Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 64: Forming the Heroes Party

Inside the castle, the meeting had begun in earnest.

Rather than the courtroom, this one was being held in the War Hall.

This vast chamber of mana-protected walls was created to house the most hidden secrets and plots made by the King. Strategies, battle tactics and infiltration missions were discussed here.

It was always a tense place to be.

Today, it was even tenser.

The air was thick enough to taste.

Ulcraft, wearing a crimson robe, stroking his beard with a look of worry in his eyes, sat to the left of the table head.

Grigor, calm and collected as always, sat to the right. His eyes were blackened, his hair tied to a bun and his lips grazing the edge of his diamond cup as he took a sip of wine.

Luvar, Thanlor and Otharus were all present as well, taking the seats beside Grigor and Ulcraft.

However, there were seven more seats. Four of such were vacant, but the other three were occupied with the true titans of the mortal realm.

Three Legacy Awakeners.

Legacy Awakeners were the chosen defenders of every province in the continent. Since Metrodorian oversaw seven distinct provinces, it claimed seven of these legends.

They were the most powerful and the most experienced of Awakeners. All at Lvl 150, hitting the ceiling but possessing decades of distilled experience.

Azmagrab, the Legacy Awakener of Northmarch, sat back with pride. His armor almost illuminated the entire room with its orange light.

The Arcanist crest floated beside him. A crest he carried proudly knowing how respected the Class was.

Azmagrab looked barely forty, but the golden light of his eyes suggested a mind that had lived a thousand years in the span of decades.

To his left was the Legacy Awakener of Winterholt, Elya, an Elemental Mage whose very breath seemed to chill the air.

Her hair was a startling split of frost-blue and crimson-red, and her armor was made with conductors that allowed her to channel all the elements that she had mastered over her 35 years.

Opposite them was the Legacy Awakener of Metrodorian, Valerius, a Knight whose golden plate armor bore the scars of a hundred Gate Worlds.

He had white long hair and a full beard. He looked the most serious of the present Legacy Awakeners.

Alfred welcomed them and they began the meeting.

The subject at hand was clear. It had been days and they were yet to hear anything from the Priest and the Awakeners they had sent to retrieve the Ancient Power.

"It is better we admit it to ourselves in time. We are chasing ghosts, Alfred," Thanlor said, giving Alfred a look as if pleading to reason.

"Unfortunately, I have to agree with Thanlor here," Grigor sighed. "Thimoses has been silent for days. My whisperers in the south have heard nothing from the direction of Stonehold."

"The silence itself is an answer," Elya added. She had an unbothered tone of voice. "A party of five Academy masters does not simply ’forget’ to report. They are very much dead."

"You don’t know that," Ulcraft almost spat in anger. "What if the Dwarves have captured them and are torturing them to steal our secrets?"

Grigor almost chuckled. "My, Grigor. You don’t know that either."

Luvar facepalmed. "What is it with him and his hunger for racial conflict? Right now, the three races have a unified goal. This is a good thing."

Ulcraft shook his head. "I’ll tell you now. The only way we can get betrayed is if we start trusting our enemies as allies."

King Alfred raised his hand. "It is best we focus on the matters at hand."

Ulcraft paused, glancing at his fellow noblemen before nodding his head. "Fine, Alfred. Of course."

Alfred rested his hand on the table, his blue eyes glistening with the heavy responsibilities burdening him. "Could it be that they’re not dead? What if the Priest deceived me?"

"To what end?" Otharus asked.

Alfred thought of it for a while, then sighed. "I’m not sure."

The Chief Diviner was present as well. He stepped forward, keeping his head bowed, careful not to sound like he was scolding the King, though his words were heavy with "I told you so."

"Your Majesty... I warned that the threads of fate were tangled near Stonehold," the old man whispered. "They own the oldest land and it’s not our place to meddle with history."

Alfred gazed at him for a while, then spoke. "Is that what you came for? To admonish me?"

"No, your Majesty." He cleared his throat before continuing. "Some of the dwarves reported a phenomenon. They had seen a violent green light rise from the earth’s crust and pierce the sky before vanishing into the atmosphere."

King Alfred narrowed his eyes. "A violent green light? Do you suppose that this green light was what the Priest sought to find?"

"Yes, your Majesty. It was reported in Dranarg, the same city the Priest and the Awakeners entered in search of the power."

Grigor looked extremely curious. "If they haven’t returned then... this power must have been so strong it killed them."

The Chief Diviner tilted his head to look at him. "That... is a possibility."

"Hmm."

There was silence for a while.

"Whether they are dead or missing doesn’t change the geography of our ruin," Valerius broke it. "The Great Shield—the very thing keeping the Demon Lord’s main force at bay—will not hold for very long. The increase in Demon Migrations is proof of this."

"That’s true," Azmagrab chimed in. "The Demon Lord is clearly trying to create as many Citadels as possible. And our morale is falling because we are pinning all our hopes on a Hero who has abandoned us for small villages."

"Then we find a new hope," Alfred declared.

They all turned to him.

"Is that not what we did before?" Thanlor asked.

"No, we went searching for power elsewhere rather than finding it amongst ourselves."

Grigor raised a brow.

"Today, we stop depending on other sources to protect us," Alfred continued, standing up. "We become our own protectors. We are powerful enough to do it, and even though this is a desperate decision, it is still very much the right one."

"What are you saying?" Azmagrab asked. "A person of our world can not kill the Demon Lord."

Alfred narrowed his eyes at him. "That is a rule of history drawing is back. Stopping us from pushing ourselves. If the Hero at Lvl. 300 can kill the Demon Lord, then why not two Awakeners of our World at Lvl 150?"

The nobles and the Legacy Awakeners exchanged glances. To some of them, his statement made sense, others only feared the implications of it.

"I am declaring a shift from the Hero’s Party to the ’Heroes Party.’ We will no longer wait for the wretched outworlder to change his mind.

"We will take the best from every Guild, the top prodigies of every Academy, and we will forge a collective power. Not one Hero and his disciples, but a legion of Heroes."

The nobles exchanged looks of deep skepticism.

To train a group to the level of a Hero would take resources that would bankrupt the treasury.

"And Akuma Island?" Elya asked. "Who enters the heart of the corruption? Even we," she gestured to the three Legacy Awakeners, "cannot survive the miasma of the Island for long without the Hero’s blessing."

"We will find a way," Alfred insisted. "For now, we must prepare as there is no other choice. We will send the call to the Elf King and the Dwarf King. They are just as terrified as we are.

"We will meet on the neutral ground of the Summit, and we will choose the vanguard that will protect Evernia from the Demon Lord."

The discussion turned into a feverish debate of logistics: which academies would be stripped of their seniors, which Guilds would be forced to break their private contracts to provide instructors, and how to stabilize the provinces while the best were being sent to the capital for training.

Finally, after hours of shouting and strategy, the King raised his hand for silence. The room went still.

"Send the messengers," Alfred commanded. "To the Guilds. To the Academies. To the Elves and the Dwarves. Tell them the Age of the Single Hero is over. Evernia will only depend on its people henceforth."

He looked at the empty seat that should have been Percival’s.

His voice dropped cold. "We will stop the Demon Lord ourselves. And when the fires are out and the world is safe... then, and only then, will we deal with this traitor who abandoned us."

Everyone nodded their heads, filled with some sort of hope, seeing the King so confidently.

But Grigor wasn’t hopeful at all. He glanced at the Chief Diviner who held the same terror on his aged face.