The Atlantic in winter was merciless.
Ice crusted on the rigging, waves rose like black cliffs, and the gales drove the ship sideways so often that even hardened sailors muttered prayers.
Elias stood at the prow regardless, his cloak whipping about him, eyes fixed eastward.
America was behind him now.
The seed he had planted there would sprout soon enough, watered in blood not yet spilled.
But his heart pulled toward Europe—toward the mountains where his true strength lay hidden, waiting.
It had been years since he had walked the stone paths of his headquarters, years of moving like a shadow across European and American cities, laying groundwork, whispering to men who thought themselves powerful.
In America he had worn masks: merchant, intellectual, investor.
Here in Europe, soon again in Montenegro, he would wear no mask at all.
Here he was commander, supreme, undisputed.
The ship creaked and groaned as it reached the calmer waters of the Mediterranean.
Elias did not sleep much on the voyage.
He mentally sent out orders, one after the other, teams of men who headed for the cities to enlist in the official army, spies to formed merchant caravans to sell off the hunted and mined spoils for additional Dinar before using that money to further invest in his growing industrial might, or the acquisition of gems to be fed into the refinery.
On the high seas Elias chuckled to himself about how he could even make the claim to be 'King Under the mountain' much to a future Tolkiens chargin.
By the time the vessel docked at Trieste, Elias was already dressed in black military garb created by his own people, a uniform not denoting him to be from any known national military but one commanding respect from the other passengers regardless.
From there the journey southward was swift and quiet.
From there he was picked up by one of his trade caravans who despite travelling with a dozen carriages was not transporting any goods beyond Elias's things, instead they were full of soldiers, hidden behind the walls, but ready, ready to defend their commander in the event of raiders or bandits deciding to attack the convoy.
The one thing that truly moved him was what happened upon his return, row upon row of him men, and freed people spoke out as one voice, a voice that shook the very mountain air itself.
"Welcome home, Commander."
~
When at last he reached Montenegro, the winter sun was a pale thing above jagged peaks.
Snow blanketed the valleys, turning the world into a hushed church.
But as Elias and his escort climbed higher, the silence broke.
The mountain fortress had changed.
Once, it had been little more stone barracks summoned into the terrain looking quite a bit out of place, alongside other buildings like his Tiberium reactor, and refinery.
Now it had become a city—no, a subterranean citadel with a town as a topper.
Carts laden with ore rolled along cut roads as his expanded miner force greedily delved deeper into the earth extracting everything they could as the mountain range was hollowed out.
Smoke rose from cleverly hidden chimneys in the rock face, as the hollowed out mountain had been used as living and storage space, what better way than to live in the mountain itself if trying to avoid prying eyes.
Watchmen saluted sharply at sight of him, their uniforms no longer the embellished uniforms his forces sported previously, now they wore more reserved uniforms, standardized in all black, but with a red belt, their heads still wearing cloth caps rather than helmets.
As he stared back down the range into the valley his sight was drawn to their progress.
His engineer force had created layer upon layer of defenses massive concrete fortifications with pillboxes, and bunkers built into the rings of defense emmanating out from the headquarters centered in the middle of it all.
Inside, the scale was staggering.
Torchlight had given way to gaslit lamps, revealing the valley was full of simple modest, wood and stone housing, along with a mixture of shops, taverns, stables, and others making it look like a real village, but then not far away, in cavern halls larger than cathedrals, their ceilings lost in shadow.
Soldiers drilled in ranks on stone floors polished smooth by boots.
Barracks lined entire galleries, stacked like the quarters of a great ship.
Smithies rang with hammer blows.
Water ran in underground channels, powering wheels and mills.
And in one of the great caverns, Elias saw what made him pause: children and young adults, dozens of them, sitting at long tables while tutors taught letters, mathematics, strategy.
Most were former slaves, rescued in raids and freed by his command, or purchases from various markets by his wandering merchants.
Now they wore clean clothes, their eyes alight with something they had never known before—hope.
At the head of the chamber, Sonya stood.
She was taller than when he had last seen her, no longer the awkward country girl rescued from fate but a woman who carried herself with quiet confidence.
Four years had hardened her edges and sharpened her gaze.
She bowed only slightly when their eyes met.
"You've been gone too long,"
she said.
Elias allowed himself the smallest smile.
"And you've been busy."
She led him deeper into the cavern complex, pointing out the new structures—the council hall, the hospital, the reservoirs.
"You left us all alone, so we figured we should make the place far better upon your return,"
she gestured at the stone-hewn avenues, the hum of life all around,
"you're hidden base is more than just a military force now, it is it's very own city-state at this point."
Elias felt the truth of it.
His base was no longer a hiding place for a few thousand soldiers.
It was the root of something larger, something that could no longer be dismissed as a band of mercenaries.
He had forged the beginnings of a state within the mountains.
His summons still outnumbered the freefolk but it wouldnt be long before they started to exceed his numbers, and that thought unsettled him a little, his summons were entirely loyal, however these freedfolk... what if they chose to betray him after he'd given them so much?
Separation... this thought lingered in his mind as the mortal warning from the system repeated itself in his mind.
He was fine for now, but when the time came to actually create his nation Elias, would need to create a new base one reserved entirely for himself and his summons without any outside influence at all.
His ideology had already begun to propgate down onto the freefolk but they were not yet firmly in its grip, and brainwashing was still out as far as system commands went, but still his mortal-immortal life came with risks.
If anyone knew he was the supreme commander, they would target him, but if no one knew he'd be free to still wander and travel just like any other person, while his puppet took up the chair and led the nation in his sted.
That night, the commanders gathered in the war chamber of the HQ.
Maps of the Balkans covered the tables, dotted with pins and markers.
The Ottoman Empire was restless.
The war clouds were forming, and every man in the chamber knew it, Elias having 'predicted' the Ottomans attempt to re-secure their former vassal state.
"The Ottomans plan to strike in spring,"
he reitterated.
"they will muster around ten thousand men to press in from the south, to take away our freedom and place us once more under the Sultans rule. They believe us too scattered to resist, having only just recently cast of the bindings of the church."
A ripple of grim laughter passed through the officers, veterans who were among the first to be summoned.
Elias raised a hand, silencing them.
"They will come,"
he said evenly.
"And we will meet them. Not as a scattered band, but as an army. Every rifle, every cannon, every soldier drilled as we have trained will be brought to bear. We will not only repel them—we will counterinvade. Montenegro will not merely endure. It will expand."
The officers thumped their fists on the table in agreement.
Elias's gaze swept the room.
"For years we have prepared in shadows. Now the time comes to step into the light even if only a little. Let the world see what we have built."
In the weeks that followed, Elias walked the caverns daily, reacquainting himself with his domain.
Everywhere he went, soldiers and workers straightened at attention.
Some whispered what sounded like prayers as he passed, others saluted with fierce pride.
Yet in private moments, Sonya challenged him.
"You speak of expansion,"
she said one evening as they stood on a high balcony cut into the mountain, overlooking the frozen valleys.
"Of pushing borders, of bleeding the Ottomans dry. But do you still remember why you freed me? Why you rescued those children down there? You weren't building an army then. You were giving people back their lives."
Elias's expression was unreadable.
"An army gives them life now. Without it, they are slaves again—or corpses."
She shook her head.
"No, Elias. They need more than survival. They need humanity. If you lose sight of that, all this becomes another empire. And you swore you would not repeat the world's mistakes."
For a long moment he said nothing.
Only the wind howled over the snow.
At last, he placed a hand on the cold stone railing.
"You think I have forgotten,"
he said softly.
"But I remember every face. Every name. That is why I build, Sonya. That is why I fight. Not for conquest. For permanence. For a world where what happened to you cannot happen again... to anyone."
She studied him, eyes searching for truth.
At last she nodded, though doubt lingered.
By the close of winter, Montenegro's hidden city thrummed with purpose.
Supplies were stockpiled, rifles cleaned, and the mens packs stuffed to their limits with preserved foods to allow for fighting in the field for a week without need for resupply.
Tunnels expanded further still all the while, linking cavern to cavern in a vast network.
And Elias, standing at the heart of it all, felt a sensation rare even for him: security.
For all his immortal life, he had wandered across continents, planning, and scheming.
But here, within the stone bones of the mountain, surrounded by soldiers who would die at his word, by children who looked to him as a savior, he felt the solidity of empire.
The Ottomans were coming.
Europe would tremble.
But Elias was ready.
And for the first time in years, he allowed himself to believe: perhaps victory would not just be survival, but legacy.