System Change

The flight from capital to capital was long, to say the least. Without the ability to teleport from city to city throughout the kingdoms because of the massive dragonkin, they had to fly the entire way. Just as planned, Blitz met the group before they even left the Cydaria border, and Edgar moved to his own companion from Edward’s, leaving the king and crown prince to take care of babysitting the Duke of Astrus.

Even with the straight line speed that the dragonkin all flew, it took over a day and a half to get to the elven capital—once again proving how good Void Travel could be. When they arrived, the Indrian retinue was already waiting for them.

It would have been a bit faster and easier if Derek would have used Void Travel to bring Indria’s party to Cydaria for them all to leave from there, but, the decision was made that it would look better to the Indrian people of the capital to see their own leaving side by side with Cydaria. On top of that, the royal family had much to do in the two days leading to the departure—specifically, dealing with the combined army that was mostly still located in their borders.

Derek and Alanah stayed circling in the air on her contracted wyvern, and Avery and Tara did the same on Lyra, while Blitz and Volt took the royal family and Duke Terrin down to the palace. It seemed that the Indrian royal family had called for a gathering for the event, as there were many more people—mostly elves—gathered around.

There was another speech—this one a combination of Edward and Osian—for the people of Indria. Derek tuned most of it out, as he had already heard the gist of it before when they left Cydaria. The group did a little show with Duke Terrin and, though the cheers were more subdued than those of the Cydarian citizens, the people of Indria eventually got behind everything.

Finally, a handful of Indria’s people—including the king and duke—joined Edward, Edwin, and Edgar on the backs of their bonded beasts and they lifted off to scores of applause and cheers from the crowd.

Derek waited for a bit—until they all got a decent distance away from the city—then looked over at Alanah. “I’ll be back in a few.” Seeing her slight nod, he looked over to Volt—where the Indrian royals, Edward, and Edwin were gathered—and, after having Silvi hop off his shoulder and onto the back of the wyvern, he used Active Void Shift and appeared just a few inches above the flying beast, then landed on its back.

Ryven winced, and the crown prince jumped away before panicking and trying not to lose his balance on the back of Volt. Osian, to his credit, only turned his head slightly to look Derek in the eyes. Edward and Edwin seemed to be becoming immune to Derek’s antics, and did not show much of a reaction to him appearing out of nowhere without any warning.

“So,” Derek said to Osian. “Did you bring enough people?” he asked as he ignored everyone else’s stares. He was talking about the five elves who had boarded the back of Blitz instead of Volt. One of which he recognized as the female general, Nira, who was in the meeting the other day. All in all, there were nine people from Indria and eight people from Cydaria—if he counted himself—going to Astrus. That was if he wasn’t counting the dragonkin and Silvi. If he did that, Cydaria massively outnumbered Indria.

“I’m talking to you, not them,” Derek said. “You know more about what’s going on with your side than either they or I do. I want to know what we should expect once we get there.”

Finally, Osian glanced over at the other flying dragonkin, specifically Blitz, and all the people on his back, and nodded. “We had to make a good showing,” he said. “After our announcements, we had to show that we were in complete support of one another.”

“Announcements?” Derek asked. “What did you tell everyone?”

“Not much, yet,” Osian replied. “Mostly that we have withdrawn our support from Astrus and joined forces with Cydaria. The rest will be announced in due time. For now, they know everything they need to know. There was less pushback from some of our elders than I thought there would have been, too. So, that is good.”

“Elders?” Derek asked.

“What we could consider our patriarchs of what you would call noble houses. Speaking of the elders,” Osian continued with a nod to the elves on the back Blitz. “Four of them have joined us today. They wanted to see for themselves the might of Cydaria.”

Derek glanced over at the five elves on the back of Blitz once again. So, aside from General Nira, the other four are all the leaders of the top noble houses in Indria. That should be good… should make things easier if they support Osian early on. Derek noted that there were three men and one woman among the elders.

The woman and two of the men all looked rather young. If he were to compare them to humans from Earth before the Universal System arrived, he would put them in their late thirties or early forties. Knowing how elves aged, this could mean that they were ancient. However, the remaining elder was different than the others. He looked like Edwin—like he already had one foot in the grave.

In fact, taking a closer look, the man looked even worse off than Edwin—like he was going to keel over and die any second. “Are you sure that guy’s going to make it there?” Derek pointed to the older elf. “Riding on the back of a winged serpent isn’t exactly smooth.”

“Of course,” Osian said with a scoff. “Marrick is one of, if not the, oldest living elf in Indria. He is also one of the strongest.”

“Yet he didn’t help you in the war…” Derek said.

“He… was against it to begin with,” Osian explained. “And he is not part of the royal family or associated with our armies. He is more like Ms. Swan,” the king said. “An entity that has grown strong enough to do what he wants.”

“And he wants to fight Astrus?” Derek asked.

“He has some grudges against the Astrus royal family… well, not any of the current living royal family, but Duke Terrin and King Tevarian’s grandfather and a former king of Astrus. The man has long since died, but grudges don’t necessarily die with them.”

“I see…” Derek said. “So, he’s here to fight, then?”

“If the former king stands in the way, yes,” Osian replied. “And I’m sure now that both his eldest son and grandson have been slain, he will not just roll over and accept his fate.”

I didn’t think about it much back then, but the King of Astrus didn’t look nearly as old as Edwin. It turns out that his father is even still alive. “Well, if nothing else, I’ll get to see a cool fight,” Derek said as he looked over at Duke Terrin, who had clearly seen better days. “Assuming he uses the same type of ice that both of his sons and apparently his grandson did.”

The Indrian King didn’t seem amused by Derek’s pun, but still answered anyway. “Yes, he does. Though, I’m not sure of his overall strength. Tevarian was said to be one of the most talented users to appear in ages, so I don’t know if he was stronger or if his father was.”

“I guess it really doesn’t matter,” Derek said. If it comes to it, ice melts… he thought. “So, what do you think we’ll be looking at once we get there?” he finally asked the question he was most concerned about. Osian was literally just allied with the other kingdom, so he should know more about them than anyone else—especially if he kept an eye on things as well as he said he did. “Is the father the biggest threat?”

“In terms of the ability to gather supporters in a short amount of time, yes,” Osian answered. “I would expect that by now, all the most powerful know of the king’s demise and that we are on our way. So, either the former king, Traven, will take his mantle back, or Tevarian’s wife, Queen Cassandra, will be in charge.”

“Is she strong?” Derek asked.

“She is known to be,” Osian replied. “Not as strong as Tevarian, but from what I’ve heard, she’s no pushover.”

“So, you think these two will be able to convince everyone to fight us?”

“I can’t imagine why or how they wouldn’t,” the Indrian King replied. “Almost all the witnesses to your battle with the army, then Tevarian, have been captured and are being held here in Indria. That is what my brother and I have been doing since you left the palace… that and speaking to the elders.

“They will only have what rumors have spread there from Cydaria and previous battles. With the lockdown of my kingdom, it is not easy for information to spread outside of Indria currently. So, it’s possible they may not even know that you are back. Even if rumors did manage to find their way out, they aren’t that believable—especially when it comes to your companion.”

“You seemed to believe them easily enough,” Derek said. Osian was quick to recognize Derek when they invaded the palace and act accordingly.

“I had reports from my brother about your companion already, and Ryven wouldn’t lie to me. And when your son dies in a battle, you tend to take it seriously. Even if it was against a horned rabbit.” The king clenched his fists, then unclenched them with a sigh. “Plus, like I said, everything that happened when you joined the war happened inside my kingdom’s borders. So, I doubt they have any first-hand accounts of what actually happened.”

“I see,” Derek said. The communication lock that Indria had over their kingdom really could end up being helpful to their current situation. Just because Tevarian and his brother were so high up politically didn’t mean that they were the strongest in Astrus. The prime example of this were Edwin and Edward. The father and son duo were most definitely stronger than the average person in the kingdom, but there were many others who were stronger than the two of them. Though, from what Osian said, it does seem like Tevarian was up there.

So, with all that in mind, Derek didn’t expect to just go in and have everyone roll over for them. He expected a fight—and not an easy one. He would allow the leaders of the two kingdoms and their people to take action first, as it would be more impactful that way, but if he was needed—which he was sure he would be—he wouldn’t hesitate to jump in.

“So, we go in hoping for the best, but expecting the worst,” Derek said.

“Yes,” Osian replied. “That pretty much explains the situation… and life in general.”

Yup, Derek thought.It was an idiom that Derek had heard his whole life back on Earth. And it never applied more back then than it had ever since the system came. Derek had spec’d into vitality and endurance back then because he was prepared for the worst, and it had helped and saved him countless times.

“Good chat,” Derek said, then turned and looked at Edwin and the others, who had been listening in, but hadn’t interrupted their conversation. “Did you all hear that?” he asked.

“We did,” Edwin spoke up. “It is as we expected.”

“Good,” Derek said. “I’m going to head back over to the less crowded wyvern. I look forward to seeing you all fight.” He laughed and disappeared with Active Void Shift before they could say anything. The next second, he was standing next to Alanah.

“Learn anything new?” she asked from her seated meditation position.

“Just that we should be able to watch a pretty good fight between senior citizens,” he replied with a laugh. “And hopefully, there will be a good fight for us as well.” With that, he sat down and slipped into his own meditation. They didn’t have long to go, and he wanted to be as fresh as possible… just in case.

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