“I demand you unhand me at once!” Sir Fesspot roared, now covered in smoking burns as gold bands were wrapped around him and all four of the now hogtied and blindfolded goblins. Fesspot’s tweed jacket seemed to boil as if it had been sewn together with fibers far less stable than wool.

  The souls of his victims, Elonia uncharitably thought.

  “Unhand me, or you will be at war with the entire Terran—”

  His words cut off when Caliban abruptly clapped. “Listen to your own messages, fool!” He snapped, before turning to address Elonia, desperately trying to hold her own composure, even having known this was coming… just not realizing it would be THIS bad. That she would come this close to absolute peril.

  “You Grace! I have excellent news! The Terran Council, whom we have granted a direct transmission of the threat in question, in addition to our hoped means of countering it… has now offered temporary armistice to one Ernest ‘Edgelord’ Slaughter, and is eager to work with our factions to devise a multilateral solution to the existential threat we now face! Should all involved parties make good faith efforts to contain the locust problem… then the Terran Council will consider the matter adjourned.”

  Elonia blinked. “Wait, seriously? After their own appointed la—”

  Caliban raised his hand, flashing a bleak smile. “Lord Smith has just made it clear that one Sir Fesspot retroactively lost all legitimacy and rank within the Terran Counsel an unspecified time ago. In short, he was acting independently, as a rogue agent, and we should feel free to punish him for his transgressions to the fullest extent of our local law.”

  Sir Fesspot’s bluster froze to a startled gasp.

  The now trembling man crumpled, eyes filled with terrified dismay.

  “No. I’ve served faithfully from the very beginning. They can’t do this to me! I—”

  Whatever else he was going to say was cut off when his eyes tried to glimpse the massive hole that had just torn through the center of his skull as the air filled with the crack and boom of a high powered rifle.

  The Paladins before him roared and searched vainly for the culprit as Fesspot collapsed, pink froth foaming from his mouth as his heels rattled against the ground despite all his restraints before he went utterly still a heartbeat later. But the discrete wards sheltering Elonia and her carefully corralled court proved unnecessary as there were no farther shots. There was no sound of anything at all, just four exceedingly quiet goblins who didn’t even crack smiles as the Paladins glared at them.

  “Fuck!” Elonia hissed, glaring at the reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows showing such a magnificent view of both her terraced palace gardens presently in full bloom, and the picturesque lakeside harbor below, even now populated with sail boats and galleons just a five minute hike beyond the reinforced walls of her palace.

  And there were no holes in the Alutopaz glass alloy Caliban assured was as strong as tungsten-reinforced steel, her senses detecting no sign at all of any more flaring reds than the Emissary who had so quickly become a corpse. Even the four goblins had only the faintest pink hue, as if they weren’t hardened killers, merely misunderstood rascals who would be more than worth trading back to the Terran Council.

  Elonia grated her teeth, because that was the last thing she would do.

  “Elonia…”

  She glared at Caliban.

  ES - No. I will NOT allow enemy agents to slink out of my territory unseen! KNOWING They could strike me at my weakest… my friends. YOU, your wife, your children, my future children... no!

  A single silent order and a quartet of furiously glowing knights had the now whimpering goblins leaking blood from throats forced to kiss mithril oblivion.

  “Please, great lady!” The closest creature screamed to the spurting of it’s own blood. The air rang with another shot, piercing the half-step Bronze Ward that should have blocked everything these bastards had access to but hadn’t, making it clear that both she and her court and Caliban were still very much VULNERABLE. Yet pinging harmlessly off the full plate harness of thick mithril armor worn by Elonia’s sworn Paladins that Elonia refused to be forced to wear all her days.

  “This is but a misunderstanding! Glotch is a good goblin. Glotch has nothing to do with STUPID Sir Fusspot who you righteously struck down!”

  Elonia’s jaw clenched with fury. How much she wanted to go there and SLAP that little simpering shit, even now spurting blood from the feet she had her men SHEER OFF, knowing damn well about their Bronze-tier hold-out weapons with Bronze-Tier poison that there was NO WAY she could know about, yet there they were, daggers coated with foul toxin clinking against the marble tiles, and she ignored even Caliban’s alarm to snarl her offer.

  “I’m willing to pay you and your men TEN MILLION credits to be on permanent retainer that demands NOTHING of you… save you never acting against me or mine OR the Sylvan Alliance faction to the best of your ability… and you TELL ME when any other goblin hit squad or SIMILAR wetwork crew is coming for me or mine with a MILLION credit bounty with every successful capture of a significant threat! So long as you don’t try to game me, you’ll come out rich goblins! But if you want your feet reattached after we SAVED you from those VILE poisoned daggers some monster had clearly strapped around your ankles hoping to kill you, how very SAD… if you wish to keep your NECKS intact with our DELICATE operation to remove the metaphoric collars you no doubt have around your throats…” she couldn’t help but flash a toothy smile at the creature’s raw, horrified whimper, his three fellows desperate to fade out of sight… “The you will REVEAL your two hidden squadmates, including the one who’s rifle so clearly MISFIRED as to strike my paladin’s MITHRIL COVERED HEAD… and they will sign said contract as well!”

  The goblin snarled, glaring hot daggers of HATE Elonia’s way. As a trio of paladins leaped upon the throne, forming a perfect shielding tent with their fully armored bodies, leaving her all but impermeable to assassin fire, her eyes all that was visible before the little shit she would DESTROY! And that was fine, she thought, lips stretching wide in a grin so feral that she wanted nothing more than to DEVOUR the vile little rat before her, to tear off his skull with a single fearsome GULP!

  “Glotch agrees!” The goblin abruptly squealed.

  And space itself seemed to tear as a pair of goblins tumbled to the ground and Elonia, to her horror, couldn’t even tell where they had been hiding! Though each looked as disoriented as she suddenly felt, both of them holding anti-material rifles that were every bit as long as they were.

  “I told you we needed mithril rounds!” The closest snarled. “But NOO! Glotch doesn’t want to waste half a million credits for a pair of bullets! You see what happens when Glotch plays the fool?”

  “Shut UP you idiot!” Snarled the other goblin, glaring helpless hate. “We are making a deal!”

  “How quickly she’ll kill us?” The other one snarled before screaming when his foot too was cleaved off, along with his fellow, and an additional pair of Bronze-tier poisoned daggers removed. And the furious look of vindictive glee made it clear that Glotch was HAPPY to see his fellow suffering just as much as he was before the brutalized stump was roughly tourniquetted.

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  “You can’t do this! Torture’s against the Terran… Oh shit, it’s not against anything!” The most recently brutalized goblin sobbed.

  Glotch sneered. “You’re such a fool, Snoogle. Runt of the FUCKING litter! Me and queeny here are making an employment deal. Ten million credits, just as a retainer! All we do is leave this STUPID elven commune as off-limits and rat on any asshole trying to take her out, and we earn an additional million per!”

  The other goblin froze in his screams. “That’s actually a good deal. But only if we get to keep our rifles. They’ve become as expensive as hell to purchase in Freetown.”

  His writhing, cursing partner nodded in agreement.

  “I know, Snoogle. Now shut up and let work!”

  Elonia exchanged hard smiles with Caliban as a deal was struck, in a refreshingly brief period of time, since they did NOT have time to waste. The rifles, much to her dismay, the goblins would actually get to keep. But only if they also kept all Mistridge students and their families permanently off their kill lists and stuck around to help take out any high level locusts that managed to break through the bulwarks they would place.

  Elonia made sure that the documents were signed as they were being healed, when their relief and gratitude was at its greatest, the healer one of Mistridge’s own. Injuries that should have taken offworld classers quite some time to heal were instantly restored.

  The half dozen goblins wore smug smiles with Caliban’s signed and sealed contract and a ten million credit balance at the Blue Corp Savings and Loan that they, unlike most goblins, would be permitted free use of.

  “Glotch is pleased that we came to a mutually beneficial accord!”

  Elonia’s smile was every bit as wide as Glotch’s. “As am I. And isn’t it nice to know that such magnificent healing exists in our little corner of the world? Certainly the Sylvan Alliance is worthy of your continued patronage and… friendship.”

  Glotch eagerly nodded. “Yes, YES! All of elfie territory, including both Freetown and New Arcadia and stupid boring farmers are all off limits! Ha ha! Good deal. Good deal!”

  The healer gently stroked Glotch’s sweaty scabby scalp, wiping free encrustations that had no doubt been lodged for years, revealing a warped little creature that in another life…

  Elonia shuddered. No, best not to think on that too deeply. Some of her brother’s ravings when he had thrashed in nightmare for the one night she had actually seen him slow down enough to sleep…

  “Yes it is the best of all deals of your, fallen one,” the strikingly beautiful elven healer dressed in pale ivory robes declared with a gentle honeyed voice. “For I was able to wrap the entire price of your binding in the very oath that of course you never intend to break. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Elonia smirked. Somehow certain that the healer’s lilt was deliberately mocking a long forgotten goblin’s false cheer. But still…

  Glotch froze. “Please, um, explain?”

  “Of course, darling. The moment you or any of your fellows deliberately break your oath and shoot or otherwise deliberately cause harm to any elf, whether a member of the Sylvan Alliance or Blue Faction, your lower leg will fall completely off, arterial bloodflow dooming you in less than a thirty seconds, even with your modest Vitality, should you lack a hundredth level mithril-armored Paladin to tourniquet and stabilize you, even as you foolishly shoot them in the head.”

  Glotch trembled. “Oh.”

  The healer smirked, patting him one final time like a wayward pup that had just peed on mommy’s favorite sofa. Again. “But you’re going to be a good goblin. Aren’t you, Glotch Zorlink, bastard child of a fallen clan?”

  Glotch froze. “How do you… yes! Yes! Of course Gtotch will be good! Glotch and his corpmates are always good!” All six goblins gave horrified nods, eyes clearly dreading the healer effortlessly calling out their own checkered parentage.

  Elonia sighed, more relieved than she wanted to admit when the last to the goblins were escorted out. “Fesspot was a complete fool, throwing his life away like that.”

  Caliban sighed. “Regrettably, that’s not entirely true. Had you been warded by anything less than a contingent of holy paladins that are the echo of your nation’s love and loyalty… had we not had a Legendary-Tier academy’s Archmage at our disposal here in the city… his gambit might have actually worked.”

  Elonia paled. “You’re right. It passed right through a half-step Bronze arcane ward like it was nothing! If that vile tainted warrent had actually touched me…”

  “Precisely, Your Grace. You would have found yourself on your knees before the monster who would have had a blaster to your head, screaming that he was well within his rights to act as a warrant officer for the Terran Council and effectively placing his organization as the peace keepers for the entire world. Any courtier who sought to intervene would have been shot dead by one of half a dozen goblin snipers. In short order, your nation would have been completely at the mercenary of the Terran Council, and you made an example of. All so-called independent nations would have been forced to witness the pristine coup of what had heretofore been seen as a miracle of freedom and manifest destiny.”

  Elonia swallowed the sick sour feeling welling up in her throat. “They would have destroyed my people, carved up my nation and traded it for favors to their twisted sellout lick-boots, and destroyed everything we stood for. And all their botched coup cost them was a single Bronze-Tier tainted warrant and a stupidly overconfident pawn who would probably have been rewarded all the resources he needed to ascend to Bronze himself, if the gambit had actually worked.”

  Caliban flashed a mirthless smile. “Precisely.”

  Elonia glared at the cracked marble tile that was all that remained of the former Sir Fesspot. “I’m not going to forget, or forgive.”

  Caliban smiled coolly, saying absolutely nothing.

  Elonia sighed. “But we have a monstrous incursion of locusts to deal with, and I don’t need you to tell me just how great the peril is for my seven million happy farm-loving citizens.”

  Caliban flashed a bleak smile. “If that vile plague of magical locusts is permitted access to the golden fields of your home… I fear it will be the end of civilization in this corner of the world. At least until they die out and alien factions replace us all in five or so years… assuming further monster incursions don’t turn all of Terra hot before we ever have a chance to stabilize her.”

  “Just as our profiteering enemies would prefer.”

  “Of course.”

  She groaned. “So, what the fuck do we do?”

  Caliban gestured toward the half of the throne room now acting as a movie screen depicting her brother looking far more strikingly badass than he ever had when trying to act. And as much as she thought Eric looked a bit silly, clearly hamming it up for the invisible camera when he screamed out the name of his attack as his fist hammered abominations that then exploded in flame, attacks he launched slowly enough that even her courtiers could make out the blows… the results certainly spoke for themselves.

  Though when scores of insects had collapsed and her brother’s eyes took on a wild intensity as he began uttering words that came out as a staticky crackle yet whispered sweetest temptation in her ears while simultaneously leaving her so dizzy and uncertain... the signal abruptly cut off. And how odd it was that Caliban alone looked satisfied… because Elonia’s entire court looked as sick as she suddenly felt.

  “What was that?”

  “That was our young friend pulling out the ace that just might save us.”

  Elonia frowned. “He took out over a hundred, I’m sure of it! I’m impressed as hell, but if the Headmaster’s right…” Her features paled. “We could be facing upwards of how many thousands?”

  “One hundred thousand locusts from a wildly ascending Black region,” Caliban solemnly said, before flashing a bleak smile. “But we both know how fast he can move when he isn’t acting for the benefit of those we hope will continue to underestimate him, not to mention what else Ernest ‘Edgelord’ Slaughter is capable of.”

  Elonia flashed a pained smile. “Even so, those are hundredth level monsters that swarm. I can’t imagine any of this will be easy, even for him.” She swallowed, girding ourselves. “I think we need to be ready to do our part, Caliban. And that means getting me as close to the border as we safely can.”

  Caliban stiffened, glaring at where the picture had displayed the disaster rapidly approaching before slowly dipping his head. “I understand. Headmaster Wyrmwood has just made it clear that he can take you directly to where the barrier is most likely to give out.”

  Elonia took a shuddering breath, fingers restless for something that kept slipping from her thoughts. She cold only imagine how Eric would feel about her choosing to go where the fighting would be deadliest, should those monsters actually cross into her territory. But if there was ever a time to embrace ritual magics involving the weather… that time was now.

  https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08261T1YF (All my books are on Kindle Unlimited and Book 1 is just 99c, always!)

  Alex was willing to do whatever it took to beat the tumors overwhelming his body.

  Even if it meant being frozen alive.

  And if his cortex got uploaded into a digital universe filled with countless worlds to explore until a cure could be found for his cancer, all the better.

  The last thing he expected was to wake up naked and alone in the bowels of an ancient ship filled with raiders carrying enough poison to kill an entire city!

  The choices he makes from that moment on will have profound consequences not only for his own fate, but for an entire realm as he faces down bloodthirsty pirates, ruthless cultivators, and fearsome demigods while taking his first steps along a path of power that might one day forge him into a cultivator strong enough to challenge the very heavens themselves!

  Eager for a fast-paced Wuxia/LitRPG adventure filled with deadly adversaries, exotic adventures, and mighty cultivators fighting for the power to topple kingdoms?