The carriage rolled north.

  The Grid cut through the space between the Coastal Tiles, letting the conjured wheels turn without obstacle. Rykard would not have minded any bumps in the road at this time, if only because that would have made the bobbing of Lyvia’s head even more interesting.

  Not that the admiral needed the help of natural forces to entice him. Her lips and the tendrils lining her throat kept caressing the length of his manhood. The up and down was hypnotically rhythmic.

  “Switch it up,” Rykard groaned, feeling his orgasm approach.

  Lyvia pulled back. Simultaneously, she pulled up Helenn. The shortstack had been sitting on the much taller woman’s thighs, worshipping her Master’s balls. Now she was being used for her fat tits. The leviathan sve held the blonde up, while the cherub squished her chest around his cock. The former moved the tter up and down. Just another application of the divine cocksleeve.

  Rykard soon blew his load over the combined faces of the two. It was the third in a row. Cum painted their features a messy white, with precum, saliva and other sticky juices doing the rest to make them utterly depraved in their look. Outstretched tongues caught some of the facial. The gathered seed was soon exchanged in a sloppy kiss.

  The king’s erection was diminishing, despite the sight. With the waning presence of his cock came the unspoken permission for the haremettes to leave the submissive persona behind. “You are a most useful application,” Lyvia stated.

  “I know right?” Helenn chirped. “And you’re sooooo hot!”

  The two haremettes exchanged another, even deeper kiss. Rykard followed the scene with mild amusement. After the red succubus, it appeared Helenn had made good friends with the blue leviathan. Perhaps she would make friends with someone green or yellow next?

  ‘Then again, with her hair, she might be the yellow one,’ Rykard thought and basked in the sight of the kneeling haremettes indulging in each other.

  There was a knock on the carriage door, then it was opened. Tena swung her way into the moving vehicle - something made quite easy by its leisurely pace. “We’re about there, Rykard.”

  “Splendid timing, I was about done here,” Rykard hummed and conjured a few washing clothes for the cherub and the leviathan to clean their faces with.

  “Do we have tooooo?” Helenn compined. “I like running around coated in your cum and all that! It shows everyone what I’m there for.”

  “The order is in the action,” Lyvia stated and began to wipe off the cherub’s face.

  “Fiiiiiine,” the bubbly angel relented, letting herself get cleaned. She had the decency to reciprocate the favour afterwards.

  Rykard jumped out of the carriage. Around the moving vehicle were a hundred of Lyvia’s finest subordinates, chosen in equal parts for their beauty and combat prowess. They were single and dangerous, the optimal combination to be applied to either peaceful or violent negotiations.

  Before him, the Grid expanded in all of its vast, untapped potential. A gnce over his shoulder made Rykard smile. It was pleasant to see the emptiness of the map gradually make room for a new world. Eventually, sights like these would be nowhere to be found. An image for the history books.

  The empty Tile before him was set between four Coastal Tiles, covering its southern and north-western sides. Rykard could only see the neighboring Tiles because the one he was looking at was entirely empty, the groundwater ten metres down. In a moment, something would fill this Tille and the one to its direct north. The air was already tingling with divine anticipation for what he would say. The navy was forming an orderly block behind him.

  “A technologically advanced nd of capable and loyal army men!” Rykard announced his request.

  Of the things that his nation was gging behind on, tech was certainly the most important one. All the material wealth they had was doing little when there was nothing of worth to be build with it. Beyond that, capable army men were simply most likely to be both useful to the nation and worthy of plowing a monster girl or four, especially since most monster girls came from a military base themselves.

  The word ‘loyal’ was unlikely to add anything, but he had a 10 word limit so why not use it?

  The dense network of runes and circles filled the two designated Hexagons with divine light. Earth spawned out of nothing, compacted by the weight of what was yered on top. A ft ndscape appeared before Rykard, only for it to be filled with houses, pavement and enormous walls. Two enormous walls, of different build, standing opposite of each other. Since they were standing at the south-eastern corner of the new Hexagon, Rykard only saw the very corner of the eastern wall. The map made the expanse a lot more obvious.

  ‘Three different kinds of architecture, all isoted from each other… interesting,’ Rykard thought. ‘I could head to one of those districts first, or I could go to that central building.’

  The centre had been, typically, where the most important pce was and this map implied much the same. Only people that didn’t know they were in an Exile Hexagon would put their important ndmarks outside the centre.

  For a moment, Rykard considered the route, then they got moving. The followed the Grid. The quality of the road was guaranteed and Rykard would rather not be stuck between opposing walls with his small army the entire way.

  The next two days, they traveled up the side of the Hexagon. Here and there, they caught glimpses of the people that lived in the western district. An unavoidable happenstance, considering their houses were right up to the edge of Tile. Here and there, a house had even been sliced in two. Rykard had to wonder whether families had been separated that way.

  The architecture was simple, yet filled with gears and wires. Helenn kept inspecting everything with big eyes, especially the mana crystals that were supplying the entire district with energy. The technology on dispy was artifice, without a doubt, of the traditional variety. It was advanced, although not so far Rykard found it impressive. Then again, that was only from a distant gnce.

  “Wonder why there’s a giant gap in the wall,” Tena hummed when they entered the central segment of the dual Hexagon.

  “Going by the way the walls are angled, I would guess the remainders just fell outside the confines of the Hexagons,” Rykard theorized. “These people seem to be focused on keeping separate. I can’t imagine their cities just bordered each other beyond where the Tiles end.”

  “That does make sense,” the redhead hummed.

  It took another half day to cross the distance between the edge of the Hexagon and the fortification. By noon, they stood before the yered construction.

  It appeared almost too pin. Stacked stone on stacked stone rose in three levels upwards. There was no artifice to any of it, just medieval architecture. The windows did not even have gss. For a moment, Rykard feared the entire building, for all of its size, was derelict and abandoned.

  Past the open gate, however, there was activity. Two dozen uniformed soldiers stood atop raised positions, pointing some kind of weapon at all of them. The most stand-out parts of the design were the long metal barrel, the mana crystal at the tip, and the tubes pumping green, alchemical fluids near where the soldiers held the oddly shaped armaments.

  ‘Some kind of modern wand?’ Rykard wondered and raised a hand. The navy women behind him stayed in the castle entrance, outside of the prepared kill zone.

  “No, no, no!” an annoyed voice echoed through the courtyard. “I specifically told you not to threaten the Contender when he arrives! At ease! AT - EASE!”

  “At ease,” a different voice repeated and the soldiers did lower their guns.

  Rykard’s gaze wandered to the figures approaching him. One did so with swift steps, making his dark, gold ornate robes flutter. He was an old man, in his fifties or even his sixties, with long, white hair and a matching beard, both stylishly messy. What was odd about him was the combination of additional features. He had the ears of a wolf man atop his head, the pointy ears of an elf below, and the white wings of an angel on his back.

  The second man, the one who had spoke fewer words, was simir in facial features to the first, but walked much slower. He wore a bck, gold-trimmed uniform, a decoration on his shoulder signaling that he was of some kind of important rank. He, too, possessed angelic wings and the pointy ears, but missed the additional, wolfish set. His hair was shorter, still long for a man, and combed backwards, his beard was short and neatly trimmed.

  Rykard was mustering the second man for a little while, before their eyes met. ‘He is looking at my own decorations,’ the king thought. The outfit he typically wore still had many of the honours he had received back in Troyk attached to them, in one way or another. Even if their military code was not the same, the soldier must have understood the general meaning of Rykard’s colourful uniform.

  The sovereign’s eyes snapped back to the first man, who stopped and extended a hand. “Tochnan, overseer of the Central Oversight Committee of the Machisma Exile District.” He gestured with his hed towards the man behind. “This is Udunan, my brother, captain of the 66th Stormtrooper regiment.”

  “A pleasure,” Rykard said and shook the hand offered. Immediately after his fingers were released, he offered his hand to Udunan as well. “Rykard of New Eden is my name. Can’t say I ever commanded a regiment before. Mage strike groups are typically smaller.”

  “And all the more deadly for it,” Udunan answered, his voice deep and rumbly where that of his brother was clean and of an average pitch. A packet of tobacco sticks in his breast pocket made it clear how he had cultivated that voice.

  “I see you took up the old officer’s school trick,” Rykard hummed and bowed down to the general. Conspiratorially, so the soldiers did not hear, he whispered. “They always told us that we should pick up smoking to get our voices to sound more rumbly and impressive.”

  Udunan ughed. The response made his brother raise both eyebrows. “I can see you have your own vices though, Rykard!” the military man spoke loudly. “Strutting in here with a whole ptoon of gorgeous women!”

  “Only four of them are mine,” he assured and gestured at the front row. Tena had her hands on her hips, Mena awkwardly waved, Helenn waved enthusiastically, and Lyvia kept standing straight like a salt pilr. “I know, I know, I am the truest example of military rationing.”

  Udunan ughed some more, which Tochnan seemed to take as his chance to weigh in. “Please, it would be improper for a guest of honour to stand out here. Would you like to step inside?”

  “Wait, brother, before that,” the military man, clearly breaking protocol, interrupted his diplomatic sibling and stepped in front. The dynamic was hardly reversed by the action, Rykard had immediately known who was actually in charge here. “You, come down here!” the captain barked at one of the soldiers.

  The uniformed man jumped down and hurried across, running in such a way to keep his shouldered weapon steady at all times. The discipline at dispy was clear. Rykard noted a particur, unnecessary way in which Udunan turned his wrist as he extended his hand. An unspoken command to give the captain the weapon.

  Udunan gave it a quick inspection. He braced a part of the extended, wooden grip attached to the metal-crystal barreled against his shoulders and aimed at a random point in the courtyard. “Well maintained.”

  “Thank you, Sir!” the man answered with a salute. He was young, somewhere in his mid-twenties, and appeared to be a mixture between elf and wolf man. Elf, angel, and wolf person, those three were mixed in some ways between all of the present members of the military.

  Moving one hand to the tip of the barrel, just underneath the crystal, Udunan presented the weapon to Rykard. “What do you make of this?” he asked.

  ‘A test?’ the sovereign wondered and inspected the weapon. From this close, he could see a variety of runes etched into the barrel. It was clearly crafted using enchantments, artifice, and alchemy. Quite a marvel of synergistic properties. Rykard would have to pick one of the disciplines and try to unravel the mystery from there.