Outrage of the Ancients (LitRPG Apocalypse)

Temujin

The empire, long united, must divide; the empire, long divided, must unite.

That saying summed up Chinese history rather well.

Vast plains surrounded by major geographical barriers meant that it was relatively easy to conquer and turn into a singular nation, yet also too large to easily hold together from a central location, resulting in frequent conflicts that alternated between splitting and unifying the empire, with the nation(s) of China often becoming centers of culture between clashes.

Workable … until a new century's worth of conflict whalloped the nation every three days.

Beijing was gone, had been for nearly a week, and the remaining centers of government would almost certainly follow suit soon. Follow into a complete inability to lead, that was, things were already a disorganized mess.

And then, eventually, they'd need help; in fact, they'd be desperate for it. From there, it was only a matter of time before they grew desperate enough to ask for his help, at which point he'd magnanimously, graciously, grant it, in the most hands-off way possible. The Chinese still hated him, after all, even all these centuries later … yet people were still people, and he knew how they worked.

For all they would likely want to keep their hatred for him in their hearts, eventually, they would start to associate him with the help he provided, while, simultaneously, the need for the kinds of leadership Skills no newly ascended ruler of China would have been able to develop reached its zenith …

Well, declaring his bloodless re-acquisition of the lands to the southeast inevitable was a tad arrogant.

But it was very, very, likely.

In fact, that was the other ancient leaders were likely going to proceed.

Make offers to those stripped of leadership and logistical support by the devastation wrought by the system, grant prosperity to those who accepted, and leave those who didn't to suffer as an example of what the wise had been saved from.

And so on.

Once again, hardly inevitable, but highly likely.

But for right now, he really did need to focus on preparing for the future monsters, especially in case his own conquests manifested and turned out to be hostile to him …

***

Arthur

The land of Wales wasn't one he'd visited too often, not truly.

Swept through over the course of a quest, or to hunt down someone or something, yes.

But he'd rarely found the time to properly sit down, relax, feast with the local rulers … and did not seem like he would get a chance to do any of that this time around either.

This, right here, though?

Oh, it was about as ordinary as it could be.

He was on a boar hunt. Even if he hadn't learned that he was going to be facing due to a sufficiently detailed scouting report, the damage done to the woods had been so distinctive that there was very little chance it was anything other than a boar that was the cause.

Of course, it was an absolute monster of a boar, in more than one sense of the word, a big beast that should have collapsed under its own weight before it could even take a single step … yet that, too, was familiar.

He was here to hunt a monster, and an animal.

No undead, no walking statues, no incarnations of natural disasters.

With a grin that was perhaps inappropriate, considering the seriousness of the current situation, Arthur followed the trail of wreckage through the woods.

If this had been happening further south, he'd have actually already known what was responsible for this mess, but since the System recreated its puppets at their respective historical sites, this couldn't be Twrch Trwyth (pronounced Toorch Troith).

And hadn't that been a big mess.

A curse that had forced Culhwch, a cousin of his, and the daughter of a giant to fall in love, then said giant had placed a whole series of challenges in the young man's way, intended to get him killed … if it hadn't been for Arthur's help.

But it had ben that bloody boar that had posed the largest problem of them all.

For some ungodly reason, there'd been a razor tangled up in the hair of the giant boar, and the retrieval of said razor had been costly. Not to mention that, in the end, he hadn't even been able to kill the damn boar. It had fallen into the sea after their fight and never been seen again, though Arthur was highly skeptical that it had actually died.

Urgh, and now his mind was stuck back on that thing. Wonderful.

No, actually, come to think of it, things did look exactly like the mess Twrch Trwyth had made, not just in the sense of all torn soil and shredded trees looking the same, but the size of the footsteps, and the gashes on the plantlife … he'd ruled out that particular monster due to geography, but what if the area had changed so much that he'd missestimated his location?

Would an entire mountain range have moved in less than two thousand years?

Drawing Excalibur with his right hand, he used his other hand to carefully fish out his phone with his left, glancing down for a mere couple of seconds, which was all the time he needed to call Merlin.

"Have any of the mountains in Wales moved since our time?" he asked.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The answer came immediately.

"They shouldn't have."

And a couple of moments later, he got proper clarification.

"They definitely haven't."

Once again, weird.

Yes, Twrch Trwyth could have moved, but considering the trail of devastation he was following, the one that had started at the sea and reached all the way to … well, wherever it was going, it was blindingly obvious, impossible to miss, and led absolutely nowhere near any area linked to the original rampage, or anything else that could have possibly led to that damn boar being recreated here of all places.

"Thank you," Arthur said and flipped his phone shut. He'd been offered a "smart" variant, but those things were half-glass, impossibly fragile for something that would inevitably be carried into battle.

So, just keep following the tracks until they eventually lead him to the boar. Which would hopefully be "normal" enough to eat.

Another hour of marching through increasingly torn-up landscape at an economical pace, Arthur finally found himself staring at the rear end of a house-sized boar, and realized three things:

Firstly, this was Twrch Trwyth.

Secondly, it didn't have a nameplate; therefore, it wasn't a System creation, meaning it was the original Twrch Trwyth.

And thirdly, seeing as he had been empowered by the System while the boar had not, that thing was done for.

Unfortunately, the boar had also realized that exact same fact.

Twrch Trwyth whirled around, one tusk tearing through the soil and sending it showering towards Arthur, enough dirt to build an entire house blocking his vision and robbing him of a clear shot at his target.

He swept Excalibur around, triggering [Grand Slash] to rip a massive hole into the middle of the attack and hopefully hacking into the enemy beyond … but the boar was already gone by the time he'd cleared the obstacle.

Wonderful.

At least it hadn't been able to hide its trail from him; he'd have had to be blind to miss the line of annihilated wilderness leading deeper inland.

Arthur began to jog after the monster, taking a measured approach that wouldn't exhaust him before he caught up to it.

Actively chasing the Twrch Trwyth felt entirely different than slowly walking down the trail of devastation it had left behind.

Simply put, it felt frustrating in a way that made his blood boil, in every way save the literal.

For incredibly brief moments, he could imagine himself back in the good old days. Even with the chaos and destruction and the threats of his first lifetime, before the betrayals … the friendship, the camaraderie, the, well, everything, it had made him happy.

And then reality crashed down on him like an avalanche, washing away the phantoms of the past he'd let his imagination sketch into existence.

There was no baying of loyal hounds as they herded the object of their hunt; those weren't his fellow knights in the woods on either side of him, those were the shadows of the trees, and he had no horse to carry him into battle, for there was no steed in the current day that met his exacting standards.

Therefore … therefore, there was nothing to do save hunt down the damn pig and focus on that … damnit.

Arthur shook his head in irritation. Awareness of the issue did precisely nothing to resolve it. If anything, it made it worse.

So after the boar he went, slowly getting the creature's rear end back into view, and then further closing the distance, while fuming.

He didn't need any of the help he'd had in the past, but by God, he wanted it.

He wanted that kind of camaraderie back, even as he realized exactly how this would wind up in the end.

As in, it wouldn't.

No. Couldn't.

Because he knew that those bastards, Morgana and Mordred, had cost him his ability to trust. He'd never be able to fully leave himself open to another, because his guard would perpetually be up, just in case he needed to defend himself.

At least he had a monster to take his rage out on … and yet, at the same time, he knew exactly how "healthy" of a coping mechanism that was. As in, it very much wasn't.

Yet it was the only move he had left.

And then he was close enough, leaping into the air while activating the now-recharged [Grand Slash], bringing the weapon down on Twrch Trwyth's broad back … and then the fucking boar rolled to the side, the rotation somehow making both its tusks and bristles tear into the soil in a way that sent it all geysering straight at him.

Once again, the attack neatly slashed apart the "attack," but like the last time, he missed the actual boar.

That.

Fucking.

Pig.

Arthur could feel his frustration begin to bubble over, once again running after the monster. What a fucking coward! Walking pieces of bacon should not be this hard to catch …

This time, he decided to just run after it, full tilt, and damn the exhaustion.

And when he caught up with Twrch Trwyth for the third time, a bare handful of minutes later, he just ran straight through the wall of mud that was hurled into his path, briefly closing his eyes at the moment of impact, swiping the back pf his free hand across his face the instant he was through, and hacked Excalibur into the leg right in front of him, carving a deep cut into the flesh …

Sadly, this time, Twrch Trwyth decided that being able to run wasn't in the cards and instead headbutted him, hurling Arthur through the air.

One moment, he'd cleared the treetops, then, before he could react, bellyflopped into the muddy mess that the ground had become.

Arthur began to rise, but before he could even rise enough to get his hands off the ground, he was crushed back into the ground by a titanic boar's hoof as the damn thing trampled over him.

It didn't hurt, even the entire weight of a beast that was as large as most houses and capable of destroying a kingdom overnight pressing down on his spine wasn't anywhere near enough to cause even the smallest injury, but it did leave him somewhat … annoyed.

Did he perhaps need to work on the temper the earlier betrayals had left him with?

Yes.

But if there was ever a time to give in to the rage, it was now. Death to that fucking boar!

The mud beneath him exploded as he launched himself forward, though it was only be the narrowest of margins that he was able to avoid taking a spill into the mud.

There was nothing dignified about the hunt for Twrch Trwyth this time around, just a titanic mud fight against an equally titanic beast, with the occasional chase sequence in between.

Every time he landed a blow, more of the boar's blood splattered into the mud, and with every brief clash, the chase to the next one grew shorter. Until eventually, a massive overhead chop empowered by [Grand Slash] took the beast's head.

He stood there for a while, chest heaving with exhaustion, waiting for his heart to slow down, and the roar of blood in his ears to stop drowning out all other sound.

Until eventually, things finally calmed down.

And for what felt like the very first time, since he'd gotten the Skill, [Heart of Fury] guttered and died.

Well, that had happened, and now it was over.

Another tenuous connection to his past had appeared, shown him all he'd once had and now lost, and now, the connection had been severed. Permanently.

Arthur sighed, and sheathed Excalibur.

What would the man he'd been back then have thought of him as he was now?

***

Arthur was about to enter the defense ministry on Whitehall through the back door when he paused, thought about it for a couple of seconds, and turned around, circling the building to head straight for the main entrance.

As per usual, there were a whole lot of reporters waiting outside, ready to "ambush" anyone who might have information to share, and they were the usual reason why he went in through any entrance save the main one, and switched it up every few days to boot.

But this time, he was going to actually interact with them, on purpose, so he could reassure the people …

When he stumbled inside an hour later, he found himself very glad reporters hadn't been a thing in his day, for their sake. Those guys were rude! And nosy. And supposedly an integral part of the modern society, though so far, the only thing they'd achieved was trying his patience to the utmost.