Chapter 500: The Canopy Of Citadels
1567. Era of Kings.
Exactly one hundred years ago, the rate of rift appearance became abnormally high, and not even the academy and nations could do anything significant about it.
The most they could do was protect their citizens and kingdoms. And who could blame them? Even the great empire of Reimgard was limited in the things they could do to help independent areas, outskirts, and weaker nations.
A man rose from nowhere at the time. This man raised an army of drifters himself and began to lead them into rifts, plundering rift after rift.
And when people heard that this man was a Paragon, they fearlessly fought by his side.
Soon, he was respected across nations; weaker nations were under his dominance, and greater nations couldn't ignore his significance anymore.
All of them wanted him. They wanted the might of a Paragon. Not to mention, he was one hell of a strong man, who was not even intimidated by the Emperor of Reimgard at the time.
Many more began to join his army; at the time, they called themselves The Revolutionaries. And they wanted to revolutionize the age of monarchs.
The march and defeat of more and more rifts, regardless of tiers, led more drifters to join their ranks. Even prestigious drifters who graduated from The Academy couldn't resist the call to a new age.
Soon, a banner was raised, giving birth to a canopy known as the Citadel.
Soon, that citadel became a canopy that not only covered and protected drifters but also managed them.
This was after the Paragon and the strongest drifters in this Revolutionary army came together to form a roundtable of officials and called themselves the government that would govern the authority of the kings.
Of course, an endearing act such as this rose an age of war where kingdoms allied to put down this great force.
But they witnessed the power of people such that even soldiers and knights believed in the age that this man preached and became a part of the Revolutionary army.
And through it all, the Empire sat out of all of it. Many kings suspected that the Emperor had struck some kind of deal with this man.
Because all their hope was on the fact that one movement from the Empire was going to quench this frivolous movement.
Their hopes were shattered when the Empire did not interfere no matter what happened.
It was during this age that several nations lost their territory, the term "free territory" became a thing, and cities began to demand monopoly.
After the government was established, The citadel became an even stronger forte. Branches were built in every city to oversee the appearance of rifts and assemble and dispatch drifters who would immediately venture into these rifts and close them.
It was then essential for a drifter to be under the canopy of a citadel to function as they ought.
They provided drifters with the fundamental knowledge and techniques they needed to be able to kill a monster, protect themselves, and survive in a rift.
Over the flow of time, their influence grew, coalescing to build a stark authority over rifts for them, one that nations did not even have.
A citadel became an essential need for every drifter, both those that attended and graduated from the academy, and those that didn't.
Of course, this feat was led by a man known as The Major, Acentalles Gafarè.
The first government official to become a Paragon and also, at the time, was the major general of the army; moreover, he was a force that unified those that wanted to be released from the rule of kings.
He then created the ideology that the people could choose their own leader. This unified force became a country where the people were granted the free will to choose their own leader by a system of voting.
His age was truly the age of the government; monarchs shivered at the sound of his voice.
He was a force that no one could resist reckoning with. Sadly, he led a voyage to the Northern continent, from which he never came back.
No one knows if he even ever made it.
But one of his feats was making everything that the drifter needed to do in order to be a drifter revolve around the citadel.
However, after his death, his partners began to fall into corruption; they wanted to rule, they manipulated the people and their choices.
Soon, their greed led to their division.
Influential officials and drifters began to demand the right to break away from the citadel and create a citadel of their own, one that operated on private grounds.
And over time, private citadels came into existence. Families and clans came together to create their own citadels, buying from the government the right to own a rift and function as a citadel ought to.
This caused the government to lose their significance, although the usurped authority of monarchs was not returned to them.
Instead, it was a new rise of power. Clans raised their banners, and the world progressed into an age where Clans gained enough power to conquer even nations, by raising armies, accepting and adopting drifters all for the purpose of building the strongest.
This age was the rise of influential clans such as The Kageyama Clan, The Johnson, Beason, Asterothe, Stroville, and several other clans that held authorities that could rival nations. This new age gave birth to new and untameable ideologies, where private citadels rose to usurp authority from the government in a certain city if their activities were being hindered. And public citadels rose to usurp authority of a city from a nation if their activities were also being hindered.
It was just a matter of controlling what the people think they wanted for themselves. As it turns out, to control the desires of people was a very easy thing to do.
The other part of it that was not easy, however, was gaining incredibly strong drifters. Which was why even till now, Citadels are always on the lookout for strong drifters, ones with the potential to become a Paragon before they die, lose a limb, or retire.
Because with a Paragon among them, a Citadel could even overtake a nation and no one would interfere.
Even though the Intel organization was not exclusively a citadel, they operated on almost the same ground.
Tharion rose and usurped South Drywall from the Drywall Kingdom; Northern didn't want to believe that was just an ordinary phenomenon.
And just as he stared at the citadel's spires, a gruesome past played out quickly before his
eyes.
A carnage that was spewed for this citadel to rise above this city.
He didn't have all his answers from the vision of the past, but what he saw posed a notion that there is no way in hell that Tharion would know that this discreet organization exists and not
have eradicated them.
Or else this discreet organization was Tharion itself.
Now, what exactly was the problem of all this?
Northern just didn't like the fact that he was going to be monitored and lied to.
Intel Organizations were meant to function as ghosts, for the sole purpose of providing information at a cost.
If the Intel organization truly works for Tharion, then it is Tharion's method of monitoring every single thing that goes on in the city.
Northern didn't want to have anyone snooping around his ass. So, he'd prefer to go straight into the eyes of the storm... of course, not without a plan.
However, what just surprised him was Ryan's thought.
Northern had known of Tharion and the Intel organization Link through his eyes.
But surely, Ryan would have pieced things together just by what he knew. Northern did not
know he was that smart.
In fact, Northern realized now, he didn't even know Ryan at all!