Chapter 782: Upgrading The Territory Some More [Bonus - ]

Chapter 782: Upgrading The Territory Some More [Bonus Chapter]

He raised his right hand and stretched his open palm toward the four cannons... Silas reached out with his mind and pulled them into his Inventory.

VWOOMP!

The four star iron cannons, along with their carriages and all twelve heavy crates of Solenne’s shells, vanished off the skids in the blink of an eye.

FWIP!

The platform was left completely empty except for a few loose wisps of packing straw drifting down through the warm air.

Thora stood frozen with her mouth hanging open as she stared at the empty platform.

She looked down at the floor, looked back up at the empty space, and then slowly turned her head toward Silas with a long aggrieved grunt.

"Right," Thora muttered, dragging a soot-blackened hand down her face. "I keep forgetting you’ve got an invisible warehouse up your sleeve... Show-off."

"Work smart, not hard, Thora," Silas chuckled, nodding toward the workshop doors. "The first four cannons are already up on the walls from what I was told this morning, and we can set these new ones up right beside them... Come on, girls. Let’s take a walk."

"True, because I hauled them up there yesterday with Brida’s help," Thora grunted. "That woman carried two of them up the stairs at once... I really want to be strong too."

"You’ll be strong one day, once you stop being the size of my shoe~"

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

The group filed out through the doors and passed back through the roaring heat of the main foundry.

As they stepped out through the heavy gates of the Titan’s Anvil, the crisp mountain wind hit them like a splash of cold spring water.

The thick sulfurous heat clinging to their cloaks quickly blew away, replaced by the clean sharp smell of pine bark, wet stone and fresh snow.

The path wound gently uphill through the heart of Blessed Land.

Silas took the lead with his long easy strides cutting a clean trail through the fresh powder covering the stone pavers.

The snow was falling in slow fat flakes from the gray sky, dusting the dark gray fur on his collar with bright white specks.

Behind them, the clanging of the forge faded little by little until all they could hear was the crunch of their own boots.

Bounding through the snowdrifts right beside him was Lupina.

The wolf-girl was completely in her element, her silver ears twitching back and forth to catch every distant bird call and falling icicle.

She’d sprint ten paces ahead, bury her face in an untouched snowbank with an excited snort, shake the powder out of her silver hair with a full-body shudder and then jog backward through the drifts just so she could look up at Silas with a broad happy grin.

"Lord Silas! Look at the snow over by the creek!" Lupina chirped, pointing a clawed finger toward the frosted bank where small winter hares were darting between the frozen reeds a bit beyond the walls. "When we’re done with the cannons, can we go hunting out there? Just you and me? I can track them through the drifts and chase them right into your arms!"

"We’ve got a raid to run in Aki’s territory today, Lupina," Silas replied with an amused chuckle, reaching over to ruffle the soft fur between her wolf ears. "And if you keep bouncing around like an overgrown puppy, you’re going to burn all your energy before we even get to the runes..."

Lupina leaned into his hand with a soft blissful whine, her bushy tail wagging so hard it kicked little sprays of snow against his boots.

"I’ve got plenty of energy for you, Lord Silas!"

A few paces behind them, Morrighan and Thora were walking side by side.

The demon had her hands tucked behind the small of her back, her posture straight and composed, while the short dwarf stomped along beside her, crushing the frozen slush into mud.

"Your smiths did good work on those carriages, dwarf," Morrighan said, her smoky voice quiet and steady against the wind. "The bracing looks solid enough to take the kick..."

"Of course it’s solid, demon!" Thora barked proudly, puffing on a small clay pipe she’d fished out of her apron pocket.

Thin trails of blue smoke curled up into the frost. "We don’t build toys... Give my smiths good ore, and we’ll forge gates that can stop a dragon’s breath."

"Just make sure the pins don’t jam when the temperature drops tonight," Morrighan said dryly. "Metal shrinks in the cold."

"I used winter grease on the threads, you gloomy horned lizard!" Thora snapped back, though a fond toothy grin gave her away. "I’ve been working iron since before your grandmother sprouted her first tooth...!"

Further back along the path, Aurelia and Rowenna walked arm in arm, their boots crunching softly in the packed snow.

The Saintess had pulled the white hood of her mantle up over her hair, and her golden-amber eyes were bright and peaceful as she looked around at the snowy valley.

Beside her, Rowenna kept her head slightly bowed, her shy blue eyes darting toward the people they passed. Off-duty girls were shoveling snow off their doorsteps, and every one of them waved warmly at their Lord as the group went by.

"It’s so quiet today, Rowenna," Aurelia said gently, her breath puffing in small white clouds. "Even after all that noise in the arena this morning, the whole place feels so peaceful under the snow..."

"I-it really does," Rowenna whispered, her fingers fidgeting with the brooches along the collar of her coat. "Everyone looks so happy here."

"He takes such good care of all of us, doesn’t he?" Aurelia smiled softly, a fond blush warming her cheeks as she watched Silas’s broad back up ahead.

"He does," Rowenna agreed in a tiny breathless murmur, her eyes dropping to the snow as her heart fluttered. "He really cares about every single one of us..."

Gliding along at Silas’s right side, completely unbothered by the cold, was Solenne.

She’d gathered up her robes with one hand to keep the hem clear of the drifts, while her nine fluffy tails swayed behind her in a wide fan.

Every few steps, the silky tip of one tail would brush lightly against the back of Silas’s hand and tease his knuckles with a lingering velvety stroke that made his fingers twitch.

Silas glanced sideways at her and raised an eyebrow at the sly tilt of her lips.

"Are your tails always this restless, Solenne, or are you trying to distract me on purpose?" Silas asked.

Solenne let out a light musical giggle that drifted across the snow like silver chimes.

"My tails have a mind of their own in the cold, Lord Silas," Solenne purred, her ears flicking toward him with playful innocence. "They just go looking for warmth and with that furnace you carry around in your chest, can you really blame them?"

"I might just have to gather all nine of them up and wear them as a scarf," Silas said with a wicked lopsided smirk.

Solenne’s golden eyes flared with a hungry spark.

"You’re more than welcome to try, my Lord. I just can’t promise I’ll let you go once you’re wrapped up in them..."

’Just look at him teasing me,’ Solenne thought, her heart skipping a beat as a soft purr rumbled deep in her chest. ’So cute~’

They crested the rise and left the houses behind as the path opened up toward the wall.

To their left, the spirit trees stood tall and beautiful, their frost-dusted boughs glowing with gentle pulses of pale blue light.

Their leaves chimed softly in the wind and shed faint sparks of mana that drifted down and melted into the snow.

Lupina tried to catch one of the sparks on her tongue and sneezed when it fizzled out, and Aurelia laughed so hard she had to stop walking for a moment and lean on Rowenna’s arm.

Beyond the grove, stretching across the ridge, rose the walls of Blessed Land.

The Steel-Weave Palisade towered fifty feet into the falling snow.

Its face was a wall of thick interlocking plates of heavy black steel, bolted together with rows of iron rivets, and geometric defensive runes ran across the plates and pulsed with a slow steady blue glow.

The snow didn’t stick to it though... The flakes melted the moment they touched the runes and ran down the steel in thin wet lines.

Towering fifty feet above the main gates stood the Blood-Iron Watchtower.

Its dark reddish iron frame rose high over the gatehouse, capped with an enclosed observation deck, and narrow slits looked out over the wilderness beyond.

Up along its parapet were the archers of the Bow-Splitter division, their long bows resting under oiled leather covers to keep out the frost.

Silas and the girls climbed the wide stairway on the inner side of the gatehouse with their boots clattering on the salted steps.

When he reached the walkway at the top, Silas walked up to the edge of the battlements and rested his forearms on the cold frosted steel.

The wind was much stronger up here.

It howled across the open walkway with a bitter freezing bite and whipped their cloaks out behind them.

Silas glanced back over his shoulder. From up here, the whole of Blessed Land spread out behind them under the snow, the dark roofs of the barracks and houses, the smoke rising off the Titan’s Anvil, the soft blue glow of the spirit trees and, at the top of it all, the Keep sitting proudly on its rise with every window lit.

Figures were moving along the paths between the buildings, and somewhere down there, someone was laughing loud enough for the wind to carry it all the way up to the wall.

In front of them, past the foot of the wall, stretched the wild forbidding expanse of the Umbral Basin.

It was a bleak dangerous landscape of jagged black rock, twisted petrified forests and swirling blizzards, hiding countless dens of beasts and monsters that were always testing the edges of the territory...

Silas turned his head and looked down the length of the walkway.

The first four cannons he had bought were in their places, two sitting over the gate and two on the sides with their dark barrels pointing out at the Basin.

They’d done their job well but standing here in the cold, with the four new cannons sitting in his Inventory, the wall suddenly looked a little bare.

Beside the gatehouse, the Blood-Iron Watchtower cast a long shadow over the walkway.

Silas looked it all over, the black steel plates, the glowing runes, the tower and the archers keeping watch on top of it.

"It’s a solid wall," Silas murmured, tapping his fingers against the cold steel. "It’s kept everyone safe, and it’s stopped everything the Umbral Basin has thrown at us so far..."

He paused and looked out toward the jagged black ridges in the distance, and a faint golden gleam lit up in his dark blue eyes.

"It’s good," Silas said softly, the wind catching his dark hair. "But I want a bit more."

He turned his attention inward and checked his Upgrade Points.

His balance was sitting comfortably at 78,450 UP.

A slow grin spread across his face.

’I can afford it.’

Beside him, Morrighan’s molten gold eyes slid over to his face. She’d seen that grin before.

Her tail gave a slow curious sway behind her, and she quietly took a step back to give him room.

The freezing mountain wind howled across the battlements, sweeping up loose flurries of powder and whistling through the gaps in the steel with a sharp biting edge.

Silas stood tall against the gale, his dark hair ruffled by the gusts, and looked down the length of the black steel wall.

It was solid, but after staring out into the Umbral Basin and thinking about the kind of things that crawled out of those dark valleys, solid didn’t feel like enough anymore.

Behind him, the girls stood in a loose cluster.

Lupina was shifting her weight from foot to foot with her wolf ears pinned flat against her hair to keep out the draft, while Thora tapped the stem of her clay pipe against her palm and left a tiny smudge of gray ash on her thumb.

Solenne’s nine silver tails had curled around her waist like a warm curtain of fur, and Rowenna was hugging her notebook to her ribs, her breath rising in thin white clouds.

Silas turned his gaze to the wall, and a translucent golden window flickered open in front of his eyes.

[Upgrade System: Would you like to upgrade Tier 3 Steel-Weave Palisade to Tier 4 Runeforged Bulwark?]

[Cost: 1,200 UP]

[Current Balance: 78,450 UP]

"Confirm..."

A second window opened right beneath the first as his eyes moved to the tower standing over the gate.

[Upgrade System: Would you like to upgrade Tier 3 Blood-Iron Watchtower to Tier 4 Crimson Sentinel Spire?]

[Cost: 900 UP]

[Current Balance: 77,250 UP]

"Confirm..."

[Current Balance: 76,350 UP]

The moment the numbers settled, the whole ridge under their feet gave a deep violent shudder.

RUMMMMBLE!