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Chapter 1437 - Tell Him He’s Dreaming
🕑 Added 2024-09-04 02:00:02 +0000 UTCMorrelia was frustrated.
“Tribune, you need to relax a little, you look like you’re going to bite someone’s head off,” her fellow Tribune, Joshen Aurelis noted.
She narrowed her eyes at the man, irritation bubbling just beneath the surface. Joshen wasn’t someone that Morrelia was able to get along with. He was too stuffy, too… clean. Being in the Legion was a career of being ankle deep in blood and guts, so how was this guy always so spotless? It shouldn’t have been possible!
“I just might,” she growled.
Joshen sighed and put down the papers he was carrying. The two were the sole occupants of the officers’ tent, which wasn’t as unusual as it sounded, considering most of the camp was asleep. They were the only two who’d be inside at such an hour.
“You aren’t still obsessing over your bizarre scheme?” he said.
“Bizarre?” Morrelia snapped. “What’s bizarre is having an entire Legion of elite troops sitting on their hands in the fourth doing nothing. There are hotspots throughout the Dungeon that desperately need help, what are we achieving by staying here?”
“We are fulfilling our mission,” Joshen said patiently, and perhaps, a little condescendingly.
“No, we aren’t,” she forced out through gritted teeth. “What is our mission, Joshen?”
“To isolate and kill the prospective Ancient.”
“And how exactly have we gotten closer to achieving that objective today? Tell me, Joshen, what bold strides have you made?”
“You know as well as I do that pursuing the monster into the fifth stratum would be suicide. We are waiting for the Krath to do our work for us.”
“So you admit we aren’t doing anything.”
“Someone has to be here to confirm that the mission has been achieved.”
“And how are you going to do that? You think the Colony is just going to tell us?”
“You know as well as I do that our Dungeon seers are close enough to confirm the creature's death the moment it occurs.”
“And how long will that remain true? How deep will the target go before they’re no longer able to be sensed through the interference of the fifth?”
“I will admit, as I have in the past, that will become a problem, but right now it isn’t.”
Morelia threw up her hands.
“So we just stay here, doing nothing, achieving nothing, hoping that the Krath are able to kill our target?”
“Those are our orders,” Joshen shrugged.
At this point, Morrelia made the sensible decision and stopped talking. This guy was just infuriating. As long as they were doing as they were told, he was satisfied, whereas Morrelia was climbing up the walls, desperate to be doing something useful.
If she asked her mother for advice, the woman would probably tell her to do whatever she wanted. Minerva hadn’t exactly been amazing at following directives, but she was such an effective leader and fighter that the troops went along with whatever she wanted to do anyways. It didn’t hurt that she was almost always right in her strategic decisions, either.
The only thing the higher officers could do with her was put her right at the top of the Legion and make her Consul. At least at that point she wouldn’t be insubordinate anymore, since all the orders were coming from her!
“Are you two still bickering in here?”
The two Tribunes snapped to attention as Commander Chyron slipped into the tent. The grizzled veteran was decked out in her armour, only missing her helmet, which made her formidable presence even more hard-edged than usual.
“You know it’s possible for both of you to be right?” the Commander drawled. “As soldiers of the Legion, it’s important that we follow our orders and don’t break the trust that’s been placed in us. At the same time, it is a waste of resources for us to be sitting here doing nothing at a time when the Abyssal Legion is drastically short-handed.”
Feet stomping heavily in her armour, the Commander walked into the tent, staring down both of her Tribunes.
“You’re quite right, Commander,” Joshen said, causing Morrelia to roll her eyes before she could stop herself.
“Has there been any word from the brass?” Morelia asked, Chyron just looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. “... Commander, has there been any word from the brass?” Morrellia winced and corrected herself.
“As a matter of fact, there has. Lo’ I bring you a miracle! The Consul has changed their mind,” Chyron said.
“Are we redeploying?” Morrelia asked, heart in mouth.
If they were going to leave Anthony alone, that would at least save her troubled conscience. She hated this mission, even if it gave her a chance to be closer to the people she’d helped to save in Renewal. There were many, many places in the Dungeon where her Skills could be put to good use in the service of those who were unable to defend themselves in ways that didn’t involve trying to kill old friends.
“Of course not,” Chyron huffed, “they aren’t going to bend that far. Our mission is still valid and important. Any monster who experiences the Call needs to be prevented from descending. That’s been the case for over a thousand years, and it isn’t going to change now.”
The Commander eyed her two officers before she continued.
“No. It’s been determined that we will need to be closer to the target in order to accurately record their death, or, in the unlikely event they make it through the fifth, be able to report their location to an interception team in the sixth.”
Joshen frowned.
“So we are to give up trying to achieve the kill ourselves?”
That was not a turn of phrase that Morrelia liked hearing. Was Joshen really that focused on achieving this mission? What for? The glory? To increase his chances of promotion?
“For the time being, that is correct,” Chyron affirmed. “We’ve been given permission to provide limited support to the ants as they attempt to progress into the fifth in order to justify our presence watching over the target. It’s believed that this will further aggravate the Krath and cause them to target the ants even further, while allowing the Legion to achieve other objectives elsewhere in the fifth.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” Morrelia said flatly.
Chyron grinned.
“We’re nothing if not efficient.”
“Doesn’t this put us at tremendous risk?” Joshen asked, his tone flat.
“Of course it does,” the Commander replied. “You’re in the Legion. Tthis is what we do.”
Comments
DrDankness
At some point he needs to continue down due to the call. Its fine right now because he is doing his best to descend. However, the call tends to strengthen the moment he "clears" a floor. Its likely one of the ancients (Gandalf for example) is directly observing and making it happen.
DrDankness
Legion? Hell no. Morrelia? Sure. He's talked to her plenty of times. The rest of the legion can bugger off and hes made that clear. Also Anthony tends to accede to requests from his sisters (particularly Solant more than he cares to admit now). At this point if Solant has created contingencies against the Legion's participation and allows them to join then its likely Anthony will not intervene or block.
ShivaMcTimber
How's the serenity?
S_Ally
I've got to assume Solant can see the treachery coming from these Legionnaires and has some assassants keeping a compound eye on them....
Roombot
Watch out, morrelia. Isaac is down there 😂
Joseph McGuire
Didn't the Legion kill like 10,000 ants. Given Anthony's grudges for other folks who hurt the ants, I am surprised they would even talk to the Legion.
xXChrisdogXx
And sure it wouldn't destroy the colony but considering almost of their high level ants are down their and the main target is too the blow they could deal with just a small strike force could very well be fatal enough for some faction like the lizard guys or the rock guys (I fogor their name) to swoop in and finish them off. War isn't all about finishing off the enemy in one final battle but slowly bringing them to their knees
xXChrisdogXx
I think the priority is killing Anthony before destroying the Krath, in their eyes Anthony is a threat to the world as a whole while the Krath are just a roadblock to the 5th and well contained
alt31415
Remember that it's the Legion's interest to have the 5th purified, too. Like, if they sabotage the efforts there it doesn't even destroy the colony; how many ants do they have across the prior 4 strata at this point?
xXChrisdogXx
I still don't get why the colony would accept their help, especially with a hero class commander. Letting the enemy into the heart of a vital operation where nearly all of your resources are being funneled is pretty idiotic imo, it just feels really forced as much as I love seeing people's reactions to the ants progress and power. And sure one could say to keep your enemy close or whatever but if the legion were to betray the ants at the right time while "helping" they could cause sabatoge with how hard that infastructure is to build or even outright attack at an inoportune time.
Hayden Leech
Don’t we know what happens? Those pre chapter blurbs from the future? I think granin says Anthony goes into the deepest stratum where the ambient magic is so dense would dissolve any non monster and is sleeping/resting now.
alt31415
Brilliant's on the case!
alt31415
Except he CANNOT stay at the fifth, remember? He has the Call.
Hayden Leech
I can’t wait to see the legions reaction to the colony fifth fortress. It’s been like… two weeks?
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
Gopard
Nah If they actually deploy everything they have even at tier nine Anthony doesn't stand a chance... I mean they fought fucking ANCIENTS DIRECTLY during the rending while several of those things were rampaging around the world and many billions of monsters also needed to be defended against. It will always come down to "do the Legion delegate enough resources to make absolutely sure Anthony dies, or are they still trying to conserve resources depending on outdated information". Because for sure there are monsters with the Call elsewhere as well so they simply can't Afford to just stick every one of those "peaetor warriors" in the sixth to wait for Anthony.
DerHochi
We simply dont know. All we can do is estimate based on how much xp it takes to level up at higher tier. T7->T8 is 320 levels, T8->T9 is 640 and T9->T10 is 1280. If we combine that with levels being harder to gain at higher tiers and there being less monsters on a similar tier. I dont think ancients are above T11. They might even be just T10 but at the peak of their own tier, similar to Anthony being at the peak of T7
Byte core
The krath already think that anyway. So i dont think itll change anything.
Jonathon Noha
It's okay, even if Anthony's protagonist plot armor fails, his dark lustrous gravity compressed diamond carapace shall hold. LEGION BEWARE
Wolve
That's exactly what I think he should do. Be prepared to completely and utterly annihilate the legion. Then he can tell them to cut this shit out or lose control over every other monster with the call with him wiping them out again and again.
Brandon14754
Imagine if anthony sticks around to help cleanse the 5th instead of going to the 6th till he reaches tier 9 and whatever the rank above mythic is
inkaral
But can you call it "falling apart", when it's really getting crushed by a miniature black hole? I'd say their plans are crushing!
Loulatsch
Maybe they arent so wrong about the 20th antcient destroying the world. The goal of the ancients is to shatter the dimension space trapping the world. Not to sure about the consequences of the living when suddenly such an important wall gets broken
Brandon14754
it's hard as the ancients might just be strong for their tier but be say tier 10, anthony's already the strength of a tier above him, when he gets to tier 10 he might have the strength of 2 tiers above him a tier 12
Brandon14754
A fuck up is a fuck up whether you had the info to see the right choice or not. If you bought shares in a company right before they declared bankruptcy and you didn't know they were going to you still fucked up.
alt31415
Not a fuck-up if they couldn't possibly have this intel.
alt31415
I'm worried about that 'interception squad in the sixth'. Bad implications since we know that about down there is where the Legion's REALLY strong toys are.
alt31415
Remember that it doesn't matter if the Legion thinks the ants are nice. They think a 20th Ancient will destroy the world, and they think that an Ancient rising up from the depths will forcibly mind-control the Colony into rampaging. Nope. No peace.
alt31415
Nobody knows for sure, but I have theories. We've seen Anthony spend 2 tiers at each 'hierarchy'. Tier 1 and 2 - Common 3 and 4 - Special 5 and 6 - Rare 7 - Mythic. Presumably 8 will also be Mythic. 9 and 10 - These, then, would be the 'something else' we've heard in a 1-off mention that comes after Mythic. Legendary?" My guess is the 'future episodes' we've seen like with Traveling Tolly are when Anthony is evolving from Tier 10 to Tier 11, to an Ancient. From there, my guess is the OTHER Ancients are also Tier 12; they were Tier 11 during the Rending and went to Tier 12 after it, from that one pre-chapter blurb of a scholar who thinks the Rending ended because the Ancients grew stronger and dropped global mana levels.
Froyst
Ancient tier obviously
kev mil
Question: what tier are the ancients proximately?
Conspirant
PLUSHY OF CONSUL MORRELIA. Please and thank you
Rick Delallata
If I were an optimist I'd say this would possibly lead to the Legion learning the ants are nice and they'll leave them alone. Instead I'm worried about sabotage
Brandon14754
A tier 8 mythic with the power of a tier 9
Grey Knight Lord
What I am hearing is, make the Krath Mad to feed more XP to Anthony. In just a days he had been leveling extensively and the longer the campaign continues Anthony will be closer and closer to Tier 8 Mythic. A whole different beast
Robert Smart
So was the title a reference to “the castle” movie?
Yanni
All enemy plans never survive contact with Anthony and even if they do they fall apart shortly after.
Rahsheem Reid
I guess we are getting more Legion armor. Might even get a treaty once the nameless disappear these fools!
Brandon14754
The legion just made a huge fuck up, this is only gonna make the krath believe harder it's all sapients funding this invasion, this is gonna only make legion bases elsewhere in the fifth have a harder time not easier
strainge guy1
I, similarly, really hate this guy. Seems like a uppity fop and a prick
Abdulrahmane Alraied
Last sentence this is spelled Tthis
kev mil
Tyftc
