Blackrose Castle

Blackrose Castle was as magnificent as the first time he saw it, a majestic crown on Azan City. The fortress stood tall and proud, each corner filled with trebuchet towers that had stood the test of time. This castle hadn’t fallen yet in its time, and many believed it never would. All of its previous owners had been the biggest Archeron lunatics, using their talent for war to strengthen the defences to no end. The clever design of the battlements, the deeply buried gates with five portcullises, the tunnel-like construction of the castle itself… The place had been designed to be a headache to anyone planning to invade.

Blackrose Castle was the traditional seat of the Archeron patriarch, while Discra’s Ire was a symbol of Azan’s power when under Gaton’s control. Sauron knew that taking away the ballistae or Discra’s Ire would cause an inevitable feud with the future head of the family, a position he himself didn’t wish to take.

Truth be told, there weren’t many benefits to becoming the chief of the family. Azan wasn’t particularly large nor fertile, and the precedent was of the family head spending more on the family than they earned in revenue from their vassals.

Archerons gathered more for blood and glory than they did for wealth. They only wished to be acknowledged by those of their bloodline as brave warriors and thought about salaries second. This was why Gaton had managed to employ so many at dirt cheap prices. However, even so they had their own costs to bear. They would not fight for free, and Gaton had very limited funding.

### **Family Council**

Azan itself had a city wall, but it could not be counted upon. With this being one of the oldest Archeron fiefs, there were five local vassals that had a limited amount of authority in the area. They had been feuding ever since Richard and the family council had shed all pretence of cordiality, so the city would be easy to take. Neither Sauron nor Goliath had trusted in the family council’s capacity to manage all of Azan, so they were limited to the castle itself. 4;167

Ever since the family council had taken over Blackrose Castle, Azan’s information network had splintered apart. Without any money to pay the informers with, the council could only rely on the news Marquess Sauron fed them and the most primitive channel of merchants. Some tried to rely on their own families, but these branches had never been worthy enough to obtain useful information on time.

Of course, Sauron hadn’t told them that 150 of the 500 cavalrymen headed their way were rune knights. He knew that they would flee the moment they learned of this news, even with the threat of his wrath. This was also why they hadn’t cared much about Richard’s earlier threats; they just didn’t know the weight behind them.

Blackrose Castle had been renovated a few times after Richard moved in, and the main building now contained seven floors in total. The top floor was Richard’s lab and meditation space, while the one just below had his personal quarters, study, command centre, and private library. The second to fifth were where the rest of the family stayed, but the fifth was reserved for the most important members of the family. Even Richard’s followers had rooms on the fourth floor, with Alice and Goliath being the only ones with access to the fifth.

## Renovation

Two new barracks and training grounds were being constructed in the vicinity of Blackrose Castle, and the castle building itself was being extended to add a teleportation complex. No expenses were saved when it came to security here, and Lina was currently working on portals to Faust, Faelor, and the Forest Plane. Once those were done, Senma’s plane would come next. Every teleportation gate was built in an isolated building of its own.

Richard’s dream was to fill the mountainside with these gates.

The castle itself needed to be renovated as well. The original design had focused purely on defence, so that wouldn’t be a problem, but Richard wanted more utility buildings and more comfort. The griffin and wyvern nests needed to be fleshed out, and a morsehill hawk nest needed to be added in. Lastly, a new city would be built at the harbour that Azan overlooked, adding the potential for trade. Of course, Richard was also using this to warn the old vassals who ruled the lands nearby.

Looking through the reconstruction plan once, Richard nodded in approval and signed the contract. The mage in charge immediately turned excited; a huge project worth nearly a million gold was the dream of every earthcrafter. 5;15

His reclamation of Blackrose and the execution of the traitors wasn’t merely about removing a few hundred branch family members; nobody of import cared about the land he had acquired or the amount he spent on his troops. However, it had been a perfect display of the power of his rune knights, and that was something that caused an uproar throughout the continent. It was already coming to light that his success rate had to be extremely high, a common trait of all budding saint runemasters.

Right now, many believed that he was in the middle stages of his development. His creativity, skill, and theorycrafting were no longer the problems holding him back; it was mana. This also meant that the runes he *could* craft were already approaching the pinnacle of his craft. Many people thus wanted to snag what they could from him right now; after all, once he did grow more powerful the value of his time would increase several fold.

## Deepsea Tip

The most famous piece of defensive equipment guarding Blackrose Castle was a legendary-grade ballista at the very top of the city called Discra’s Ire. It was named after a famous deep sea beast that possessed the ability to contend with the gods, and as the result of a year’s worth of painstaking effort from a grandmaster dragon-blooded gnome it certainly lived up to the glorious name.

Just like most other Archeron equipment, this had been looted in war. In a rare instance, Gaton hadn’t directly sold it and instead added it to the already-fortified Blackrose Castle to make up for a lack of long-range defences. Even the ancient trebuchets hadn’t been used in a long time, but given Gaton’s tendency to take on enemies that should be far beyond his capability, some believed it to be a wise move.

The Deepsea Tip was five metres long, needing an entire six soldiers working together to just lift. However, as the soldiers got on the revolving platform they were all stunned, not knowing where to place the bolt. Discra’s Ire was a complicated alchemic machine, its aiming, loading, and shooting all performed through a combination of mechanical and magical forces. There was almost no need to manually move the parts at all. The ballista should eject the bolt-drawer automatically the moment they got on.

1. ↑ B**ook 8 Chapter 54**