"It's impossible!" Prince Nuada screamed, his flawless face twisting in absolute denial.
Ernst simply stood there, ignoring the Prince's outburst, and continued his lecture with deliberate, infuriating calmness.
"As a Prince of the Dark World," Ernst said, adjusting his cuffs, "you should be aware of the geopolitical reality of your own existence. The so-called 'Dark Forces' aren't a monolith. They are a loose, fragile coalition of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of distinct magical and mythical races. So, tell me: what force actually unites you? Who, exactly, are you fighting against?"
"This..." Nuada began, his handsome visage contorting as an uncomfortable, deeply buried truth surfaced in his mind.
He found it hard to say out loud, reluctant to accept the implication.
"You are united by your reliance on, and fear of, humanity," Ernst stated flatly.
"Humanity has always possessed significant power. Not in raw physical strength, but in the intricate, symbiotic relationships between mankind and the major cosmic forces of this planet. Humans form the bedrock of the magical ecosystem. Almost every other entity on this planet is, in some way, dependent on mankind."
"Other forces?" Nuada echoed, sounding genuinely lost.
He seemed to be on the brink of realization, but couldn't quite cross the threshold.
Ernst sighed. "You must be aware that gods have always existed in this world. Although their whereabouts are largely unknown, some undoubtedly linger in the shadows. Do you honestly think these gods would permit you to annihilate their primary crop?"
"Gods have always been distant," Nuada sneered, recovering some of his arrogance.
"They view humans as less than ants. Why would they care about the life and death of a human?"
Ernst regarded the Prince with profound disdain, wondering how someone with this level of ignorance had survived for centuries.
"Let me pose a question to you," Ernst said, pacing slowly.
"In this world, there are gods from various pantheons. The Greek Olympians, led by Zeus. The Asgardians, led by Odin. The Eastern Gods, the forces of Heaven, and the Lords of Hell. In your opinion, Nuada, which of these forces is the most powerful?"
Nuada pondered for a moment, shaking his head.
"It's difficult to say. They balance each other. There are occasional border skirmishes and unpleasant proxy battles, but no true, life-and-death wars between pantheons. It's hard to determine who is truly stronger."
"Exactly," Ernst nodded.
"It is challenging to discern their relative strengths because the stronger the force, the less inclined they are to openly confront a peer. The geopolitical landscape is too crowded. Starting a true war between pantheons would risk mutually assured destruction. So, instead of fighting each other directly, how do they measure their power? What do you think of human forces? Are they truly insignificant?"
"Humans?" Nuada's pride flared again.
"What power do humans possess? Yes, there are a few powerful mages, warlocks, and wizards, but they are incredibly rare. Any organized magical force, as long as it dispatches a large army, can easily eradicate them. They are cattle."
"And that is why I think you are foolish," Ernst said coldly.
"So foolish that there is no cure for you. I just told you that humans are the foundation of all cosmic forces, yet you still fail to grasp the implications."
Hearing a human label him as a fool, Nuada's hands clenched into fists.
He couldn't restrain himself from attacking Ernst again. However, the phantom pain in his ribs from the brutal beating he had just received held him back.
"All pantheons, regardless of their origin, seek ways to bolster their own power and influence," Ernst explained, speaking as if to a slow child.
"But how do they strengthen themselves? Heaven requires the souls of virtuous humans to power their domain, develop believers, or transform them into angels. Hell needs the souls of the wicked to build an army of demons, or to burn them as raw fuel. Olympus selects talented humans to train as warriors, or they descend to the mortal realm to breed demigods to fight their proxy wars."
Ernst stepped closer, looming over the defeated Prince.
"If you comprehend these relationships, you should discern a chilling reality: human beings are the absolute bedrock of the magical economy. If you truly seek to exterminate or dominate humanity, do you think these cosmic forces would consent? Do you think Odin or Zeus would let you burn their flock?"
Ernst gestured dismissively.
"Even the races within your own Dark Coalition would object. Werewolves and vampires rely exclusively on humans to feed and propagate their offspring. If you wipe out humanity, you starve your own allies."
Nuada stared at him, his golden eyes wide.
"If you somehow managed to conquer humanity and make them all your personal slaves, do you think those gods, who rely on humans for their future strength, would just bow to your wishes?" Ernst asked.
"Your father, King Balor, was the undisputed King of the Dark World. He lived in a realm where strength was revered. He fought in brutal, bloody wars. Killing was as natural as breathing to him. Exterminating a lesser race wouldn't make him blink. Do you truly, honestly believe a warlord like that would sign a peace treaty with mankind out of a guilty conscience?"
As Ernst's words finally sank in, Nuada felt a thunderous, paradigm-shifting impact in his mind.
He suddenly comprehended many things he had ignored for centuries.
His father was once hailed as a great warrior, unbeatable on the battlefield. He had slaughtered his way to the throne.
Nuada had never even dared to challenge him in his prime.
However, Nuada remembered the history clearly. When they initiated the war against humans, countless complications arose out of nowhere.
Sudden storms wiped out Dark armies. Diseases ravaged their camps. Unseen enemies struck from the shadows.
It was only after the creation of the Golden Army, when victory over humanity seemed absolutely inevitable, that his father's demeanor changed.
Nuada vividly remembered his father leaving their capital for a long period, only to return with a completely different air.
He became a "benevolent" king, his warrior spirit seemingly crushed.
Since then, the oppressive aura of his father's power had lessened. Nuada had always naively believed it was because his father had gone soft, or perhaps was restraining his strength out of love for his children.
Now, viewing it through Ernst's brutal logic, the truth was terrifyingly clear. His father hadn't gone soft.
He had been given an ultimatum by forces far greater than the Dark World.
The likeliest scenario was that King Balor had been severely injured or spiritually crippled by a god, an anomaly for a long-lived species, forcing him to sign the treaty to save his own race from divine retribution.
"No! No!" Nuada screamed, clinging desperately to his last glimmer of hope.
"We still have the Golden Army! It will never be vanquished! Even if my father was forced, "
"I said, stop daydreaming," Ernst interrupted sharply.
"Stop believing in the so-called invincibility of these clockwork toys. Though I've never witnessed them in action, I can easily surmise that their 'indestructibility' is merely a function of their self-repair capability."
Ernst pointed to the pocket where he had stashed the elven spear.
"As for how they self-repair, I already know. I read the magic runes inscribed on your spear. It's a standard self-recovery array, akin to the 'Reparo' spell commonly used by human wizards. The Golden Army runs on the exact same principle. Just destroy the specific magic rune nodes, and the self-repair halts."
Ernst shook his head. "Destroying the Golden Legion isn't difficult. You don't even need gods to stop them; an ordinary human wizard could do it once they map the runes. In the ancient past, the Golden Legion won battles because its adversaries were ordinary humans armed with iron swords and bravery."
"Now? Human war involves satellite-guided artillery, depleted uranium shells, and carpet bombing. Continuous bombardment will destroy the Golden Army's chassis faster than the runes can repair it. Once their internal magical energy is depleted, they become scrap metal. Do you still believe your Legion is truly invincible?"
"I... I..." Nuada stammered, struggling to find words. He desperately wanted to say something, but he couldn't form a single logical rebuttal.
His dignity, his centuries of planning, and his singular hope for the future had been entirely shattered by Ernst.
The cold, geopolitical truth pressed him down with a friction that was far more uncomfortable than death.
Ignoring the utterly disheartened Prince, Ernst turned and walked back up the tunnel, soon returning to the colossal chamber that housed the Golden Legion.
Gazing at the thousands of massive, dormant, egg-like spheres, Ernst extended a hand.
Using a localized kinetic pull, he dragged one of the heavy, three-meter-tall golden constructs out of rank and hovered it in the air before him.
He pressed his hand against the cold metal shell, closing his eyes to deeply sense the internal structure.
To his initial disappointment, the interior of the Golden Legion was entirely mechanical.
It consisted of thousands of intricate, interlocking gears, cogs, and pistons.
While it might have been highly advanced at the time of its manufacture centuries ago, to a modern scientist like Ernst, it seemed antiquated and entirely obsolete, a clunky relic eliminated by the progress of micro-processors.
Yet, as Ernst pushed his spiritual perception deeper, he discovered a bizarre, chilling anomaly.
The Golden Legion possessed a bio-magnetic field. It was a semi-living aura radiating a rudimentary, fragmented thought process.
This revelation shocked Ernst.
'Could the Dark World have actually created artificial intelligence thousands of years ago?'
Conducting a rapid, highly invasive spiritual scan into the core of the machine, Ernst finally grasped the horrifying reality.
It wasn't artificial intelligence. It was necromancy.
Each soldier of the Golden Army was integrated with a residual soul.
Crafted from a peculiar, highly conductive magic metal, the golden shell acted as a phylactery, forcibly sealing and preserving these souls to act as the machine's operating system.
"What a brutal methodology," Ernst murmured, lowering his hand.
He deduced the grim history. With every construction of a Golden Army unit, an elite soldier had been sacrificed.
Through a horrific, secretive magical process, their living soul was violently ripped from their body and fused directly into the mechanical gears.
The experience during this fusion must have been excruciatingly painful, leading to the deliberate shattering of their consciousness.
All feelings, memories, and higher reasoning were systematically stripped away, leaving behind only the primal instincts for combat, obedience, and survival.
This completely explained the lore: it was why the Golden Army obeyed only the strongest.
The fragmented souls recognized only absolute authority. Whoever wore the magical golden crown and defeated all challengers was deemed the alpha, and the souls were bound to obey.
King Balor, the monarch who ordered the creation of this Legion, was far more ruthless than history suggested, devising such a cruel, industrial method to build an army of eternal slaves.
Ernst also confirmed through his mental induction that the Golden Legion's internal and external surfaces were inscribed with the self-repair runes he had predicted.
This was the source of their legendary indestructibility.
However, Ernst viewed this as a mere engineering flaw. Targeting and destroying a few specific magical nodes would easily paralyze the regenerative cycle.
Contemplating the vast, cavernous space occupied by thousands of these dormant machines, Ernst considered how to make effective use of them.
He didn't want a clunky, gear-driven army, but the raw materials and the bound souls were incredibly valuable.
A highly efficient plan took shape in his mind.
With a light flutter of his sleeve, a dense cloud of black mist emerged. It swirled and solidified into the human-shaped guise of his spectral subordinate.
"Master, what are your orders?" Ghost asked, bowing deeply.
Ernst pointed to the hovering golden sphere and inquired, "Ghost, can you sense the souls sealed within these machines? What is their quality? Can you absorb them?"
Ghost closed his eyes, extending his dark, ethereal senses toward the dormant army. He stood perfectly still for a long moment.
When he reopened his eyes, a hungry gleam shone within them.
"Master," Ghost reported, his voice trembling slightly with anticipation.
"These souls... they are incredible. They were once elite soldiers, torn and slaughtered on countless battlefields. Despite having been dead and sealed for centuries, and despite their consciousness being shattered, their core will remains absolutely steadfast. They maintain a primal, burning determination to never give up."
Ghost licked his lips. "They are exceptionally high-quality souls. Much stronger than the modern mercenaries I have been consuming. As to whether I can absorb them from within their magical casing... I will have to try to be certain."
"As expected," Ernst nodded in satisfaction.
"The soldiers killed during the forging of the Golden Legion surely numbered far more than the thousands of machines present here. There must have been countless more souls unable to endure the agony of the reintegration process, leading to their dissipation. The souls that survived the forging and remain sealed here are the absolute most determined of the crop."
Ernst looked out over the vast, silent army. It was a treasure trove of spiritual energy.
"It's a very good deal for us," Ernst instructed, gesturing to the Golden Warrior hovering in front of him.
"Ghost, you may begin. Try to extract and absorb this one first."
-------------
Author's Note:
Do you want to read 25+ Chapters ahead right now?
Stop waiting. Come over to the dark side. We have cookies, advanced chapters, and very, very detailed 'plot.'
patreon.com/
Dark_sym