The hall was thick with silence. No one said a thing. They watched as the blood-soaked figure of Soverick dragged more and more bodies to a heap. He created a pyramid on the central dais made of the bodies of his enemies. It was a statement of his strength and brutality.
As he climbed on the dais with the last body the central dais finally broke apart. The damage from the intense battle had pushed it too far. It fell into ruins. The pyramid of flesh was destroyed and scattered. Funny enough, Soverick’s throne was still there so was strung. Strung was still groaning at the foot of the throne.
Soverick shrugged and went to seat on his throne. He placed his foot on Strung and addressed the auditorium.
“Is there any other person here that does not agree with me being your leader?” He asked as he relaxed on his throne.
No one said anything. You could hear a pin drop in the silence. They weren’t silent because of fear. They wanted to hear the fool that will disagree clearly. So people held their breath and looked around.
“That’s good. You have all seen what I can do and what happens to my enemies. If you follow me, I will lead you to do the same with our enemies. We will break them. They will not stand against us.” His voice continued to rise as he spoke.
“We will walk over their corpses. We will bathe in their blood. We will be unstoppable. We will be victorious.”
Then he raised his bloodied spear into the air and shouted, “For Victory.”
And the hall echoed with him. “For Victory.”
He shouted again. “For Victory.”
Everyone in the hall raised their hands into the air and shouted again. “For Victory.”
He said it one last time. “For Victory.”
And the hall shook with their shout. “For Victory.”
Soverick smiled. They had chosen to follow him. They continued to shout in agreement. They had never felt so impassioned right now. They had seen a single man fight against a hundred. He had fought against the best of them. He faced a hundred of the best of the best of the vitality core refiners in the Virut plane and he won.
His opponents weren’t riffraff, yet he had broken them and they had scattered before him.
He is the living embodiment of what they all desire to be, an incarnation of the first sage who led the battle sage monkeys to victory after victory. Only someone like that could lead them.
Soverick raised his arm and the hall returned to silence.
“Now that the matter of leadership has been solved. We will select the commanders. I want someone from each family to become a commander. I will give you one hour to make the decision. I do not want to tell you what bad things will happen if you don’t select one in an hour. I’ll leave that to your imagination. But I’ll tell you that the last ten families to select a commander will be heavily unfavoured by me. Now get to it.”
They took his words seriously. There is something compelling about a man sitting on a throne surrounded by the bodies of slain enemies and the ruins of what they used to fight on while using another broken man as his footstool. So when Soverick left his throne and began to leave the hall, they all hailed him.
“Soverick! Soverick! Soverick!”
His bloody figure matched from his throne to the exit of the hall and he was cheered all the way.
The dead battle sage monkeys are already forgotten. Longevity has made people insensitive to death. They have seen a lot of deaths to be hung up on every single one anymore. Of course, some people didn’t hail or cheer. Some hated Soverick and were already planning revenge. But no one can deny that Soverick is truly a legend. If they are truly honest with themselves, they also wish to be Soverick.
Soverick left the hall and was received by a golem.
“I will be your assistant from now on.” It said
Soverick nodded. Then it presented a familiar tool to Soverick.
“This is the communicator with the Authority of the leader. It will allow you to communicate with your commanders and make arrangements easily. They will be given to your commanders and those in the chain of command.”
It was a wrist logger. Soverick cracked a rare smile and took it.
“I want to clean myself.”
“Certainly, follow me to your quarters.”
Soverick followed his new assistant while the youths in the hall selected their leaders. Except, this time there was no chaos or infighting. A lot of people wanted to become commanders so that they will be in close contact with Soverick but they understood that they had a deadline. They chose their leaders quickly through voting.
Meanwhile, Above the Hall. On the viewing stage where a few adults were watching the proceedings of the hall. The moment that Soverick entered the hall.
Guntu had been informed that Soverick would be coming. Soverick is a valuable person to the Ghastorix family. Most people in the family that had a say in the runnings of the family were against Soverick joining the divine dungeon clearing attempts.
They maintained that it was too risky. They understood that strife and danger are required for lasting growth but they also understood that Soverick didn’t need it. The little they had seen of his abilities indicated that he can absorb knowledge as easily as if he were a sponge. So there is no need to risk his life in such a dangerous enterprise. Plus making him go will expose him to the entire plane and increase the danger to Soverick’s life once they noticed his potential.
The others that were for it argued that a conflict of such scale is the proper stage for Soverick to show his greatness. They maintained that the greater the talent, the tougher the challenge needs to be to bring out his full potential.
The neutral ones were of the opinion that they didn’t have the power to forbid the offspring of the family from joining something like the divine dungeon clearing effort. Clearing the divine dungeon wasn’t illegal or for a rival family. It might be dangerous but it is for the good of the entire plane and the battle sage monkeys. It’s like saying the members of their family cannot join a war summons called by the racial council.
It is their opinion that if Soverick wants to go, he just needs the permission of someone with sufficient Authority in the family to go.
Guntu hadn’t listened much to the debates because it didn’t matter. What he thinks is all that mattered and there is no way he is going to allow the family to start dictating what their family members can do and what they can’t. The family has a lot of rules with appropriate punishment if broken. But they do not force anyone.
The rules are geared toward maintaining the interest of the family while the family rewards those that follow the rules with the benefits. Asking Soverick not to go isn’t in the interest of the family. If Soverick died to something like this then he will not survive becoming a titan of law.
Frankly, Guntu would prefer it if Soverick died now so that the possible future where he is important to the family will be no more. They will be able to focus on something else and not be on tenterhooks all the time. So he declared that Soverick could go as long as he got permission from any titan of law that is part of the family.
He also said, “He’s just going to be one among the crowds so he is going to be safe. There’s no reason to worry about him.”
He said that to alleviate the fears of those that were concerned for Soverick’s safety. Still, Guntu was worried and had been keeping tabs on Soverick’s location ever since. He knew when Soverick was first sighted and inspected. He knew when Soverick was logged in and brought to the meeting hall. He knew what entrance he was brought to, so he watched that entrance intently.
Yes, he would like Soverick to die early if Soverick will die in the future. But that’s just so that the family won’t be too emotionally invested in him. The family doesn’t lack money, it is their hopes and dreams that are precious to them. The hope of surviving the end of the universe.
He would be alright if Soverick died but he prefers if he doesn’t die. That’s why his eyes were glued to that entrance and watched as Soverick walked in. He noticed the peculiarities about Soverick immediately.
His eyes lit up. ‘It is as they said, he has acquired Seamless and the gates of momentum.”
He had seen the reports and the videos but seeing it with his own eyes was very assuring. It meant that Soverick’s chance of survival will be very high.
He relaxed a bit and decided to brag. If Soverick performs well then he will be noticed by others but there was no need to wait for that moment. When you have something that others don’t have, the value of that thing only increases if you lord it over others.
‘Not a lot, just a little bit of bragging.’ he reminded himself not to go overboard.
He didn’t want to overplay his hands. Soverick may be well above a normal vitality core stage refiner, but a single person is useless in a grand situation like this involving hundreds of thousands of youths.