On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Eighteen

Absorbing the plentiful ether I converted a modest amount to repair my shredded leg, visualising the wounds closing up. It itched infernally, but seemed to be working. Once more able to bear my weight, I looked at the ball of glowing greenish light that had also came with the ether, but was now swirling around me in wind-like streams.

I guess this is wind energy? Makes sense as the sickle-weasel was using wind, but it doesn’t seem like I can do anything with it?

As I pondered that, a weaselkin was racing my way, fleeing my Territory at pace. The defeat of their leader must have panicked them. Hefting my spear I threw it, channelling a little aether so that it struck true, the knife-point piercing the skull of the retreating weasel, killing it instantly.

“Hang on, what if another comes running and grabs my spear?” Panicking, I raced over and collected my spear again, just in time as another couple of weaselkin appeared, being pursued by my own pair of remaining degraded weaselkin. It’s lucky I can somehow tell which ones are mine, or this would get very confusing.

I engaged them and quickly despatched them with a couple of sharp thrusts. They were too frantic to defend much, making it easy to win. Other weaselkin had escaped though, racing away from my Territory to the west. There were probably a dozen of them, most of them ordinary weasels, with a couple being the more elite, black-furred type.

If I still had my Defensive Emplacement in normal mode, several of those would have been shot down as they fled. The sniper version is way too slow to recharge. If I hadn’t reset the cooldown by upgrading it, it probably still wouldn’t have fired a shot yet. Of course, if I hadn’t upgraded it, the Kamaitachi would probably have diced me into pieces with its wind, so there is that…

My Territory had weaker defences now overall, as a swarm of attackers, such as the weaselkin who had just fled, would be able to overwhelm my barrier long before the Sniper Emplacement had picked them all off. Still, it had other plusses… The best thing would be if I can scrape together the ether for another Emplacement, then I would have the best of both worlds.

“All right then. Since this is the second time they have been sniffing around my Territory, it’s time I dealt with them once and for all.” I raced after them in pursuit, managing to take down several more weaselkin with swift attacks from my spear. I was definitely starting to get the hang of basic spear combat, the movements beginning to be ingrained into my body and mind.

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Practice makes perfect, I guess? Some of the weaselkin tried to slow me down, turning back to face me, throwing whatever items they had on hand at me, but I easily overcame them. This continued for ten minutes or so, until I was approaching the local park. As I ran between the last of the two apartment buildings before the open expanse of the park I stumbled, something slamming into me from behind.

Barely righting myself I turned, only to see an arrow flash past my face and bury itself in the ground beside me. Pain flared as another fist-sized object crashed against my shoulder, a large, jagged rock bouncing off.

“Shit, an ambush. Cunning as weasels indeed…”

Up above on the rooftops were a half-dozen weaselkin, a couple armed with short bows, the others hurling rocks and branches down at me with great malice. As I defended myself with my spear and the occasional burst of aether I noticed that more weasels were coming out from the park, squirming out of large holes in the ground. There must have been at least twenty of them, and what was worse, I saw another Kamaitachi coming, murderous glee on its furry face.

“Crap. Time to go…” I muttered, beating a hasty retreat, taking several more hits from falling rocks and a nasty nick from an arrow which skimmed my back, drawing blood. Scything blows of wind gusted out, smashing apart dustbins and trash bags that filled the alleys between buildings, but most of the force was spent by distance and I suffered only minor grazes. I ran for what seemed like ages but was no doubt only a few minutes, and before long I was back at my Territory, safe within the slowly repairing barrier.

“Well that sucked.” I muttered to myself, using a little more of my aether on my many shallow injuries. “I had hoped that they were the last remnants of my foe. But it seems they have another force lying in wait.”

There was no way I could take them all on alone, the only reason I’d managed to beat the first Kamaitachi was because I had tricked it with a sudden upgrade of my Defensive Emplacement. I was confident of being able to handle a couple of weaselkin at once, but if they swarmed me, or ambushed me again with ranged attackers, surely the only outcome would be me dying. After all, it was always way easier to defend than to attack. Without home field advantage, I would just be a walking target, I need to think of another way…

However, the battle was not without its merits. I had levelled up, and after all of the dust had settled I had accumulated quite the stockpile of ether. The sickle-weasel in particular had released a very large amount on death. More importantly, I had found the lair of the weaselkin. Their numbers should have been quite diminished from their attempt to take down my Territory, so I likely had some time to plan my next move. It’s kind of tempting to keep farming them for ether if they keep coming, but since this isn’t a game but life or death I’d best just make sure I clear them out so my Territory is safe.

The question was, how was I going to go about that? A headlong charge would be no good, as I would get minced by the wind from the Kamaitachi. And if there was more than one of them, my chances would drop even further, so what I needed was either overwhelming force, or greater numbers…

As I pondered, announcements kept scrolling across my vision of the defensive barrier repairing itself slowly, draining a little ether. Some of my kobolds had come to pay their respects, and were crowing about the victory. Quite a few of them looked bigger and stronger, and some of them were carrying crude clubs and other weapons they had salvaged from the fallen weaselkin.

“Good job, great job!” the kobold miner praised. “Following you was the right choice. When the big one came, we thought we were dead, surely dead.”

“Well, I did say we would be stronger working together. I’m sorry that some of you died, I’ll strengthen the defences so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Against Seelie, it was great victory, huge win.” The leader barked. “In life always comes death, but most survived. As long as the tribe survives, some can die, be killed.”

I couldn’t help but nod at their pragmatism. I suppose that is the life of the weak. Still, they chose to join me, so I see them as my retainers, and I'll make sure that they have the best prospects I can give them. That's what it means to have troops. Unlike a game, they are real, not expendable.

“All right then, you can go back to your lair. I’ll have a think about how we can deal with the weaselkin threat for good.”

As the kobolds left I checked what options I had available to build. It took quite a while, as I pondered each of the available choices carefully, before I settled on my next move.

Spawning Spire Rank 2 – Upgrade Cost 4000 - This Spire can create up to twenty-five Basic-class troops based on those you have defeated. The Spire can also create up to five Elite-class troops. These troops are a degraded version of their base type, able only to defend themselves, the Territory and follow simple orders. They cannot gain experience and will not rise in Levels. However they will be granted a small increase in all their Material Statistics when created. This will take four Astral days to upgrade.

With these additional troops I would have support which would hopefully enable me to invade the weaselkins' Territory. I had several options for Elite troops. Black weaselkin were probably the best option though. Still, I was missing something else as well. If my weaselkin had weapons…

Armoury Rank 1 – This Armoury can equip your troops with weapons and armour at the cost of Ether. At Rank 1 the maximum rank of weaponry and armour you can create is limited to Basic. Items that are not already a duplicate of those you possess will require additional Ether to create. Advanced equipment will require materials in addition to Ether. Cost 1200.

Most of the enemy weaselkin had no weapons, other than a few with bows and crude clubs. If I could equip mine, then I would surely have the advantage. Now, the only barrier remaining was the fact I didn’t have nearly enough ether. Despite my large gains for killing numerous weaselkin and even a Kamaitachi, I had fewer than two thousand ether in hand. I had pretty much run dry by rushing the upgrade to my Emplacement, and even after that, my Spawning Spire was replenishing my weaselkin slowly, which required more expense, as did the repairing of the defensive barrier.

So, the first order of business here was to amass as much ether as possible. Gripping my spear I headed out in a direction I’d not been in yet, and made sure to waylay and defeat every enemy I came across, draining all the lesser spirits too. Unfortunately this didn’t amount to much, as the monsters in the area around my base seemed to be diminishing in number. This left me with no choice but to enter some other buildings outside the hundred-metre radius of my Territory. As I expanded my search area and plundered various places (even finding a few red Etherite ores along the way, which I quickly converted) my stockpile of ether rose nicely.

Once my ether supply broke the four thousand barrier, I triggered the upgrade for the Spawning Spire. I didn’t have the ether available to rush the build, and hopefully it wouldn’t prove necessary. I was feeling tired, and my rate of aether drain was growing at pace as I had been in the Boundary for what seemed like a day of Material time, but I decided to push on until I had either gathered the rest of the needed ether or was forced out of the Boundary.

Charging into another building I hefted my spear, just as the denizens attacked me. They were a group of giant ants, each the size of a big dog, covered in blackish-blue chitin. Damn, almost all of the monsters inside these places are insects or other creepy-crawlies. I guess it is better, as I don’t feel good about attacking living things like the kobolds unless they attack me first, but even so… it’s pretty nightmarish…

My spear struck chitin, only piercing through as I added a little weight with aether, the usage draining several times more than normal, probably due to my long exposure to the Boundary on this trip. The ant reared and I dug deeper, shattering it into ether. I took some of it to restock and funnelled the rest to my Silo. More and more ants swarmed in on me, but with the extra reach of my spear and using the doorway to bunch them up I enacted a massacre, and soon they were all dead. During the skirmish I managed to level up again, going from six to seven. It seemed a bit quick, but then I had cleared out a fair few buildings, and also taken out the Kamaitachi, which was probably worth a ton of experience considering how much ether it dropped.

Once the building had been cleared and I had maximised my gains I slumped down, exhausted. The battle with the ants had really taken it out of me. Luckily they were unintelligent, or I would have been swarmed and ripped apart. Despite that, I had reached my goal, and queued the Armory to be built after the Spawning Spire upgrade was finished. With a long yawn I closed my eyes, and with that I was back in the Material, once more safely inside my room.