Chapter 316: Advanced Magic Technology

The moon hung high and cold over the Conclave, a silent, silver witness to the a la carte surrendering of a princess’s virtue.

Eleanor of Strathmore was a trembling, sore, and blissfully satisfied mess against the ancient, moon-dappled tree. The rough bark was a stark, grounding contrast to the slick, hot wetness of Alaric’s seed still dripping down her inner thighs. Her body ached in places she hadn’t known could ache, and a deep, thrumming pleasure still pulsed from her very core.

Alaric, in stark contrast, was already composed. He pulled up his trousers with a casual, almost business-like efficiency, his handsome face showing no sign of the raw, possessive passion of moments before. He was a force of nature that had just passed through, leaving a beautiful, chaotic ruin in his wake.

He turned to her, a faint, almost friendly smile on his lips. “See, Eleanor? That wasn’t so bad. A necessary… diplomatic exchange.”

Eleanor could only stare at him, her mind a chaotic swirl of sensation and shock. Diplomatic exchange? He had just taken her virginity with the brutal efficiency of a conquering general.

He stepped closer, his tone now a low, conspiratorial murmur, an undercurrent of absolute command beneath the friendly words. “Now, here’s the plan. Go back to your father. Tell him you’ve thought about my offer. Tell him it’s the only path. He’s a weak man, but he loves you. He’ll listen to his clever daughter.”

“I… I don’t know if I can,” she whispered, her voice a little shaky.

“You can,” he stated simply, his voice leaving no room for argument. He then added, a hint of mock concern in his tone, “You can’t tell him we did this, of course. He’s an old-fashioned king. If he knew I’d had his precious daughter, he’d think you were just a silly girl with a crush, that your judgment is clouded.”

He leaned closer, his ruby eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “He wouldn’t take your good advice seriously, and that would be a tragedy for Strathmore. We wouldn’t want that, would we? Especially since I’ll need more reasons to visit… and continue our… negotiations.”

The audacity of it, the sheer, manipulative brilliance, left her speechless. He was framing the secrecy of their affair not as a matter of his own reputation, or her honor, but as a strategic necessity for the survival of her kingdom.

He reached out, his hand landing on her magnificent, bare buttock with a sharp, stinging smack that made the flesh jiggle and sent a jolt of pure, electric pleasure through her. “Don’t worry,” he purred, his voice a low, possessive growl. “I’ll visit your camp tomorrow night. We have a lot more to discuss. Now run along before someone finds you.”

He turned and melted back into the shadows, leaving her alone in the silent, moonlit garden.

Eleanor stood there for a long moment, her body trembling, her mind a chaotic ruin. She slowly, clumsily, began to pull her torn, discarded clothes together. Her hands shook as she tried to fasten the ties of her gown, her fingers fumbling.

She finally managed to make herself look presentable and began the long, lonely walk back to her kingdom’s crumbling, drafty pavilion.

And as she walked, her inner monologue was a storm of conflicting, overwhelming emotions.

’Gods, what has he done to me?’ she thought, her hand instinctively going to her aching, swollen pussy. ’My body aches, my pussy is flooded with his cum, and all I can think about is him doing it again.’

A wave of shame washed over her. She was a princess. She had been raised to be a symbol of purity, of royal dignity. And she had just been taken, like a common tavern wench, in a garden.

’He’s a devil,’ she thought, a fresh wave of heat rising in her cheeks. ’A complete, utter rascal. A villain who uses his power and his body to get what he wants.’

But then, another thought, a more dangerous, more seductive one, slithered into her mind. ’…but he’s our devil. This is what Strathmore needs. A devil to fight the other devils.’

She thought of her father, a good man, a kind man, but a weak king. She thought of her people, starving and afraid. And she thought of Alaric Steele, a man of terrifying power, of brilliant, ruthless cunning.

’I guess my body knew it before my mind did,’ she mused, a bitter, self-deprecating smile touching her lips. ’It’s not like I have a choice anymore; he’s made me his willing slut in just one night.’

A sound escaped her lips, a sound she didn’t recognize. A soft, breathless giggle. A sound of horrified, giddy surrender.

The next day, the sun rose on a new, more focused Jorailian delegation. The time for banquets and grand pronouncements was over. The time for intelligence gathering and acquisition had begun.

Alaric, flanked by his three magnificent Archmages, walked through the main trade grounds of the Conclave. Ondine was once again the perfect queen, her expression a mask of regal, polite interest. Priscilla and Zylle were the perfect, silent, beautiful advisors, their powerful auras a subtle, constant reminder of the power they served.

Alaric had made it clear. “We are not selling. We are not displaying our own tech. Today, we are students. We are spies. We are appraisers. I want to know what the rest of the world has to offer. I want to know our competition.”

Their first, and most important, stop was the pavilion of the Rimefrost Imperium. It was a place of cold, sterile, and breathtaking power. The air itself seemed to hum with a contained, efficient energy.

The pavilion was filled with technology that made Alaric’s own, formidable creations seem… provincial.

At the center of the hall, on a massive pedestal of polished, black ice, was a ’Cryo-Engine’. It was a flawless, multifaceted crystal, the size of a man’s torso, that pulsed with a slow, silent, inner blue light. It radiated an aura of absolute zero, the air around it shimmering with a visible cold.

“Priscilla,” Alaric murmured, his voice a low, appreciative hum. “Analysis.”

Priscilla stepped forward, her Archmage senses extending, probing the engine’s complex, layered enchantments. “My Lord,” she said, her voice filled with a genuine, professional awe. “It’s a self-stabilizing 10th-order array. The runic matrix… it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t just generate cold; it seems to be converting ambient magical energy directly into cryo-energy, with almost zero loss. It’s… a perpetual motion machine of cold.”

Alaric nodded, his ruby eyes gleaming with a mixture of admiration and a burning, competitive desire. “My own work is barely touching the 8th order. To replicate this, I’d need a fundamental breakthrough in my understanding of cryo-magic. They are… significantly ahead in this field.”

But the Cryo-Engine was just the beginning. The pavilion was a veritable treasure trove of advanced, terrifying technology.

There were personal shields, not the bulky, projected barriers of his own design, but small, elegant crystals called ’Aegis Shards’. They were worn on armor, and when activated, they projected a shimmering, almost invisible field that, according to the bored, arrogant Rimefrost technician, could analyze and adapt to incoming magical energy, shifting its own frequency to counter the spell.

“Imagine our legions equipped with these,” Ondine whispered, her political mind immediately grasping the tactical implications. “They would be… invincible.”

There were weapons that were both beautiful and terrifying. ’Frost-Lances’ that fired beams of blue light that didn’t just freeze, but caused a rapid, necrotic cellular decay. ’Glacial Maw Grenades’, small, crystalline spheres that, when thrown, exploded into a swarm of razor-sharp, homing shards of ice that could strip a man to the bone in seconds. And ’Rimefire Projectors’, large, tripod-mounted weapons that unleashed a torrent of beautiful, ethereal blue flame that froze instead of burned, instantly turning anything it touched into a brittle, frozen statue.

There were logistical and utility artifacts that were just as impressive. ’Cryo-Preservation Chests’ that could keep anything, from rare herbs to living creatures, in a state of perfect, timeless stasis. ’Glacial Scryers’, intricate devices that used focused beams of light passed through a series of enchanted ice crystals for instantaneous, untraceable communication across vast distances. And hulking, silent ’Permafrost Golems’, their bodies forged from a fusion of enchanted ice and Rimefrost steel, capable of lifting ten tons without a single grunt.

Alaric moved from one exhibit to the next, his mind a whirlwind of analysis and reverse-engineering. He saw ’Cryo-Stasis Amulets’ that could create a small, localized bubble of slowed time around the wearer. He saw ’Hoarfrost Blades’, swords whose edges were perpetually coated in a layer of monomolecular ice, making them impossibly sharp. He saw ’Avalanche Beacons’, devices that could destabilize entire mountainsides with a focused sonic pulse.

There were at least thirty or forty distinct items, each one a masterpiece of cryo-magical engineering, each one a testament to the Rimefrost Imperium’s centuries of focused, relentless research.

“They have focused their entire civilization on a single, narrow branch of magic,” Priscilla murmured, her voice filled with a grudging respect. “And they have mastered it. Utterly.”

Alaric simply nodded, a slow, thoughtful expression on his face. He was not intimidated. He was inspired. He was challenged. ’This is the next level,’ he thought, a thrill of pure, intellectual excitement shooting through him. ’This is the mountain I must climb. And conquer.’

Their next stop, the stall of the Radiant Theocracy, was a jarring, almost comical, contrast.

Where the Rimefrost pavilion had been a temple to cold, hard technology, the Theocracy’s stall was a gaudy, overwrought shrine to faith and symbolism.

There were no engines, no weapons of elegant, deadly design. Instead, there were blessed relics in ornate, golden reliquaries—a splinter of bone from a long-dead saint, a piece of cloth said to have been touched by the Radiant God himself. There were vials of holy water that glowed with a faint, unimpressive light. And there were prayer scrolls, embroidered with golden thread, that promised salvation and protection to the truly faithful.

Alaric picked up a small, blessed amulet, supposedly capable of warding off minor demonic influences. He could feel the faint, flickering energy within it. It was a weak, passive enchantment, relying entirely on the user’s own faith to have any real effect.

He set it down with a faint, almost imperceptible sneer.

’Crude,’ he thought, his mind a whirlwind of contempt. ’Their power isn’t their own; it’s borrowed from their failing god. Their ’artifacts’ are just conduits, empty vessels that they fill with the desperate hopes of their followers. My technology, which I can build, improve, and control myself, is inherently superior.’

He looked around at the hushed, reverent crowd gathered at the stall, their eyes wide with a desperate, misplaced faith.

’Their only true strength,’ he concluded, a cold, analytical certainty settling in his mind, ’is the unity of their believers. A unity built on lies. A unity that can be broken.’

He turned and left the stall, his new goals for the Conclave now crystal clear. He needed to understand the advanced technology of the Rimefrost Imperium. He needed to undermine the fragile faith of the Radiant Theocracy.