Warlord of Chaos

In the preceding days, Han Jin, Jeddes, and the others began talking about the customs of the two regions. With Jeddes’ patient explanation, Han Jin and the others learned lots of information about the Kingdom of Magnificent Light, with the most popular topic being a comparison of the two regions.

The folk customs of the Kingdom of Magnificent Light were relatively pure. In fact, within whichever society, the surplus valuables were produced mostly by the lower class, yet those on top of the pyramid rarely create valuables for themselves. It was indeed a weird phenomena in human society that food and clothes did not necessarily have to come from one’s own work.

Although the citizenship system practiced by Nicholas meant that all magic and fighting academies were available to the average civilian, the system was only meant for social conflict, not for fundamentally increasing the class of the civilians. Nicholas was giving the civilians a chance; if you wanted to be free from bullying and be guarded by the national machines, you need to contribute to your country first. Rebelling was wrongful as you were held accountable for your own lack of ability to become a citizen.

Eliminating classes was outright impossible. People were born intelligent or dumb, powerful or weak, and with good or bad luck. Even eliminating the existing classes and letting everyone stand on the same starting line would create new classes silently.

Jeddes wanted everybody to serve under the mercy of God, but he did not deny classes. Reversely said, letting a cardinal eat and dress like a civilian was unfair. In one year, a farmer could possibly feed a few people, but a cardinal could cure hundreds of people, potentially thousands, even saving desperate lives; the comparison was obvious.

The saying that ‘all work is the same’ was extremely fake, and fundamentally false.

Of course, Nicholas’ citizenship system was a progressive institution, or at least more progressive than the Northeast, with endless wars.

Such days of discussions couldn’t continue forever, and the little thunderbirds needed attention. They couldn’t return to the Isolated Cliff City for now, but they still needed somebody to inform the people in the city to settle potential worries. However, just by coincidence, as Han Jin and the others decided on a person to return to the city, a faint and noncontinuous sound of bagpipes echoed.

Julia quickly tilted her ears as she spent some time listening in detail. She then twisted her hands, creating two semi-fists, placing each in front of her mouth; as her fingers danced in rhythm, some slightly dull bagpipe sounds could be heard.

Han Jin became briefly confused, “Who’s coming?”

“Elves.” Julia answered briefly, then continued to call out to the other side with the bagpipes

The other side could clearly hear the response, as the sound grew rapid. Julia quickly listened, then smiled: “They’re coming.”

“Who?”

“Sunier.”

“Really?” Han Jin stood up, surprised and pleased.

“When have I joked with you inappropriately?” Julia gave Han Jin a supercilious look.

“Sunier? Who is she?” Jeddes asked.

“Can you not guess by seeing his pleasure?” Yalina said.

“Oh…” Jeddes suddenly realized.

After a few more noises in the forest, Moxinke’s strong body appeared in the tree line. Upon seeing Han Jin and Yalina, he yelled, “Finally found you all! I mean… who have you fought with? There’s a huge, high pitch over there, is it the charm of prohibition? Are you all well?”

Moxinke asked so many questions, to the point where there was no clear place to start answering. Moments later, Sunier and Cessacioun exited out of the woods. The last person to appear was Dwightsteel, the leader of the Dragon Singer Mercenary Corps. He even brought dozens of mercenaries with him; it seemed as if he was hired as Sunier’s bodyguard.

They each knew each other well, and complex etiquettes were exempt. As Gibran and Winston stood up to greet the oncomers, Moxinke turned his eye and noticed the horde of little thunderbirds, as he shouted out, “My dear… what are you guys doing, feeding chicken here?”

“You fool, there aren’t chickens! Go get a good look yourself.” Reg sneered.

“No?” Moxinke took a few steps to the front of the pitch, grabbing the wing of a little thunderbird, picking it up, “This is clearly just a chicken! Where did you get this many eggs? Who incubated all these eggs? It must’ve been you… Reg!”

The little thunderbird struggled with great force, then used its little beak to peck at Moxinke’s finger. Given their precedence of puncturing Saxon’s boots, Moxinke’s fingers were no match; blood immediately began oozing out.

“Wow… ouch! This little bastard!” Moxinke, infuriated, threw the little thunderbird to the ground, and intended to step on it.

“Hmm?” Han Jin warned Moxinke.

“Moxinke, how dare you!” Yalina, seeing Moxinke’s actions while chatting with Sunier, became so mad that her hair began standing up.

Moxinke instantly froze in place, turned around, and noticed Han Jin and the infuriating Yalina, finally recognizing the situation. He then attempted to smile.

Sunier used the chance to free herself from Julia and Yalina’s ‘entanglement’, as she approached Han Jin, smiling at him sweetly; their connected, quietly.

“See its power? ” Reg’s face was filled with visible gloating, “This is a thunderbird! You… you can survive the next year; when it grows up, you will be zapped by lightning!”

“Will I fear them?!” Moxinke showed a contemptuous smile, pointing at the little thunderbirds in the pitch. However, seeing the mess that the little thunderbirds had made, imagining the picture of them all fully matured became absolutely terrifying. Thunderbirds were ultimately level nine holy animals, and excessively exaggerated bragging would bring them shame—- Moxinke promptly turned his hands pointing towards the fiend jumping on the ground nonstop with its eyes open wide with fury, “Will I fear it?!”

The fact that he changed from ‘them’ to ‘it’ already showed compromise.

Yalina instantly darted towards the scene, still angry, holding up the little fiend in her hands. It was weird that only Han Jin and Yalina could touch the birds without being attacked. They each speculated that it was because of the electric magics Yalina practiced.

“So cute!” Sunier shouted. Like Yalina and Julia, she loved little animals, but that love did not necessarily continue as they grew bigger, “Yalina, let me have a look.”

“No, these little dudes are really hostile and can hurt you.” Yalina shook her head and said.

“It’s fine.” Han Jin smiled.

Given Han Jin’s words, Yalina safely passed the little thunderbird to Sunier. Just as expected, the little thunderbird was very cute, looking around in Sunier’s hands and walking around carefully, without showing any signs of danger.

“So obedient.” Sunier said with a smile.

“Hey, you should’ve come half a month earlier, that’s when the real fun happened.” Yalina looked somewhat annoyed.

“Their temper grows with their size! Ah… oh, yes, Raphael, you said you want a thunderbird king, right? Could this be the one?”

“It may be any thunderbird.” Han Jin answered

“Moxinke, you are out of luck.” Reg lightly poked Moxinke’s arm.

“What?” Moxinke was confused.

“Thunderbirds are very vengeful, yet you just treated one so poorly… zezeze!” Reg blurted out to frighten Moxinke. “Raphael’s using magic to turn it into a thunderbird king! I am sure that it will become a level ten thunderbird king! Level ten…”

Moxinke’s face quickly turned pale.

“How did you get here?” Gibran veered the conversation back on track.

“So, that’s how it started.” Cessacioun interrupted. Moxinke was unfit for talking matters; he regularly veered off-topic, even talking about outright nonsense at times; Sunier, now sticking near Han Jin, was equally unfit.

“Letters from Ronning said that he eliminated the unified troops of the Beit City first, then used a trap to eliminate Woodrow’s troops, but still failed to capture him. Woodrow is a level ten grand magician, and Ronning can’t stop him from running away. Now, Ronning is preparing for a counterattack, and he wants to ask you…” Cessacioun then abruptly stopped, looking at Reg, “Ask you all for your opinions.”

“Ronning can decide for himself on war-related affairs.” Han Jin answered.

“Reg, what about you?” Cessacioun said.

“If Raphael doesn’t care, why do I need to care?” Reg shrugged, “But… when you return, tell him that winning is the only option!”

Cessacioun then let out a short sigh of relief, “Another thing, when eliminating the unified troops of Beit City, he used large sums of magical crystals, and was short on supply. Upon the military’s entry of Beit City, they still needed to eliminate the city’s defenses using the magical crystal artillery, so….”

“What? In order to give him a chance in the fight, Raphael has given so much to Isolated Cliff City, is it still not enough?” Yalina yelled.

“Indeed, insufficient.” Cessacioun smiled bitterly.

“Yalina, don’t we have a large sum of magical crystals from the thunderbirds? Giving them all to Ronning should last them some time.”

“That’s still insufficient.” Yalina was hesitant to sacrifice any crystals; level nine thunder magical crystals were immensely helpful to her, but the current circumstance dictated that they were not to be kept—- she still knew their priorities, “But they have more than two hundred magical crystal artilleries, it’s too wasteful to use level nine thunder character magical crystals directly, if we replace them all with level six or seven fire magical crystals… they still wouldn’t last long.”

“Will it suffice if we add this?” Han Jin smiled as he expanded his right hand, showing a giant magical crystal; it was transparent like glass, showing an attractive luster under the sunlight. Everybody present could sense an extremely pure elemental fluctuation.

“Dragon… dragon crystal?” Yalina was fully stunned. In fact, almost everyone present was; even Jeddes stood up, staring into the dragon crystal without any movement.