Devourer

Chapter 168: Unintelligent Conversation

Uriel ground her teeth at the incessant arguing happening before her. They have been talking for hours nonstop. Uriel herself has gone through two pitchers of water just from all the debate. What was the debate about? If it wasn’t obvious enough the long-winded debate was about the Great Beast.

Uriel could feel the unease permeating the room. The feeling was familiar, it was the oppressive feeling of creeping danger. Like a dark shadow cast across the glittering marble. They say evil grows in shadows and from how heated the argument was there was some truth in that statement.

“So you think is a good idea?” Gabriela demanded her face twisted in frustration.

“We just hand our own leash to an ancient creation of the Eternal Mother. She was the most twisted of the Old Gods. She melted our kin down to sludge and reformed it in her own dark image.” Gabriela said.

“And what would you propose? We go to war? To fight him now would damn us.” Mihael countered.

Though her husband was arguably the most prone to violence he was also a capable tactician. He would not be caught making a terrible strategic decision. He knew taking a hardline stance and saber rattling would not be a good idea.

There was a saying as old as time, “Try not the temper of the ancients.”

At the moment the Great Beast expressed displeasure, Uriel felt every danger sense in her mind go off. Whatever the Great Beast was, he was very dangerous. He probably carried a piece of the Old Gods within himself. He might be a true Heir of the Firstborn. Unlike herself and those from the wretched Syndicate his power was not an accident. It didn’t just manifest randomly within him. It was put into him with a level of precision only an Old God could do.

“We do not have a choice, our only option is to end the war in the north quickly.” Mihael said.

“We should also invest more resources into having a greater presence in Terra.” Cassia said.

“Agreed, the Great Beast offered our people safety within their borders. We should use it to increase our presence within the Averlonian Empire.” Uriel said.

“Helps us keep an eye on what's happening within as well.” Raphael stated, and there were murmurs of approval.

“But the Devotees are still a problem, the Great Beast and the Empress could always expend the means to lower the amount of faithful within their empire. Magically influenced agitators can be implanted in the population to steer the faithful away from the faith.” Gabriela stated, and again there were murmurs of approval.

“There is a loop hole, however…” Silvana said suddenly, her voice as usual, catching everyone by surprise.

“The Empress said our represntatives will not be able to enforce our faith on anyone. So her political angle is that there is a freedom of faith. This means we can be quite public on our agreement to his philosophy at least within the Averlonian Empire.

But if we were to say discover a magically controlled agitator we can spin it around and say that these new cults are brainwashing the good citizens of the empire. With the Empress’s own words binding her, we can tie her hands and… volunteer ourselves to hunt down those who would poison the minds of the good citizens.” Silvana said as a malicious smile crossed her lips.

“That could certainly work, at the end of the day, there is no Averlonian Empire without its people as the Old Gods used to say, tribute does not flow from a dead race.” Raphael said with a nod.

“Yes, if the Averlonian Empire wishes to use it’s own people as hostages, perhaps we could do the same.” Mihael said.

“But these accusations must be truthful, if we forge them the Great Beast might have a way to turn it around to bite us.” Uriel said to more murmurs of approval.

“Then what of the vampires? The Great Beast has already said he is willing to pursue alliances with the Naga and Mugummans. How long before he is rubbing shoulders with The Orcale of the Oceans, Serchax?” Mihael pressed as he tapped his finger impatiently on the desk before him.

“Assuming he isn’t already doing so.” Gabriela added with a sigh.

“Exactly.” Mihael said.

“We have been arguing about this for hours.” Uriel said with a sigh.

“I agree with Uriel this going nowhere.” Raphael said with a nod.

“Bottom line is we can’t do anything about this at this time. We need to see what the Great Beast does. Like it or not he has the initiative.” Raphael added grimly.

“Agreed, with the war in the north dragging on, we don’t have the resources to handle the Averlonian Empire. We need more troops. I suggest we call a general mobilisation. We are currently still fielding only the professional forces. I vote to initiate conscription. At our current state, we are only utilising 1.5% of our population.” Mihael stated.

“With a general mobilisation, we can increase our combat troops to…” Mihael began but Uriel swiftly cut him off.

“15% and we can raise it to 20% with a full mobilisation but we no longer have the processes in place to facilitate it. We would be sending in undertrained soldiers to their deaths. Many of which would be Cherubim. The Cherubim Guard are undertrained and underequipped. I have made my opinion on this matter known repeatedly, it seems my fears have come true.” Uriel said curtly as she referenced how the Cherubim’s lack of training and equipment would damn them if they were ever to be fielded in war. The Cherubim were usually flightless so the Serpahim had no idea how to properly utilise them in war.

“Then what would you suggest?” Gabriela asked.

“I suggest we do a partial mobilisation, calling up only Seraphim reservists. While this is happening we train the Cherubim more extensively and manufacture more equipment. We also conscript some of the civilian Seraphim and begin their training.” Uriel said.

“That would only yield about 5% of our population as soldiers in the next six months.” Raphael stated.

“We could instead deploy the Cherubim Guard in Divonia with some Seraphim reserves to help calm the demon problem. It would put them in minimal danger while also give them some experience. The Cherubim are useless in offensive roles, so garrison duty and other rear echelon posts would be what they would be doing anyway.” Mihael stated.

“Sound reasonable.” Raphael said.

“We should at least train them for the role more vigorously before we send them to Divonia. There are demons there.” Uriel argued.

“The demons have a limited presence in Divonia, outright confrontation is unlikely. But we can put them on rotation so they can be trained and guard Divonia at the same time.” Mihael argued back and the rest of the council murmurred in agreement.

Seeing that she had lost the vote Uriel sighed and nodded in resignation. She could only pray the demon presence in Divonia was not as bad as she feared.

Now onto the next agenda…

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I looked down at the creature below me and gave it a slight poke. The creature’s fat body jiggled as it struggled to stay on its feet. It looked like this odd beatle with an extremely swollen abdomen. This was my new nutrient paste dispenser, there wasn’t as much food as I would prefer in the Empire and some parts of the Empire were still going hungry. Considering the means I have at my disposal having parts of the population going hungry seems stupid.

Elysia was doing fine it was some parts of Voleria and Zarima that were having trouble. But I guess that makes sense to a certain extent. Elysia was the core territory so it was natural that it would get first dibs on most things. What I needed to do now was to convert a large patch of the desert into a farm. Sand wasn’t the best place to grow crops so I just planned to turn a large patch of sand into arable land. I was going to start dumping this paste across the desert to slowly make some arable land. Combine this with druidic magic and I can very easily create patches of land that can grow crops.

It turned out that me and Cecilia made a slight mistake in our planning, Elysia was extremely fertile so the original plan was for Elysia to be the breadbasket. But the thing was when the empire expanded logistics became an issue. Food was sufficient across the empire but it wasn’t plentiful just yet.

No one was starving on my watch, there was absolutely no reason I should be wasting perfectly good servants because I couldn’t get the food to them in time.

One kilogram of wheat in Elysia is just 15 copper coins, But it Zarima it was going for almost 1 silver coin. The supply demand was horribly mismatched at this time. So for now I just needed to get the basic food stuffs up to scratch in Zarima. Plus it can also be seen as a favour to Mahaila. She certainly seemed a little bit grateful when I suggested it.

“Hello, Great Beast.” I heard Mahaila say from behind me.

Speak of the devil and he shall answer… or she in this case…

“Yo, what are you doing here? I thought you had this meeting or something.” I replied as I poked the fat beetle again.

“Just wanted to check in.” Mahaila said nonchalantly as she looked over at the jiggling fat beetle. It was quite large, about the size of a wagon and it looked like it could barely keep itself up. Well… it couldn’t keep itself up because I was just messing with the nutrient mix and production efficiency. I didn’t do anything to make sure it could move on its own just yet. No point wasting effort on that because if I’m not happy with the mix I just throw it back into the digestive vat.

“Hmm… that’s quite ugly.” Mahaila remarked.

“I can make it cute and fuzzy if you want.” I replied dryly.

“If you make it white, it's just going to look like a cloud.” Mahaila replied.

“A cloud that’s vomiting goo everywhere. Not sure if that makes it better or worse for you humanoids.” I remarked as I ordered the creature to vomit a bunch of the paste into a special mouth that could measure its effectiveness as a soil fertility enhancer.

“Worse definately. What about you?” Mahaila asked as she watched the creature continue to vomit.

“Between a vomiting bug and a vomiting fuzzy cloud, I’ll take the cloud.” I replied with a chuckle.

“May I ask why?” Mahaila asked as she raised a brow.

“Because you humanoids find it weird, so it’s funny.” I replied with a cheeky chuckle that shook the room slightly.

“Uh huh… Thanks by the way for doing this.” Mahaila said after a brief pause.

“You know I’m doing this because I want all of your precious lizards well fed as soldiers right?” I replied nonchalantly.

“Well that is more or less what half the point of why having a well fed population is useful.” Mahaila mused and I paused for a moment.

“True.” I admitted before resuming my work.

“You ancients are really strange, honestly I was…” I began but Mahaila just finished the sentence.

“Trying to get a reaction out of me?” Mahaila asked with a light laugh as she crossed her arms.

“Yeah, if I said this up there we would have a panic on our hands.” I said as I poked the creature again causing it to jiggle.

“Well their lives are too short, the younger lived races tend to be more obsessed with their mortality. Life can go grow quite stale at a certain point.” Mahaila said and I could sense her watching me as I poked the creature again.

“Why are you doing that?” Mahaila asked.

“I like it, it looks funny.” I said as I poked it again causing the body to jiggle like jello.

“Stop bothering it.” Mahaila said with a sigh.

“What it likes it.” I replied as I turned to look at her.

“It’s a hive creature and you’re a hive leader. It likes everything you do to it.” Mahaila stated bluntly.

“Yeah? Your point?” I replied with a grin.

“Forget it.” Mahaila said with a sigh.

Right as she said it I heard I sensed Cecilia enter the testing chamber.

“Mahaila? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Zarima.” Cecilia asked in surprise.

“Just checking in on the nutrient beetle project. Hopefully we can get this up and running soon. There’s no real rush since the desert doesn’t really have seasons but the faster this get’s done the better.” Mahaila replied.

“And how is it going?” Cecilia asked as she walked over and looked over at the bloated beetle.

“Preety well.” I said as I poked the creature again.

“Why are you doing that?” Cecilia asked out of curiosity.

“I like it, it’s funny.” I replied, and Cecilia calmly nodded in understanding.

“I see.” Cecilia replied and instantly dropped the question. I looked over at Mahaila, and she just rolled her eyes.

“See, no weird questions.” I said and Mahaila just shook her head in exasperation.

“You two have spent too long in each other’s company.” Mahaila said as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“You will get used to it after a time.” Cecilia said calmly and Mahaila gave her a withering look.

“Part of me wishes I would because it would make the migraines go away, but on the other hand getting used to this type of things is a tragic state of affairs.” Mahaila said with a sigh.

“So why are you here?” I asked as I looked over at Cecilia.

A cult leader wants to see you

I believe it was the prisoner you let into your mind…