal themselves, but they launched attacks akin to magic. This caused a widespread collapse of the Golden Oak Legion, leading to the fall of Jazair within three days.

Corroborating evidence was also obtained from the remnants of the defeated Golden Oak and Iron Cross Corps, which greatly shocked Komer.

Had the beastmen bought off human mages, or had they cultivated their own magical abilities? Either scenario meant that the power of magic was no longer solely in human hands. Still, Komer hoped for the former. If it were the latter, it would mean disrupting the Creator God’s laws; a race already far surpassing human strength now possessed human-exclusive magical powers, spelling the end for human history in this world—an unthinkable outcome.

Yet, evidence suggested that the beastmen’s magical abilities were not potent, with commonly used war magic like fire and thunder powers yet to appear. Instead, powers resembling those of wood and earth mana hinted to Komer that perhaps residing in forests and wilderness had granted the beastmen a closer connection to the natural forces around them. Even this possibility was enough to overturn the human monopoly of the magical world.

However, Komer believed that the Church of Light would be the most shocked and worried. They first tempted the beastmen with advanced weapons to act according to their designs, satisfying their own greed. But now, the beastmen had fully demonstrated their intelligence and mimetic abilities, not only improving their manufacturing capabilities but also developing powers connecting to the natural world. This shock would undoubtedly terrify the corrupt fools of the Church, who would first face pressure from the beastmen. However, since the beastmen dared to show this strength, it meant they must have a fearless confidence. The Church of Light, on the other hand, now had to focus their main effort on the immense pressure brought by the beastmen; otherwise, the foundational ground of their belief—the entire Northern League Countries—could risk collapse.

And to some extent, this situation was quite advantageous for Komer, at least it could greatly relieve the pressure of the Church of Light on the entire South, Caucasus, and Leon, and it even provided opportunities for the Dark Lineage to develop in regions such as Livonia, Pomorie, and Black Forest.

The constantly changing circumstances had given Komer a chance to catch his breath. The Quke Valley was not as fertile as imagined, only seven to eight kilometers wide and less than forty kilometers long. With a population of just two or three thousand people, except for the village of Quke at the southern end which barely counted as a densely populated area reliant on agriculture, the rest were scattered hunters and woodcutters who lived off felling trees. It was no wonder Komer had not spent much effort before Katya granted him this piece of land.

However, Komer never intended to treat the Quke Valley simply as a leisure farm for himself. The passages through the Little Greenland Forest had been opened up by countless exploration teams and adventurers, leading up the Nissai River to its source at Lake Nissai. Despite the straight-line distance from Lake Nissai to Quke being no more than sixty kilometers, Lake Nissai’s shores were a paradise for Magical Beasts, which not only came in a wide variety, but also in considerable numbers. It would still pose some difficulty to clear this area and make it a safe path, but just creating an accessible trail was not so hard. Skirting Lake Nissai and carving out a road through the dense forests nearby could open up a northwest passage that would reach Quke.

Geographically, Lake Nissai was not far from Quke, but the long-standing gloom over the Little Greenland Forest had deterred the locals from daring to venture into the woods until Komer, considering his own needs, decided to truly implement a strategic passage.

Puber had been quite diligent in this regard for Komer’s intentions, swiftly constructing a simple river harbor dock not far upstream from Lake Nissai. This way, one could relatively easily reach the vicinity of Lake Nissai from the dock at Bruce Fortress, then create an overland passage connecting this dock with Quke. In effect, the isolated Quke Valley would be tenuously connected with the Leon Region and the entire Caucasus.

Of course, this was just a basic geographical connection. Given the threat of Magical Beasts by Lake Nissai, carving out such an overland passage was quite difficult. Even the journey from Bruce Fortress to the simple docks at Lake Nissai was fraught with danger; the nascent docks had already been attacked multiple times by Magical Beasts within the two months since their establishment, resulting in the death of over thirty Half-beast soldiers. This had infuriated Fran, who had demanded in his letters that Komer find a way to utilize his Mage resources to eliminate the Magical Beast threat at Lake Nissai, especially after learning of Komer’s intricate ties with the Dark Forces like the Great Mysterium Sect in the South. Fran’s wishes grew even stronger then.

Although Komer had such plans, he was well aware that Lake Nissai had always been a breeding ground for various Magical Beasts in the Little Greenland Forest, which was not so simple to clear out. But, as the situation in the Kingdom of Nicosia deteriorated day by day, the importance of the Southwest region to Komer became increasingly evident. To wield greater influence in the kingdom, it was indispensable to elevate the figurehead of Katya; without an armed force as support, it meant that Hoffman could march in at any time to expel Katya into exile outside the kingdom.

On this matter, Katya was even more worried than Komer, and it had always been her desire to mobilize the Middle and Small Aristocracy to organize their meager private soldiers into a force of her own. But this idea was difficult to materialize, as the aristocracy showed great reluctance. By April, fewer than a thousand private soldiers had assembled, to Katya’s great disappointment.

While Komer did wield a respectable armed force in the Caucasus, he was hampered by the distance; Philip and Zellin in Homer and Galle were definitely against allowing Komer’s Self-defense Army to pass through their territories at that point in time, and Hoffman likewise would not allow such a scenario to emerge. Thus, the urgency of establishing the route from Bruce to Quke became apparent.

Komer’s requests were not steep; he merely needed a temporary path that could barely allow military forces through, sufficient for the time being. As for strengthening the links between Quke Valley and the Caucasus later on, Komer hoped to adopt more secure measures for improvement.

(To be continued. To find out what happens next, please visit WWW.CMFU.COM where the Chapters are more comprehensive, to support the author and support authorized reading!)