Read Novel Full Chapter 1302 Change of Plans
Chapter 1302 Change of Plans
After trying a handful more estates, it was once again time to change targets.
The world twisted again.
Ravenshade's frigid air replaced the Central Region's biting wind. Snow fell in slow sheets across the countryside. Their boots hit the ground near a long stretch of fortified estates built like military outposts rather than noble homes.
And this time, as if expecting their arrival already, the veils were active.
Layers of protective wards wrapped around almost every manor in sight. The runes glowed with a sharp, bluish-white light, built for war.
Did the whole damned country suddenly gather such proficient defensive artifacts overnight?
No, that was not the case at all.
The Central Region was the most properly maintained land, with the least amount of corruption allowed due to Alexios' presence. As a result, the nobles had to strictly abide by his regulations, not letting an invading force steamroll his vassals.
Ravenshade, on the other hand, was a different story.
They had more polish than Silverwind's rushed preparations. The defenses were centuries old, tested against the very best, and regularly maintained. These nobles lived beside Elvardia's border, staring down dwarven artillery and elven war-scouts on the regular. High alert was not an event here. It was routine.
They were ready.
Not because of the overnight news of a new possible threat looming on the horizon in the person of Quinlan, but because their enemies across the border forced them to be.
He hit the nearest barrier once with a casual jab. The veil reacted instantly, hardening around the impact point before settling back into place. Not even a fracture.
"Of course," Quinlan murmured.
He stepped back and scanned the estates. Some did not have such proficient defenses, those of lesser wealth and further into the kingdom, away from the borders.
He did invade these nobles, but just as they lacked proper defensive artifacts, they lacked defensive personnel as well. He gained almost nothing from them.
A slow burn began behind his eyes.
Greenvale's weakness suddenly made no sense to him. They bordered the beastkin. Their estates should have been just as fortified. Not against brutal dwarven siege engines per se, but against unexpected invaders rushing into their homes, just as he had done last night.
Yet their defenses had been thin and sloppy. "Ah," realization hit Quinlan. "So that's how it is."
Just as how the outpost housing Rosie's parent Geim had deactivated artifacts due to corruption from the overseer who wanted to pocket the money he should've spent on maintaining the artifacts, corruption had eaten away at the nobles of Greenvale.
Ravenshade, by comparison, was alert because Tharion Ravenshade was now acting as a good boy under the king, happy that his sister was the queen and that his blood would sit on the throne next. As a result, he became strict with his vassals, ensuring he remained in the good graces of the king lest he pull some nonsense and somehow make it so it was not a Ravenshade child that sat on the throne once the old man finally kicked the bucket.
Which was an event the duke certainly awaited with bated breath.
But no matter the reason behind each duchy's defenses, the result was the same.
Everywhere he went, he ran into barriers built to stall him.
Quinlan flicked his hand once.
Space peeled open.
The world folded again.
Duskmere's air settled around them. Compared to Ravenshade's fortified walls and Silverwind's frantic last-minute preparations, Duskmere looked bare.
No glowing veils greeted him.
No runic towers.
No layered wards.
Just manors sitting on the crest of hills and in valleys, their stone walls untouched by anything resembling actual defense.
This place didn't border Elvardia nor the Beastman Confederation, didn't border anything that forced vigilance. The duchy sat tucked between Silverwind and Ravenshade, north of the former, west of the latter, and touching the Central Region to its southeast. Duskmere's location made it so that it was the furthest human land away from Greenvale, so they didn't even worry about him appearing here.
A safe bubble of land. The nobles here had grown soft.
They crossed the field in silence.
The first guards spotted them from the outer walkway. Their frozen expressions told the rest. They were not ready. They barely had weapons in hand.
Quinlan stamped once.
Flame bit into the ground and cut a path toward the front gate. The blast tore through the wooden frame without resistance. The walls didn't even attempt to shield themselves. No runes flickered. No wards lit up.
He kept walking.
The guards charged, but there were fewer than fifty of them, all low-level, and most had the posture of men accustomed to sending drunk stragglers home rather than fighting a war.
Their souls fed his blade in seconds.
Ten breaths later, the manor was his.
Bodies lay scattered across the snow. The staff trembled by the stairs. The lord of the estate knelt with his head lowered as the system confirmed the [Subjugation].
Quinlan barely reacted.
The moment the notification faded, he turned back toward the fields.
It had been too easy.
Another detour that gave him nothing of value.
Another waste of time.
Compared to Greenvale's trained guards, the souls here were weak. The experience gain was barely above negligible. Even the nobles he forced under his authority didn't matter to his current goal.
He needed levels.
Fast.
And Duskmere gave him nothing but a straightforward path through brittle defenses.
He stepped out onto the hilltop. The mist swirled around his feet.
He looked across the quiet expanse.
All of this… was scraps to him.
He was burning hours that the enemies wanted him to burn.
This county fell as easily as rotten wood, and yet that somehow only made things worse.
He wasn't here for territory but to grow.
Instead, he was stuck crushing households that contributed almost no advancement at all.
His jaw tightened.
"Useless," he muttered.
He needed a new strategy.
Lucille wiped her axe on the snow and eyed the empty estate grounds.
"We should head back to Silverwind. Or Ravenshade. Plenty of palace staff work outside the halls. We can [Subjugate] a few, wait for their shift to start, then you use [Overlord's Eyes] on them. Once your senses are inside, you can then open a [Warp Gate] from their position, Quin."
The idea was solid.
He couldn't brute-force his way through a barrier after it finished forming; his mana was shut out every time. But if his eyes were linked to someone standing inside the protected grounds, the artifact's programming in place would treat that as him already occupying that space, as if he were a man on the inside.
A loophole, brought forth by the combination of spells that should not exist, as they came from two primordial classes, the Primordial Subjugator and the Primordial Villain, both of which were Unique-tier, meaning only a single person in the universe had them. A single primordial should only have one primordial class to his name, as per the words of the primordials stuck inside the primordial dimension.
Quinlan was a true anomaly who should not be.
"That'll take days," Serika pointed out, responding to the berserker. "No one sensible enough is going to be changing staff for the next few days if not months, and they'll hold their barriers for as long as they can."
The same thought had been sitting in Quinlan's mind the whole time. He lifted his gaze toward the next distant hill, as if a noble estate with strong guards but weak artifacts might somehow appear and save him the trouble.
"It's a good idea. But once we do it, we hint at a power they don't know I have."
He exhaled once through his nose.
"But we'll prepare it anyway."
The girls nodded in agreement, but the mood had slipped. They had arrived ready to crack noble households open like chests, ready to harvest souls, gather levels, claim territory, and leave the kingdom in an even bigger mess.
Instead, they spent their time punching shimmering walls.
Quinlan turned his head, ready to move on. Then his communication artifact pulsed.
A new opportunity arrived with impeccable timing.
…
Author: I was planning to leave you all hanging with 'just' 2 new chapters today… but today is the day on which, after 483 straight days of daily uploads, the novel has officially entered the all-time Top 50 bestseller rankings!
I couldn't let such a milestone pass without rewarding you, so hardcore grinding occurred on this day.
Yes... This is an author's note of me thanking you for blessing me with moni and hoping to bribe you to continue supporting the novel.