I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 446: The Royal City of Hosen Kingdom, the Royal Bloodline

City of Fire Protection

The Palace Guardʼs training grounds had been moved out into the countryside, and the corpsʼ ranks had swelled considerably.

For days now Anu had thrown himself into recruiting and drilling the Palace Guard, and bit by bit the whole corps was taking shape before his eyes. Its ranks held not only Lizard People but Snake People, folk of City of Fire Protection, and soldiers drawn from Maya Province and other provinces besides.

Among them, the most eye-catching by far were the Beast Knights of every stripe.

A Beast Knightʼs mark was unmistakable beside Ability Users of any other profession. Each one moved with a magical beast of towering size at his side.

Beast Knights fell mainly into two kinds, the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights and the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights. Just now the two were leading their soldiers against one another, testing out one tactic after another.

In the sparring the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights plainly held the upper hand, though the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights were nothing to scoff at either. The instant one of them burrowed into the ground, there was nothing to be done about it, even if you could have beaten it otherwise.

In the end the contest ground down into a stalemate, with both sides even finding breath enough to holler insults back and forth.

”Itʼs not fair! You can fly. How are we ever supposed to catch you?” An Earth-Piercing Beast Knight, half-buried in the earth, jabbed a finger up at the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights wheeling overhead.

”Donʼt you burrow just as well?” One of the riders above plunged straight down at them, like a hammer in a game of whack-a-mole. ”Then ditch your mounts and come settle it in the open!” a Wind Lizard Dragon Knight shouted.
”No fair, Commander Anu! Your lot were stronger than us to begin with, and turning into Beast Knights only stretched the gap wider!” On they went, fighting and fleeing by turns, until there was no telling how far the chase had carried them.

For all their complaining, the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights relished this very trick of theirs, diving underground and refusing to fight fair.

Commander Anu watched a perfectly good sparring match degenerate into a shouting contest and a game of dodge-and-whine. Exasperated, he turned to the Earth-Piercing Beast Knight mouthing off the loudest.

”Fine, then. How about I turn you into a Lizard Person too?” ”And anyone else whoʼs game, step right up.” Every Snake Person soldier knew that Anu and his kind had once been Snake People themselves, and after all this time together their trust had grown steadily.

Little distance remained between them now, and they no longer guarded their words as carefully as before. At once one of them spoke up, ”Commander Anu, how in the world did you and your people turn into Lizard People?”

It seemed as good a moment as any to call a halt to the drill, and every Beast Knight dismounted to rest. Anu planted his lance in the earth, leaned back against his Wind Lizard Dragon, and cast his mind back over the past. He kept the telling brief, skimming past the many details he could not speak of.

”Lord Kurmis saw the famine. He saw the horror of people driven to eat one another.” ”And in that moment he resolved that he must...”

”At last, with the power of the Life Sovereign, and with the Scarlet Goddessʼs help, Lord Kurmis brought forth the Brown Ball Vine.”

”But the power of a sovereign deity was too immense for us to control. That life-creating force could bring forth the new crop we wanted, yes, but it could just as easily twist and warp the very form of our lives.”

”The Brown Ball Vine came into being, but this is the shape we were left with.” A silence fell over them all, until Anu spoke up.

”Still, no matter. This shape suits us just fine.” ”Didnʼt you say it yourselves, that weʼre stronger now, and faster too?” ”Worth a little envy, if you ask me.”

Anu flexed the powerful frame beneath his chainmail, an impressive figure indeed. ”As for you sorry lot, you couldnʼt hope for a frame this magnificent even if you tried.”

Everyone burst out laughing. Still, the Earth-Piercing Beast Knight could tell well enough that Anu was only trying to comfort them, and he spoke up.