by E. M. Hardy
Table of Contents
Recap
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Archeologist Warlord
Step 03: Reuniting…
by E.M. Hardy
Archeologist Warlord: Book 3
Copyright © 2019 LitRPG Freaks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
Recap
Martin Fuller used to be an archeology major with an unhealthy obsession with the pyramids of Egypt. Oh, and ever since he was a child, he could hear the ghosts of the vengeful dead venting their anger and outrage at him. Unbeknownst to him, this ability of his is an indicator of his compatibility with soul magic—what the Builders called ‘pnevma.’
This along with Martin’s altruistic nature were the reasons why the artificial intelligence locked within the Great Pyramid of Khufu selected Martin, separating his soul from his body and transmitting it light years away to the planet of Copsis. With the last spurt from its dying memory crystals, another AI called Custodian 4299 bound Martin’s soul to an experimental pnevmatic core in the hidden pyramid of the Qleb Sierra.
Martin thus finds himself in control of various clay-like robots called constructs: dolls for building, cow-boxes for hauling, and eyeballs for scouting. He even managed to obtain schematics for human-like constructs that he could take direct control of.
Martin began his quest to protect the world of Copsis, aligning himself with the Ren Empire as well as the Emirate of Ma’an. He brought these two nations together, bridging them by opening a passage through the inhospitable Qleb Sierra.
He then helped save Empress Zi Li from a treacherous plot by her former advisors, one of whom incited the Empire’s vassals to rebel. Martin also thwarted an attack on his new ally, Prince Suhaib Ma’an, and brokered out a peace treaty between his emirate and the cutthroat League of Merchants.
Not all ended well, however, for the Empire ended up wracked by rebellion on two sides. Empress Zi Li called upon Martin to fulfill his obligations as her vassal. His forces were sent to hold off the Sahaasi Dominion, one of the Empire’s rebelling vassal states, while the Empire itself dealt with Shogun Inagaki Nobumoto’s rebellion.
Martin came to an understanding with the leader of the Sahaasi Dominion, Maharaja Venkati, to hold at a mutually designated point instead of initiating further hostilities. The Empress, however, wanted him to bleed the Sahaasi, to weaken them for General Guo Zhenya when he arrived with reinforcements from the Empire’s khanate vassals up north in the Grass Sea.
Unfortunately for the Empire, Shogun Inagaki’s claws were already sunk deep within the khans of the north.
The Khans and their horsemen hordes shattered Guo Zhenya’s army before breaking away from the Empire—denying the reinforcements that Empress Zi Li depended upon for the Empire’s survival. Martin and his constructs became the only remaining force loyal to the beleaguered Empire, which soon found itself fighting a losing battle against the Shogunates and their powerful blood-bound weapons.
This turn of events forced the Empress to accept Martin’s peace deal with Maharaja Venkati, formally recognizing the independence of the Sahaasi Dominion in exchange for the cessation of hostilities.
While civil war raged across the Empire, Martin had been in steady contact with the League of Merchants. He sought to expand a hasty peace treaty into something more permanent, more constructive.
This is why he escorted Prince Suhaib Ma’an and Senior League Executive Isin Safak all throughout the Bashri Basin. Their delegation traveled from emirate to emirate, hammering out treaties and agreements that would bring the disparate states together.
Senior Executive Isin held ambitions of her own, however, especially after she heard of how nations in Martin’s world were run. These ‘governments’ were managed not by royals but by systems very similar to the ones used by the League of Merchants. She thus embarked on her own quest to learn more about these systems and how they would work within the League’s sphere of influence.
Daimyo Ishida Nagatoshi was having a hard time adjusting to his new station in life. The Shogun held his family hostage, exiling him and troops loyal to the bushido code of honor. He was thus forced to do whatever it took to keep his family safe, even if it meant fighting under the banner of a foreign ruler far away from his home.
He did not expect, however, to befriend the Maharaja he served under. He also did not expect to suddenly find himself growing in leaps and bounds, learning the ways of channeling prana from the Maharaja even as Ishida taught that man how to bind blood to his weapons.
The two leaders of their respective peoples found such growth strange, and investigated the cause for such unnatural development. They discovered that Martin’s obelisks were somehow connected to their accelerated development, and moved to train their respective troops under the shadows of the said obelisks.
Back in the Empire, Shogunate troops slaughtered all they came across—including an entire city that peacefully surrendered. The Shogun’s troops culled the innocents, infusing their blood into their spears, blades, and arrows. This new stockpile of blood-bound weapons gave the Shogunates the edge they needed to blitz the Imperials.
Martin decided to match the brutality of the Shogunates, wantonly drinking in their souls and creating undead husks for the shayateen to inhabit. Martin’s own power grew as he collected more souls into his core, breaking the back of the Shogunate army in an amazing display of power that overwhelmed even the Shogunate’s vaunted samurai.
He pulled back at the cusp of victory, however, because his growing power took a toll on his grasp of reality. He allowed the Shogunates to retreat as he recovered, attempting to center himself once more.
Using their newfound powers, Ishida and Venkati sensed the corruption within Martin. They helped him meditate upon the endless patterns of a mandala, which Martin used to study his otherworldly core for the first time.
He discovered that his core was a miniaturized ball of hell, tormenting captured souls and feeding off their suffering for greater power. He also learned that the process would eventually corrode his mind until he saw all living things as nothing more than fuel for his war machines.
This is why Martin focused on the mandala, using his newfound knowledge to deconstruct his core.
He smashed the prison inside himself, purifying the captured souls within, and returned them to the cycle of life. He lost much of the power he gained but he freed himself from the risk of corruption.
The Shogun, meanwhile, drew reinforcements from the Isles of Taiyo in one last desperate gamble to take the Imperial seat of power. This move, however, left the Isles woefully undermanned to repel an attack from within. This oversight allowed Ishida Nagatoshi to secure the Shogun’s hostages and retake the Isles using his troops along with a group of Sahaasi ghurkas.
In the meantime, Martin’s excavation of the desert ruins finally paid off, allowing him to construct scarabs equipped with laser-emitting crystals—the same kinds of crystals that decimated his own constructs.
These new light-based weapons helped turn the tide against the Shogunate’s forces. Martin even managed to pick ou
t the Shogun himself—incinerating the leader of the rebellion in a focused blast of light.
On the northern side of the continent, the khans of the Grass Sea have been busy fighting amongst themselves for dominance, but three Khans have come together to raid the Empire while it was at its most vulnerable.
Martin’s floating eyeballs kept track of everything the raiders did, evacuating villages well before the raiders arrived to pillage them. Imperial citizens all across the border retreated to an already impressive citadel further fortified by Martin’s dolls and cow-boxes.
Realizing they stood to lose more than they would gain, the raiders wisely chose to retreat before Imperial reinforcement penned them on the Imperial side of Martin’s Little Walls.
Back on the Isles of Taiyo, Ishida Nagatoshi negotiated for the repatriation of the scattered remnants of the Shogun’s army. Generals Shen Feng and Bai Yu were furious, refusing to hand them over when Isin Safak made a proposal. The Senior Executive offered the aid of the League of Merchants in rebuilding the Isles of Taiyo.
In exchange for this aid, the League would prop up a republic with three distinct branches of government—an experiment that Isin and Martin had been cooking up for quite some time. The Isles of Taiyo would be reformed into the Taiyo Sovereignty, with an intentionally bureaucratic system of governance that aimed to represent the disparate clans of the Isles. This government also aimed to prevent another Inagaki Nobumoto from retaking power and plunging the Isles back into war.
The Emirates in the Bashri Basin is now at peace with the League of Merchants taking the role of trade-broker. The Empire of Ren and the lands around it have put down their weapons, slowly adjusting to an uneasy peace. The civil war in the Grass Seas is still going strong, however, and there have been sightings of strange constructs marching through the desolate deserts far to the east of the Bashri Basin.
This is where Martin’s story continues.
Chapter 01
At a local park in the city of Five Gorges,
“Really? Just like that?”
“Yes, really. Just… like… that,” said General Shen Feng with a smirk as he laid his white Go piece down on the board—swapping out two lines of black pieces out for his white pieces.
Martin would have winced if he could at the sheer number of positions Shen Feng captured. Here he was, so confident about his control of the edges that he failed to notice that one little spot in the upper-right-hand corner where Shen was able to sneak a piece in.
What hurt the most was that Shen left no other holes for Martin to exploit. He was, effectively, cornered with no moves left. They counted the tiles and, surely enough, Shen won by a margin of twelve extra white tiles.
And this was just the beginner’s board of nine-by-nine tiles. Martin couldn’t imagine how difficult and drawn-out the game would be if they were playing on a nineteen-by-nineteen board—one that the good general favored.
Martin grunted in disgust at himself. The problem with the game of Go is that there is no secret recipe for winning, no knockout combination or pieces with special abilities.
All you have are black pieces and white pieces you set down on the board, converting any opposing pieces to your color if you manage to squish them in between your pieces. That’s it.
Whoever possessed the most foresight to box their enemy into a corner would win… and Shen Feng was proving himself superior to Martin in this regard.
“Alright, alright,” Martin finally conceded, shaking the head of his walker. “This round’s yours.”
“You mean like the dozen rounds that came before?” Shen retorted, unable to prevent a smug smirk from escaping his lips. The General of the White Tiger chuckled as he swept the pieces off the board and leaned his chin upon his fist. “Again?”
Martin groaned. “Mercy, please. My poor, shattered pride won’t be able to take any more defeats this day.”
Shen laughed out, gathering the black and white tiles into a drawstring bag. His laughter petered out into a smile, then subsided into a sad smirk.
“Why the long face?” Martin commented as his walker reached out across the table, pulling the pot of apple tea imported from the Emirates and pouring Shen a cup of the red stuff.
“Long face?” asked Shen, who squinted at Martin’s walker. “Ah, a saying from your world, yes?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. So… why do you seem so sad all of a sudden?”
Shen sighed at that then shook his head. “Nothing. It’s…” The general looked over at Martin for a moment, then around him.
People played and lounged at the newly-renovated park within the city of Five Gorges, which had become a bustling trade city more than two years after the nearby pyramid first came to life.
Children laughed as they chased one another, climbing all over the bars while their parents played all sorts of board and card games nearby. Merchants from the Bashri Emirates set up stalls of their own, hawking all sorts of wares from unsweetened raki to intricate mosaic lamps.
These merchants, thankfully, were the regular kind that sold and bought stuff—not the Merchants who tend to hide poisoned needles in their sleeves. Or at least Martin thought the merchants here were plain traders; he still had a hard time identifying League operatives working their craft.
Shen Feng inhaled deeply then sighed with a shake of his head. “Would it be disloyal for me to say that things are better now for the Empire than ever before?”
Martin doubled back at that, surprised by Shen Feng’s statement. “Whuh? Where’d that come from?”
Shen sipped at his apple tea, savoring the tart of the imported drink as he examined his surroundings once more. Satisfied that nobody was listening in too closely, he leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes.
“Expansion is the blood that keeps the heart of an empire beating. Bring in more territories, force them to submit to your rule, and you will be able to take what you need to ensure the prosperity of the motherland.
“The Ren Empire right now is a shadow of its former self. We have lost all our vassal states, forced back into the provinces we first assimilated a little more than a hundred years ago.”
Shen shifted in his seat, stretched his arms out to cradle his neck from behind. “And yet… and yet I cannot say that I have ever seen the Empire so stable, so prosperous as now.”
Shen cracked one of his eyes open, nodding at the stalls lined up all around the park. “See that? That kind of trade fair only happened once a year and in the capital itself, only when we got lucky and the typhoons were mild.
“Now, look around. Traders from all over the Bashri Basin come in practically every day now, spreading out all over the Empire to sell their wares. You also have traders from the Sahaasi offering their fruits, spices, and gems. Then you have traders from the Isles of Taiyo with their fish, seaweed, and pearls. The Empress is planning to expand the Red City once again just to accommodate the influx of travelers looking to set up shops in our lands.”
Shen then switched his gaze, pointing to a food stand selling sushi right beside it. “Deepwater fish in the Red City used to be a luxury available only to the Empress and her courtiers, thanks to the throne being so far from the coastline. Now even mere commoners can enjoy fish so fresh you can eat it raw—and here in the swamplands of Five Gorges, no less. It’s so fresh you can prepare it in the Taiyo manner: raw on vinegar-soured rice, and at prices so low that we can buy them as a sort of fast-food.”
Martin held up a finger at that before tapping his chin in thought. “Oh yeah. I have noticed more of those sushi stands popping up nowadays. I heard that the fish were being imported from the Taiyo by the Xin and Chang trading families.”
“Indeed,” answered Shen Feng. “They were one of the first families to unlock the secrets of pulling heat out of the air, creating a chill in the process that you can seal into a tightly-covered box. And it was you who suggested using this chill to better preserve fresh foods coming i
n from distant lands.”
The general nodded toward the various food stands all around them. “I must say that this is the first year in all my life where not a single Imperial province would go hungry. Not only that, but it looks like every corner of the Empire will actually have an abundance of food—enough for people to actually choose what kind of food they want to eat.
“Martin Fuller, I have only ever seen aristocrats have the luxury of choosing one food or the other to serve at the table. Most rural commoners normally get by with rice and whatever they can pull out of the ground or scrounge from the wildlands.”
Shen said all this with a satisfied nod. “And with your little dolls around, building infrastructure like crazy, the Empire is barely flinching from disasters that would have left us reeling.
“We’ve had some pretty bad typhoons in the eastern provinces this last year, but those canal dikes of yours work wonders keeping the floodwaters out of the fields. Your bridges and roads are a big help as well, helping trade flourish over every corner of the Empire.
“And in cases of emergency, the roads make it easy for me and the other generals to bring in troops at a moment’s notice. Banditry is at an all-time low as well because we have so many soldiers patrolling the roads now. My own men and women have so little to do that they are getting more experience with disaster relief than actual fighting.”
Martin chuckled at that. “And just how can this praise for a higher standard of living ever be construed as something disloyal?”
Shen Feng went silent for a few moments before responding in a whisper, “Because it might be better like this… like how you force us to stay inside our borders instead of pushing outward, like what we’ve been doing since the Empire was first established.”
Martin would have blinked in surprise if he could, then he realized what Shen was getting at. “Ah,” he said simply.
Shen Feng leaned back on his chair once more, though he kept his voice low enough to avoid getting the attention of the random passerby. “My pride as a warrior, as the General of the White Tiger, tells me that I should hate you for holding a sword over the head of my Empress.”