11 Anneliese IV

Year 857 of God's Calendar, The Last Church

During the beta version game update, Nandini had unlocked a building which she could start building immediately with the help of a hundred believers simultaneously praying -- the Temple, a building that could be constructed purely with faith energy.

Gods had churches in all the cities and towns of their believers but every God could only build one temple every fifty years. A temple is a place where Divinity Altars are constructed and God's clones reside. A Divinity Altar is a structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices could be made by the believers of the Mortal World to their Gods.

After she returned to The Last Church with Manjesh and the villagers, Saintess Nandini immediately demarcated the area for a port to be built on the sea coast, which comprised of a single large wharf with multiple berths where ships may be docked to load and unload cargo.

She planned to build a port city called Anneliese in an area of about 100 square miles with at least twelve metre tall outer steel walls for its defense and six metre tall steel walls for the inner circle of the port city. She planned to build the God Maugus' Temple in the center; it would be the heart of the city.

Saintess Nandini thanked the dead, old Bishop of the Preserver Church, who had strictly forbidden all nobles to build a city on the southeastern part of the Island. This was because the Rakshasa Forest was home to the Rakshasa Tribe and he did not want the stupid and arrogant nobles to escalate conflicts with them and cause more trouble for the Preserver Church. Due to this policy, she now had the opportunity to construct a City without alarming any major powers of The Eastern Islands.

***

Time slowly passed. Ten days later...

Saintess Nandini had succeeded in recruiting a thousand ex-Sander legion soldiers who were in hiding with the help of Manjesh. She was also successful in contacting almost all of the towns and villages in Lord Shantanu's fief without him even being aware of it.

She received workmen, experts, smiths, shipbuilders and ordinary citizens in batches from these towns and villages. In the past ten days, she had received one batch after another until the total number of people working to build the port City of Anneliese, amounted to at least a hundred thousand. She had put nine thousand young men under the command of a thousand Sander elites. With Manjesh leading this army, they would be re-named Anneliese Legion and be in-charge of the defense of the port city!

With Saintess Nandini's order, the accumulation of resources never stopped. She gave all the players resource accumulation and mining quests. She had the smiths and experts construct at least a thousand furnaces all around the port city.

She was standing in the heart of the city with both arms folded together across her bountiful chest when she ordered Manjesh.

"Begin!"

Under her orders, the flames of one furnace shot out from one corner of the city, quickly followed by the second, third, fourth����� thousands of furnaces blazed to life, spreading from one corner to every part of the city. They continuously produced steel blocks for the construction of the city walls.

So fierce were the flames that the area in and around the Great City Anneliese got heated up like an active volcano.

The ninety thousand workmen and the ten thousand soldiers responsible for defense put down their duties and began to help with the construction of the walls. A mountain of steel blocks for the outer and inner walls had been gathered with more steel blocks continuously being produced.

The foundation for the outer and inner city walls had been completed a couple days ago and was left untouched. The majority of the workmen being tasked with constructing the restaurants, inns, and multistorey houses inside the city. Now, however, as if everything had already been planned out, the workmen began to move these blocks to their designated positions for the construction of the walls.

A white blinding light spread out from the City of Anneliese and could even be seen from the Rakshasa Village!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The banging of steel blocks as it joined magically with faith energy shook the heavens. The one hundred thousand workmen and soldiers, along with the beta-players worked as a cohesive unit. They worked together like a smooth and precise machine. As they constructed the city with a flabbergasting speed, they moved the required materials to their designated areas while praying!

This vast and magnificent magical construction process and the formidable ability to plan and manage these proceedings left Asjad, Chitwan and the other beta players with their mouths agape. They were in awe of the NPC Saintess.

"Impossible!"

Coming from a military background of the prosperous Kalwar Empire, Manjesh had a very open mind, but not even he could have imagined such a grandiose sight. More than one hundred thousand people were working as a united whole, with much more discipline than the army.

Moreover, the Saintess's method of constructing a city with faith energy was too convenient. You just had to gather required materials in an area, a white light would flash and the building would be completed. God Maugus was truly back. No one except him could perform such a miracle!

"Saintess Nandini is truly favored by the God of Harmony and Order." Manjesh muttered and sighed.

As he continued to watch, the tens of thousands of steel blocks had been used, and not even twenty minutes had passed. The inner circle steel wall had already been completed and the outer steel was also progressing with breakneck speed. All his understanding of city construction and engineering had been completely overturned.

Players had been divided across the hundred thousand workmen for efficient control of the construction process by Saintess Nandini. She would just issue them quests and they would relay it to the workmen which made this machine like cohesion possible.

Players could be seen shouting the construction orders excitedly all around the city. They had never been part of such a great player event in any game in their life where players would help with such a grandiose construction involving a hundred thousand NPCs.

The GM was definitely a genius! The beta players already started to fall in love with this starter city!

"Ready!"

"Squad five, get ready! Move the steel block to position 4! Quickly!"

"Move the the stones for the multi-storey building to position 672 inside the inner circle walls!"

"Start the construction of hot springs!"

Shouts came from all over the city. More than one hundred thousand people had been divided into nearly one hundred teams under players. Each team was led by a player and they all worked together, coordinating their duties and not interfering in each other's task.

Anyone who saw this sight would feel a deep shock.

Anneliese was abuzz with activity, but nobody except those within knew what was going on.

As Manjesh stood behind Saintess Nandini, he gazed at her back with a strange light in his eyes.

A focused woman was incredibly alluring. At this moment, Saintess Nandini was standing still near the wall with all her attention on the construction. However, her incredible foresight, her holy aura, and her complete grasp of the overall situation had left nothing but deep respect for her in the mind of Manjesh!

For a moment, he felt like if he followed Saintess Nandini, there was nothing that he could not accomplish!

The day when the Kalwar Empire rises once again did not seem too far away to him now!

***

Meanwhile, in the Rakshasha Village.

The moment Legendary Rakshasa Sardar Vivek Singh saw the white light which smelled of faith energy of the despicable Supreme God Maugus, originating from the Southeastern sea coast, he sent a Raksha scout to check what was happening there!

The galloping of hooves heralded the arrival of the monstrous warhorse of Raksha scout as it neared Saintess Nandini's Anneliese City. The Rakshasa atop it was a veteran scout who was extremely familiar with the process.

Although observation was a scout's duty and he didn't have anything to complain about, inevitably, this place was not a battlefield and he was a Rakshasa. Every day, he would go to some place, observe things, give reports… He couldn't take it anymore! His Rakshasa blood was calling for blood of his enemies and battle!

"I must somehow manage to get a spot in the Sardar's invading army!"

While muttering to himself, the Rakshasa rider urged his horse forward, quickening his pace towards the observation point.

He chose a low hill of the Himalaya Mountains to observe the area. This, coupled with the height of his monstrous warhorse, made it an excellent vantage point for surveillance. As he moved closer to the low hill, a mountainous silhouette gradually appeared before his eyes.

"This is...?" The Rakshasa rider's eyes widened in astonishment. He had been to this area before but the area ahead was supposed to be flat plains.

"What's going on here? Am I seeing things?" the Rakshasa rider wondered to himself in shock. But after a few moments, he decided to raise his head and continue. At that moment, he saw the true appearance of that 'mountain'. A sight that he would never forget.

In the light of the morning sun, a massive, grandiose, and imposing Anneliese City had appeared over the horizon. The walls of this city were more than twelve meters tall, the height of six adult Rakshasha.

Those gleaming metal walls were smooth and steep, appearing to be a single whole and as immovable as a mountain. In the light of the morning sun, the rider could see smoke continuing to rise from the city as the one hundred thousand humans labored to make the walls even thicker and sturdier!

"This… this is impossible!" The Rakshasa rider instantly became agitated, his eyes flying open in shock and awe.

A massive great city with walls more than twelve meters high had appeared out of thin air! Just an elite legion with God Maugus's clone had already cornered them to a small living space inside The Rakshasa Forest. Did those human wretches plan to push them even more until they only have The Himalaya Mountains to escape to!?

This human city with twelve-meter walls was able to fend off any amount of Rakshasas on warhorses. The only weakness this city had was against an enemy that had come with siege ladders that could scale the twelve-meter walls.

But twelve meters! This number was practically miraculous!

Right now, even if a Rakshasa army attacked, the humans could just man the walls and hold the fort. And even more absurd was that these walls were being strengthened. The Rakshasa army would face massive loses if they ever attacked this city in the future!

"No! I… I have to report this to Sardar Vivek!"

The Rakshasa rider's heart chilled and his entire body shivered.

"Hiyaaaah!"

The horse galloped off as the rider set off in the direction of the Rakshasa village he had just come from.