Simon used the time it took to march to Valendre to further experiment with level transfers, if only to distract himself from his grief.

The first thing he did was to test if he could use the Gladiator Class again now that he had transferred the levels away, only for the same System error to show up once more. It seemed that the Worldsoul retained a ‘memory’ of the Vassal Class in some way and still noticed the ‘bug.’ This put a damper on Simon’s hopes that he could just keep grinding the same Vassal Classes over multiple reigns to strengthen his stats.

After that failure, Simon then borrowed Hector’s Executioner Crestone, killed a captive warbeast with it to gain two levels—they had plenty of those—and then transferred them to the Berserker. This actually pushed the latter to level 3.

Level 3 Berserker Perk: Runic I (Passive): You can learn and cast Tier I Runic spells.

Quite ironic that the Berserker Class could cast spells of all things. Simon had heard the Class’ namesake and inspiration came from mad warriors who went into battle either naked or tattooed in an act of holy fury, and that some would even sacrifice a body part to gain wisdom. This may have translated into knowledge of Runic spells in the Worldsoul’s collective consciousness.

However, Simon immediately identified a certain issue: namely, he had gained no stat increase from the Executioner.

Simon could warrant a guess as to why: he had already gained three levels in Gladiator, which belonged to the Berserker lineage. Since Vassals were subsets of the greater Noble archetype, it was possible that the System somehow treated them all as the same Class. He couldn’t gain stats from any Berserker Vassal until he surpassed the highest level ceiling he had unlocked yet in that particular lineage, namely level four.

Transferring experience from a Vassal Class to the Noble one doesn’t cut me off from all the others of the same lineage, at the very least, Simon thought. Remedia had already proved it, but he wasn’t sure how it would have interacted with his own situation. Which means I can progress in multiple Vassal Classes and then dump all their levels at once.

However, the limit with this strategy remained clear: he could only progress in a given Vassal Class for a single reign before losing access to it. The Berserker might also become unavailable to him after this one too, though Simon should still be able to consume its innate Perks.

In the end, Simon decided to hand the Noble Crestone over to Hector, who thanked him for the honor and then transferred his Executioner levels into fifty Berserker ones. Simon then asked him quite a few pointed questions about his Perks to gain a good idea of them.

Overall, the Berserker provided increasing benefits while berserk, from improved offense after taking a wound or various forms of damage reduction to higher chances of inflicting critical hits. They achieved perfect weapon proficiency very early compared to other martial Classes–at the cost of Slaughterer punishing them for using armor or shields–progressed in runic magic at a steady pace, had a chance to inflict Instadeath with any critical hit like its Executioner Vassal, and they could gain bonuses from inspiring fear or awe from onlookers like the Gladiator. They also had Perks that helped with destroying buildings and fortifications, turning them into living siege engines, and even gained increasing resistance to various forms of elemental damage.

In short, the Berserker was optimized to massacre people in melee. It was a martial terror whose only real weakness was its lack of range and indiscriminate rage.

Simon would have happily plundered it for Perks had he chosen to focus on a martial build like his father, but he would rather use his limited Devour Crestone slots to acquire something with much greater utility or something that suited his strengths better. Vouivre was right, he was more of a spellcaster and crafter than a straight up fighter-type.

Of course, his encounter with Bert had taught him the danger of relying too much on magic. Simon was still interested in martial Perks to cover that deficiency, but something that let him master techniques like the Monk or Warrior—should he ever manage to take that Crestone from Louis—would suit him better.

After taking Beleth and converting most of its population into more dragonkin, the army split in two, with one force under Redhand marching south into the imperial heartlands, and another invading Valendre under Simon and Vouivre’s leadership. Their forces flew straight for the Lighthouse and then set camp on the plains surrounding it. The holy tower of the Water Manalith was just as majestic as Simon remembered it, its summit soaring into the sky and past the clouds. Its beauty made him nostalgic, for though it had ended somewhat terribly, Simon had appreciated his time with the Templars there.

Are you watching us from the tower’s top, High Confessor? Simon wondered as he surveyed the terrain from atop his phantom steed alongside Casval. Melusine’s mermaids had sunk a few ships below its waterfall and blockaded its port, while the dragonkin had set the local farmlands ablaze and brought down an airship trying to intercept the army. The tower was more or less surrounded. How long can you weather the storm from up there?

A telepathic call from Shabram informed him that the Lighthouse’s occupants had at least sounded the alarm.

“Prince Dassein and Lord Maublanc teleported back to Frightwall alongside the Rider Corps and are flying straight to the Lighthouse to relieve the siege, alongside Empress Euphemia,” she informed him. “They departed this morning.”

Simon scowled in unease. He knew his family would retaliate against the incursion, but he wasn’t looking forward to fighting them, especially Euphemia. “How long until they arrive?”

“A day or two, maybe less. Commander Maublanc’s abilities let him hasten and quicken all his troops.”

In short, they should expect a battle in a few hours at the earliest. They needed to at least neutralize the Lighthouse’s forces before then or risk fighting a battle on two fronts. Vouivre had seemed confident they could end the siege quickly, but she had yet to show up for some time.

Simon and Casval eventually returned to the command center on top of a nearby hill. His coven of witches was gathered around a large crystal ball in deep meditation under his other retainers’ supervision. A large group of scalefolk and dragonkin soldiers had taken position around an enormous artifact nearby, waiting for their leader to emerge from it.

“–Granny prefers babies, sweetie, but she will eat any meat for you,” Granny Radhag told Cassandra. “She can bake the cake, too. Granny swears that one won’t bite.”

“Would a rabbit with mustard be alright?” Cassandra asked, completely undisturbed by the baby comment. “My father has a soft spot for it.”

“I could find some antlion larvae too,” Pallian suggested. “They’re very sweet when cooked in honey.”

“What are you talking about?” Simon asked upon landing.

“My friends insist we hold a dinner for my birthday, Your Majesty,” Cassandra replied calmly. “You and Lord Casval are cordially invited.”

“Is it Floreal already?” Simon wondered out loud. The last two months had passed in a blur. “I will think about it, but stay focused on your southern divinations for now. I have received confirmation that a relief force has been sent from Frightwall. They might encounter our scouts before long.”

Cassandra and her coven nodded, then focused back on their work. Simon walked up alongside Casval to the scalefolk side of the camp, where reptilian soldiers kept watch over a massive black box the size of a large cart. As befitting of Gargauth’s greatest treasure, the Chest of Worlds was ostentatious as it was sinister. Crafted from a dark alloy of unknown origins, gilded at the edges and bound by thorny silver chains, its lock was a baleful draconic skull holding a huge, iridescent gemstone within its jaws. Pictures of Gargauth portrayed in various glorious endeavors—burning manatrees, devouring Mardok, and conquering new lands—were carved all over its surface.

Most importantly, the sheer miasma radiating from it matched that of a Zodiac Fiend’s Dungeons. Gargauth must have used his Overlord Perks and similar magic to create this device.

“How long until your sister comes out?” Simon asked Casval.

“I do not know,” Casval admitted, his dragon form crouched like an anxious cat. “She has never vanished for so long, and she forbade me from opening the lid.”

Simon could only see one reason why Vouivre would risk taking the Chest of Worlds with them so close to the frontlines or reveal its existence to Simon: whatever she intended to bring out of it would be too heavy for her to carry herself in spite of her own immense strength, nor disguised. That, or she was confident Simon wouldn’t be able or willing to take the chest from her.

Simon tensed up as the box shuddered and shook on its own. A whirring click echoed as the chains retreated into the dragon skull lock.

“She’s back,” Casval said, “I wonder what she’ll bring out this ti–”

The Chest of Worlds’ lid snapped open and magic poured out.

A torrent of miasma and mana alike erupted from it in such enormous quantities they became visible in the air, swirling like a whirlpool of raw magic that threw everyone nearby back, blew away tents, and sent the coven’s crystal ball rolling. Simon himself nearly stumbled in surprise, though Casval shielded him from the wind with his wing.

The vortex coming out of the chest grew large enough to shadow the entire camp and warped the very fabric of space at the edges. A sense of vertigo overwhelmed Simon when he looked at it, like he was only a step away from falling into the void. A great shadow began to emerge from it, unfolding like paper.

Simon first mistook it for a tower of metal, before realizing it was the long end of a mechanical tube similar to the weapon Renal used against him in Cocagne, yet a thousand times bigger. The monstrous machine took shape on the hill, crushing any scalefolk unlucky enough to find themselves beneath it, its sheer mass causing it to shake and slightly flatten the earth under its pressure.

“Back off!” Simon ordered his troops and they ran away from the emerging contraption. They rushed down the hill as the machine finished manifesting.

Once the storm calmed and the chest’s lid closed, a true marvel of technological terror was now throned atop the half-crumbled hill. Nearly two hundred feet long and built from the same black and gilded metal that Gargauth crafted his chest with, it resembled a massively thick metal tube built atop a multi-floor cart; except this one had tracks instead of wheels, two small cranes at the back to support it, and a control platform at the top. A painted dragon skull, which Simon recognized as Gargauth’s former emblem, was painted with gold on its side.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

However, the most surprising sight of all was Vouivre. She was back in human form at the machine’s feet, her face drenched in blood and with her hand holding a charred patch of flesh on the side of her chest. Her wounds were already regenerating and healing, yet the mere fact that she came back so damaged after a quick dive into the chest…

“What happened?” Simon asked, slightly unnerved.

“One of my father’s toys proved troublesome, but I at least gained a few levels out of it… and a weapon worthy of me.” Vouivre smirked ear to ear once her wounds healed, her hand touching the metal hide. “A Miasma Cannon.”

Of course Gargauth put guardians inside his pocket plane to protect his hoard, Simon guessed, his scowl deepening. He had hoped he could just seize his Abyssal Chronicle inside the moment he stepped into it. If they are strong enough to wound Vouivre, they might be beyond me for now… though discreet infiltration is always an option over brute force.

Putting those thoughts aside, Simon studied the Miasma Cannon. His Devil Forgemaster Perk immediately recognized it as a highly advanced piece of artillery similar to a ballista, except using raw focused miasma rather than projectiles like a ballista did. More worrying, his Perk also told him it had been built to integrate into a larger weapon platform down the line in spite of its already enormous size…

“Come here, Overlord Simon,” Vouivre all but ordered him as she jumped over to the control panel on the top of the machine in a single, inhuman leap.

Simon warily followed her with Darkflight until he landed on a small, rounded platform with a control panel with buttons and levels adapted for troll-sized creatures. Two slots were set in the center, with one occupied by the Two-Tailed Fish’s crystal.

“Now, place your crystal into that slot,” Vouivre said, pointing at the empty one. “We will bombard the Lighthouse with my cannon. A few shots ought to cause them to surrender.”

“It might not be a good idea,” Simon warned her. Although he was wary of it, he decided to inform her of the Church of the Light’s shameful secret before she accidentally caused a disaster. “The Lighthouse is built atop an abyssal gate. It is sealed, but if we damage the Water Megalith–”

“I know,” Vouivre replied dismissively. “It will have no impact. My father’s notes indicate the gate cannot be opened until the Five Sovereigns that first sealed it gather to grant their blessings.”

The Five Sovereigns? Those must have been the eidolons that helped the great Basileus form the seal. Simon squinted at her. “Gargauth knew about the gate?”

“He intended to drain the Abyss’ energies to power a miasma-powered weaponry bigger than this cannon,” Vouivre replied calmly. “He then planned to scour all life from the surface once the comet arrived to empower his devices.”

The horror of that statement slowly sank into his heart, echoing with some of Gargauth’s own words he had heard during his Dark Visionary ascendency.

“My existence alone is sufficient! I shall consume all life in this world until all is mine, mine alone! Now and forever, there is only Gargauth!”

“Those… those attempts to burn manatrees and exterminate all other dragons off the face of the continent…” Simon took a deep breath. “Those were practice runs?”

Vouivre nodded sharply. “My father was ruled by his fear and greed. The mere thought that he had to share the world with anyone repulsed him. Manatrees, humans, elves, animals… he would have eradicated them all in one final campaign of extermination, then used an army of golems and constructs to loot every resource and treasure this world had to offer, before repeating the process across the planes and beyond.”

The sheer scale of Gargauth’s selfishness and insanity sent chills down Simon’s spine. That heartless creature had been as worthy of his Overlord title as the demon and monster in human skin that came before and after him. Balzam Magnos might have unironically saved the world when he slew the dragon.

“Wait, if he intended to exterminate all life except himself…” Simon faced Vouivre. “Would that have included you and Casval?”

Vouivre scowled, but didn’t deny it. “We were born to be harvested,” she said evasively, before dismissing it. “It does not matter. Our father was consumed by fear, but I am stronger. Scouring this world of life would be a waste. There would be no one left to worship us.”

She was saner than her sire at least, which wasn’t a high bar. Simon powered through his unease and summoned his Dungeon crystal before placing it into the empty slot. Miasma coursed through the cannon in response, like a beast stirring from a long slumber.

“Mmm… not potent enough for a fully powered shot, but sufficient.” Vouivre pressed one of the enormous buttons with strength belying her smaller human frame. Purple light began to build up inside the cannon, like a dragon inhaling before it unleashed its fiery breath. “Witness… our victory!”

Death erupted from the cannon in a blinding beam of power.

The twin crystals’ ionized miasma gathered into a pure, focused ray of purple energy that soared across the landscape in a flash. It struck the top of the Lighthouse in an instant, clearing its clouds and wiping out a good chunk of its centuries-old facade while at it. Violet smoke and dust was pulverized into the air and blown away by the wind.

This… this is a fortress buster, Simon realized to his horror, while Vouivre grinned ear to ear. A shot of that thing could blast a keep’s outer walls and its towers while at it. And Gargauth has bigger weapons stashed away? Why wouldn’t he use them during his reign? Or… or he did use them in a previous timeline, and it went so bad he preferred to bide his time for the comet to arrive to wipe civilization in one final cleansing?

Simon was so mesmerized by the destruction that he missed Vouivre’s hand going for his head. She seized his jaw in the blink of an eye and then pulled him to hers before he could manifest his Class outfit.

She kissed him while the beam kept blasting the Lighthouse.

This… this was the most painful kiss he had ever experienced, because Vouivre used her teeth to bite into his lips deep enough to taste his blood. There was no love, no tenderness, no softness to it; just an animal marking its territory with voracious hunger. Simon struggled between disgust, revulsion, and a strange, primitive sense of animal arousal.

Vouivre pushed him back as the beam died out, tasting his acidic blood as if it were a mere delicacy. “Spicy,” she said, “Tasty.”

“What the Abyss was that?!” Simon asked, immediately putting his armor on for protection.

“A warning. If I taste or smell another’s saliva on those lips, I’ll kill them.” It wasn’t a threat, but a statement. “I decided that you would be mine, and I do not share.”

“I do not remember giving my consent to this!” Simon protested.

“I do not care,” Vouivre replied bluntly, clenching her fist. “I always have what I want eventually. Accept your fate.”

What the… was she lusting after him? Had her draconic greed and humanoid disguise somehow melded into a bestial craving?

Wait. Casval said that dragons usually impressed each other by showing off their hoard, and Vouivre did things such as gather all of her slaves in front of him or showcase her Chest of Worlds’ contents…

Had she been flirting with him all this time?

Worse, she had kissed him in public. Casval in particular looked at them with a look that seemed almost… outraged? It was almost a relief when Lorimor flew up to them with news.

“We have received a message from Queen Melusine,” he warned, “A fleet is approaching us from the west; a single airship alongside a large group of galleys and caravels.”

Both Simon and Vouivre immediately tensed up. “From the west?” That didn’t make any sense to Simon. “How could they deploy a naval fleet from the west?”

“Odd that they would only deploy a single airship to escort it too,” Vouivre commented, squinting. “A feint?”

“It might be,” Simon conceded, lacking an explanation for this. Had Lord Maublanc kept a secret force hidden from Shabram near Magvolia? “I know Euphemia, Maublanc, and Dassein have departed Frightwall to relieve the Lighthouse, but they shouldn’t have arrived so quickly.”

Vouivre pondered the situation before saying, “If they only have one airship, a small squad of flyers should take it out quickly. Melusine and the others can sink the rest easily enough.”

“I will go deal with them and teleport back to the cannon should anything happen,” Simon replied. His gut told him there was more to this mysterious fleet than a mere decoy. “I will relay information to my troops here.”

“And if the Rider Corps shows up, I will annihilate them,” Vouivre concluded before relaying orders to their troops. “Chain the Magnos prince to the cannon. Our enemies may hesitate attacking it at the risk of harming him, if I can trust Overlord Simon’s strategy.”

It was a brutal ploy, but an effective one.

Either way, Simon climbed onto his phantom steed and then departed with a squad of flyers including thirty dragonkin, a handful of fake kish, four demodragons, Lorimor, and Casval. That should be plenty enough to deal with the airship and then bombard the fleet from above.

“I swear it was unexpected,” Simon informed Casval as they flew west side by side, riding the winds towards the ocean. The sunlight reflected on the surface and the wrecks of ships taken down by the merfolk. Their fins often peeked out of the water. “Your sister is… strange.”

He had spent enough time with Casval to recognize the way a dragon pouted. “Is it true that in friendship, friends come before girls?”

A long and terrible silence followed Simon as he processed those words. “What do you mean by that?”

“My sister is trying to steal you away, Friend Simon,” Casval complained. “I do find your mammalian features disgusting, but I will power through it if I must–”

“No, no, that is a metaphor!” Simon insisted. By the Light, what did he imagine? “Friendship does not require physical contact!”

“Oh.” Casval tilted his head slightly. “I am relieved.”

Me too, Casval. Simon cast his buffs as he always did. He would work on a single cursebuff that could apply them all as soon as he completed his Dispel and Recall spell variants.

“It is weird, though,” Casval admitted. “If my sister isn’t trying to steal you away, why would she kiss you?”

“She wants to own me,” Simon replied.

“She owns many slaves, but I’ve never seen her kiss one. She must be curious what will happen if she mates in human form. I’ve heard it is pleasurable.” Casval squinted at Simon with curiosity. “If she mounts you in her squishy human form and lays an egg, what would come out? A dragon, or a human?”

Asking the hard questions there, Simon thought, being desperate to escape this conversation. “I don’t want to think about that possibility, Casval.”

“Me neither, friend Simon, but we might have to.”

It didn’t take long for them to see the fleet on the horizon. As Melusine warned them, they came from the west, great shadows shrouded in a thick fog. Simon counted dozens, if not a hundred or more.

That’s odd, the morning mist should have cleared by now, Simon thought when he observed it. His Dark Visionary sight let him detect a huge amount of miasma coming from the fog, meaning it was the result of a spell. Did they shroud the fleet in order to disguise their real numbers?

While the mist covered the ships below, the single airship above remained fully exposed… and completely unrecognizable. Simon was extensively familiar with all of his family’s personal vessels and Endymion’s standard one, yet this… this one was odd. It looked much, much closer to a metal bird than the average airship, with an elongated, black and teal body, and much longer, thinner wings on the side. Its tail had metal fins, and its body seemed to include more than one deck piled upon one another. The front was somewhat rounded, with a visor-like window that reminded Simon of an eagle’s face for some reason.

More worryingly, the deck’s flanks were equipped with dozens of smaller copies of Vouivre’s cannons rather than spots for firemages to occupy. There was no way they could inflict as much damage as their own artillery considering their tiny size, especially without miasma crystals to fuel them, but their presence left Simon puzzled.

I’ve never seen this airship in any reign, nor heard of it, Simon thought, wracking his brain about its source. Is this some hidden weapon Louis and Euphemia uncovered? It doesn’t make any sense–

And then it clicked.

“It’s the Adventurer,” Simon realized. “It’s the Adventurer’s airship.”

“What?” Casval asked in confusion.

“That’s not Endymion, that’s the Adventurer’s musan airship!” Simon replied, looking down at the fog below. “And that fleet belongs to the Necromancer!”

His suspicions were confirmed the moment he got a closer look at the ships below, seeing their rotten masts and hole-filled sails manned by skeletons, ghosts, and other undead. An entire fleet of the undying was sailing straight for the Lighthouse. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

“What are they doing here?” Casval wondered. “Did they come to help us? The Necromancer works with the Cobweb, no?”

“He left it.” Simon only had to take a glance at the false kish flying with them to warrant a guess as to why these two had come. “I think… I think they’ve come to free the shifters.”

“Oh, good.” Casval nodded with anticipation. “Then we can take their Crestones.”

A voice suddenly echoed from the bird-like airship through loudspeakers, so loud the wind carried all the way to Simon’s squadron. It was booming and enthusiastic, with a clearly Lorean accent.

“Surrender, villains!” she ordered. “The leading woman is here, and she burns with justice!”

And then Simon heard her.

Her song boomed out of the airship, so melodious and yet so filled with anger and indignation, it shook Simon to his core. The notes caused the dragonkin to cry and twitch, like sleepwalkers suddenly jolted back to reality.

Eole had begun to sing her people awake.