Swarming Sovereignty
Chapter 178: A Surrender to Remember

Darius stood atop the wall, scanning the horizon diligently. Their info had estimated that the swarm would be arriving that day, the day after at absolute latest. And, with most of the world’s armies gathered in this one city, it was the best chance they would ever have at turning the tide of the war. So, he couldn’t afford to let his guard down for a moment, it was crucial that the swarm was spotted as soon as was possible.

A horrifying cry split the air, half dragon’s roar and half metal scraping against metal, the peaceful sounds of the city resolving into screams as the Scourge of the Skies finished its horrid roar. Darius hurried to sound the alarm, not that it was necessary; no one in the city could have missed that roar unless they were deaf.

A woman’s voice rang out next, magically amplified to a degree that must have been audible to the whole city. “Our assault begins in precisely half an hour.” The woman, likely the Queen of the swarm, said. “Civilians, remain in your homes and you won’t be harmed. If you are currently at work, we advise you return to your homes immediately; we can guarantee that there will be no repercussions for you after the swarm takes over.

“For the armies in the city, this is your chance to surrender. We are well aware that your coalition’s forces are all here, and we have brought an army to match; every single person over level two hundred that we have is here, along with an assortment of the deadliest monsters we could find in the Spine.

“If we do not receive word of your surrender within half an hour, our army will be deployed within the city, and we will begin our assault. Oh, and any attempts to exit the city or contact people outside of the city are being blocked courtesy of Amelia, so don’t get any ideas about escaping. Your time begins…now.”

Darius rushed to the guardhouse, where a few other watchmen had already gathered. “Well?” One asked. “Anyone seen a superior officer yet?”

“I haven’t.” Darius said.

“Me neither.” Another added.

“They’re probably organizing the main army.” The last mused. “There are only a few of us and we’re not very high level, so we’re probably low priority.”

“Do you think we’re going to win?” The first asked. “We’ve got what…two max level people here?”

“Raphael the Swordsmaster and Raven the Alchemist.” Darius confirmed. “And I think the odds aren’t in our favor, if I’m being honest. If they are just bluffing and can’t actually deploy the army in the city, then that changes a little, but even then…”

The other watchmen seemed to understand. It didn’t take a military genius to know that they were fighting a losing battle; at this point, over half of the world’s most powerful people were part of the swarm, it had developed a superweapon the like of which had yet to be seen by people, and every battle that people lost only added to the swarm’s numbers.

The room fell into a heavy silence. What was there to say, really? This was a make-or-break moment, one that would go down in the history of the world, regardless of the outcome. And…if Darius was being realistic, none of the people in this room had the capability to change the outcome in any meaningful capacity.

A short while later, the door opened, and Darius’s sergeant, Mina, walked in, a conflicted expression on her face. “We’re surrendering.” She said gravely. “Or…the bulk of the army is. The nobles here aren’t, and anyone who wants to fight can go fight alongside them, but not many are.”

“Just like that?” One of the watchmen asked. “We’re not even going to try?”

Mina sighed. “This was a setup.” She said. “A way to get us all in one place. Our rulers surrendered the moment the Lord of Monsters was defeated. They claim to be trying to prevent as much death as possible by pretending to fight.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Darius protested. “Would a full surrender not be quicker and easier?”

“I don’t understand it either.” Mina admitted. “They pointed to the nobles here who wouldn’t surrender and said they wanted to prevent rebellions like this by putting up a façade. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but nobles never have.”

“What did you decide?” Darius asked. “I…don’t know what to think.”

“Are you kidding?” Mina asked. “No way I’m joining up with the people who aren’t surrendering. There’s literally no benefit to it; no matter how many people like us go to help, they’re still probably going to lose, and it puts me at risk of serious injury or death. I’m just going to let whatever happens happen.”

“But…what happened to fighting the good fight?” Another watchman asked. “We’ve come all this way, just to…give up?”

“We were all deluding ourselves.” Mina said numbly, collapsing into one of the room’s chairs. “Ever since half our army chose to stay and defend the homeland, it was over. Command says our only realistic opportunity was while they were busy with the Lord of Monsters, and we could barely get to the front lines before they finished with it, much less put up a serious resistance.

“Let’s be real, we’re all just afraid of change.” She continued bitterly. “The Goddess of Hearth confirmed we would be treated well, so what do us regular people really have to worry about? We’re just swapping out one ruler for another. I didn’t really want to admit it, but I probably stayed with the army just because I didn’t want to think about what the ramifications of my sexual orientation changing would be. You all are the same, aren’t you? None of you want to be a woman, so you kept fighting.”

“I wouldn’t…” Darius paused, then shook his head. “No, I’d be lying if I said you weren’t right. I like being a man, and I figured that if the fighting wasn’t to the death, then there wasn’t a huge problem with fighting back. I like being a man, the thought of changing so much scares me. Will I even be me anymore?”

“I had the same worries.” One of the guardsmen admitted. “At what point can you say that we’re really still the same person?”

“Well, most of the gods apparently think that this doesn’t cross that line.” Mina said. “And I guess they would know better than us, they’re the ones who have to deal with souls.”

“I suppose.” The guardsman replied.

“Enough of that. We’re here, this is the end…why not lighten the mood for these last thirty minutes?” Mina said, reaching into the small extradimensional bag she was so proud of and pulling out a bottle of wine. “I was saving this for a big occasion, and I think this counts. Who wants some?”

Lord Linus of Lat stormed about in his chambers, seething with indignant rage at the betrayal. To have their armies come to his city only to fold the moment opposition appeared was absurd. They hadn’t even tried to fight back, having fully bought into the embellished lies the swarm was spouting.

They had left him with no choice. He had heard of the swarm’s preposterous policies, and he knew Cedric had been waiting for an excuse to strip his title, and he wasn’t about to let everything he had worked for fall here. So, he had ordered his troops to continue the fight, giving them some nonsensical speech about being the last bastion of freedom or something.

He had been impressed with his own improvisational and acting skills; the soldiers bought it enough that they would likely put up a decent fight, and that was all he needed. He held no doubts that they would fall relatively quickly, but that was a necessary loss. All he needed to do was take his most loyal retainers and the emergency fund and leave through the escape tunnels.

Those tunnels, dug using earth magic, led out well out of eyesight of the city, and he had made absolutely sure word of their existence hadn’t leaked. The mage who made them had been imprisoned and killed on charges of smuggling, and only he and his family knew about them. The family’s special code knock sounded from the door, and he hurriedly opened it to let everyone in.

He instructed them to follow him as he sent a small pulse of Mana into the device that revealed the escape tunnels, and quickly began to make his way down the stairs. Though everything had gone bad here, there was still a life ahead of him outside; once he was able to get past whatever ward was preventing communication magic from reaching the outside, he could reveal the treachery of the army to others, perhaps even use it to oust Cedric from the throne and assume control himself.

That thought kept him going right until he walked into the barrier. The air in front of him had solidified, and the magic dispersal tool he tried to use on it might as well have been a rock for all the good it did. Still, he kept going; this was an expensive tool, and between his family and his retainers, they had a lot of Mana that could be used to fuel its operation. Eventually they would overwhelm the barrier enough to slip through, and then they would be free.

“Yes, yes, keep trying. I’m sure it’ll work better this next time.” A woman said dryly, appearing on the other side of the barrier. “What, did you think we didn’t think of this? This barrier encapsulates the whole city, and it’s a sphere, not a dome. You’re not getting out.”

A cold sweat ran down Linus’s spine as he recognized the woman as the Hero Amelia. “How did you –”

“Uh, a simple monitoring spell? Your wards are terrible, by the way. I was bypassing better as a toddler.”

Then it hit Linus. “She’s maintaining a barrier around the city, she can’t have much Mana! She’s harmless if we can break through!”

Amelia raised an eyebrow. “You really are stupid.” She said, stepping through the barrier and wresting the magic dispersal tool out of Linus’s hands with the ease one would use to take something from a child. “Even on just raw physical stats, no one here can beat me.”

The tool disappeared, and Amelia vanished in a whoosh of air, Linus turning to find that she had grabbed the head of his guard and was holding him up with one hand. “See? And that’s not even mentioning the fact that I still have enough Mana to deal with a couple of flunkies like you and the people in this tunnel.”

She casually threw the head of the guard into the barrier, a nasty crunch ringing out as he impacted it. “We’re wasting too much time here.” She said, snapping her fingers.

There was a surge of feeling that Linus recognized as teleportation, and he marshaled all of his Mana to attempt to fight it off, but it was no use, and a moment later he was behind bars in some sort of metallic structure.

“Got them.” Amelia said. “Lia, if you would?”

The Queen of the swarm gave Linus a cold look as she stepped forward. “Sorry to contact you all again so soon,” she said, “but there has been a new development. Many of you have wisely chosen to surrender, and I applaud this, but those of you who haven’t have very likely been misled by your superiors. We have just caught the lord of this city escaping through an underground tunnel, leaving you all to fight alone.

“We have caught him and are holding him in a cell in the Scourge of the Skies. If you all would look towards the sky, you’ll see a projection of what I am seeing right now. Of course, you may choose to disbelieve this, but all you’ll need to do to confirm it is to check his quarters; you’ll find he is gone, and if you destroy the fireplace, you’ll find the tunnel. Of course, I’m sure you all are thinking that we might be lying, so allow me to introduce our navy.”

A small projection appeared in front of Amelia. “Watch.” She said smugly.

Huge fishlike beings surfaced from the water, twisting and shuddering as they compacted, morphing into the shapes of attractive women with heavy cannons floating in the air next to them, tied to their bodies with chains.

“We will be firing upon the easternmost guard tower of the city wall in one minute. We see there are five of you in there, if you run to the west, you should all make it out of the blast radius in time. If you are running and we think you are still in range, we will wait before firing, but if you stay put, we will fire with you inside. I would recommend leaving, now.”

The image in front of Amelia changed to the guard house, where one woman and four men made a hasty exit. Judging by the bottle of wine one of them was carrying and their general unsteadiness, the dullards must have been drinking in that guard house, and that pretty neatly summed up what Linus thought of the resolve of the army that had occupied his city.

After watching them run for an agonizingly long time, the projection in front of Amelia changed to a view from above, and Linus was able to watch as the women on the ocean began to fire their cannons. The first volley impacted the fortified walls, the wards flashing brightly as they stopped the attacks from connecting.

That wasn’t to last. The impact of the second volley overloaded the wards, and Linus swore that he could almost hear the glass-shattering noise that was made when they exploded. They didn’t even stop all of the volley, the remaining shots hitting the guard post and utterly obliterating it, leaving it a smoking mess of ruined stone.

“Understand that we are more than capable of doing the same to that castle you are holding up in.” The Queen said. “Don’t make us do that. Stand down, and we can guarantee your lives. If you don’t, then…things will have to get ugly.”

Though she had already been looking at Linus, her eyes seemed to truly focus on him for the first time, her disdain evident in her stare. “As for you…let’s just get this over with.”

Before Linus could reply, he was engulfed in a smooth substance. And, as it flowed over him, the last thing he heard before his consciousness faded was the Queen’s command to “have one of the soldiers convert him.”

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