The Invincible Hero 26 A Mighty Wind

"Is there news?" asked the Great Fiend.

"There is my lord," replied the servant.

"I take it the news isn't good. Go ahead and tell me" continued the Great Fiend.

"All forces you sent against the Dragon Squad were annihilated. There are no survivors. Even Generals Pr'th Vee and Pah Nee's life crystals shattered," said the servant trembling even more.

"Useless." said the Great Fiend about his defeated forces.

The servant could barely control his shaking as he waited for the Great Fiend, wondering if he'd survive the great one's anger.

"You may go, ask General Ha Va to see me," commanded the Great Fiend.

The servant acknowledged the order and almost fled out of the Great Fiend's throne room. Just as the servant reached the door he heard the Great Fiend say, "Never mind, I can do it myself." Immediately after uttering these words, the Great Fiend unleashed a barely visible ball of red energy that penetrated and disintegrated the servant.

"In your next life, perhaps you'll be less blunt in informing your superior of bad news," The Great Fiend said with a chuckle.

Pus.h.i.+ng a couple of b.u.t.tons on his throne, the Great Fiend spoke. "General Ha Va, come to me."

No more than two minutes later General Ha Va appeared in the throne room. Bowing to the Great Fiend she waited for her orders.

"How goes your collections for the Fiend and Harmony Stones?" asked the Great Fiend.

"My lord, I am happy to report I succeeded in the additional tasks you gave me," reported General Ha Va.

"Succeeded? What do you mean?" asked the Great Fiend.

"I acquired ten thousand Fiend Stones of upper to high quality and enough Harmony Stones to complete a single Harmonization Platform Array." General Ha Va reported to the Great Fiend.

The Great Fiend was surprised. It had only been a few days ago he put the burden of gathering Fiend and Harmony Stones onto General Ha Va's shoulders. This was in addition to her other task to gather the treasures of the Dragon Empire. He didn't expect much from the General. It was unfair to expect her to carry the workload of three of his generals. Even still, she claimed to have completed the tasks.

"How did you accomplish these tasks?" asked the Great Fiend.

"Reporting to the Great Lord. When you originally a.s.signed me the goal of gathering the treasures of the Dragon Empire, I considered things and decided both the Fiend Stones and the Harmony Stones were treasures of the Dragon Empire.

With that thought in mind, I kept my eyes open for opportunities to acquire the Fiend and Harmony Stones. It was reported to me by my subordinates that the Dragon Empire was also collecting the Fiend and Harmony Stones.

Learning which s.h.i.+ps contained the stones I merely ordered some subordinates to capture the treasure vessels and bring them here. It was much easier taking these treasures from the Dragon Empire than dispatching my subordinates to manually find the stones themselves," reported General Ha Va.

The Great Fiend was surprised and delighted by General Ha Va's effective leaders.h.i.+p. She was obviously ambitious and wasn't satisfied only doing her job well. She even demonstrated she could do the job of two other Generals better than they could.

"Excellent work, find a couple of reliable subordinates and bring them before me. I will make them the new Earth and Wind Generals. Make sure you choose well, These two generals will be under you."

"Yes, my lord," said General Ha Va with some excitement. Instead of being colleagues of the new Generals they would report to her!

"Also take this, it's a silver Fiend Stone. Consume it and raise your power. I feel I'll need a truly strong General. General Ag is okay as a subordinate, but he's too lacking. He hasn't done anything to deserve this reward. General Dhaatu has done a fine job. However, he's just a forging fanatic and doesn't care about much else. I've been looking for a subordinate like you. I hope you won't let me down," The Great Fiend said.

"Never, Great Lord!" General Ha Va said as she accepted the Silver Fiend Stone with a bow.

There were several ways to increase in cultivation as a Fiend. One way was to consume Fiend Stones containing the souls and potential bodies of future Fiends. Depending on the quality of the Fiend Soul, Fiend Stones were marked from the low level to the treasured Fiend Stone. A Silver Fiend Stone represented a high-level soul, but it was eight levels below treasured Fiend Stone.

The high-level Fiend Stones were ranked one through ten. The lowest rank tenth-place Stone was Indium Fiend Stone, ninth Silver Fiend Stone, eighth Rhenium Fiend Stone, seventh Palladium Fiend Stone, sixth Osmium Fiend Stone, fifth Iridium Fiend Stone, fourth Ruthenium Fiend Stone, third Gold Fiend Stone, and second Platinum Fiend Stone The highest was the first-place treasured Rhodium Fiend Stone.

The highest-level Fiend Stone the Great Elder consumed was a Gold Fiend Stone. Some might wonder why a person would bother consuming a Fiend Stone. Why not let the Fiend Stone hatch and become a great Fiend? The problem was you never knew what kind of Fiend would be born. It was easier to take a Fiend you were already raising and let them consume a Fiend Stone and strengthen themselves. This earned you both the grat.i.tude on the Fiend you were developing, and it gave you more control over the new Fiend. The more control resulted from the inscriptions etched by the master onto the Fiend Stone. Once a Fiend ingested the Stone the inscription became active and created a lesser seal making the recipient want to serve you.

It wasn't as good as the seals the Zimward Emperor created, however, they were sometimes more effective. The Zimwarn Emperor could only forbid the souls sealed by him from doing certain things. His seals couldn't make them want to help the Emperor. They may do what the Emperor wanted but that was only to the point of compliance. If the Zimwarn Emperor wanted 'happy' obedience it usually only happened by "luck."

Pus.h.i.+ng another b.u.t.ton, the Great Fiend spoke with a sharp command. "General Dhaatu, meet me in one hour in the Harmony Chamber!" The Great Fiend turned off the communication before the General could respond.

The Harmony Chamber was a room on the s.h.i.+p the Great Fiend built for his first Harmonization Platform Array. The reason he built it there was the first person to use the array would be him.

After an hour, the Great Fiend and General Dhaatu met in the Harmony Chamber.

"We are going to change the harmonization of this array," said the Great Fiend.

"What do you mean, sir?" asked General Dhaatu.

"I will harmonize with this universe as is. My original intention was to use this chamber to harmonize the s.h.i.+p and surrounding s.p.a.ce with the Devilish Lands. That way we could quickly bring more Fiends to this Empire. I changed my mind. I will temporarily harmonize with this universe so all my true power can fully express itself. I will wipe out the Dragon Empire's main forces. Once that is done, I'm sure you generals can complete your work," said The Great Fiend.

"As you wish," said General Dhaatu. Setting to work immediately, General Dhaatu had his men begin to tear the Harmony Chamber apart so he could make the appropriate changes.

***

The Dragon Emperor sat in his private chambers reading over reports. The new Fiend Devices were facilitating the quick destruction of Fiend army. The Dragon Emperor should have been happy, but this only made him more worried. If things were going so well, shouldn't they see a reaction from the Fiends? It seemed like the Fiends weren't even remotely affected by the actions of the Dragon Empire.

Kal and his Dragon Squad dealt blow after blow against the Fiends. They had reduced the fighting effectiveness of the Fiends by forty percent. They even killed two Fiend Generals, destroyed two hundred fighters, and four attack s.h.i.+ps.

What really concerned him were the reports Kal and his people sent to him about the abundance of Harmony Stones. With so many stones available the Fiends would eventually succeed in creating their Harmonization Platform Arrays. When that happened, there was no hope for the Dragon Empire.

The reason he was so worried about all of this were other reports he received detailing attacks by Fiends capturing large loads of Fiend and Harmony Stones. It was likely the Fiends no longer needed to worry about finding the Stones themselves. They just needed to find the transport s.h.i.+ps with loads of stones and take those.

Was there any hope left? Kal insisted the best course was finding the Fiends and killing them as soon as possible. However, even with the Fiend finding devices, the Dragon Empire spanned 108 universes. It would take a lot of time to track down all of the Fiendish Forces.

How could they kill these elusive Fiends? The Dragon Emperor could only continue to worry and hope.

***

Back on the Fiend's Destroyer, General Dhaatu was finis.h.i.+ng the work on the Harmony Chamber. After running it through its paces a few times and making some adjustments he put it through its last test.

The chamber was filled with a bright white light that moved through several colors before ending in a whitish purple. Whitish purple was the aura color of the Dragon Empire universes. General Dhaatu looked at his readings. "Everything seems to be correct," he muttered to himself. "I better test it on something living."

Looking around the room, General Dhaatu's eyes finally landed on one of his subordinates. Like General Dhaatu, this Fiend was born from one of the one hundred and twenty-six original Fiend Stones the Great Fiend brought with him from the Devilish Lands. This meant, just like The Great Fiend and himself, this Fiend was out of resonance with this universe and his power was being slightly suppressed. Fiend Stones native to certain universes were mostly in harmony with that universe. The suppression they felt was almost negligible but enough to affect their power.

Walking near the enclosed chamber, General Dhaatu motioned for Totam, his subordinate to come to him. Totam dutifully came to the general.

"Totam, you came from my batch of Fiend Stones, correct?" asked General Dhaatu.

"Yes, sir," Totam said smiling.

"Good, I want you to test something for me," said General Dhaatu. With that, he flung Totam into the Harmony Chamber and closed the door. Activating the chamber from his device he watched the chamber go through its paces. Everything was looking good until he noticed Totam looked to be in pain. His body started vibrating until it finally exploded. General Dhaatu was a little surprised and looked back at his notes.

"Oh, I forgot to carry a one. How regrettable." General Dhaatu looked around the room at the petrified subordinates and found his most reliable subordinate.

"Kormato, have someone clean up this mess," said General Dhaatu.

"Yes, sir!" said Kormato.

"Oh and get Seligo, I've noticed he's been getting lazy. We'll have him test the chamber next," General Dhaatu said casually.

"Yes, sir, at once!" Kormato said. Inside, he thought 'Seligo's been getting lazy? He's one of the hardest workers.' Then Kormato remembered something, 'Oh yeah, that happened.' It's a mistake to fart in front of the general when he's eating or talking. You can't actually eat farts, but the general seems to think you can. Poor Seligo, we can only hope the general did his math correctly this time. Glad I'm not him...'

After a few more rounds of tests and a few more blown up subordinates, the general finally felt the device was working correctly. He invited the Great Fiend down to use the machine. As the Great Fiend entered the chamber he noticed some blood in the chamber. Looking at it with a frown, he asked General Dhaatu, "What's this blood from?"

"Ah, sorry sir, that was from the testing. KORMATO! Can't you do anything right! I told you to make sure this was clean. Get over here and clean up this blood!" roared General Dhaatu.

Kormato rushed over instantly and cleaned up the blood. Finis.h.i.+ng, he rushed out of the chamber and stood next to another subordinate. He eventually moved off to perform other duties.

The chamber activated and ran through its sequences. After the light in the chamber turned to white purple the chamber shut down and the door opened.

BOOOOM!!!

Energy swirled around the Great Fiend. At last, his power and majesty returned to him. He once again felt his glorious power which was suppressed ever since he came to this Empire. He would soon make short work of this Dragon Empire.

The Great Fiend was excited about the return of his power. However, his face soon turned to one of disdain. Looking over at Kormato, the Great Fiend quietly ordered him to come over. Komato stood there not even moving. Not only did he not move he seemed to be happily standing there like nothing was happening.

"Not listening to orders? You think that will save you?!" The Great Fiend was starting to get angry. General Dhaatu looked over at Kormato and yelled at him as well.

"Get over here! Your lord is talking to you!" roared General Dhaatu.

Finally, Kormato seemed to realize everyone was looking at him. He looked around the room and back at the Great Fiend. "Who, me?" he asked

"YES, YOU!" yelled General Dhaatu.

"Sorry sir, but I'm not Kormato, I'm Bedjin." the Fiend responded.

"Do you take us for fools?! We know who you are, it's written on your name tag," said the Great Fiend said.

Bedjin looked down and saw his name tag did, in fact, say Kormato. "Lords, this isn't my name tag, I'm Bedjin! You know, Funny Bedjin, they guy who makes everyone laugh." Just as he finished speaking the Great Fiend pointed at him and Bedjin blew up.

"Hahaha, yes very funny I guess he did make people laugh," The Great Fiend said coldly.

"I never knew Komato was such an idiot. You, janitor, Toofar is it? Come over here and clean up this mess. I trust you know what happens to those who don't do a good job cleaning?" said General Dhaatu.

"Right away my lord," the man said.

What no one seemed to notice was the Janitor now cleaning up Bedjin's remains was actually Komato. After being yelled at, Komato stepped over to Bedjin and switched their nametags. With the way things worked among Fiends, he knew at some point either General Dhaatu or the Great Fiend was going to kill him. When these types of things happened, he did what he always did, switched name tags!

,

He wasn't even Kamato. He was originally Seligo. Back when he was talking with General Dhaatu during his lunch and he farted he noticed the look on the General's face. He knew the General would probably kill him. He didn't kill him then because he was eating his lunch and now that his lunch had been infected by fart he couldn't finish it. However, he was still hungry, so he went to get another lunch.

Seligo immediately switched name tags with Farbitte and then with Kufrin, and then with the Janitor who was simply named Janitor. He wasn't sure if Farbitte was the one who was blown up in the Harmony Chamber, but what did he care.

Seligo continued to offend various superiors and he kept changing his name tag. Eventually, he managed to get Komato's name tag. The real Komato ran up a huge gambling tab and Seligo saw him kidnapped one night to serve as a waiter in the underground Fiend gambling den. Komato still dreamed of regaining his freedom to this day. Seligo was just glad he managed to escape death again.

The reason this switching-nametags thing worked so well was simple. Seligo noticed no one bothered to learn what others looked like. This was because there was such high turnover among Fiends, it was too much bother to memorize faces when it was likely the person you were dealing with wouldn't be around too long. Due to all of this, it was very easy for Seligo to play his little name tag game. Seligo was fairly confident if he were to grab one of the male generals' nametags, the Great Fiend probably wouldn't know the difference.

The Great Fiend was feeling happy about finally being able to reach the zenith of his powers. Of course, he still couldn't use his full power. There were rules, however, having his full powers meant there was no one in the Dragon Empire that could harm him.

The Great Fiend returned to his throne room to plot the final battles against the Dragon Empire.