Andrew Robinson Leinbach
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Chapter 173: Hira’s New Guardian
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 23:43:54 +0000 UTCBrom
Brom got on the teleportation platform with his father’s coffin, Darra, and his father’s chamberlain, along with two of his household guards and two powerful D ranks assigned to him by the Bronze Legion’s new successor. Then he entered in the identification number and passcode he’d received from Ms. Alvaro and hoped for the best.
Instead of appearing in the center of a large city on his parents’ home planet, they appeared on a much smaller platform next to a lake on what felt like a world undergoing an F rank integration, and there were three people there waiting for them.
The one on the left was likely Knight, a large human man with pale skin, short lavender hair, and reptilian indigo eyes, while the one on the right felt like Fist, a blonde middle-aged woman with bright blue eyes and a lithe figure. From his father’s investigations, while they had no idea who Knight was, Fist was most likely Irena Krol, the head of one of the more powerful factions on Earth, though her appearance was much more youthful than he’d expected, so it seemed she’d enhanced the grade of her race when advancing to E rank.
Brom wasn’t that surprised to see the two of them. And he actually wasn’t that taken aback to be on what was almost certainly a different planet undergoing an integration, not Earth.
But, upon seeing the man standing between Knight and Ms. Krol, Brom couldn’t help but be shocked.
His father had run a basic investigation on everyone who had joined his army, including Sarra Lin’Talic, but they’d had no idea Sarra and the group from Earth had any preexisting relationship.
Given Epecteos Ka’Dravone’s reputation, however, he now realized why Ms. Alvaro hadn’t cared at all about the fact two powerful enemy D ranks were going to arrive with him.
“Mr. Karendesh, welcome to Hira, our subordinate planet,” Irena began as all the corans looked around startled. “Who among your compatriots would you like us to kill?”
“These two.” Brom pointed to the two powerful warriors and the next thing he knew Epecteos had moved, both men having their legs and arms severed before falling to the ground to bleed to death. It was so fast, Brom barely realized it was happening, and it took him a second to recognize it was because they were on a world currently weaker than F rank.
There was barely any suppression, so a D rank could move far, far faster than Brom was used to.
As his father’s chamberlain, Darra, and his two guards looked on in horror, Ms. Krol then stepped forward, infused her fists with earth and fire Laws, and punched each of the two downed men three times in the face, breaking open their skulls with the force of her blows and killing them, her power rapidly rising as she leveled up.
Then Ms. Krol stood up and smiled at them, a gesture he was pretty sure she meant to have a combination of the pleasant meaning from humans and the threatening meaning from corans. “For the time being, we’re going to have you live on this planet rather than move to Earth, where people might expect you. We’ll introduce you to an island community and the story will be that you are like Isaiah here.” She gestured to Knight. “A leftover invader who has bowed to the might of the Heavenly Spark Soul King and serves as his vassal.”
Her smile turned a little more warm. “And, if you are good for a few years, we’ll actually make that true.”
“Heavenly Spark Soul King?” Brom understood what such a title meant and it slightly terrified him, especially after he went into the System menu for the planet they were on and realized one of the Territory effects was boosting his affinity for all Laws by 25%.
“Crafter.” This was all Irena said about the matter, but it was enough for Brom to understand.
Crafter’s position was different than he’d thought. He wasn’t just the most powerful of the force from Earth, he was also, at least technically, their leader. And he was a monster. From talking with Krysta, he knew that in the Trial Tower where he’d lost to Shadow—who he was now belatedly realizing had likely been disguised as Sarra Lin’Talic in the War of the Chosen—Crafter had been along as well, and together they’d beaten Krysta. He wasn’t sure who Shadow was, but it was likely, given the information he’d collected about Diana Alvaro, that Crafter was Diana’s brother Aalam Alvaro reborn as a monster.
And he was following the path of the heavenly spark while having what was most likely, given the other skills Brom knew about, a Fabled grade lord skill. Were he to be stuck at E rank, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but if what Ms. Alvaro had said was correct and Crafter was almost certainly going to make it to C rank, the effects would be huge.
An additional 25% increase to affinity with all Laws was something nearly impossible to find in the universe, and incredibly valuable. Were Brom to accept Mr. Alvaro as his lord, however, he’d likely get an even further boost.
And both would increase as Crafter rose in rank.
Even though this planet was only F rank, it was undergoing an integration, so at the moment it was equivalent to the main planet of the Bronze Legion when it came to training. And, if Brom’s affinities increased by 25% just from being on the planet, it meant his training would be even faster, not to mention how these boosts would likely increase.
“Thank you. And please thank your leaders for me as well.” They hadn’t needed to provide him an escape, and, given what he now knew, his value to them wasn’t at all worth the risk of making enemies with the Bronze Legion, yet they’d still helped him.
Knight stepped forward and smiled slightly. “Let me guide you to where you’ll be staying. It’s a community that took me in back when I was an invader to this planet. Then I’ll introduce you to Roland, this planet’s king.”
* * *
“I look forward to working with you.” King Roland reached out his hand after they finished talking, and Brom shook it.
Then the still F rank young human left the island by himself, running across the water, which was actually quite impressive. And Knight, whose full name was Isaiah Gale, left as well.
“Sir,” one of Brom’s soldiers began when everyone was gone and they’d returned to the cottage they’d been given on the other side of the island from the town, “I understand we’re hiding here, but why did you spend so much time talking to that little F rank?”
Brom looked at the two soldiers and his father’s chamberlain. “The two of you saw Ms. Krol and Mr. Gale. What did you think of them?”
“Young but talented E ranks.” The other soldier answered, looking just as confused as his compatriot.
“Do you think you could beat them?”
Both soldiers were D rank, but they were early D ranks and their classes were only Uncommon grade, as were their races. Among the Bronze Legion’s D ranks, they were among the weakest.
This was why they were working as personal family guards instead of in one of the legion’s actual armies. And this was also why they weren’t able to fully understand just how powerful true geniuses could be.
They weren’t stupid, however, so they both hesitated to answer the question.
“You wouldn’t be able to.” Brom gave them a way out. “I’ve sparred against both of them multiple times in the War of the Chosen. Ms. Krol I was generally able to beat about 75% of the time, but my artifacts were better than hers there, so, in the real world, I would have previously put my chances at around 60%. Now that she’s leveled up, however, I would probably put my chances at 2% at most.
“And the one called Isaiah I was never able to beat once. He is just as skilled as Ms. Krol, but his effective stats are higher than yours by a rather considerable amount.
“So, he alone could quite easily kill us all.”
Brom had eaten quite a few natural treasures thanks to his dad, about as fast as his cultivation technique could clear their negative effects, so his stats were quite high, slightly higher than his D rank guards.
By universal standards he was a genius for his level, but he’d long ago realized he wasn’t much compared to the forces of Earth.
“And there are three cultivators more powerful than either of them back on their main planet.”
Brom looked at his chamberlain and his two guards, making sure they understood the seriousness of what he was about to say. “We’ve just joined a new force in the universe, one that is currently led by E ranks, but these E ranks are beasts. And it is likely they have a fallen A rank behind them, one who in her day was far, far more powerful than any leader the Bronze Legion has ever produced.
“It is possible they also have an extremely powerful force behind them, either god level or A rank, but at this point that doesn’t even matter.
“My personal goal is to train up to A rank myself and then take back the Bronze Legion, and, from what we’ve seen, they’re able to help me with that far more than any other force which would possibly take me in.
“You might not have noticed, but their true leader, at least in terms of lord skills, has the ability to raise every affinity of all his subordinates and anyone living in his Territory—and that effect will only grow as he increases in rank. This is important for my own training, as it is for yours while living here, but it is also extremely important for adding other powers into their force in the future.
“You saw how powerful that Epecteos Ka’Dravone was, but you probably don’t know the significance of him using both space element and time element middle grade Law Pupae when he attacked.
“According to the intelligence reports I’ve read, he is supposed to have been stuck at early grade with both of those Laws for a long, long time, yet now he’s not.
“There are thousands of powerful people like him out there in the universe and if they knew they might be able to break through to higher ranks just from serving a little monster for a while, they would jump at the chance.
“I’ve lucked into getting a head start on those powerful people. So I have to find a way to be as useful as possible.
“The force we’ve joined wants to keep Hira safe, but they don’t want to reveal Earth’s connection with Hira. Our goal here then is to act like leftover mercenaries from one of the lesser forces to attack this planet—which one exactly we’ll figure out in the coming months—and then help train this planet to defend itself without Earth’s help.
“This is going to be difficult, but, if we succeed, we’ll have earned our keep and I will have learned a lot in the process.” A few tears started to form in Brom’s eyes but he ignored them. “My dad always said to take every training opportunity that came my way.”
Darra and the other three all bowed their heads in respect for their fallen lord. Then each of them also took one knee before Brom and slammed their fists to their chest, officially acknowledging they would continue to follow him even with their change in circumstances.
“One question, Sir,” his father’s old chamberlain asked, “Why did you ask Ms. Krol to take the general’s body? According to tradition, the body should be preserved and kept in your possession until you’re ready to create a set of armor from the lord’s scales.”
Brom acknowledged the question as a good one by showing happiness with his tail. “Our new force is aware of our traditions. I’ve personally spoken about them at length with one of their leaders. And they have possibly the best E rank crafter in the universe, who should hopefully be able to make a set of growth armor capable of truly honoring father’s memory.”
“Good.” Several tears started flowing from the old chamberlain’s eyes and, for the first time since his father’s death, Brom saw the man’s tail move with happiness rather than sorrow.
