Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 597: Ryun

Protecting an Army

Ryun had spent an entire day after their big meeting inspecting his army. Warriors of the sect were mostly Cultivators, though there were some who focused on Classes, mostly former Third Empire people. The differences were stark, ones wore armor and bore mostly heavier weapons, while the Cultivators wore their combat robes and more often than not didn’t even have a weapon.

The Twilight Melody Sect army fought in smaller groups, teams that more resembled adventuring groups with designated roles, than an actual army. There were advantages to that, as well as disadvantages.

Ryun had already fought a war with them, so he understood. Those smaller groups were there to support and follow the stronger people on the field, those like Ryun, Nayra, Anrosh even. Their job was to take advantage of the opening they created and take out the enemy forces.

Their preparations for the war were significant, shield formations were mass produced and purchased from other factions or over the auction and Framework shop. Artillery arrays were procured as well, as a support for the warriors capable of long range combat, of which there weren’t many.

His forces were mostly proficient in melee combat, and the Exalted Empire was the worst kind of an opponent for them. People focused on using technology and fighting at long ranges, adept at denying or outright preventing any kind of close combat.

There were ways around that, of course. Many of his high tiered warriors were capable of moving at incredible speeds, flying, or using other movement techniques that would close the distance, but not all, or even most.

The other issue he had was that Cultivator fighting styles were intended for duels, evading damage. Their foe now was a hard counter.

After the day spent inspecting his warriors, he retreated into his forge, within his inner territory. He was losing his touch with creation with every passing day, but he was still capable. And even though he might be losing his skill, he did have Bright Star.

Together, they started working on a piece of equipment for his warriors. It had to be simple, not overly costly, but also capable of saving their lives in the battles that they would be facing ahead, armor.

Cultivators weren’t used to wearing anything other than combat robes, so he started with that, he had a set of standard combat robes his sect provided to their warriors in front of him on a long bench. Materials of all kinds were gathered in bins around him.

“What do you think?” Ryun asked.

“It needs to be strong enough to carry the enchantments you mean to put into it, but if you don’t want to use large hard plates, you’ll need to make sacrifices.”

Ryun grunted, but didn’t disagree with Bright Star’s thought process. He had been thinking the same thing.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“A thin metal mesh, I can inlay it on the inside of the robes, maybe just on the torso? I can engrave a type of shield that will activate automatically, draw power from the person wielding it? That would give them a chance against long range fire, give them the ability to soak up a few hits and close the range?”

“The entire issue is that the enemy weapons are high tiered, if you put in a shield powered by the individual your low tiered troops won’t be able to power it enough to hold against such power. Either it will punch through and kill them outright, or drain them so much that they might just collapse.”

Ryun grimaced, that was an issue. He couldn’t make the protection too complicated. He already had to put an adaptive enchantment so that his warriors could even wear them, he couldn’t tailor them for each individual. But mass producing anything too complicated would be difficult. He had a way to do it, with his and Bright Star’s Forged Memory perk, but even his power had limits. There were tens of thousands troops that he had to equip. He could make a piece of armor or a combat robes that would shrug off basically anything that the enemy threw at them, but he couldn’t replicate many of those, not in time anyway.

“A solid plate at the back then, with a power source. It would minimally impact their movement, but it will let me put in a few more enchantments.”

“That could work,” Bright Star said.

Ryun went to work. Together they went through the boxes and bins, looking for a suitable material. They ended up settling on silver iron. An alloy that was fairly flexible, even if it wasn’t too tough. Most of the power would come from the enchantments anyway. With his will, skills, and Bright Star’s hammer in his hand, he moved the metal with his mind.

It flowed like liquid, into the robe before him and shaping itself into a net, a mesh that he attached to the inside of the robe. On the back he created a solid plate but quickly decided to change that up to three smaller ones, the big one was too large not to impact some movement.

Once that was done, he gathered a small gemstone and inlaid it into one of the plates. Then he started etching a formation, one for gathering Essence from the air. It would recharge slowly, but at least it wouldn’t be reliant on the personal power of the wearer.

After that, he inlaid a few simple enchantments, a shield, which he went through a few variations and settled on one made out of crystallized Light Essence. It would be weaker against physical attacks, but most of the Exalted Empire troops used light based weaponry. After placing in a shield, he put one that would activate it when the wearer was being attacked. That took a tiny bit of his will, inlaid with a sliver of his perception skill.

Once he was finished, he looked at the combat robes, satisfied with his work.

Warrior Robe of Protection

+30 to Dexterity

+30 to Vitality

+10% increase to physical defense

A traditional Twilight Melody Sect combat robes, augmented by the Sect Head to provide protection against any attack.

The robe will summon a directional shield to block any high intensity attack aimed at the wearer.

“This will serve,” Ryun said. It ended up being an epic rarity item that was better than what most of his lower tier warriors had. The usual combat robes for lower tiers were rare in rarity. Of course, his more powerful had their own powerful equipment, but this would serve for the lower tiers who couldn’t afford specialized items.

“More like it is serviceable,” Bright Star added.

Ryun rolled his eyes, then placed the hammer against the robe and fed it to Bright Star. The robe was consumed, leaving no trace of it.

“Now,” Ryun steeled himself. “Let’s see how much it takes.”

He used Forged Memory, the perk that allowed him to recreate any item consumed by his forge at the cost of his stamina.

Essence flowed from the hammer and something drew from his being, a moment later the robe flashed back into existence, a perfect recreation. The draw on his stamina was minuscule. Now he just had to create a couple thousand of them.

He focused and got to work.