Reaper War

The **Reaper War** was the pivotal moment in history when Richard Archeron of Norland fought the reapers into defeat.

## First Wave

### **On the Brink**

The rigour of the next day’s battle was well out of Richard’s expectations. He had already realised that the reaper army was growing in power, but no matter how many teams he destroyed single-handedly their numbers continued to skyrocket. Most of the teams completely disregarded him this time, charging straight past him towards the depths of the Iron Triangle Empire.

A large army of reapers with a handful of the large warships and dozens of the next biggest ones made a beeline for the first line of defence, but what was truly frightening were the transport ships trailing behind. There were nearly a full hundred of them, implying a force strong enough to overthrow the Frozen Throne!

As more powerhouses lost their lives and the pressure started to increase exponentially, those teams fighting in the depths of reaper territory were suddenly ordered to retreat. Although red-eyed from the loss of their brethren, they asked for no explanation and quickly fell back to a marked base that was hundreds of kilometres away before realising what had happened. Sixteen of the Iron Triangle’s cities were destroyed in the span of several hours, and the reaper army was expanding in a wing that left all the supply bases alone. The broodmother was the only one who managed to stop them, using her drones and the larval forest to hold them off.

The reapers were expanding far faster than Richard had expected. He could only alter his arrangements and transfer all of his powerhouses to the back lines, giving them a chance to rest as the armies battled it out. Unfortunately, the enemy had the advantage in both quality and quantity, using violent and relentless attacks to crush the Iron Triangle Empire in only two days. Salwyn’s newly reorganised troops were summarily crushed without a chance to respond, with the Land of Turmoil being the only area that still managed to hold off attacks. Even that needed some support from the Crimson Empire, and cost an enormous number of lives.

### **Plane-destroyers**

The reaper armies currently looked like a turbid current that had been split around the hard rock of the Land of Turmoil, one portion striking west towards the Iron Triangle while the other aimed east for the human nations there. Both then aimed southwards, wrapping around the Crimson Empire like a pair of pincers.

The ground troops were no longer limited to flesh warriors either. The reapers had started deploying a taller, stronger, and faster type of drone that walked on six feet, their upper bodies loaded with even more powerful weapons than before. These new spider warriors were butchers on the battlefield, capable of wiping out entire squadrons of knights within seconds. Thankfully there weren’t too many of them, and their defensive capabilities weren’t too great, but they had a special type of gun that could launch a hail of large bullets that did massive damage due to sheer speed. Richard had personally seen half of a saint warrior’s body being blown apart in seconds, ending his life instantly.

The battle was arduous, and the defensive lines were constantly broken through and mended, but the Crimson Empire gradually steadied its defence. Waves of powerhouses from Norland entered Faelor to earn points, and their addition bolstered the armies and allowed Richard to secure a handful of critical locations. Weeks after the initial engagement, the reapers finally retreated like a tide.

### **Momentary Respite**

As the reaper armies withdrew, the soldiers fighting them remained rooted to their places in surprise. Minutes passed in silence before they could confirm that the enemy had left, after which the cheers built up into a thunderous roar that filled the battlefield. However, the veterans and true powerhouses of the army remained indifferent to the situation. They had all seen the way the reapers collected flesh to make their warriors, and a full fifth of Faelor had fallen into enemy hands. Putting everything else aside, the population of civilians alone was enough to create an endless army of flesh warriors.

Nevertheless, they could finally take a short breather. Even Richard himself felt incredibly stiff all over his body the moment he withdrew from the frontlines, looking down to realise that his robes were beyond tattered. His exposed skin was filled with bloodstains, dirt, and all kinds of fleshly filth, which was only ornamented by his bloodshot eyes from days without sleep or cleanliness. His life had revolved around battle for the past weeks, so much so that he felt his own mind starting to fatigue.

A large space had already been cleared out from the fringe of Bluewater Oasis, with hundreds of mages and smiths bustling about in an attempt to create the largest portal in Faelorian history. Commoners from all over were flooding into the city in waves, desperate for his protection. The Bridge of Hope could transport more than ten million citizens with ease, which was why Richard insisted on continuing to build it even with the dire situation in the war.

Richard new that the peace with the reapers was only momentary. With the enemy base still functioning, they were only gathering more and more power for their final attack. Unfortunately, going over and trying to destroy it directly was effectively a suicide mission even for an epic being. He used the time to revise his strategies, deploying drones and troops to reconstruct new lines of defence. T

Richard had already abandoned any hopes of survival if he only relied on his resources in Faelor. While this would reveal his trump card to the rest of Norland, he saw no other way but to use them.

### **End of the First Wave**

While there were a number of things he still needed to deal with in Faust, Richard didn’t have much time to remain in Norland. He quickly teleported to Blackrose Castle with Nasia in tow, growing solemn the moment he watched the giant army camp that had sprung up in Azan to support his war. Soldiers were still streaming into Faelor through the portal with determination on their faces, many resigned to their imminent deaths.

The first report he got upon his return was on the casualties suffered across Faelor. More than a fifth of the plane’s territory was completely occupied by the reapers right now, with two hundred million dead. The troops from the Iron Triangle Empire had lost over three million men, while the Crimson Empire’s losses amounted to 200,000. Only 80,000 useful soldiers were still alive.

At the higher end, one of Richard’s subordinate legends and two others that were participating for points had been killed in action, with nearly twenty saints added on top including Fuschia. Almost a hundred rune knights, 3,000 humanoid drones, and over 1,000 shadowspears had fallen, with the other troop types losing a third of their numbers.

Richard’s heart sank as he saw these figures. Heavy losses had been sustained in merely half a month, and only because of a single wave of assaults. The flesh warriors were quite resilient and their energy beams were near-perfect as ranged weapons. While they could be defeated, they took down far too many targets with them.

The Iron Triangle Empire was currently defending the Frozen Throne, while the Crimson Empire was protecting Bluewater Oasis and the Land of Turmoil. Any attempt to join these defenders would spread them too thin, so both sides could only hope that the other survived.

Even the slowest deities to react had now started participating in the battle, sending their clergies, paladins, and resources with no end. Although most of them were useless in Richard’s eyes, they could at least help with constructing defences and similar tasks. At this point, anyone below level 10 was better off simply hiding in the cities, lest they be turned into more fodder for the flesh warriors.

## Second Wave

### **Harbingers of Death**

No one could live forever, and nothing in this world was perfectly predictable. He understood that he would have to bear the consequences of his decision to stay and fight, even if it meant a hollow victory. In that regard, Nasia was absolutely right. Even if all of his subordinates died, he had to win this for the first and the last person who perished in battle.

He looked at his soldiers, many of whom now had fear on their faces. Even the most seasoned of veterans knew that the incoming enemies were death incarnate, and even the rune knights and saints grew fearful.

Richard blinked to the front lines, drawing his three divine swords and stabbing them into the ground. Turning around to face his soldiers, he formed an orb of light atop his head for the first time in years, “To every warrior who acknowledges me as your king, I promise you this: I will be at the forefront of this battle! Crush these machines into scrap!”

This was a rather short speech, but it was more rousing than anything else he could have done. Even as the endless wave of reapers marched towards them, the soldiers broke out into a raucous warcry. Many grizzled veterans were staring at the orb above his head, eyes bloodshot as they related tales of years past.

Richard’s own gaze fell upon the incoming cloud of warships, which had some new types mixed in. There was now a transport ship that was thirty metres wide and close to a hundred metres long, flying rather close to the ground but in very large numbers. There was also a massive warship that was over half a kilometre long, charging up massive beam cannons that would certainly be a threat to even him. As the transporters stopped a few kilometres away and dropped a ramp for their drones to flood out from, the flesh warriors and spider warriors were joined by what looked like mechanical elephants whose upper bodies were made of flesh with dozens of different weapons attached.

### **To The Bitter End**

The ordinary soldiers rushed in to fill the void, tearing into the flesh warriors who had lost most of their heavy hitters. It took three or four of these level 8 fighters to take out a single enemy drone, but none of them showed any signs of hesitation as they fought to their deaths. They knew that their sacrifices were the only things allowing those still in the Crimson Empire to survive. The cowards had fled and died a long time ago.

The main job of the ordinary warriors was to delay and protect, allowing Richard’s drones to maximise their killing potential. Less than a tenth of the reaper troops had fallen to anyone other than the night elves or any saint level powerhouse, but without the protection of these brave soldiers most would have been tied up in self-defence. The sacrifice of the masses allowed the druids to continue immobilising enemies, allowing the night elven assassins to charge out with their thunder cannons and rain death down on the machine army. Binding spells slowed down the warships in the air, allowing the archers’ arrows to strike with far greater accuracy than would have been possible otherwise.

Already having the numeric advantage from the beginning, the reapers were slowly growing more and more overwhelming on the battlefield. The night elves would be targeted in mere minutes after the Crimson Army was gone, at which point a true victory would be near impossible. Richard’s warriors now knew that the reaper units weren’t killed by simply cutting them apart. Troops of night elves and frost warriors quickly appeared wherever Richard had passed, their thunder cannons roaring to life as they destroyed the metal and flesh beyond repair. Even as the war elephant was destroyed, however, Richard subconsciously accessed the numbers in his mind for a brief moment.

984. It was a figure that left his eyes twitching, but from a combination of his own observations and the cloned brain network, he knew that the war elephant had killed nearly a thousand of his men before he’d gotten to it. However, more than 70% of the Crimson Army now lay dead, with many night elves already having abandoned their depleted thunder cannons in favour of longswords and hand-to-hand combat. Richard had arranged for thousands upon thousands of bullet discs, with each night elf carrying a total of thirty, but even with it all depleted the enemy hadn’t been dealt with just yet.

Richard’s heart sank as the sounds of the thunder cannons wound down. His expression turned icy as he summoned three faces all around him, casting spells in divine tongue to form fireballs of three different properties. All three fireballs converged in mid-air, but instead of exploding they merged together in a tiny burst before disappearing.

Those who witnessed this were shocked for a moment, the morale amongst the legends especially dropping. Richard’s divine spells were well known for their absolute power, but that meant the onlookers were more surprised by them fizzling away like this than they would have been if he’d destroyed all of the enemies in one go.

Was he too tired to cast? The hearts of Richard’s soldiers shivered. As the one true epic being on this battlefield, he was their spiritual pillar. So long as he could fight, those around him would drag their tired bones without any fear. With the king in front, they wouldn’t even consider defeat. However, that same strategy the Archerons employed meant that any signs of weakness from the Archeron King decimated morale.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Nasia suddenly shouted in Richard’s mind.

Richard shook his head, “If death is out only option, I won’t let them get away so easily.”

Many of the reaper troops suddenly slowed down as he spoke, being lifted into the skies by an invisible force. An elated saint immediately shot three javelins towards some of the warships in the sky, but just as they were about to hit their targets those javelins swerved off course as well. The woman frowned at the sight, but her attention was suddenly drawn to where the three fireballs had disappeared.

A domain of black had formed in the sky, so tiny that one could mistake it for a speck of dust. However, it was slowly starting to grow in size, only discoverable because any energy that went within could not come out. As it started to pull in the flesh warriors nearby, someone finally shouted in alarm, “IT’S A BLACK HOLE!”

It was the most powerful fighters that showed the first signs of panic, especially the two legendary mages still around. Those that had actually explored the void knew that black holes were the most terrifying things in existence, with virtually no escape. Some said they were connected to the alter world, which was what gave them their terrifying devouring ability, but there was simply no way for even epic beings to test this without sacrificing their lives.

However, even with the black hole gone there were purple ripples everywhere in the sky. Space itself had been damaged beyond immediate repair, leaking Faelor’s origin energy all over. A few powerful conscients swept across the region, making a conscious effort to avoid scanning Richard. The distant pantheon looked down with complex expressions, all shocked into silence by the sheer might on display.

### **End of the Second Wave**

The entire incident with the black hole had lasted a few minutes at best, but in that time it had destroyed everything within a few kilometres and formed a huge, smooth crater in the soil. If not for the fact that the Crimson Army had withdrawn at command, they would have been sucked in as well. Even with their speed, a few hundred warriors still disappeared alongside the enemy. Faelor’s origin was heavily damaged by this attack, to the point that the gods could hear their laws droning in pain. Even though the black hole had been neutralised, the damaged plane was leaking origin energy continuously. At that moment, every god present realised that Richard was basically invincible in most secondary planes due to this ability alone.

Most of the reaper army had been wiped out by this attack, leaving only a few hundred warships and ten thousand flesh warriors who had been on the flank. Richard sent out the night elves and powerhouses once more, finishing off the last of the enemy. He and Nasia personally ensured that none of the transport ships could escape, crashing them with various means.

As the last of the enemies hit the ground, Richard suddenly felt quite emotional. The earth here was beyond destroyed, and all around the central crater were corpses and the remnants of reaper troops. Billowing smoke covered half the sky, but behind it he could still see the less than 10,000 soldiers who were returning to camp. Less than a fifth of his army had survived, and most of the survivors this time were actually the night elves, winter soldiers, arrowbeasts, and other drones. Only 5,000 of the 60,000 living soldiers had returned from this war.

The losses were simply disastrous. Richard had lost half of his 300 rune knights, while seven saints were dead and six more unable to fight again. Almost all of the enhanced winter soldiers were dead, with only a quarter of the normal ones having survived. The evernight elves had the most numbers remaining, but even they lost a fifth of their original 4,000-strong army.

This was Richard’s first time witnessing such crushing losses ever since he took control of the Archeron Family. Even with the victory, he couldn’t bring himself to feel happy at all. Those who were lucky enough to survive seemed to feel no joy either.

Nasia had appeared beside him at some point in time, watching the bleak situation as she patted his back in consolation, “Don’t overthink it. This is war; if we want to beat the reapers back, we have to make our sacrifices. We fought for the rights to live on; if these men didn’t die, everyone behind them would.”

## Ceasefire

Richard shuttled between the major battlefields versus the reaper and gathered all of the wreckage, refining it all into ember essence. The enemy seemed to realise what he was doing, so they shrank their battle lines and almost stopped sending out their warships entirely. Not one to pass up on the opportunity, he sent a stream of scouts and powerhouses into the north to probe them.

The entire plane grew quite peaceful over the next few days, but everyone knew that this was only an omen of greater dangers. Those participating in the battles for points started to grow nervous. Many of them had accumulated a considerable amount of points in the past two battles and could potentially start bidding for divine equipment after the next one, but they knew that the chances of death were proportional to that potential reward. However, only two saints gave up in the end, a testament to the temptation that the weapons posed.

As time passed, Richard eventually decided that the reapers had been inactive for too long a time. He contacted the broodmother to have the scouts head deeper in, and despite a large number of losses they quickly found out that almost the entirety of reaper territory had been abandoned as they withdrew towards their base.

The lands the reapers left behind were completely devoid of life, with criss-crossing trenches dug up everywhere in their search for resources. Richard was shocked when he first saw the sight, knowing that this damage was far greater than even that from the larval forest that was tearing the Land of Turmoil apart.

## Third Wave

The third battle against the reapers thus began. Richard occupied his usual spot at the head of his army, facing the enormous black silhouette that attracted the gaze of everyone below. Both the astral chrysalis and the broodmother were as big or bigger, but Norlanders were far more accustomed to enormous living beings than machines of such size. Although they had already fought in two battles, most of the Archeron warriors paled as they estimated the sheer power that this warship would possess. If a single elephant could kill a hundred of them, then what about this machine that was a hundred times its size?

“The big thing is mine,” Richard’s voice suddenly reverberated throughout the battlefield, “I’ll leave the rest to you.”

The entire battlefield went silent for a few seconds, but someone then bellowed with a hoarse voice, “NO PROBLEM, BOSS!”

“LEAVE IT TO US!” “WE’LL KILL THEM ALL!” “I WON’T FALL BACK UNTIL I DIE!” A sea of roars quickly flooded the battlefield moments later, prompting a smile from Richard as he drew his holy sword and started walking towards the enemy. Every step caused tremors in the ground, the distance covered growing larger and larger until he started zipping through like a bolt of lightning. His figure quickly started to blur as he crossed thousands of metres in a few steps.

Richard’s path left a trail of carnage behind. Everything within ten metres lost control and started shaking, the units on the ground floating up while the warships started spinning around without any way to break free. Both quickly exploded into balls of fire, blood, flesh, and metal forming the road of the Archeron King.

A deafening cheer rang out from the Archeron army as the soldiers realised he had infiltrated successfully, many starting to celebrate with the expectation that it would crash and burn. Although they knew the enemy was powerful, they considered Richard a symbol of invincibility.

After finding another energy core a short distance away, he confirmed that there was no central core or control centre for this thing, and the only way to destroy it from within was to take out all of the individual energy centres. However, that meant he had to blow the entire thing apart, and its design was making that extremely difficult to accomplish from within.

In a way, this scenario reminded him of the broodmother’s methods. She didn’t care for one or even a hundred of her thought nodes, because she had spread thousands all around her body to ensure that there wasn’t a single weak point. The loss from even a full quarter of the centres would only be a minor slowdown of her thought process.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Book 9, Chapter 39
2. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 40
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Book 9, Chapter 41
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Book 9, Chapter 44
5. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 45
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Book 9, Chapter 46
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Book 9, Chapter 47
8. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 53
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Book 9, Chapter 55