What Blackbeard found in the depths of the Ancient Forest wasn't a trap. It took my team of analysts and me much longer to correctly assess the data. But once Eva suggested that the Fleet most probably found a gestation chamber of the Forest Titan, everything started making sense. Buried deep inside the forest, so far out of reach of Vestargo's enemies, lay the places he used to breed his hideous Titans.

  "And, of course, he sacrificed hundreds of innocents to just create one of them..." I sighed loudly in the same moment as the doors to my office opened letting Aoi in. "Bored already?"

  "Sort of." She nodded and loosened her hair as she walked slowly toward me and then huffed in indignation. "I was tired of that cheap imitation of a Dragon."

  She dropped heavily on my lap and put her hands behind my head. I chuckled.

  "Tired?"

  "Honestly, I was annoyed." She leaned on my shoulder. "That... Pitiful lizard thinks it can get away with trying to look like one of my great ancestors which grinds my gears. I wonder what my Grandpa would say if he saw him. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't tolerate it either. Besides, I think he is just weaselling his way out."

  She puffed her cheeks and sighed slightly.

  "Do you think I should have stayed?" I asked, slightly worried that perhaps I had made a mistake.

  "By the Winds, no!" She snorted, honestly amused. "If he knows what's good for him and his doomed people, he should do everything in his power to secure the alliance with Arcadia. However, Lavender needs to get her act together. That silly flower believes she is useless."

  "What's that nonsense?" I nearly groaned.

  "I don't blame you for missing that. She is unbelievably skilled in masking her emotions. If not for Cahrona, I would have missed that as well. Anyway, Lavender has recently become very insecure. She thinks that she is useless."

  "What the hell?" I pinched the bridge of my nose. "If not for her, her Dryads, and the unbelievable amount of hard work they put into Arcadian agriculture, we would have starved like... Half a year ago."

  "You don't have to tell me that." My Dragonkin wife shrugged. "Luna thinks it's a temporary bad mood... Or rather seasonal. In our secret search for the reason for Lavender's bad mood, we reached out to Kirin. He told us that the Dryads were usually inactive during winter. They weren't exactly hibernating, but they rarely left their tree holes. Anyway, she should be fine. In my opinion, she just needs an achievement to brag about. But since she is quite prideful, it can't be just any achievement."

  "Huh..." I leaned my head onto the backrest of my office chair. "So I should wait it out?"

  "That would be for the best." She nodded with a smile. "Don't worry. Amber, Luna, Hestia, Cahrona, and Mia are very intrigued by that self-proclaimed Spirit."

  "Mia?" I asked weakly.

  "Honestly, I don't know if she was joking when she said that she might have a use for the Spirits in IRS or not, but it's better to stay away from it."

  I blinked a few times and decided to drop the subject completely but it was already too late. My treacherous brain has already created an image of Aurus wearing a suit with a clipboard in his claws, asking someone if they paid ‘aalllll..’ their taxes. I closed my eyes and violently shook my head to shake off that image but it was too late.

  "When I entered, you said something about sacrificing hundreds, if not thousands, to create one. What do you mean by that?" She asked with concern.

  "As usual recently." The image that replaced the tax collector Aurus in my head was also cursed but for much different reasons. "Vestargo."

  "Oh..." She slumped down in my arms.

  "I commented to myself about Blackbeard’s latest finding. The Titans' lair."

  "Are you sure it was that?"

  "The more we think about it, the more likely it is." I summoned the map and pictures taken by the Living Armours, making a mental note to develop some sort of video equipment for observation and recording of images. "Additionally, the girls that our boys brought out of the hornet's comb weren't raped. They were also different from the other girls we saved, so far. They had far more mana than it should have been possible for their levels."

  "Another kind of selective breeding?" Aoi trembled slightly.

  "Most probably." I nodded. "High Elves and, surprisingly, Rabbitkins."

  "It's not that surprising if you think about it. Sad, but not surprising." Her voice was hollow as if she tried to imagine what those people had lived through.

  "Fair..." I nodded seriously. The Rabbitkins lived in the former Berna and fled to Navell once the fanatics took over. It was only natural that some of them would have had bad luck and were captured by Vestargo. "But it's so strange..."

  "What?" She looked at me curiously.

  "Vestargo's affinity, or at least his dominant affinity displayed by every single one of his denizens and Titans, is Life, while mine is..."

  I sighed.

  "Death." She said softly.

  "Isn't that ironic?" I smiled crookedly. "I expected someone with the Life affinity to respect life more. Instead, at every corner, Vestargo proves that he detests life."

  "I don't think so." She disagreed instantly. "He deeply cares for his forest and even the animals living within it. He just hates people."

  The doors to my office opened again allowing Freya to enter. The usually cheerful Dwarfess was thoughtful.

  "Something happened?" I asked her as I rubbed Aoi's waist.

  "Not really. I'm just disappointed with that whole Spirit King."

  "You too?" Aoi chuckled.

  "Yeah. He sort of shattered the Spirits' image I had in my head all those years. They are so... Mundane." She threw her hands in disappointment and took a seat near me. "I see that the best seats are taken..."

  "First come, first served!" Aoi giggled and cuddled me tighter.

  "What did you discuss?" Freya asked after she playfully stuck her tongue out at Aoi who responded in kind..

  "What else could we discuss if not our favourite subject for the past four months?" I sighed with a shrug. "Vestargo, of course."

  "Ah, yes..." Freya nodded grimly. "You know, I never managed to finish Starship Troopers. It's not like I'm afraid of bugs but they are gross."

  "Starship Troopers?" Aoi tilted her head in confusion.

  "It's a movie. It's something similar to a theatre play." I explained, seeing one of her eyebrows climbing. "A science fiction story about a conflict between humanity and a huge insectoid species... Yeah... I totally see the similarities."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "How would you fight the bugs if you were the marshal in that movie?" Freya chuckled while Aoi pouted slightly, feeling excluded. "If I remember correctly the first battle was a disaster for Humans."

  "Sending your men to the surface of a hostile planet as they did was stupid. I would nuke the entire planet." I smiled and tapped the edge of the table, zooming in on the map. "Contrary to Starship Troopers, we only have one planet to live on, so if you're suggesting nuking the Ancient Forest, that's a bad idea."

  "Gods, no!" She chuckled dryly. "As much as I detest the disgusting bugs, using nuclear weapons isn't the best idea."

  "That depends on what you want to achieve." I shrugged and looked at the map. The fleet was traversing along the coastline while Vestargo worked to stop Galahad from making any further progress deeper into the woods.

  "I guess." She shrugged grimly but then she smiled. "Fortunately, we don't have nuclear weapons, so we won't be tempted to use them."

  I gave her a long, sad look that made her go completely pale.

  "We DO have nuclear weapons?!"

  "For all intents and purposes, yes." I sighed.

  "Theon, please stop joking! That isn't funny!" Freya trembled and I saw a desperate plea in her eyes, no, a demand for me to tell her it was just a tasteless joke.

  "I'm not joking." I took a deep breath and tapped the table lightly. Once.

  Before our eyes opened a top-secret file folder with a single photo of the prototype of the ICBM missile designed to carry various payloads. But except for the absurdly devastating Armageddon spell, it was also designed to carry other far less complicated rune stones. The file contained a lot of documentation, diagrams and, of course, warhead specifications. I leaned my head over Aoi's chest and felt her calm heartbeat go slightly faster. With a single thought, I summoned one particular file.

  "I didn't even want to create a nuclear weapon, Freya. We just got there by accident." I explained with a heavy heart. "I experimented with fire spells. I wanted to test the limits of control we could achieve with magic. Learn if we could create a fire that we could... I don't know... program it? Or make it die out automatically after, for example, a set amount of time."

  "That's stupid..." Freya summed up. "You can't do that with fire."

  "That's what everyone said and they were wrong." I shrugged. "We learned that we could, basically, adjust everything, nonetheless."

  "What?!" Both of them asked in shocked unison.

  "If we made the flames hotter and allowed them to fuel themselves with the ambient mana, they would burn everything in the area without spreading too much," I explained with a smile. "You know what happens when you change the temperature of the flame?"

  "Ummm... It changes colour?" Freya glanced at Aoi who shook her head in the universal 'I have no clue' gesture.

  "Indeed. By changing the density of the flame itself as well as its temperature, we have recreated a lot of the phenomena I knew back on Earth. It was hard to do back then, but here? It's as easy as sweetening tea. You simply adjust the ingredients as if you were adding sugar to the cup." I said and sighed. "Ultraviolet? Checked. Plasma? Easy enough. So... Why not start checking the extremes in each direction of the spectrum?"

  "I still don't understand how you could accidentally discover nuclear weapons by just tinkering with fire..." Freya relaxed despite my facial expression. "Even I know that nuclear weapons are not simply scaled-up explosions!"

  "Oh, you are absolutely right." I gave her another grim smile. "What do you know about the wave spectrum?"

  "How is that connected with fire?!" She asked, stupefied.

  "Trust me, it's all connected."

  "Okay..."

  "If you put more energy in the same space, you will go past the ultraviolet," I explained, but seeing her flat expression without understanding, I sighed again. "But what if you start playing with Fire and light affinities at the same time? But not Light which should be more accurately called Holy affinity, but illumination-light? It starts getting much worse."

  "I don't get it..." She admitted with furrowed brows.

  "We created lasers, Freya." I sighed. "Microwave length laser. Gamma rays length laser. So the ever-curious Fairies pushed where they shouldn't."

  "I still don't understand." Freya shook her head in morbid curiosity.

  "Ionising radiation, Freya." I sighed. "Stella had no idea what was killing her Fairies in such a horrific manner. I, on the other hand, knew the moment the first one of them died. Acute radiation poisoning. We created nuclear weapons without radioactive materials. Thankfully, the Fairies can simply respawn. I'm glad I never mentioned that to Ian or other Mortals."

  The Dwarfess put her hands together and I saw that she was trembling. She looked helplessly at the diagrams and remaining research material.

  "Don't worry." I sighed again. "I buried that knowledge deep within the Palace Library, in the Secret Archives. I don't plan to use that sort of weapon."

  "But you have it built! It's already waiting to be fired!" She screamed accusingly and pointed at the picture of the Minuteman ICBM.

  "It's not for Vestargo," I smirked. "Once I find a Void portal, I will shove it there. I want to know how they like it. Don't forget that we have much more dangerous enemies than Vestargo."

  "It's terrifying." She lowered her gaze and I fell silent.

  "Why?" Aoi asked softly.

  Without a word, I summoned the report that described the slow and painful death of one of the Fairies. She needed just a couple of minutes to read it wholly.

  "That's horrible..." Aoi whispered as she hugged me tightly. "Why didn't the healing spells work?"

  "Because without removing the source of poisoning, sometimes including removing the rotting organs, it is impossible to just heal this. In theory, it's possible to regenerate destroyed tissues and heal radiation poisoning with advanced magic, but we have to test the theory. In fact, Stella and the Faé were so fascinated that they started experimenting without my authorization. I allowed them to finish their tests but, from now on, they have to be careful and are forbidden to use Ionising Radiation-based spells without my personal authorization."

  "You are not as angry as I expected you would be..." Freya diplomatically leaned back in her chair.

  "I would have been furious if they weren't doing it in the fully sealed, spatial extension of the underground laboratory." I sighed powerlessly as I pinched the bridge of my nose. "The entire thing was so irradiated that the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was cold in comparison."

  "What?!" Freya looked directly at the floor in fear.

  "The key words here were sealed and spatial, my Dear." I allowed myself a smile. "I closed it and, fortunately, that purged it completely. So there is no risk of spreading the hot material everywhere. Stella and Faé have a complete ban on playing with Ionising Radiation. Nonetheless, they successfully created a combined spell and potion therapy to cure the radiation poisoning. But that shit is no joke and I really would like to avoid that."

  "Shouldn't we warn the people not to play with it?" Aoi asked, terrified.

  "God, no!" I turned my head at her in alarm. "If you warn them about the danger, they will learn that manipulation of fire properties is even possible in the first place! That's the first step for idiots to start doing things they shouldn't. Most probably in the basement of their homes, endangering entire communities. No. That's a terrible idea. Fairies created a magical equivalent of Geiger counters that detect the entire range of radiation and microwave emissions, and it's already integrated into the Guardsmen's equipment with the entire list of orders on what to do in case they detect anything."

  "But..." Aoi hesitated and sighed heavily. "Oh, I get it. It's not because you think that our people are not ready for that knowledge but you think that some of them will be irresponsible. As much as I hate it, you are right. Some people are morons..."

  "I'm glad that you don't want to argue." I smiled sadly. "Even in Arcadia we have an abundance of clowns and idiots."

  "You don't have to tell me!" Aoi sighed. "Do you remember Cortney His'na and her group? You know, that Dragonkin girl that tried to usurp my power and take all my people from Avalon? Finally, from her group of two hundred people, only fifty remained. They left Avalon a week ago, and they are struggling to rebuild the village they chose for themselves."

  "But... It's still winter!" Freya slowly shook her head in disbelief.

  "See? See?" I threw my arms into the air. "They are proving my point."

  "Fine, fine." Aoi smiled and turned away from the files about the ICBM, our experiments with fire, and radiation. "You were talking about Vestargo."

  "Indeed." I sighed. "I wondered how I could increase the pressure on him."

  Both women looked at themselves in silence.

  "I'm afraid that the only thing that you could do is to allow us to lead the Guardsmen into the battle," Aoi said quietly. "But even then it's not guaranteed that we would make a significant difference. The area is still huge."

  "I hope that I don't have to tell you that's not even an option?"

  "Don't worry-"

  Suddenly, all alarms started blaring, and the large window opened in the middle of my war table. I looked calmly at Blackbeard, still holding Aoi on my lap.

  "I really hope you have found something important enough that would justify using the highest level alarm, Blackbeard," I said calmly, allowing Aoi to stand up with dignity before I stood up myself and put my hands behind.

  "A Dungeon, my Lord." The large pirate smiled widely.

  "Very well." I smiled equally widely. "Status?"

  "We would appreciate the presence of a Scion, Sir."

  "So would I..." I said with a grin as I mobilised Legio Aeigs, Morrigan, Thor, and Arani with a mental command. "Send us your coordinates and wait for the reinforcement."

  "Yes, Sir!"

  Thank you all for reading.

  I wish you all a great day and as always I wait for your comments.

  A big thanks to who edited the chapter!

  The map of Aderon is on my Discord :)

  https://discord.gg/G6SVrBeDdG