The next few weeks passed in a similar fashion. Me getting beat up, trying to quench my immediate instinct of using magic to deaden the pain. Every morning and every night was one long arduous torture session, or so it felt. The whip was exchanged for canes, breaking my bones over and over again, which were then replaced with sharp instruments. Being stabbed and cut over and over again, to build up pain tolerance was no fun.

One amazing thing though, was that the shared experience of inflicting me with pain seemed to create a bond between Arkoshta and Shenerah. Not that they put aside their animosity completely, but their tone became a little less hostile, and they didn’t go out of their way to insult the other.

Over the few weeks since the conquest of the first group of outcasts, I had progressed a lot with the staff, and we had switched to using replicas of the bladed polearms that Rikasta preferred. Mine was a wooden replica, while Arkoshta used one with sharp steel. It was fucked up was what it was, but they had managed to get me to stop relying too much on magic.

All along I had let the stalking pervy priest follow us and observe us. When the Unifiers had left, the single Undercover priest that survived had slipped away and followed us. He kept invisible most of the time, except when he hung so far back we could not see him.

As we were getting closer to where the second group of outcasts ought to be, I decided it was time to take care of him. After the morning ritualistic torture of yours truly, I turned invisible and waited as my troopers left without me.

Him being invisible most of the time too meant that I could not see him without the help of Arkoshta’s magic. That was the other thing I had been training over the last few weeks. Identifying magic by the strands of colour interwoven to manipulate reality.

All strands had a light blue, almost cyan like glow to it. That was the colour of pure mana. Because of the pureness of the magic that I and the priests used, our links were all made of this colour. The bonds we created had a single strand, amongst a dozen other, of another colour in it. It was the one that indicated which magic we were bonding to at the moment.

The priest that was following us had three bonds up and running, and since they were constant things it made it easy to spot him. I was pretty sure that was the maximum number of bonds he was able to hold at a time since I had not seen him ever being more active than that at any given time.

The one constantly shifting colours was his invisibility. The second was a deep red one, indicating healing magic, while the last one almost seemed to be pure cyan coloured.

After observing for a moment, I saw a pale blue coloured strand in there, indicating the last magic he had slotted as water magic. That made sense, you could heal away hunger pains, keep yourself energized with healing magic if need be, but you needed to stay hydrated.

Small bursts of pure cyan colour kept shooting into the air and coming back down. It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. He was sending and receiving messages to and from another priest. Or many. Which was actually a good thing, would make the plan I had for him a little easier.

After several hours of travel, he slipped back every twenty minutes to drop his invisibility and recharge his empty mana pool. Or so I assumed because it was the same routine over and over again.

I kept refreshed from a dwindling supply of mana crystals. While I would love to spend it on something else, this was important as well. I needed to make sure his upcoming death was not blamed on me or one of my people.

My men had been ordered to make a detour to pass by any large copses of trees they saw. It was the fourth one we were passing by and it coincided with a time where he would normally fall back and recharge his mana, and water the horse he was riding. The three other times he had carefully checked the copse out before dropping his invisibility.

Not this time though, meaning it was time to strike.

The priest had just dropped his invisibility and gotten off the horse. He was filling a bucket with water for the horse to enjoy.

“Well, well, look at that, boys, ‘uman on the menu tonight,” a gruff voice suddenly rang out in the broken human language.

“Me like the horsie, I eat that?” another voice spoke up. The priest immediately spun around, dropping the bond that provided water magic and picked up a dull grey strand instead; stone magic. He readied himself to go invisible or dodge if needed.

I could see the mana flow out and coalesce into two bubbles, while the third flowed through his body. He was preparing to cast stone and invisibility magic while healing magic already coursed through his body. He had also sent out a series of messages.

I had my four illusions walk into view. Four big strong, dumb orcs. The priest immediately visibly relaxed, though his magic was still going. He sent a new series of messages.

The priest threw a stone spike at one of the orcs and gaped as it passed right through it. He reacted quickly though and turned invisible and sent out a new series of messages again. This time I quashed them though.

I really wanted to let it play out for a bit, toy with him, make him feel fear. However, I needed to kill him now, so the people he had messaged did not find out that his bonds were still active, but did not receive messages from him. I could not block the bonds or break them. I had Arkoshta try on me several times. It was as far as I knew not possible. They were unbreakable.

Though he was invisible to the naked eye, I was using my mana sight as I called it, and could easily see him. I teleported next to him, put my dragon right at his temple and pulled the trigger.

With his brain splattered all over the place, I incinerated his body and turned the horse loose. I gave my illusion buddies a high-five before dismissing them.

I could easily have killed him, however, I wanted to mislead the other priests. Allowing him to follow us for weeks, even letting him get into the camp during the night to steal a bit of food, or listening in on some conversations.

I hoped the first series of messages he sent out was something like “I’ve been discovered!”.

With the next being “Oh, it’s just some stupid orcs!”.

Hopefully, that was the case and the Moronhood of Priests would think the guy just got overconfident and got himself killed.

Free from being watched by the priest fuckers, it was time to ratchet things up a bit, traipsing about in the hinterland of nowhere was not what I wanted to spend my time doing.

I looked down at the corpse of the orc in front of me. This one had been a lot smarter than the first one when he stated the terms of the duel. He had gotten all the right parts down. No ranged weapons, no interference from others, and no magic. It was the fourth and last stipulation that fucked him over: Fighting with your right hand tied behind your back.

It had been a weird stipulation, but from the jeers he shouted, I reckoned he thought I was like the normal humans that thought using the left hand was a sin. Too bad for him that I was ambidextrous, so I had him killed fairly quickly because he had hampered himself as well. He had still been a decent fighter, but it became clear that he was right-handed.

“Caspar, disarm the orcs, pick out our half of the fighting force. Arkoshta, you see if there’s anyone your father should not get his hands on and offer them the same deal as Knarota’s children,” I ordered loudly in both human and orcish, to make sure everyone understood what was about to happen.

Turning away from the corpse I teleported a few times until I got to the five wagons of materials I needed. The stone mages were already gathered there. I looked at Gudrun, my chief stone mage. “Are you all ready to put up the fort?”

“Of course, Milord,” she replied.

“Get to it then, I’ll take care of the portal and you should have a lot of help in a moment. For the next few hours, they worked on building up a highly defensible fort, while I first constructed the floor the portal would stand on, and then the portal.

While it was easiest to think of the portal addresses as phone numbers, they were in fact more of a feeling. I recorded the “feeling” of this portal down into a memory crystal and had Shenerah transmit it to Ethan.

‘Why can’t I send messages to other priests? I got all the other powers of a priest,’ I wondered once more, irritated by the fact I had to rely on others to relay messages for me.

“Because you’re not of this world, which is a good thing,” a voice in my head replied to my great shock. It was the enigmatic dream woman. Except for when Yathanae died, she rarely talked to me unless I was dreaming. However, after our last chat where she convinced me to violate one of my principles, she had been a bit more talkative. Even then, it still shocked me every time she answered.

‘And why should that matter?’

“Because that means you’re not connected to the prison holding the Destroyer captive, which means she can’t possess you without your consent. She can maybe try to influence your mind, like when she tried to remove the acceptance spell the Creator put on all of you.”

‘You mean the mind-fuckery that made me so angry.’

The woman laughed. “Yes and no. You’ve always been angry, Karth, but the uncontrollable anger came because I had to rebuff her, or she would have discovered me.”

I was floored by that revelation. ‘The Destroyer tried to influence me?’

“Yes, thanks to my interference, you had the most desirable magic. That of a human priest, how could she not want to influence you? However, the anger worked in our favour. You became hostile and started animosity with the Lords, Kings, and the Church, making you an undesirable target.”

‘How do you know so much about her?’

“That’s not pertinent just yet. The most important thing is that she moved on to another target, she’ll never get to possess you.”

‘What about you, I never consented to have you inside me?’

“Oh, but you did. When you were just a toddler and could barely speak,” the woman answered with a laugh.

‘What the fuck are you talking about? That’s not legally binding,’ I shouted in my mind, but I got no answer.

Only a few seconds had passed since I had Shenerah send the message, having a conversation in the mind was several times faster than a normal conversation.

The portal opened, and the first person through was Ethan, driving the wagon holding the most important part of this operation: A large spell crystal like the ones used in Sanctuary. It was large enough to cover the entire fort and a bit beyond the walls. It would scramble the signal the collars emitted.

“Milord,” Ethan said with reverence in his voice.

“Ethan, it’s good to see you. How have you been?” I asked.

“Well, Milord, though it has been a long journey.”

“Unfortunately, we’ll have more travelling to do.”

“Yes, Milord,” he said with a small bow. “Should I tell Emma to send the rest of the people through?”

“Hold on, let me ensure that the scrambler works. I went to the back of the cart and made sure that it had survived being teleported. Not that I had experienced any such things, but the whole teleporting thing was still a bit unsettling. I did not understand how it worked, except, magic.

It worked, and it was drawing power from a bed of smaller mana crystals it was lying on. It would last a day or two.

“Tell her to go ahead, and then we’ll start collaring and outfitting our new populace,” I said.

“Sounds good, Milord,” he said. Because I was watching with my mana sight, I saw when he sent the message, and when he received it. “Milord, should we also outfit the ones the other priests collared?”

“No, we’ll be taking them with us, not leaving them here or sending them back to Sanctuary to be trained.”

“Very well, Milord,” he replied with another bow just before people started coming through the portal. The first people through, were a bunch of Wolf Guards. My eyes narrowed at that, which was quickly followed by an exasperated sigh. The rest of my family followed the Wolf Guards.

The small ones were carried, Lily walking in front with Garion on one arm and Artemis on the other. “Hello, Husband.”

“Hello, Wife,” I replied frostily. She used that greeting when she wanted me to behave. I hid a frown when I saw Chione followed my family. “Chione, what an unexpected unpleasant surprise.”

That was about as courteous I could be. “I figured you would have found out about my little ploy, and came to smooth over any ruffled feathers.”

“We’ll talk about that later, Nishka will find you a spot,” Lily said with a stern look in my direction.

“Yes, we’ll definitely talk later,” I said through clenched teeth. I waited until she was gone before I turned to my wives. “What the fuck is going on?”

“She came on her own accord, and without Anders,” Emma said. “From what I’ve overheard and what the guards at the outpost have been saying, their negotiations with the dwarves went poorly. Chione and Anders have been fighting a lot.”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll deal with her later. First, we need to speak with our newest vassal,” I said with a heavy sigh. I looked around for a moment before I spotted Gudrun. “Gudrun, I need you to bury and encase the large spell crystal somewhere. I want it twenty metres down, layers of hard rock, wood, and metal all the way.”

“Yes, Milord,” she replied before pointing out some helpers and got started on the work immediately.

“What vassal?” Lily asked.

“Well, I made a deal with the first outcast group I conquered, they would surrender if I promised to keep the chieftain’s daughters free. We need someone to manage the fort here, it might as well be them,” I said with a shrug.

“You think that’s a good idea?” Nathalie asked.

“I think it doesn’t matter. By putting them in charge here, and teaching some of all their people how to farm here, we bind them to us. Who knows, maybe I can make a chieftain out of one of them, so I won’t need Barka anymore,” I said with a shrug. The bastard had used me, I would make him pay for that. “Or at least have an extra in at that big meet up.”

“Okay, enough politicking, your children have missed you,” Emma said gruffly and shoved four kittens in my arms. Maeve immediately clambered up to take a spot on my right shoulder. Not to be outdone, Talen took the left shoulder, while Quill curled up in my arm, nuzzling against my chest. Baldur looked enviously at his siblings at my shoulders.

Then he sprung into action. He clambered over my arm and unto my back. There he used the leather thongs, which I used to tie my hair during battles, to climb up. He quickly settled in at the top of my head.

Emma, Mina, and Nathalie laughed, Lily smiled, Nina was giggling, and I swear I saw troopers quickly look away with smiles on their faces. So much for the image of being a big bad warlord.

“Fuck it,” I mumbled. Family was more important. “Well, since you’re all here. Let’s make it a family picnic. I’m sure the folks can quickly conjure up a small pond we can have fun at.”

“What about Chione?” Shenerah asked.

“She can wait,” I said with a shrug and started barking out orders for a scenic picnic area to be created. Sometimes it was good to be the Lord.