Chapter 34: All Nine Praetorians Are Here—and So Is the Caravan
The first Eclipse Praetorian’s test had just ended, and Cassian stayed by the Hall. The shallow mark Eira had left on the tower shield was still there. Eira had already dismissed Storm Body, and Veyra had gone back to leaning against a stone pillar outside the Oath Hall. Cassian glanced at the timer.
[Troop Power Ranking settlement: 02:42:37]
The first Praetorian’s ten-minute recruitment and the controlled impact test had already eaten into the final three hours. There was not much time left. But the first Praetorian had proved one thing.
This line worked.
Cassian reopened the recruitment interface.
[Eclipse Praetorian]
[Epic / Level 1]
[Panel combat power: 28★]
[Current: 1 / 9]
"The other eight."
Veyra looked over. "You’re not going to test them one by one this time?"
"The first one already passed."
Cassian confirmed the recruitment.
[Recruit Eclipse Praetorian ×8]
[Aether Crystal ×96,000]
[Aether Crystal: 512,466 → 416,466]
Eight dark-gold patterns lit up inside the Hall at the same time. Veyra eyed the eight glowing patterns. "You went from ’test one first’ to ’give me the rest’ pretty quickly."
"Because the test is done."
"And if the other eight are different?"
"Then the Hall has a bigger problem than the Ranking."
Veyra gave a soft snort. Ten minutes later, heavy footsteps began to sound from the black arch.
The second Praetorian emerged.
Then the third.
All the way to the ninth. Nine tower shields finally stood side by side in front of Eclipse Muster Hall.
[Eclipse Praetorian: 9 / 9]
A new growth option appeared before he could do anything else with them.
[Eclipse Praetorian ×9]
[Level 1 → Level 2]
[Battle Essence: 9,000]
"Upgrade."
Dark-gold light fell over all nine at once. A deeper black-gold pattern appeared around the rim of each tower shield.
[Eclipse Praetorian: Level 2]
[Panel combat power: 36★]
After one check of the result, Cassian turned to four Blackfang that had just returned from a northern scouting rotation. Over the past few days, the Blackfang had already mapped several stable monster concentrations around Forgotten Shrine. None contained an Epic target or a Core Trait Cassian needed to reserve for himself.
They were perfect for new troops to test themselves against.
"Three northern locations."
Cassian sent the coordinates out.
"Praetorians, split into groups of three. Blackfang lead the way. Only clear the monster groups we’ve already confirmed. Don’t chase anything into the fog of war."
The nine Praetorians raised their shields at once. Veyra spoke before they left. "No Stormlance?" Cassian turned to her. "Those three locations don’t need them."
"Good."
Her answer came immediately.
"If this is the army you just chose, don’t make the Stormlance clean up every problem for them."
Cassian gave her a brief look. "You really want to see it?"
"I want to see whether they can still hold once they leave the Hall."
The nine Praetorians soon left Forgotten Shrine.
He stayed behind.
There were only a little over two hours left before the Ranking settled. Spending half an hour testing nine people against one monster pack would gain him nothing. What he actually needed was numbers. He opened the second recruitment line.
[Eclipse Legionnaire]
[Rare / Level 1]
[Panel combat power: 12★]
[Recruit: 1,200 Aether Crystal each]
First batch.
Twenty.
[Aether Crystal -24,000]
Then forty.
Then sixty.
The dark-gold light inside the Hall never fully went out. The Praetorians were outside clearing monsters while Legionnaires emerged from the Hall in batch after batch. Cassian dismissed the individual recruitment notifications and kept only the running total in view.
[Eclipse Legionnaire: 80]
[Recruitment cost this round: Aether Crystal ×96,000]
[Aether Crystal: 416,466 → 320,466]
Eighty Legionnaires formed four lines in front of the Hall. Heavy shields. Long polearms. Black-and-gold heavy armor. Standing alone, none had the same oppressive presence as a Praetorian. But once twenty shields locked together, the feeling changed immediately.
Cassian had the front two lines pull inward, then ordered the rear line to lower their weapons over the shield edges. Veyra held her tongue and studied the formation. On the third adjustment, she finally frowned.
"Too tight on the right."
Cassian paused. "Where?"
"After the sixth position."
Veyra lifted a hand and pointed at the air in front of them.
"You’re overlapping the shields too much. The first impact will be stable. The second rotation will jam."
He studied the formation for two seconds.
"Reduce the overlap by half a shield."
The front line shifted. Shield overlap narrowed, and the rear rank immediately gained more room to rotate. Veyra studied the new spacing and found nothing else to correct. Cassian offered no thanks. He simply memorized the distance. Before the next adjustment, Pack Dominion sent back a burst of urgent intent.
North.
A lot.
Moving toward the old trade road. Cassian’s first thought was not monsters. It was the other notification that had been hanging in his interface for days. The system confirmed it a second later.
[Wandering Caravan has entered the trade route near Forgotten Shrine.]
The Caravan had arrived.
And so had the wild monsters disturbed on the north side of the dry riverbed.
By the time Cassian reached the old trade road, the nine Praetorians had already broken off from their three hunting points and returned. Fresh marks covered their tower shields. Not one of them was missing.
The monster mass reported by the Blackfang was already pouring down the low slopes on both sides of the dry riverbed.
More than two hundred.
Most were between Level 7 and Level 10. A handful of Rare armored beasts were mixed into the mass. More than twenty Caravan wagons had stopped at the far end of the riverbed. Nearly a hundred guards had already formed ranks around them.
They could probably hold.
But if they fought here, the slowest wagons would not make it through intact. A man in a gray cloak stood beside the lead wagon, already ordering two heavy carts pulled backward. One glance was enough. "Don’t unload anything."
The man turned.
He took in Cassian, the nine Praetorians behind him, and the eighty Legionnaires arriving from Forgotten Shrine.
"Your troops?"
"Yeah."
"Newly recruited?"
"Yeah."
The man paused, but Cassian had already turned away.
"First and second groups, take the center. Third through sixth, open to both sides. The rest stay behind the Praetorians."
The eighty Legionnaires moved at once.
No Stormlance.
No Gloomhoof.
Bound by the Temporary Covenant, Veyra could go no farther than Forgotten Shrine’s northern boundary. From there, she watched the riverbed at a distance. She left the formation to Cassian. Her only input had been the rotation problem she pointed out back at the Hall. Now the formation was his to command.
The first wave of wild monsters charged down the slope. Cassian left the two center tower shields slightly apart, creating a narrow opening. The monsters saw the easiest path and rushed toward it. The first thick-skinned beast slammed into a Praetorian’s shield. She slid less than half a step.
A second beast crashed into the same line.
Then a third.
The shields held.
"Close."
Four Legionnaire groups on both sides folded inward at the same time. Polearms drove through the shield gaps in clean rows. Blood sprayed across the dry riverbed. The monsters in front tried to pull back. The ones behind kept pushing forward.
The opening they had rushed toward became the mouth of a sack that swallowed them whole. A Rare armored beast hit the right flank hard enough to send the Praetorian on the far right skidding across loose stone. Cassian wasn’t going to make the line hold every inch.
"Right side, give half a step."
The shields deliberately yielded.
The armored beast forced its way in.
"Close."
Six shields crashed back from both sides, locking the creature’s front half inside the formation while the rest of the pack pressed against it from behind. Four polearms stabbed through gaps in the neck armor and front-leg plating.
BOOM!
The huge body crashed into the riverbed. The monsters behind it began to break.
Cassian let them go.
He ordered the entire line forward only three times, each push no more than a dozen meters. The moment the monster mass retreated back up the slope, he stopped.
"Enough."
The last shield came to a halt. The riverbed was left covered in blood and monster corpses. The Caravan was quiet for several seconds. Then the system settlement appeared.
[Confirmed kills: 193]
[Battle Essence +21,600]
[Allied deaths: 0]
Eleven Legionnaires had taken light injuries.
No serious injuries.
Not one section of the line had actually broken. The gray-cloaked man had already been preparing to abandon two heavy wagons. Now he canceled the order. More than twenty wagons started moving again, every one of them intact.
As the first wagon passed the lead Praetorian, the man took another look at her tower shield. Two new dents marked its surface.
"You said they were just recruited?"
Cassian nodded.
The man looked back at the riverbed. "How long ago?" Cassian checked the Ranking timer.
"Not as long as you were stuck on that side."
The man stared at him for a second, then laughed.
"Then changing our route wasn’t a waste after all."
Cassian left that unanswered, sending the eleven lightly injured Legionnaires back for treatment while the rest reformed. Only then did Veyra come closer. She studied the formation for a long moment.
"That time on the right, you gave ground on purpose."
"If they’d held there, the rear rank would’ve jammed."
"I thought you’d want to prove your choice was ’Frontline Hold’ by refusing to take a single step back."
Cassian met her eyes.
"The line is what has to hold."
"Not their boots."
Veyra fell silent for a beat. A slow smile touched her mouth. Her attention returned to the new army.
"From now on, you set the formation."
"I’ll watch where it breaks."
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "Didn’t you say they weren’t your past?"
"That’s why they’re worth watching."
Veyra looked away.
"If all you were doing was rebuilding my past, I wouldn’t be interested in teaching the same formation again."
She turned and started back toward Forgotten Shrine. Cassian let her go without trying to read anything more into the remark. He simply memorized the spot where the right flank had yielded.
The Wandering Caravan finally stopped on the open ground north of Forgotten Shrine. The gray-cloaked manager kept the greetings brief.
"Orven. That’s my name."
"The Caravan will stay here until around the Ranking settlement. If you want to see our goods, now’s the time."
Cassian nodded.
A long inventory list unfolded in front of him. Ordinary weapons. Supplies. Basic blueprints. Low-grade materials.
He skimmed them quickly.
Near the bottom, one line finally caught his eye.
[Epic Hero Sigil ×1]
[Price: 900,000 Aether Crystal]
His thumb went still.
Veyra saw it too.
"Don’t you have one in storage?"
"Yeah."
The Epic Hero Sigil dropped by Nightstripe had remained untouched until now. And now a Caravan that actually moved goods across regions had given it its first meaningful price tag.
Nine hundred thousand.
After two seconds on the number, Cassian opened his communication panel.
"This thing," he said. "I finally know how to sell it."