Chapter 26: War Machine

"Is this real? Is this actually... something a Seed gives you for free?!"

Koda stared at the Incubation Pool, marveling.

"It can birth spawn from the first tier all the way to the hundredth!"

"And this is only a newborn pool. What could it make once it grows?"

"Unfortunately, it’s a little expensive to raise another one."

Through the throne, he could feel the price. A second pool would cost ten thousand soul stones’ worth of essence, and could only take root in land like this. The altar cost one hundred thousand. The gate, twenty thousand.

Like the territory itself, every structure could be fed and made to grow.

However, the two kinds of growth did different things.

A growing territory made new structures possible: Champion Altars to call up a race’s heroes, Warlock Towers for spellcasters, and great forges that turned out finer weapons.

A growing structure usually only widened its soldier types, made them cheaper, or raised them faster.

But the Incubation Pool had broken all of those rules!

Every spawn it showed him could be made right away, with nothing to unlock.

As long as Koda could wake the pool and pay its price, he could raise whatever he wanted.

"Wait, I need to wake it first!"

That was when he realized something important.

The pool was still dried out.

In fact, it wasn’t only the pool.

The whole Third Layer felt as if it had been dead for an unimaginably long time.

In half a day of walking, apart from the distant smoke, he hadn’t met a single living thing.

Not one beast. Not one weed!

Apart from the turning vortex, the land was trapped in an eerie silence. The word "dried" fit the whole layer as well as the pool.

"Forget what’s wrong with this place for now," Koda said. "However strange it is, it isn’t my problem. I need to figure out how to wake this pool."

With that, he sat back on the throne and searched for a way.

The answer came as a considerable relief.

The pool wanted five hundred souls.

Koda let out a long breath.

That wasn’t hard for him at all.

The spheres he had devoured after the battle had packed his Core Seed denser than ever. Through the throne, he measured roughly fifteen hundred souls’ worth of essence, half again what he’d held before following the pursuit.

Even better, the throne could take that essence and press it back into soul stones.

’Giving up a third of it hurts,’ he thought. ’But I’m investing it, not losing it.’

"So all it takes is soul stones to wake it. That’s not so bad."

"Then again, it’s the first thing a Seed gives you. If it were too hard to wake, most lords would never get anywhere."

Koda glanced at the dried pool, then turned to the other side.

"And then there’s the third one. The one that looks like a gate."

"What exactly does it do?"

He reached toward it through the throne.

The answer was surprisingly short.

It ignored the walls between realms. It could open a passage both ways, nothing could break it, and he could close it whenever he wanted.

Short, but extraordinary!

Koda’s eyes widened.

"It ignores the walls between realms? It can’t be broken? A passage?"

"With all of that put together, can this thing really be called..."

"Something a Seed gives you for free?"

Normally, a territory had to grow at least three times before its lord could even raise one.

A gate also cost a fortune and was easy to destroy. But the reward matched the risk.

When a new lord raised his first gate could decide whether he survived the Claiming at all.

After all, the Claiming had only two marks to hit.

The first was to grow a territory at least ten times, without its throne ever falling.

The more it grew, the higher the layer would rank its lord.

The second was to hold a hundred thousand soul stones’ worth of wealth by the time the vortex finished its turn.

Hunting, mining, or raiding someone else’s land; it didn’t matter how. As long as you held it, you passed.

Naturally, the more you held, the higher you ranked!

And that rank decided what the layer gave you when the Claiming ended.

Extra champions, mutated strains of soldiers, stronger lordly powers, and more.

But a hundred thousand was no easy number.

Living off the land around your throne was practically impossible, and even those who managed it would barely pass.

So where could you gather a hundred thousand the fastest?

There was only one answer.

The Tithe Lands, which every new lord could reach through a gate!

Each time the vortex turned, it tore a stretch of land loose from somewhere and dropped it into the layer. Its riches were packed together so densely that they seemed unnatural.

Every new lord had to raise a gate, send followers through, build outposts, and haul the riches home. But since everyone wanted them, sending laborers alone wasn’t enough.

If a rival saw a weakness, he wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter your workers, take what they had gathered, and smash your gate for good measure.

So you also needed an army to protect your workers. Only then could you survive the Claiming.

Now, Koda had barely planted his Seed, and he already had a gate.

He couldn’t help wondering whether his luck was good or bad.

On the bad side, the land around him held nothing worth gathering.

On the good side, he hadn’t done anything yet, and he already owned a set of structures so devoted to war that they seemed almost fanatical.

"Wait... I think I get it now."

Koda looked at the altar, the pool, and the gate, and the pieces came together.

"This Third Layer of Hell... was once a world of war."

He raised his head and looked up at the vortex.

For some reason, he felt as though it had noticed.

At its center, something shaped like an eye seemed to shift, and almost imperceptibly, it stared back.

"This layer has nothing worth taking. It doesn’t need to dig anything up."

Koda looked out over the dead land stretching for miles, and at the countless skeletons in the distance, bleached and worn down by time.

"Because it lives by plunder!"

"It’s a living... war machine!"

"It conquers to feed itself, uses war to fuel war, and keeps the fighting going forever; that’s how it’s supposed to survive."

"It doesn’t need culture, or talking, or treaties. And yet every other race would understand exactly what it wants."

"Because whenever it shows up, it only means one thing..."

"WAR IS COMING!"

At that moment, the gloom that had weighed on him all morning disappeared.

His eyes gleaming, he walked to the Incubation Pool and let the throne press five hundred souls’ worth of essence out of his Core Seed. Five hundred blood-red soul stones dropped into his palm.

Then, one by one, he threw them into the pool.

BOOM!

As the stones fell in, the countless black tentacles covering the pool began to pull back.

Then a strange rumbling rose from the deepest reaches of the Third Layer.

It was the terrible roar of a war machine that had slept for ages, finally waking up.

Inside Koda, the Devouring Origin stirred, and the words left his mouth before he could weigh them.

"My beloved war... The endless war I’ve yearned for all this time..."

Koda smiled as he looked up at the sky, meeting the gaze of the enormous black-and-red vortex.

"Is it finally about to begin?!"

The hunger he had spent so long deliberately holding down was finally about to be let loose.