CHAPTER 822: CHAPTER 822 - WHAT NOW?

On the palm of Erik’s hand rested a band of dark blue beads, each about as big as a thumb. It looked somewhat like a wristband, and consequently, not much like a weapon.

Strangely enough, when Erik pulled on one of the beads, it would separate from the whole for a few inches before forcefully snapping back, yet there was no wire connecting the beads. Whatever sigil or rune kept these things together was more powerful than Erik’s brute strength, despite the ’weapon’ being suppressed down to the third rank.

"You know using two weapons of different affinities is asking for trouble, right...?" Elora asked from his shoulder, with a hint of sympathy. Her eyes were focused on the beads as well.

"I know..." Erik muttered, frowning in thought. "But... incorporating two affinities in a single weapon is fine, right?"

Cocking a sceptical eyebrow, Elora now glanced at him. "Sure... But so what? We don’t have any materials of fifth-rank affinities. That’s the reason you couldn’t make weapons for Emma or Emily, and the same holds true here."

Currently, Erik’s hammer only effectively conducted thundersnow—and by extension lightning, as well as ice. This meant he still had to cast his spatial abilities without the hammer’s help, or if he did they’d be less powerful than normal. Yet, even this he’d done by creating an alloy of ice and lightning metals, because he had no thundersnow metals either, let alone spatial.

Continuing, Elora waved at the beads. "And I assume you’re not making yourself any illusions about salvaging the materials in this thing, right? Suppressed they may be, but no one on Earth is even going to put a scratch on those things, aside from maybe Audumla herself."

Naturally, the beads in Erik’s hand were a spatial affinity weapon. Or at least they were a creation linked to the spatial affinity and placed in a weapon case, even if it was hard to call this a weapon.

Erik rolled his eyes. "Of course not, you know me better than that," he scoffed.

"Hey," Elora exclaimed, defensively throwing up her arms. "I’m just making sure!"

"Well, I’m not," Erik assured her with a sigh, still focused on the beads. "I know there’s probably no way for me to actually alter this weapon in any way."

Finally, he looked up from the beads to look at Elora with a mysterious grin. "Still... I have some ideas of what to do with this. Just need to do a little research. We’ve amassed quite a collection of knowledge lately. Surely I can find what I’m looking for somewhere."

With a wave, he made the beads disappear into his dimension, storing them with other three weapons.

"Oooh, mysterious," Elora giggled, not asking more. She was perfectly happy to be surprised by Erik. In fact, she liked it.

With that, their exploration of the armoury hall—or weapons vault—soon came to a close. Every other third-ranker in Erik’s inner circle was a Runebound with at most fourth-rank affinities, meaning Erik could create weapons for them himself.

This was generally better, because Erik could create them specifically with the person in mind, rather than going with the generic versions in this vault.

Besides, Erik liked doing it. In fact, he was already working on a little gift for Naeku after her breakthrough.

But as soon as more outer circle third rankers appeared—like this Maghreb trio belonged to for now—then Erik could use this vault to arm them.

After they left the vault and Kara closed it behind them, they were once again walking back to the throne room.

Along the way, Erik had remained deep in thought, mostly regarding his forging-related plans for the future. The whole way, a passionate sparkle flickered in his eyes. Yet, Zahra and her companions were clearly anxious to find out more of what Erik’s plans were for them and their territory.

Only when they got back to the throne room and Erik took a seat again did Zahra decide to speak up. "So... what now?" she asked expectantly, looking up at him.

"Now... Now we start the integration of your territory," Erik blinked, ripped from his thoughts but not really annoyed about it.

"First, we talk about exactly what kind of manpower you have left," he continued, frowning as he started focusing on this now. "Then, you need to purge the last remnants of the hunters from your territory. Your border originally ended more or less halfway through Libya, towards Egypt, correct?"

After some confirming thoughts, Erik continued thoughtfully, having already thoroughly discussed all this with Elora before. "We’ve already had reports of Egypt having completely fallen to the hunters, and we don’t want to actively invade their territories just yet, so I want you to recover your borders, but no more. If you need extra manpower, I’ll send some troops over."

Leaning back in the throne, Erik planted his elbow on the armrest and leaned his head against his fist while crossing his legs. Emma stood beside him—spear-butt planted on the floor—Elora sat on his shoulder, and Astrid nonchalantly leaned against his other armrest.

"I suggest you also use that time to spread news of the new situation to the rest of Maghreb," Erik calmly continued addressing the subdued warlords. "When all that’s done, it’ll be time to start bringing over societal improvements."

Already seeing some complaints rise on the trio’s expressions, Erik raised his hand to cut them off. "Before you start, I don’t intend to actively dictate your way of life. I insist you implement the changes focused on improving strength growth among the population, as well as the basic societal rules and laws stipulated in the contract you signed, but you have complete autonomy on the details."

Smirking, he then shrugged. "As for the things focused on comfort—like showers—you can decide on those for yourself."

Their eyes widened a little at the mention of showers. Zahra had never been one for the nomadic, rough lifestyle—having always lived in one spot and now ruling over this city—but even her two companions couldn’t help but be intrigued. As with most people on Earth nowadays, working showers were rare.

A little excitement breaking through his cold exterior, Nasir spoke up. "What about the method you mentioned... about sun protection for vampires?"

Erik nodded nonchalantly. "You already know what sigils are, and have some people dedicated to their creation, correct? We’ll share the appropriate sigil with them."

Nasir did his best to hide his excitement, but didn’t succeed particularly well.

"Finally," Erik then finished. "I’ll be staying here a while, mostly to keep an eye on the hunter’s reaction to my intervention here..."

He was particularly curious to see if something would happen in Djibouti...