Chapter 137: The Fall of Empires
"Remember your orders," the messenger said. His voice cut through the morning air like a blade. "Any sign of disobedience, and you know the consequences."
He wheeled his mount around and spurred it toward the horizon. Only dust and echoing hoofbeats remained.
Lord Enville watched until the rider disappeared. He turned to face the assembled nobles. His earlier obsequiousness vanished. Something far more dangerous replaced it.
The change sent visible tremors through the gathered lords. They lowered their eyes. None would meet his gaze directly. Each hoped to avoid becoming his focus.
"Move faster!" Enville's voice cracked like a whip across the courtyard. "The upper district will be stripped bare before nightfall! These insects will offer everything they possess to my Lord. Willingly or otherwise."
The fall of Silverymoon marked more than another conquered stronghold. It signalled the death of the Lords' Alliance itself.
Three Primarchs led their legions in coordinated assault. They swept away the Alliance's remaining forces like chaff before a hurricane. The Imperial war machine ground onward. Bastions that had stood for centuries fell in rapid succession.
Waterdeep's proud towers crumbled. Neverwinter's walls were breached. The Sword Coast changed hands completely. Once the jewel of the Alliance's domain, it now served new masters.
After total victory, the Emperor proclaimed the establishment of the Human Empire. The double-headed eagle became its symbol. In a move that confounded scholars and theologians alike, He elevated the God of Fries and Ketchup to supreme divinity within the new realm.
All other faiths faced a stark choice. Acknowledge this new deity's supremacy or face exile from Imperial territory. Spreading faith in any other god became a capital offence.
Holy City would serve as the Empire's capital. This floating metropolis was constructed through means that defied understanding.
The Emperor adapted His approach to the multiverse's complexities. Races capable of interbreeding with humanity found acceptance within the Empire's borders. Dwarves, Elves, and their kin could stay, provided they harboured no hostility toward mankind.
But species like the Githyanki faced different treatment. Mind Flayers and Cambions, whose very nature opposed human civilisation, would face systematic eradication. The Emperor's judgment on this matter was absolute.
The Empire's establishment sent shockwaves throughout the mortal realms of Toril. The Celestial planes felt the impact, too. The Emperor's elevation of a single deity above all others ignited divine fury. His systematic suppression of traditional faiths made it worse.
Divine proclamations thundered across the planes. The faithful throughout the world felt the rage of their deities burn within their souls. Toril writhed with religious uprisings and holy wars. The old order fought desperately against the new.
The Emperor remained unmoved by these developments.
His reforms intensified with mechanical precision. Resistance was crushed. Resources were consolidated. The industrial transformation of His domain accelerated beyond mortal comprehension.
Foundries erupted from the earth like steel mountains. Their smokestacks painted the sky in industrial grey. Rivers of weapons flowed from their forges. These armaments equipped Imperial forces with devastating superiority.
Even divine favour could not stand against such overwhelming firepower.
Legions assembled with parade-ground precision. Colossal war engines prepared to carry the Empire's banner to every corner of creation. The great mobilisation had begun. Every citizen would participate in service to the Imperial war effort.
The conflict that now engulfed multiple planes would end only one way. Absolute victory or absolute destruction.
After allowing His forces a brief respite, the Emperor's gaze turned southward.
Below the conquered Sword Coast lay three powers. The Amn Empire, the Kingdom of Tethyr, and the Calimshan Sultanate. Each boasted millennia of history. Their cultures had been shaped by bitter experience with magical catastrophe. All three had developed deep-rooted traditions of banning magic.
These policies would prove their undoing.
The Emperor assigned each Primarch a target and unleashed them upon the South.
The Empire's otherworldly fleet of magical warships advanced. Tireless golems and steel guardians supported them. Against such forces, the three southern powers found themselves helplessly outmatched. Their anti-magic policies had left them without spellcasters. They had no means to counter the Imperial constructs that now swept across their borders.
The three Primarchs advanced like a tide of destruction. They crushed all resistance in their path.
Perturabo, as always, proved the swiftest of the three.
His target was the mightiest: the Amn Empire. This realm had endured for over a thousand years. Its people, the Tethyrians, had once been slaves to Calimshan masters. They broke their chains in bloody rebellion. In bitter irony, they then enslaved their former oppressors. The cycle of bondage continued with new masters.
Amn was a militaristic state. The emperor and the supreme general were one and the same.
The empire's hatred of spellcasters bordered on pathological. Any display of arcane power meant death by burning. Even elves faced systematic persecution. They were forced to hide their heritage or flee entirely.
Though lacking magical practitioners, Amn's technological capabilities remained formidable. Their alliance with the Golden Dwarves had provided advanced metallurgy and engineering. Steam-powered tanks rumbled through their ranks. Steam-driven warships patrolled their coasts. By Toril's standards, they represented military excellence.
Against the Empire's trans-dimensional magical superiority and Perturabo's tactical genius, such advantages meant nothing.
The Amn Empire's fate was sealed the moment the Emperor marked it for conquest.
"All slaves shall be freed," Perturabo announced from the steps of Athkatla's fallen citadel. His voice carried across the conquered city. "Farmers will receive equal shares of noble land and wealth. Follow the Human Empire, and you shall know a better life."
For a feudal society built on rigid class distinctions, such a proclamation struck like a thunderbolt.
It turned Amn's lower classes against their aristocratic masters. This happened especially as Perturabo's victories continued to mount. The ruling elite's authority crumbled. Slaves and commoners finally glimpsed hope for a different existence.
Uprisings erupted across the empire. Local garrisons mutinied or deserted wholesale. No organised resistance remained to challenge the Imperial advance.
Within mere weeks, the mighty Amn Empire teetered on the brink of complete collapse.
When Perturabo reached Athkatla, the empire's loyalists made their final stand. Athkatla was the famed City of Coin and the heart of Amnish power.
They marshalled everything, steam tanks crafted by dwarven hands. Professional soldiers. Palace guards. Steam-powered artillery. With the courage of the doomed, they charged toward Perturabo's advancing forces.
Their bravery changed nothing.
The Golden Dwarves' finest engineering became scrap metal before the Imperial war machines. Magical warships unleashed devastating barrages. The determined defenders were reduced to scattered flesh. The advancing golems trampled them into crimson paste.
From Athkatla's walls, the Emperor of Amn watched his realm's final moments unfold. Then he raised the banner of surrender.
"Another empire falls," sighed Isolde. The priest had accompanied Perturabo's campaign. She surveyed the hellish aftermath of battle.
"Such is the tide of history," replied Jaheira. The Harper leader watched with detached professionalism as the defeated emperor emerged from his palace. "Toril moves toward unity, whether it wills it or not."
The swift destruction of three empires sent shockwaves throughout the known world.
"The Demon King's army has risen in the North," whispered fearful voices in taverns and throne rooms alike. "A terrible tyrant comes to enslave us all."
"This 'Emperor' is quite interesting," mused Zariel from her throne in Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells. "If he's supposed to be the Demon King, what does that make us?"
Zariel had once been an archangel of Mount Celestia. Righteous fury had driven her to form the legendary Hellriders. She plunged into the Abyss, seeking to end the Blood War that had raged for eons. The endless slaughter broke her warriors' spirits. When the portal reopened, many fled rather than continue the fight.
Zariel and her remaining loyal forces were overwhelmed and captured. Corruption followed. The fallen angel transformed into one of Hell's most powerful archdukes.
The chaotic shifts in fate's threads had rekindled infernal ambitions. The Lords of the Nine Hells saw opportunity in the mortal realm's turmoil. Here was a chance to finally defeat the gods. They could claim the multiverse for themselves.
Taking human form, Zariel entered the Prime Material Plane as Hell's vanguard. She intended to open gates for the vast demonic legions waiting beyond.
Everywhere she travelled, the same story echoed. Emperor, Emperor, Emperor.
Small kingdoms fell like dominoes. Their resources and populations fed an ever-growing empire that sought dominion over all creation.
"A mortal monarch dreams of world conquest," Zariel scoffed. "How naive. When Hell's legions march, this so-called Emperor will learn the true meaning of despair."
Setting aside thoughts of the Emperor for now, Zariel began gathering resources. She prepared for a massive infernal ritual. Under normal circumstances, the gods would have noticed her activities. They would have dispatched champions to stop her.
This time proved different.
The gods not only failed to interfere, but they also actively assisted her. They helped her acquire the materials needed for her dark work.
The development puzzled Zariel. When had the deities become so indifferent to the Prime Material Plane's fate?
Unknown to the fallen angel, the gods' fury burned as hot as the Nine Hells themselves.
The Empire's conquest proceeded with such overwhelming speed that divine intervention seemed futile. Every attempt to stop the Emperor had failed catastrophically. Each failure met with increasingly brutal retaliation.
Temples lay in ruins. Worship was forbidden. Even sacred texts recording divine deeds were consigned to flames. The gods found themselves constrained by Overgod Ao's cosmic laws. These prevented casual intervention in mortal affairs.
Even their avatars proved insufficient against the Emperor's power.
If Zariel and Hell's archdukes wished to act as unwitting pawns, the gods would gladly use them. Once devils entered the Prime Material Plane in force, divine law would permit direct intervention. Their first act would be crushing this upstart Emperor who dared challenge celestial authority. Their second would be driving the infernal forces back to their own realm.
With divine blessing, both overt and hidden, Zariel's ritual reached completion.
The gates of Hell swung wide. Legions of devils poured into Toril. They brought with them chaos beyond mortal comprehension.
[End of Chapter]
__________________
Check out more than 45+ chapters right now! 🔥
👉 patreon.com/cw/Mr_UmU
https://www.patreon.com/Mr_UmU