Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 71: The Liberation Front I

Conference Room

Liberation Front Headquarters

Borseau Central Area, Alenlet.

January 16th

Year 2018

When Dragon King Ikerth began his invasion into the world of Zotov more than a thousand years ago, he had caught the powerhouses of this planet completely unaware.

The dragon had long gathered information using the dragons of Zotov, about the major threats to dragons on the planet and where they resided.

The first attack was a personal descent by him and his Lieutenants, a Blitzkrieg attack on all those places/individuals that ended in less than an hour, leaving thousands of important Zotovian individuals dead, and hundreds of thousands of weapons destroyed.

Everything happened far too fast for the Zotovians to even react properly—the Race King Level being included.

In fact, the person was not even at the level of a Race King then, so there was little to nothing he could do.

After this, Ikerth made his official declaration of his invasion, and it was then that his army of dragons actually arrived.

With the element of surprise on their side, and with the Zotovians still in disarray from his initial attack, Ikerth captured two major continents on the planet within the day that followed.

It was only after this that the Zotovians were finally able to properly respond to this interstellar invader unlike any kind they’d ever seen before.

The Dragon King took out a lot of the planet’s satellites, crippling their communication and the initial blitzkrieg had left most of their command chains crumbled. Thus, it was only natural the Zotovians’ response was late.

Even so, though they responded, the most they could do was halt his invasion and limit him to those two out of eight continents on the planet.

And Ikerth did not press forward at the time, using the opportunity to consolidate his rule on those two continents, before eventually carrying on and conquering more.

In the time Ikerth spent consolidating his new territories, multiple Zotovian organisations came together to form coalition forces against this new invader, but due to certain differences, some of these alliances did not last.

There were some with traitors within who had sabotaged them, causing serious trust issues; while some had issues over the divisions of war spoils and many other similar matters.

However, Ikerth didn’t wait for them to sort themselves out and restarted his invasion, taking over two other continents, and killing multiple Transcendent beings despite being under the restrictive laws of the world that limited him to their level.

The Zotovians tried resisting, even asking for help from some of their neighbouring allies, but some simply rejected their pleas as the invading Race King was an Estean, while any who dared help ended up with a dragon invasion on their hands, leaving them unable to provide any more support.

In the next few years, Ikerth carried on, capturing seven out of eight continents on the planet. By this time, he had already established a presence in the Galaxy’s ore market, and when people inquired into his source, they discovered the Pie that was Zotov.

However, this pie had Ikerth’s name stamped on it already.

So, others had to go through him if they wanted a slice, and Ikerth allowed them to bring their forces into Zotov, with terms and conditions of course.

He once again put a pause on the Invasion, giving the Zotovians the time to pool all their forces together into one body, formed with the goal of liberating the captured continents.

This was how the ’Liberation Front’ came to be.

Ikerth himself had now taken a ’hands-off’ attitude towards Zotov, leaving most things to his Lieutenants whilst he handled other matters in the Red Dragons’ sector of Estea’s Interstellar Colonies and just let the money, and universal influence come through.

He even pulled back some of his forces, reducing the number of dragons on the planet.

Over the centuries that passed, the Liberation Front had succeeded in liberating two of the continents, but due to Ikerth’s forces pressing back, the score returned to 7-1.

One time they had evened things out, but this Golden Age was cut short by Ikerth’s personal reappearance, and the scales tipped to his side once more.

In fact, the Zotovians almost lost the one continent they had at the time; Alenlet. Using a scoreboard, things were around 7.5-0.5.

This was when the Race King of Zotov, Terion, finally achieved the realm required for this title.

If it wasn’t for him who engaged Ikerth’s true body in combat, then the Dragon might have just taken over the entire planet at the time.

As for the result of the battle; Ikerth’s presence on Zotov even a thousand years later was enough to let everyone in the know that the Zotovian had lost.

This was expected though, as the newbie Race King was naturally no match for Ikerth who was well into the Intermediate stage.

One of said people in the know, was currently heaving the deepest sigh he had in the past few years, as he stared at the data displayed on screens in front of him.

This man was Dornik Sarzeiros, the person who held the rank of the Liberation Front’s Commander-in-Chief.

Though his real age was unknown, he appeared to look fairly young, a common trait amongst most Transcendent Realm existences like himself.

His square jaw was adorned with a closely-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, its colour mirroring his hair’s jet black, lending him an air of wisdom and experience. His eyes, a piercing shade of steel grey, seemed to carry the weight of countless decisions.

Raising those eyes from the tabs in his hands, he looked up at the other men and women donning similar uniforms like his, but with fewer medals and insignias on them.

"Is everyone here?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Let’s begin."

He said that as he dropped the tabs, glancing at all the faces present, even those of Miranda’s two subordinates who were present.

Since they were Zotovians, it was much easier for them to get into the organization than anyone Miranda brought from outside.

The mere fact that the two of them were high-ranked enough to personally meet with Dornik, showed how deep Miranda’s hands were into Zotov’s waters.

Knowing this, Jamie figured that Miranda had other reasons for her presence on Zotov, and though getting ’revenge’ for the attack on him was one, it was far from her main priority.

If it even made the list in the first place.

"Reporting sir. We were able to confirm another descent yesterday at around 1200 hours."

"I know, I sensed it myself. Have you figured out who it was?"

"Yes."

The official spoke and switched on the magic projector, pulling up an image of a familiar-looking red-haired female dragon.

"What was the title she was addressed with?"

"The lesser dragons we abducted stylized her: ’Her Ladyship Pirantu’."

The faces of all those present changed when they heard the official’s words. After being invaded by Estea for over a thousand years, it’d be strange if they had not learnt much about the planet.

And the more they knew, the more they realised how lucky they were to even have a chance at resisting one of the most powerful Interstellar Colonies in the Galaxy.

"She’s another one of those being the Esteans call ’Race Lords’. And from how the other ’Second Grade Threats’ supposedly received her, she’s most likely a ’Senior’ one."

"So, another ’Second Grade Threat’ to our world, huh?"

Dornik spoke with a frown, ignorant of the thoughts going through Miranda’s subordinates’ heads.

’If only they knew said ’Threat’ has been neutralized by Lady Miranda’s lover.’

Naturally, they kept those thoughts to themselves, putting up grave expressions like they were truly worried about the situation.

The official presenting then switched the projector’s display to a chart, a very large hologram chart showing the names and images of various beings, most of which were Esteans.

With the flick of a finger, Pirantu’s image flew all the way over to the fourth line and joined the other ’Second Grade Threats’ on the chart.

If it wasn’t obvious by now, then this chart was one that displayed the Liberation Front’s classification of their ’Major Threats’ to Zotov.

The official who pulled up the chart pushed up their glasses and spoke.

"This Race Lord descended with an Avatar. If we are able to destroy it, she’d receive a backlash, losing all the power she put into it and depending on how immersive this avatar is, she could receive damage to her consciousness possibly her soul.

Our World Laws would also make it so she cannot recreate avatars here for a period of time."

"We all know this. We experimented with it when we killed Second Grade Threats."

The Liberation Front had taken out multiple Race Lord Avatars; which were mostly capped at the peak of the Sovereign Realm.

This was not too surprising as they had Second Class Combatants; Sovereign Realm existences of their own.

On a side note, each of the Grades had a ’Semi’ variant. This was reserved for the normal existences in that realm who were not Avatars of Higher Existences.

For example, whilst Pirantu was considered ’Second Grade’ a normal Dragon on the Sovereign Realm like her would be considered ’Semi-Second Grade’.

Anyway, the Zotovians had taken out multiple Second Grades (SGs) over the years, but the number of First Grades (FGs) they had defeated, was much lower.

"This is bad."

"No shit..."

The commanders muttered amongst themselves as they looked at the chart hovering in the air in front of them, going from bottom and slowly rising to the top.

Eventually, their eyes all came to rest on the images on the top of the chart. The place reserved for the highest-ranked threats to their planet.

In that place, was the picture of a man no Zotovian present could ever forget.

Special Grade Threat:

Dragon King Ikerth.