City of Sin Book 9, Chapter 85

The Value Of A Commoner
The fleet from the Frozen Court slowly pulled into Floe Bay, a large number of the Deepblue’s mages boarding to inspect the ships. Each one was custom made according to Richard’s specifications and at least twice as big as anything comparable, but a lot of the space was left empty for additions.
Blackgold used the several days it took for the transfer to the utmost, downing barrel after barrel of ale with his brother to pass time by. Stormhammer quickly lost control of his mouth, letting many things slip that the grand mage memorised well.
Stormhammer was now the Shadow King’s chief inventor, and was personally responsible for the creation of these battleships. They had been crafted in a private plane rich in minerals and magic crystals, the timeflow increased to a blistering twelvefold just to speed up the process. There were a total of twelve enormous shipyards in that plane, and seven of them had been dedicated to Richard’s request for months. The Frozen Court normally wouldn’t sell to the Sacred Alliance at all, but the already-wealthy Shadow King had reportedly prioritised Richard’s order the moment a letter came in about it. There was definitely an ulterior motive behind this, but it wasn’t a secret that Bladefury or Stormhammer could know.
Blackgold quietly asked Ironshield why Richard had suddenly ordered a fleet of his own, but the legendary warrior wasn’t aware either and had only been sent over to ensure a smooth transfer. The defender was capable of holding off anyone under the epic realm long enough for Richard to rush over, if not defeat them outright.
Barring the initial hiccups, the Frozen Court didn’t cause any trouble during the rest of the process. Ironshield confirmed that all of the battleships were in peak condition, which meant the Shadow King hadn’t played any tricks. After the last of the ships was inspected, he headed to the communication hall to relay the news.
The warrior was shocked to see a three-dimensional scene appearing in the magic circle, depicting Richard stood atop a snowy peak right before a steep drop. Behind him were towering mountains with no communication array in sight, leaving Ironshield with a shiver running down his spine. Be they mage or warrior, he had never heard of someone being able to communicate from more than a thousand kilometres apart without a paired communication circle. He felt his reverence grow that much stronger, a common occurrence ever since he started following Richard. He had noticed that it was these minor shows of power that would be miracles to most others.
“Is the fleet ready?”
“Oh? Right, yes it is, Your Grace!”
“Thanks for taking care of it. Stay around for a while longer though, Perrin will be coming over to modify the ships. Make sure nobody interrupts him.”
“Of course, Your Grace… But… May I know just what this fleet will be used for?”
Richard smiled, “I’m going to head towards Lithgalen soon. I’ve heard all sorts of amazing legends about the elven empire’s battleships; I can’t go there with an inferior fleet.”
“Lithgalen?” Ironshield’s eyes glinted strangely, “Are you giving those elves trouble? Will there be another reward point battlefield?”
“Points are all you can think of, huh… No, I won’t initiate battlefields internally unless the other side is the aggressor.”
The warrior was somewhat disappointed by this, but he thought about the existing two battlefields and all the points he had accumulated in his time following Richard. He already had enough to get whatever he wanted, now only limited by his own growth.
Once Richard cut off communications, Ironshield suddenly remembered that he had seen Richard atop a snowy peak the last time as well. Every second was precious to someone so powerful, and the Archeron King could have been spending time crafting more runes. He quickly concluded that there had to be something important with that cliff, but it wasn’t something he could even guess at.
Once the fleet had been handed over, Perrin brought dozens of mages with him from Faelor and started work, a small army of warriors moving materials around for him. Even the astral chrysalis had been deployed for this task, standing by for an entire day as he looked through both the interior and exterior of one of the ships before allocating tasks. With Richard’s permission, he stopped most of the workshops in the Deepblue and repurposed them with designs of his own, having them churn out hundreds upon hundreds of components every day.
The faux-old man had also brought a large amount of completed attachments over with him, and set out installing them one by one. Anyone who had fought in the war against the reapers would notice that many of these attachments were in typical reaper style.
……
Richard had spent his recent time rather idly. He had woken up every morning and travelled to the snowy north, simply standing there quietly for most of the day before returning to Faust at night to share dinner with Coco and Fiora or chat with his followers. He seemed to start living a commoner’s life, neither designing nor crafting runes and giving up all of his territory’s management to Alice, Goliath, and Sauron. His strange behaviour was so alarming that one day, Julian eventually rushed over in the morning to inform him that Empress Apeiron wanted to meet.
Richard gladly made an appointment, meeting her on the royal room that very afternoon. The Empress looked sharp as ever, but sitting across from her he calmly stared out towards the beautiful scenery of Faust.
Apeiron was the first one to give in, knitting her brows as she asked, “Why can’t I feel your aura anymore?”
“Eh, my mood’s changed since the battle with the reapers.”
“And what have you been doing lately? It looks like you have no plans for progress; did you get hurt?”
Listening from the side, Julian knitted his brows as this question was asked. Although Richard had defeated the reapers, that didn’t necessarily mean everything was alright. Even Emperor Philip had severely wounded two Daxdian epics to the point that they had fled, but he himself had sustained fatal injuries that he eventually succumbed to. If it was the same thing here…
Richard smiled at the legendary warrior’s frowned, pointing at him with his right index finger. The fingertip lit up a little, but while it wasn’t particularly bright the angle and timing managed to catch Julian completely off-guard.
Julian suddenly felt his vision go white, crying out subconsciously as he retreated a few metres. However, Richard calmly picked up his knife and tapped the man’s chest before putting it back down. His actions were clear and unhurried, but Julian only retreated after the knife was back in its original position. When Julian could see clearly once more, he lowered his head to find a small hole right in the centre of his chest where he hid his energy core.
Richard smiled, “Even if I lose the majority of my strength, I can still take out anyone who’d have designs on me. Regardless, I’m completely fine.”
“Then what are you doing? Is someone giving you trouble? Is it the old fogeys from the Sacred Tree?”
Seeing Apeiron’s bloodlust flaring up, Richard smiled helplessly, “No, they did nothing. Besides, do you really think anyone would dare give me trouble now?”
“Hard to say, you haven’t been cruel enough. I’ll go and kill an epic or two, that should teach them!
Richard shook his head in exasperation, stretching out his left hand as he formed a small tetrahedron on the palm. Countless faces started jumping up and down along the surface, mesmerising Apeiron and Julian with their sheer number. The latter just gasped in shock, but the Empress was strong enough to see that each face was a soul and simply went mute. She couldn’t even begin to count the number of souls there!
“What is this?”
“A manifestation of my truename. All these souls came from Faelor; they’re people who died to the reapers.”
“So many…” Apeiron was bloodthirsty and indiscriminate in her slaughter, but that didn’t mean she would just kill endlessly. Even she was astonished by the sheer number of dead.
Richard sighed, “Faelor had more than a billion people, but only 30 million were left when I finally won. These souls aren’t even a quarter of the total; most simply dissipated with time. I’ve been looking through their lives and memories for the past few days.”
“What use is that?” Apeiron frowned. To those at her level, a commoner’s memories and knowledge were rather worthless.
“I wasn’t sure at first, but seeing these stories is like having gone through an entire life. Even the most mundane of lives has its ups and downs, and these people have their own feelings, beliefs, and goals. As far as their souls go, they aren’t much different from yours or mine.”
“Our souls are much stronger than those of commoners!” Apeiron dismissed after some thought. However, the hesitation was already visible on her face.
“Doesn’t matter, we still only have one soul each. From a higher level, there isn’t a difference. Do you think a queen ant is any different from its regular kin to you?”