Chapter 602 - Chemical Warfare

Athis spun and heaved a large knight across the street.  The man crashed through the reinforced wall of a building, though due to some sort of magic Tucker didn’t understand, the damage was confined to the point of impact.  Despite being structurally unsound, the building remained standing.  A common enough scene across the entire city. 

Even as Athis threw himself at another knight, Tucker nearly lost his balance from an earthquake emanating from the other side of the city.  He knew Zeke was involved, though he wasn’t sure how. 

Not that it mattered.

That man could take care of himself.  Tucker, meanwhile, had his own task.  Chiefly, he was charged with helping the first army as it progressed through the city and to the fortress at the center of Eldoria.  There, they hoped to find the Imperium’s leadership.  It would be no easy feat, he knew, but with the way everything was going, he had some hope that things would work out in their favor.

After bashing the knight to death, Athis pushed himself upright and turned to Tucker.  He asked, “You just going to stand around and do nothing?”

“I’ll step in when I’m needed,” Tucker answered.  He’d yet to bring his full abilities to bear on the battle, but that was more because he hadn’t encountered a sufficiently dense collection of knights.  His potions were wasted on the relatively small groups they’d fought so far. 

“You could go to the front line,” Athis suggested.  “Seems like a lot of knights there.”

Tucker shook his head, shouldering his blunderbuss.  He still wore his pirate attire, including the tricorn hat, but that was mostly because it had become a part of his style. 

“No can do,” he said. “The kobolds don’t like people messing with their tactics.  They work best when they can control everything.”

While that was mostly true, it needed to come with the caveat that he hadn’t really earned their trust yet.  He’d made a lot of promises about developing a potion-based regimen that might usher them into a new era of kobold sapience, but he had yet to deliver.  Most kobolds couldn’t have cared less about that kind of thing, but the leaders certainly did.  And kobolds, for better or worse, followed their leaders. 

It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t think for themselves.  They were definitely capable of that.  The problem was that they trusted those leaders, completely and without even a second thought.  So, if people like Silik didn’t trust him, then the rank-and-file surely would not. 

Still, Tucker had made some progress on the project, though because of the war, he hadn’t had as much opportunity to grind it out as he would have liked.  The result was that there were a lot of unfulfilled promises floating around, and the kobolds were in no position to ignore them.

Thankfully, their frustrations only took the form of blatant annoyance when he meddled in their affairs.  They didn’t hate him.  Nor did they attack or insult him.  They just wanted him to stay in his lane, while they prosecuted the war on their terms.  And Tucker wasn’t going to overstep. 

“The monsters run a good army.  I’ll admit that,” said the big Kirran.  It was ironic that, if he’d clad himself in the same armor, most people wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between him and the larger kobolds.  They were obviously different creatures, but there weren’t as many differences as Athis pretended. 

He was right, though.

The kobolds had swept through the city with undeniable efficiency.  Many had been wounded along the way – especially when their shields had been broken – but very few had been killed.  The knights of the Radiant Host, by contrast, had fallen in droves.  Most of that opposition had been killed, but there were quite a few that had been taken prisoner.  Fortunately, the Crimson Tower’s dungeons seemed nearly infinite in their capacity, so there was no danger of them being overfilled.

Not that Tucker was particularly happy with that part of it all.  He’d never been comfortable with keeping people in captivity, even when they so blatantly deserved it.  It seemed cruel, and he would have preferred to simply kill them and be done with it.  He’d been overruled on that subject, though.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, one of the juvenile kobolds approached with a message asking him to come to the front.  Tucker agreed, leaving Athis behind with a few other Kirrans who were tasked with dealing with the stragglers.  They weren’t part of the main army, so, despite their power, they had been relegated to a nearly superfluous mission. 

Tucker followed the messenger through the city, passing areas where the fighting had been thickest.  Many of the buildings had been damaged, and there were bodies all around.  Some were still alive, which they showed by moving slightly and letting out pained groans, but most were lifeless. 

There were still a few pockets of resistance here and there, but for the most part, the way was clear. 

The city was enormous, so it took quite some time for Tucker to cover the ground to the front lines.  By the time he reached his destination, the sun had begun to rise, illuminating the carnage before him.  Tens of thousands of knights fought against the kobolds, covering the retreat of the bulk of their force.  Their goal was to reach the huge citadel at the center of the city. 

Besides being quite inspiring in terms of architecture, the structure was also a nearly impregnable fortress festooned with protective enchantments on par with those that had protected the outer walls.  Those had been sundered by the porcine sorceress, which wasn’t a repeatable feat.  Even if the girl was capable, her skills were not suited for repetitive tasks. 

In short, if they wanted to breach those sturdy walls, they would need to do so the hard way. 

Tucker’s talents were nearly useless in that endeavor, so when he approached Silik and asked why he’d been summoned, he listened to the answer with some degree of curiosity. 

“Are you sure about this?  It won’t be pretty,” he explained.  “And your people will see some effects as well.  I’m pretty sure it won’t kill them, but…well, it’s going to be agonizing.  Not deadly, given your resistances, but still…”

“We are prepared for this,” Silik stated.  “Please do it.”

Tucker sighed, then nodded.  He wasn’t particularly opposed to mass killing, especially when the enemy happened to be people who definitely deserved it.  The Radiant Host – and the larger Imperium – certainly fit that description.  Even so, he wasn’t altogether comfortable with what he was about to do.  After all, there was a reason chemical weapons had been banned back on Earth.  Not only was it a horrible way to die, but in the wrong hands, there were a lot of ways it could go very wrong, very quickly. 

His were definitively the right hands, but that didn’t really help.

Regardless, he’d already agreed to doing what he could to help with the prosecution of the war.  Indeed, over the past few months, he’d used his abilities to kill countless people.  In that way, he’d progressed far more than he could have expected, and he’d already passed the level ninety mark.  Soon, he’d reach the peak, though he wasn’t sure what would happen after that. 

Ascension, surely.  Beyond that, though, he couldn’t have guessed what to expect.

As he retreated from the front lines and found his way to a nearby building, he knew that what he was about to do would go a long way toward pushing him to the upper reaches of the Eternal Realm’s power scale.  So, he would need to figure things out sooner rather than later. 

He found the stairs, then climbed to the roof, and when he reached his destination, the battlefield was laid out before him.  The citadel was surrounded by a large, well-manicured lawn with beautiful fountains, various stands of trees, and winding paths meant for pedestrians out on a nice stroll.  Much of that area had been trampled by thousands of pairs of feet, but there was enough left standing that it gave Tucker a good impression of its former magnificence.

He tried to ignore it as he brought his blunderbuss to his shoulder and took aim.  After activating [Bombardment], then summoned a globe into the weapon’s chamber.  He fired the grenade, then watched it soar through the air.  After only a second, it split into five identical copies before descending into the mass of knights.

Tucker didn’t wait to see the results.  It would take some time until it activated, and he wanted to blanket the entire battlefield before that happened.  So, he shifted his aim, then fired again, and to similar results.  Five more times, he fired identical globes, and with each instance, he felt his pool of mana drain.  He wasn’t like Zeke, who always seemed to have an infinite source of energy.  Instead, his own reserves were quite limited, and using five instances of [Bombardment] was quite draining. 

But he knew it would all be worth it.

Finally, once the globes had shattered, spreading their contents across the entire battlefield, Tucker raised his blunderbuss and took aim.  Once he’d selected his target, he summoned another grenade into the chamber.  This one was the same size as the others, though where they’d been filled with a swirl of green poison, this latest globe was filled with the spark that would change everything.

The [Catalyst Potion] was just what its name implied, and it was meant to create a specific effect.  In this case, it would create a cause a chain reaction that spread through the cloud of green gas he’d already spread across the battlefield.  By itself, the [Plague Potion] was enough to cause debilitating effects among its victims, but with the [Catalyst Potion], those effects would accelerate and the potency would skyrocket.  Even among people with high endurance, it would be deadly.  Only entities with significant resistances would be safe. 

Fortunately, that bard, Jasper, was out there and improving those very resistances.  In addition, the spiritweavers had used their abilities to shield the kobolds from the worst of the effects.  The end result was that, though they would get sick, they wouldn’t be nearly affected as their enemies. 

And that was enough.

Tucker fired, then used the last of his mana to activate [Bombardment].  Five glittering copies flew through the air before landing among the army.  None of them had even noticed Tucker’s efforts. 

Yet.

That changed only a few seconds later, when a shockwave of white energy spread through the green haze, igniting it.  It glowed a virulent and sickly yellow, and only a moment or two later, the knights started dropping.  Despite knowing what he would see, Tucker peered closer, and he nearly vomited as he saw the consequences of his actions. 

The knights didn’t simply fall unconscious and die peacefully.  If only that was the case, he might not have as many nightmares.  But even his worst dreams couldn’t compare to the reality of what he saw.

He knew from experience that the first effect blood bursting from every orifice, and he could see that red liquid oozing from the seams of the knights’ armor.  However, that was only the first effect, and it certainly wasn’t the worst.  Liquefied organs was probably the most devastating, but Tucker’s worst nightmares centered on the cracking bones caused by the superpowered poisonous gas.

Even the kobolds, with all their precautions and defenses, faltered.  Fortunately, the knights were in no position to take advantage of their sudden stagger.  In only a few moments, thousands of knights had fallen.  Seconds later, they were dead, each and every one. 

Sadly, the poison never made it past the citadel’s walls.  It wasn’t airtight, but the enchantments blocked the mana powering Tucker’s poison, and so, only inert gas flowed through the gaps. 

The gates clanged shut the second the people inside saw the first wave fall. 

But Tucker had done his job.  Now, they needed to either besiege the citadel, starving them out, or find another way to bypass the defenses. 

Despite his success, Tucker wasn’t certain how he was meant to feel about his role in the battle.  Sure, he’d probably saved a lot of lives among his allies.  But he couldn’t keep himself from considering the cost.

But that was war, he supposed.  Even back on Earth, every battle had come with a price.  And that hadn’t changed just because magic was now involved.  Everyone in the Eternal Realm could do wonderful things, but they were also capable of true monstrousness. 

And Tucker was no different.