Once the reports were finished, the Spellblade Clan gathered them and put them into a folder to turn over to the regional Command Group.
“Alright, that is done. What time do you have to be on the line?” The head of the Spellblades asked.
“We’re on our day off today. We just decided to come relax around the others, so we didn’t have as far to go if there was an alarm. Our sleeping spot is outside the main camp by a few dozen metres.” Karl explained.
The Spellblade nodded, and Karl heard his armour shift under his robes.
“Did you have any connection to the Divine Beast Nation? I wouldn’t be shocked if they had taken some interest in an Elite with your particular skills.” He asked.
Karl shook his head. “I’ve never been out that way. Two of my beasts came from down south in the Wilds, though.”
“Now that is interesting. What made you choose to go south for beasts, instead of trying to appeal to the Divine Beast Nation for fast power? They might have been able to get you a cub of a powerful Divine Beast.”
Karl shook his head. “Bonding a beast above my Rank won’t work well. If I had gone there at the start, and gotten a beast like Remi, who was born Ascended when I was Common Grade, it might have killed us both.
One Rank ahead of my own growth should be fine at this point, but two or three Ranks would be suicide. If I went there now, and they were to present a beast that is born Royal or Monarch Rank, I might be alright for a bit, but I don’t know if I could adapt fast enough for their growth rate.
But more importantly, I would owe the Divine Beasts a favour. The Bureau of Elite Development took me south, and I believe that we’ve mostly squared up on debts these days.”
The Spellblade almost choked when Karl finished speaking.
“A beast born at the Royal Rank? If that’s your goal, you must be expecting your class to carry you to the peak of Overlord along with them. But even most of the great Dragons aren’t born above Commander Rank, they grow into their power over an extended time.” The mage laughed.
Karl shrugged. “A man can dream.
But if you don’t mind, I have a question for you as well. When did you get here? I don’t recall there being any Spellblades in the Academy Camp during the days before the battle.”
The red robed leader chuckled. “And officially, we weren’t here at all. We arrived during the fight, after Military Intelligence gave us the location of our targets. We didn’t know that they had been forcibly advanced, though.
That was an unpleasant surprise.
But all is well that ends well. They were eliminated, and by tomorrow we will be off on another mission.”
“So, Military Intelligence knew that they were here?” Morgana asked quietly.
“For nearly two hours. They were sighted by a spy drone at high altitude.
If they had been a bit more discrete, we would have only suspected, but they didn’t even bother to take off the Church’s defensive warded tabards, so the drone spotted them right away.
Bunch of idiots.”
Karl looked down at the stack of papers. “Wait, shouldn’t we edit those? Because if that was ten Royal Rank Hill Giant Clerics, they would probably still be beating our faces for sport. Ten forcibly advanced humans doesn’t really measure up to the same number of well-trained Hill Giants.”
The Spellblade shook his head. “No, it’s important that the number be correct because they are looking for it for verification of mission completion. That’s how they will know that we actually eliminated them all.
And I do hope that was all of them because if they had time to stabilize and learn some of the special combat techniques of the Titan Gods, they would have been much more difficult to fight.”
The Spellblades headed out to do whatever they needed for the afternoon, perhaps to be relocated to another hot spot, and Karl’s team retreated to the tent, still up three more members, as Morgana and the Mackenzie brothers followed them.
“What is the plan for the afternoon? Meditation and spell study?” Morgana asked, as it was a day off from training.
Karl nodded. “That’s the plan for me. I think that with a bit more work, I can let Rae advance to Royal Rank. Once she makes it, it will only be a matter of time until the rest of us do.”
Rae was certain that she was already very close to breaking through, and she just needed a bit more time. The extra energy from the fight was enough for her to complete her change, it was just a matter of time now.
[Is there something that you’re still working on before you advance?] Karl asked, wondering if there was something that he could do to help.
[Nope. I’ve got the skills, I know what to do, now I’m just waiting for my body to adapt. What I really need is a better catchphrase.]
[Why do you need a catchphrase at all?]
[You can’t just kill people without a catchphrase. Otherwise, how would anyone know how great you are?]
[The stab holes from your legs are already pretty distinctive. Even Tessa knew right away that it was you the moment that she saw one of your wounds on an armour plate.
If you want to leave a calling card, I would say that you already do, and anyone who knows you would know that those were your kills. But even if they don’t know that it is you, they would recognize your kills if they saw them again.]
Rae considered that fact. Her legs weren’t really shaped like any sword she had ever seen. So the puncture wounds were pretty distinctive, even if the tearing wounds were just gruesome and indistinguishable.
That was the secret, Rae decided. She was having too much fun tearing them apart, and she wasn’t leaving a distinctive stab mark, so people knew it was her kill. But if she went back after the battle and stabbed them all, it would feel like cheating.
That was it, she could just step on the bodies as she passed by, and give them one distinct puncture wounds so that someone could keep count of the kills for her when they cleaned the battlefield later.
That was brilliant, and she wondered why she didn’t think of it earlier.
It didn’t need to be a damaging wound, just something visible so that it would be recognized after the battle.
That final mental distraction seemed to be the last thing holding her back, and Karl felt Rae’s power beginning to progress once her mind was at ease.
Perhaps a sense of self, knowing who you were, and what your place in the world was, might be essential to the breaking of the Royal Rank bottleneck.
That would explain why it was easier for beasts. They knew their place in the world, they didn’t have self-doubt about their own reality, their abilities or their future.
They simply were, and that was enough for them.
Hawk laughed at Karl’s moment of introspection. [You’re overthinking it. Rae just wants people to know that she’s the greatest without actually having to interact with strangers in the daylight.]
Even Rae couldn’t argue with that logic, but Karl suspected that they could both be right. After all, Rae didn’t doubt her place in the world, only if anyone had noticed how glorious it was.
Which led to thoughts on ways to ensure they appreciated her glorious carnage.
