The Vastness of Magical Destiny

Gazing into the distant North, Komer couldn’t help but sigh softly; everything seemed to be on track, and his own plans were slowly progressing. The confrontation between Katya and Hoffman seemed advantageous to him for the moment, as it made Katya more reliant on him.

Perhaps if Komer asked Katya to offer her body, she would not hesitate to strip and lie in bed waiting for him, as long as he could offer enough benefits to help her ascend the throne. She had waited too long for this and paid too much.

But the affairs of the world are often unpredictable. Just as she was inching closer to that position, the sudden southward movement of the beastmen turned this beautiful dream into a bubble that burst, the brocade stool seemingly floating between her and Hoffman. It appears near, but when you reach out, you always find it just out of grasp.

The news from Maha Gummi was accurate and timely; indeed, the beastmen were preparing to settle in the North of the Kingdom of Nicosia. They began to adopt the mortals’ laws wholesale. It seemed these creatures had a remarkable ability to assimilate, swallowing whole and making do. However, one had to admit that the beastmen weren’t as simple-minded as imagined; amongst them, there were sages with a deep understanding of civilized evolution.

At least they understood that exterminating or expelling all mortal nobility from their controlled regions was an exceedingly wise move. For those worms, which wherever placed were trouble, keeping them within beastmen territory brought nothing but trouble. Leaving behind some simple and impoverished mortals, offering them minor favors was enough to buy their loyalty and possibly achieve a harmonious synergy. That was exactly what the beastmen intended to do.

The fools at the Church of Light would soon realize that their support for the beastmen was a shortsighted act of lifting a rock only to drop it on their own feet. The beastmen could quickly converge with human civilization in terms of lifestyle, governance structure, and production technology, but faith isn’t so easily altered by foreign ideologies. The loss of a vast region in the North and massive population displacement had plummeted the Church’s prestige in the region, just as it had the central authority of the Kingdom of Nicosia. They now needed to consider how to reverse this influence, especially to alleviate the resentment among the disgruntled refugees, lest other sects easily usurp their position.

However, all this was not Komer’s primary concern. An astonishing discovery came through the intelligence system of Maha Gummi: a previously unseen new breed of soldier had appeared among the beastmen during their blitzkrieg in the West and the battle to capture Jazair. They hid within the ranks of archers, using the guise to conceal themselves, but they launched attacks akin to magic. This caused a widespread collapse of the Golden Oak Legion, leading to the fall of Jazair within three days.

Corroborating evidence was also obtained from the remnants of the defeated Golden Oak and Iron Cross Corps, which greatly shocked Komer.

Had the beastmen bought off human mages, or had they cultivated their own magical abilities? Either scenario meant that the power of magic was no longer solely in human hands. Still, Komer hoped for the former. If it were the latter, it would mean disrupting the Creator God’s laws; a race already far surpassing human strength now possessed human-exclusive magical powers, spelling the end for human history in this world—an unthinkable outcome.

Yet, evidence suggested that the beastmen’s magical abilities were not potent, with commonly used war magic like fire and thunder powers yet to appear. Instead, powers resembling those of wood and earth mana hinted to Komer that perhaps residing in forests and wilderness had granted the beastmen a closer connection to the natural forces around them. Even this possibility was enough to overturn the human monopoly of the magical world.