Chapter 228: The Abyss (VII): Return

Three months had passed and the world fucking changed, the tingling feeling he had from his body had been his body rapidly aging, to catch up to the three months he had lost just from spending three hours in hell. It was crazy and pretty much not something that most people could understand, and the thing is even Rezar himself found it very hard to understand just what the fuck was going on. How could the time in hell be so slow while that on Elysium ran like it was on freaking rocket boosters and a bunch of others things or factors that would just make the time to run so fucking fast! Like seriously! It was three MONTHS!

Never the less this was time that he had lost and that no matter what he did he wasn't getting back, it was a worrisome thing, but he couldn't dwell too much on it. A lot could happen in three months, one of which would be receiving an official invitation from the snow elves to attend an exhibition banquet where their most priceless possession would be displayed and some of them auctioned off. It was quite a surprise to Rezar, but frankly speaking this was something g he couldn't bring himself to give a shit about…. he was lagging far behind as even his abilities had been unable to catch up with the speeding and slowing down of time. What he really wanted to do, was train and train hard.

Tanks to the ingeniousness of Lenore and Alistair, the entrance/exit of the demon realm was well and completely secure...at least for now until he's fully sure what the hell they were dealing with, and how to deal with it. Plus, he had to get stronger and fast too, this new world did not seem like the kind of world where a person can catch up to a rival in strength and power, strength didn't scale according to levels anymore as frankly speaking, it doesn't seem like there was going to be a level cap or a limit to the amount of power a person can have. And during the early stages is when the need of power would be most required, when everyone would be experiencing a rapid increase in strength.

The area around the gate to hell or to be more specific the hole to hell had been completely repurposed and fortified. There was a massive stone wall around the perimeter of the hole itself, and a little way farther out was a chain link fence that was electrified twenty fours a day with enough volts to put a wyvern down…. permanently. security was stringent, and after Rezar had given Lenore a debrief of what exactly it was they had seen and dealt with down there, the security had increased by a significant margin.

Rezar was a little depressed, his plan to travel around Morte Bianca and a little bit of the Wild lands had been smashed to bits with the loss of three months. Now he had to return home to give a certain sense of security and fortification to and for his people.

Frankly speaking a kingdom who's king had been missing for three months was ripe for the picking and quite vulnerable, and Lenore was a fierce general. The borders have been besieged on all sides by enemies, and she alone with the help of Jason and surprisingly enough Gynaika.

Lenore's victory along the borders had done wonders for the morale of those who still lived Morte Bianca. A few of the orcs who couldn't acclimate to the life of being in a single place and adapting to rules that for all intents and purposes would be considered civilized had left. They became brigands and robbers, going back to their old barbaric ways, and without Rezar around to impose his authority, they moved about without a smidge of consequence; burning villages, pillaging, raping and killing indiscriminately. Due to the constant skirmishes at the borders, Lenore has been spread too thin, Gynaika had to focus fully on governing the kingdom and making deals, while Alistair had pretty much no choice but to keep on developing tech and magic devices for both the soldiers and the citizens so he too was stretched thin.

Besides there wasn't much he could do when it came down to taking care of rampaging orc brigands. But the orcs themselves were the least of the problems Necron and Morte Bianca currently had. For one the orcs had inspired a bunch of others who weren't lucky enough with the Rejuvenation. With so many displaced, and there being a change of geography, and a drought that was slowly beginning to spread in lands that weren't under any form of proper governance. Morte Bianca was the prime target for all of these people.

The only other stable civilizations were the snow elf kingdoms and the dwarves that bordered them on the Breone mountains. But these people were all sequestered in one place, and all that was there was rock and ice. There were the hidden fairy rings within the Kerwood forest, but locating them would be next to impossible. There was a wood elf kingdom, a colony of forest sprites and a few dozen human and other races villages, towns, cities and kingdoms within the forest. But there was only one safe way to access these kingdoms, after all the only roads that could be taken to get there was built and maintained by Morte Bianca.

Rezar's Kingdom was literally smack dab in the middle of every other kingdom. They had the roads, they had the fertile fields, they had the rapidly growing technology, they had the magic, they had Food! All eyes were on them, and unfortunately too few were willing to make deals, and this was because they all believed that Morte Bianca was occupying a position that was just as weak as everyone else, and with their king missing, the person who was somewhat single handedly responsible for building the kingdom, it made Morte Bianca even more weak and ripe for the picking.

Lenore was not around, Roran was back in Necron being the minister of alchemy and running a pharmaceutical company that he had opened just a month ago. He had Screet, Kitagawa and annoyingly enough Tristian and the rest of his King's guard who were actually stubborn enough to still remain here under Samira's command, waiting for the return of their king. Most of the soldiers responsible for guarding the 'hole to hell' were a part of the king's guard, with many of them being new recruits and undergoing training within the harsh environment and suppressive aura of the 'hole to hell.' Never the less this was enough, no one needed to know that the King had returned just yet, he would just quietly pay the orc brigands and the other bandits a visit….and after that…. whoever was unfortunate enough to fall into his sights would just have to deal with the consequences of their actions, or just for fucking existing!