novelraw Chapter 576 - 575 - Dar Soul Slaves
Chapter 576 - 575 - Dar Soul Slaves
Marsh let the withered corpse fall to the blackened ground without any rage or frustration. He had a large group hidden behind his weavings but many of the men with certain wrist artifacts shivered as their companion was now gone.
"I believe I gave strict orders to not push the boundary of your limits and map out the Hinterland until we find our prey. Leaving evidence only warns are enemies and if anyone so much as tries to think for themselves, I will need some refueling soon." Another shiver passed through the men but none of them dared do anything.
There were 10 Soulless in the tent with them, one for each man, and they knew if they even touched their bracelets, they would die instantly. They had no control over those ones but Marsh dismissed them from his tent.
He had gone to Dar with 4 Soulless and found a thriving market of slaves being turned into Soulless.
The best results was with demons but there were humans too. Still, the trade had been kept secret from many but the local Soulmancers had known about it. They found them effective stealth forces for their raids.
He had expressed his 'opinion' on hiding that fact. The pile of corpses left in Dar had been considerable but Xing had more than signed off and gathered many of the souls with her forces.
It had started with an old manual being found and instructions on how to make a few artifacts. Marsh knew where it came from but suspected that had been simply overlooked as the convenience of unstoppable killing slaves was too enticing.
Linghu and Xing had already sent Soulmancers to correct Dar's misapprehension that they could create such a program and get away with it.
Marsh also knew the former Soulmancers had dreamed of rising up in their organization but they were fools. The Soulless were useful but limited.
They were slaves to their purpose but inflexible. They could not operate far from the artifacts they were tied to and they could not adapt to changing situations. They would simply continue to try and complete their last order.
They could be given complicated orders but again, there were limits.
Demons seemed able to take far more complicated orders but only up to a complexity of conditional return or switch to a single optional goal.
Humans were practically useless beyond 3 combined instructions.
Marsh sneered at what most human Soulless were used for in Dar. Rather than simply use slaves, they used the Soulless. The reason being that servants should be invisible and Soulless were exactly that.
Marsh had no issue with that if that was all it was but the souls were needed for Soulmancers. They could not function properly without them!
Anything that threatened that had to be quashed.
What was of interest to Marsh was how much more powerful he made Soulless. The 20 he now commanded was far above the humans with him. They could only control up to 5 at a time.
While 70 was a very small number, he was using them as scouts only so that was plenty as most beasts simply did not sense them.
The range made them enough as they could only go 2 days out before losing connection to their bound artifacts. Such a short range made it annoying to have too many.
"Lord Soulmancer, the Soulless were found but there are beasts near them." A man in dark blue armor appeared and his news was frustrating.
"Those are Sky Realms at least. Kill them all and burn the Soulless." The well muscled man bowed and relayed the orders. Marsh was about to move on when he saw the same soldier pale.
Marsh felt a headache as the soldier suddenly began to sweat as he knelt low on the ground.
"L–l–lord Soulmancer! A roc arrived and took them!" Marsh frowned. That was odd. Intelligent beasts despised anything related to Soulmancers so it was likely that extended to Soulless as well.
Why would they not simply rip those bodies apart?
He looked to the desiccated corpse and checked the connection to the missing Soulless.
The bond was still there but weakening! They were moving farther away!
"I want the camp to prepare to move. Kill any beast you do not recognize. Call all the Soulless back!" His orders went out and the camp became chaotic but quickly packing up at the same time.
His enemies may have discovered their presence but they had just given him a direction! A vicious smile came from him but he quickly imprinted a black jade stone with his latest report. After losing Helena, he was taking no chances.
The sprawling camp quickly vanished and began to adjust the march as the gray cloaked Soulless returned yet only made everyone shiver at their proximity. Marsh sat atop a floating artifact platform as they headed deeper into the Hinterlands.
⬧⬧⬧⬧
Inside the bowels of the Two Rivers Fortress, Lind was looking at heavily scarred demons. There were only 5 of them but 5 more had been found not far away that Glenda was bringing in.
They looked dead but every now and again a slight breath would come from them. Their lavender skin was very pale and he saw the runes and arrays engraved on their flesh.
It was a brutish and primitive way to do it but the final thing was the collar. It was a simple slave collar that was incorporated into the formation.
He was not able to completely understand what the arrays were supposed to do but the effects were obvious.
His eyes glowed with emerald light before veins bulged on his face.
"Lord Frey, there are reports of an area of beasts being killed heading towards us. It is about a week away normally but the speed is slower." Gravis was near him, relaying what the scouts and beasts were telling him.
"Inform Orbas and Levira. Assuming they are not fighting by staring, our other 2 flyers should be able to pierce any formation or weaving." Gravis bowed and relayed his orders. The Fire Hawk, similar in strength to Lind was similar to Han he once fought with.
They both were honorable and battle happy maniacs.
Orbas had some kind of rivalry with him but they both agreed to set it aside until the issue was over.
Both had nearly cracked the outer wall with their auras when the first 5 Soulless were brought in.
Lind continued his examination but if the outside was bruised and battered, the inside was a nightmare.
He saw tiny needles with arrays threaded into the dantian, meridians, heart, and mind. Essentially, everything that made them a cultivator was under the control of the formation.
He frowned at the inelegance of it. It was like someone had a far superior manual but did not grasp all of it.
He could make out some things by inferences but the key thing was the need for mediums. Fiends simply used a technique to transform and engrave their control into the cultivators that used it.
The process in front of him barely mimicked that process but it was clearly inspired.
A cultivation technique would remove the need for mediums and arrays. A normal cultivator, even a weaver, would not be able to pull off the beneficial effects the Fiends could.
Still, he felt something odd.
He recalled the 2 Soulmancers he had faced and compared it to what he was seeing.
"They are similar. It is like someone made poor copies of superior techniques and never tried to improve." The Soulmancers were not good weavers at all.
It seemed they could bypass the bottleneck of each circle by simply forcing their way through with souls. While it was similar to using pills or elixirs for the same effect, the results spoke for themselves.
A breakthrough could be forced, assuming one survived, they got stronger but their foundation would be incredibly shallow.
"They achieve the title but the power is just a hollow shell of what it should be." He was grim as he spoke and Gravis wondered why but Lind supplied the answer. "No wonder they need so many souls, they can't pull off their own weavings even at the simplest stage."
Cultivators that forced their breakthroughs with pills had similar issues with quality of Qi Arts. They could be Sky Realms but only have a fifth of the quality Qi or control of it. A Sky Realm that struggled and got there the hard way would flatten them everytime.
Further, a Diamond Tier could theoretically take on a tier 3 Sky Realm that followed such an easy path.
Lind turned back to the Soulless and noticed a mark that was not an array on the collar nor was it part of the original functions. He used his Touch and Eyes and grabbed a jade stone!
"THE ENEMY IS COMING! ALL FORCES RETREAT NOW!" He turned to Gravis.
"These people gave them a direction, my weavings won't stop it! Pull all hunters and any scouting party now. Get everyone on rotation manning the walls, get rest on a third of the day cycle." Gravis bowed and ran out as he also used a jade communication stone.
Lind frowned and began to see if he could do anything aside from killing the demons in front of him. He still had time but not more than a month if a full army was coming this time.
"I refuse to give up. I will not just kill you, I will set you free." He began to set up some more artifacts and engraved a few sigils to change the Qi to demonic before starting to examine them.
The Two Rivers was now moving to war and all were afraid. The Soulless had added a dimension to things that terrified them and all hoped they could overcome the current crisis.
Sheena was one of the few that knew it would not be that easy. The last force was clearly a single Soulmancer's endeavor due to the years of peace. The current force was far more organized and cautious.
If that force disappeared, it would be war.