Lord Joyde: Heylo, Everyone! How are you all doing?
In the previous chapter, I asked if someone had the knowledge to guess which five rulers I put into Henrietta's trial.
… I AM DISSAPOINTED. But, I suppose that your answers prove just how much people hate history.
Oh well, here are your answers.
1. Firem78910 → I got to admit, this guy was the first to try and answer my question... he is also the one who got the best score.
A stunning 2 out of 5. I've already given him his cookie so no worries XD
2. Sakurada Kiritsugi, 3. pedrofaria339, 4. Stack96... all got the amazing score of 1 out of 5.
Anyways, the list goes like this:
1. Hitler →
"We shall give you our knowledge and understanding of the people, how to make them rise to your call and how to make them respect you, Fraulein." said a strange short man with an equally strange Germanian-like accent.. he has a cute mustache thought.
Oh come now, this was so obvious I don't know how people didn't realize it...
2. Marie Antoinette →
Another approaches me, this time a woman."We will teach you how to differ friend and foe, how to trick and deceive, but also how to reward and befriend." Her long, greenish dress tells tales of her royal ancestry. Her face is kind and lovely, she must have been a beloved queen.
This was the less obvious one, but I gave quite a bit of info that corresponds to her history, as well as mentioning The green dress she always seemed to wear.
3. Gilgamesh →
I turn around to see a golden haired man, outfitted in equally golden armor."We shall grant you the power to surpass all others who would call themselves rulers." His voice is dipped in pride to the brim.. its kind of unnerving but I suppose that its also kind of inspiring.
Anyone who's ever watched Fate/Stay Night would guess this in one go.
4. Napoleon →
I turn around to see a young man, high on his horse, his voice resounding, like that of a Galian."We shall teach you how and when to strike, how to form a proper army and how not to make the mistakes we did."
I suppose that Napoleon was the hardest to guess since you only had the Galian voice as the main hint. Still, it's not that hard to guess that Galia is just France.
5. Abraham Lincoln →
Another man approaches me, a great beard adorning his face, his voice inspiring."We shall teach you what laws to make and which to not, how to differ things moral and immoral, when to say no and when to say yes."
This... should have been more obvious that Hitler... Seriously now, a great beard plus a monologue about laws and morals?
Anyways, I suppose I should stop being an asshole as start the story already hehe.
Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...
The Castle Training Grounds – Louise's Point of View.
The Training grounds of the castle were not all that much in terms of aesthetics. It's really just a bunch of target dummies and colorless stone floor.
Nevertheless, that did not stop me from using them for a while as I was trying to get my Chaos Fireball spell to work... while I cast it myself. I don't want to rely on others for a spell so amazing.
"Hey daughter, I've been wondering something." I heard dad voice echoing in my mind, as if in thought.
"Hmm? What's up?" I ask with some curiosity.
"Willpower... Mana... Magic.. whatever you want to call it, in the end they are all just a type of energy, correct?"
"... I suppose so, but what are you getting at?"
"Like all energies around you, perhaps it has a... primal form. One where it isn't.. let's say, merged with anything else... Could you try to channel mana into your hands without any real shape or form."
"Basically, you want me to gather mana but not make it into a tentacle, right?"
"Pretty much."
"I don't know if that is possible but I will try."
I feel myself grow a little bit excited because I'm going to do something that nobody has ever tried before.
I channel the raw mana into my palm, without imagining it to take any real shape or form.. just plain energy, really.
I hear crackling sounds from my hand and quickly open my eyes, which I haven't even realized I had closed, to see lighting dancing at the palm of my hand.
The many onlookers gasp in surprise and awe at the little display.
Growing even more curious, I channel even more power into my hand, giving the magic only the order to attack the given target, but not to transform into any real element.
This is tricky and I fail a couple times, the mana reforming into fire. I stop the spell each time and repeat it.
I got it right on my seventh try, the crowd growing ever larger, even Henrietta came to look.
Finally reaching a point at which my new spell satisfies me, turn around and swing my hand towards a target dummy.
The ball of lighting does not completely leave my palm, instead the air screeches as a thunderbolt strikes at the dummy, ripping it in two, completely consuming the upper half.
Then the spell returns to its original position, returning the used magic energy to me and thus making me lose nothing.
My eyes grow wide at the implications of this new spell make themselves clear... would it be possible to create bigger lightning strikes, to perhaps teleport from place to place using lightning?
"Hmm, just as I expected. In the end, mana, is just another form of energy... perhaps the first energy in existence, given its power to shift into any other form of energy..."
"Fascinating..." I stare at the spell with more than just a tiny grin forming on my face.
"Louise, what was that?" I hear my mother's voice from behind me and I turn around.
I tell her whilst sporting a grin that goes from face to face."That mother, was lighting."
She blinks."But how, There is no such element as lighting."
"That's because its not an element. Its just raw willpower focused onto a target without being changed into another element. Pretty cost effective, considering that the magic returned to me."
"That's... that is brilliant! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before?" One of my onlookers exclaimed. The crowd cheered me for a little while with mother telling me she is very proud of me.
I smiled at her and turned around to restart my experiments... Lighting... This spell will be very useful when I'm low on mana in the future.
"That's not all, Louise. The spell returns the magic you used to you, but it can also be used to.. push out the willpower out of your enemies body. It is the ultimate weapon against mages and I think that maybe even commoners might be able to use it."
"How so?"
"Commoners may not be able to use the more basic magics like element based spells, but mana is a core part of every person."
"So even if they can't use things like fireballs or alchemy, they should be able to use raw mana.."
"Correct. Creating an order of... Templar's, would be very beneficial to Tristain should a coup d'etat start somewhere... and I think we both know just who is the perfect candidate to be the master of one such order."
"Agnes." Both me and Dad say in unison.
I continue to talk to dad about future and other complex things, but my inner peace is interrupted when a peasant approaches me.
"Lady Vallierie? King Wales has called for you to join the War Council, the preparations are done and the march into Albion is starting."
I cock an eyebrow."Are we attacking alone?"
"No, from what I've heard. The Germanian's will be aiding us in the battle."
"Good, thank you from bringing me the news, you may go now."
He bows and leaves. I turn towards the castle and go help Wales assemble the army.
Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...
Fyr's Gate – The Harbor between Tristain and Albion – Louise's Point of View.
The enemy had a serious advantage of high ground. One which we needed to either bypass or get rid of quickly.
After some debate, we managed to cook up two solid plans out of hundreds which were given to question.
… Most of which were mine. The power which I've recently gained from Zeus is proving to be more useful than I ever imagined.
The first plan was to have our air forces defend a set of transport ships while they fly into the harbor above, but that was pretty risky, even when it yielded high reward.
Our allies, the Germanian's, had excellent ground troops. Their barbarians were somewhat under appreciated, but no one could deny their skill in battle, weather mage or commoner, both were terrifying to fight against and inspiring to fight along side of.
If we could get even a squadron of them inside, we could easily secure a good amount of ground for the rest of our troops to safely descend in. The problem was that Albion's air force was double the size and skill of ours.
What little air ships we had wouldn't be enough.. and the crude, disgusting things that the Germanian's called air ships I won't even count.
The second plan was to have mother and me lead all of our air force into a charge as a distraction, letting our transport ships get in undamaged.
I liked this plan better and mother seemed to agree. Naturally, the griffin knights and Tristain's new airship force, designed by yours truly, were ready to follow our orders to the latter.
The new airships had been improved using the wind enhanced steel I used to make my Pursuer, allowing for otherwise wooden ships to be adorned by heavy steel plating, which was nearly impossible to break thru with the simple cannons used by Albion's army.
That didn't apply to the crew aboard however. If a cannonball was to hid the deck, it was sure to pick up and make a mess out of anyone caught in its way. And by the time our ships would ascend to higher ground that what the enemy already had, half of them would have been sunk anyway.
This is exactly why we needed to charge into the battlefield as quickly as possible, rather than waste time guarding a couple berserkers.
But the Germanian's had other plans, saying how having women lead men into battle was insulting.
Ah yes, in Germania, they still think that women are nothing more than cattle and toys for men to use and abuse for their personal pleasure. I didn't know this until now.. Hell, no wonder Kirche is like she is, she was raised to be that way.
Needless to say, mother did not take kindly to this idiotic insult towards all women and decided to blast Mr Sexist General into unconsciousness with her favorite spell.
This was the first time I got to see the Heavy Wind in action and considering that she was holding back when she made the whirlwind knock the man out, I figured this was going to be fun.
The men in Tristain's air force were positively giddy at the prospect of following not one, but two Vallierie's into battle. When I commented about this, mother simply stated "Yes, I've trained them rather well. Don't you agree?".
I found this rather scary for whatever reason.
Aside from battle plans, I found something out during the council... My mind is now fully capable of multitasking on a grand scale.
While I was imagining the many ways we could assault the castle above, I also had a curious idea.
My familiar, Pyre, was essentially a fire elemental. Does that mean she can take upon any shape or form?
To my surprise the answer was no. Pyre could indeed, shape shift into things like chains or anything smaller than herself, but bigger things required mass which she didn't have herself.
Even when it came to normal horses, Pyre wasn't exactly a giant, so a normal griffin or dragon would dwarf her easily.
But that just means that someone else has to provide the necessary mass in order for her to shift her shape into something bigger than she currently is.
I didn't know how to do this which was making me somewhat sad, but Dad then decided to give me an interesting piece of information which made my mind cook up so many possibilities in the instant I heard it, that I got a serious headache.
This is the reason why I'm currently resting inside of my tent.
Anyways, the thing that dad told me is that Pyre isn't made out of normal fire or natural magic fire, but my own energy.
My own fire, given life and consciousness by Zeus.
This was very interesting since it means that I could make Pyre fuse herself into any spell I make.
Instantaneously, the idea to fuse her with one of my Chaos Fireballs popped into mind, but then I realized that the fireballs are not strictly mine, but a combination of multiple mages, including myself.
And that would simply not do. Not at all.
Considering that I still had sometime left before the battle would commence, I found a nice vale of soon-to-be-burned grass and started to practice forming the fireballs on my own.
I knew the way the mana had to flow because I had already cast the spell at least twice.
I had the necessary mana, so that wasn't the problem either.
The problem is the formation and control of the spell.
It wasn't until I had burned half the vale, that I realized I could make Pyre fuse with the spell in its normal stage and then start feeding it magic.
Pyre was essentially a horse made out of fire, capable of holding herself together indefinitely.
I hate to say it, but my familiars control over fire was greater than my own.
Once I had successfully done this, Pyre had decided to use the excess fire to transform into a phoenix.
My grin was so wide I think I ripped my cheek.
Mother then decided to leave her hiding spot, a nearby tree which was safely behind me, and tell me that the battle was starting but not before hugging me and saying how proud she is right now.
I returned her hug with a blush on my face.
Once we broke the cute family moment, we both turned around towards the battlefield, eyes blazing in barely restrained blood lust and fury.
Albion... shall fall.
And from it's ashes, shall arise a new order. One that will shake, the very foundations... of the world.
Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...
Lord Joyde: And that is it for chapter 25 of The Heart of Blaze.
Oh and sorry for the wait guys and gals, I was on vacation for the last couple weeks.
Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!