Two days had passed since the departure from the Elven kingdom of Elarian
The Throne of Obsidian was cold, even beneath the massive crimson cushion. Lord Leornars Servs Avrem, the young king of the Avangard Kingdom, sat upon it, a figure of almost alien beauty in the vast, echoing silence of the main hall.
He slowly reached up, his fingers brushing against the delicate silver filigree of the hair pin that held his long, shimmering silver hair in a loose tail. With a soft click, he released it. The silver cascade tumbled down his back and over his shoulders, catching the faint light filtering from the high clerestory windows.
His eyes, a pair of intensely luminous crimson orbs, seemed to absorb the light entirely, glowing with an inner intensity as he stared, unseeing, at the vaulted stone ceiling. It was covered in frescoes depicting Avangard's forgotten founders—figures of immense power and cold majesty.
"It's time," Leornars finally said, his voice a low, resonant baritone that cut through the silence like a sharp, thin blade.
The only other person in the colossal chamber, a woman named Stacian, stood absolutely still, a respectful five paces from the throne's dais. She was the King's Hand, a master mage, and the commander of his forces. Her hair, currently the colour of midnight, was meticulously braided, a stark contrast to the brilliant, almost unnerving glow of his eyes.
Stacian lifted her gaze, a faint frown creasing her brow. She was sharp, perpetually vigilant, and rarely confused, yet she felt a prickle of genuine bewilderment. Time for what? Another political restructuring? A new treaty?
"Sire?" she prompted, her voice measured.
Leornars turned his head, and the crimson glow intensified as his eyes locked onto hers. A faint, almost predatory smile touched the corners of his mouth. It wasn't malicious, merely… confident.
"The preparatory phase is complete, Stacian," he said, leaning back slightly, the movement casual yet radiating absolute authority. "It's time to incorporate the Lurtra territory. You will take the main force and deploy to the coast."
He paused, collecting his thoughts, his gaze sweeping over the intricate mosaic floor. "I will follow with the Crimson Guard—three hundred elite troops, no more. You, however, will depart immediately with the seventy thousand knights and mages. I want you to initiate the invasion of the Lurtra Kingdom."
Stacian's confusion evaporated, replaced by a deep, unwavering focus. This was it—the activation of the long-term territorial consolidation plan they had been laying the groundwork for over the last two years.
"Understood, Your Majesty. The objective is annexation. Are there any specific limitations on force?" she asked, already mentally reviewing the deployment strategy.
"Yes, absolute limitations," Leornars emphasized, raising a single finger. "The goal is political annexation, not mass slaughter. Do not kill unless it is explicitly necessary for self-preservation. This is critical. The populace must be maintained for infrastructure and resources."
He then leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, the crimson light seeming to bore into her.
"Furthermore, you must exercise extreme caution. There are two individuals whose lives are of paramount importance. Do not harm either Rachel Suvallina or Marrielle Sullivana. They are assets."
Stacian stored the names away instantly. Suvallina and Sullivana. Two potentially high-level mages or nobles. Assets for what? She didn't ask. Leornars's plans were often multi-layered, unfolding like a complicated origami puzzle.
"Understood, Your Majesty. Annexation with minimal casualties. Rachel and Marrielle are not to be harmed."
"Excellent. Once you have secured the capital and the acting king is… dealt with," Leornars continued, a subtle, dark humor entering his tone, "you will inform Marrielle—and only Marrielle—to immediately depart to Durmount. Her mission is to assist Princess Selrose in the execution of the coup d'état."
Stacian felt a flicker of surprise—the Durmount coup was already in motion. This was a convergence of strategies. Lurtra was the conquest, and Durmount was the internal destabilization.
"So, the two operations are to overlap?" Stacian asked, confirming her understanding of the delicate timing.
"Precisely. By the time the dust settles in Lurtra, Durmount will be consumed by its own civil strife. It will keep the other kingdoms, especially Elarian, occupied and focused inward. Move quickly, Stacian. I expect Lurtra to be a part of Avangard before the sun sets on the third day."
Stacian performed a slight bow, a motion of efficient respect, not subservience. Her eyes, usually cool and calculating, held a spark of anticipation.
"It shall be done, Your Majesty. The troops are already mobilized for rapid deployment. The March will commence within the hour."
With that, Stacian turned and departed, her footsteps echoing sharply on the stone floor. As the heavy wooden doors closed behind her, Leornars picked up a heavy tome resting beside the throne. He opened it to a page detailing the geological makeup of the Lurtra coast.
"Gold, timber, and the perfect maritime border," he murmured to the empty hall, running a finger over the diagram. "An excellent investment, Julius. You served your purpose well, you little puppet."
Outside the castle walls, the Lotus Citadel, Avangard's capital, was a flurry of bewildered activity.
The sight of seventy thousand knights and mages—the overwhelming majority of the kingdom's standing army—marching out in full battle gear was not a common occurrence. Avangard was known for its quiet, often ruthless, efficiency, not for grand military parades.
Stacian, now mounted on a jet-black warhorse, had undergone a subtle but significant change. Her hair, which she often kept dyed a common blue for urban anonymity, had reverted to its natural, startling glacial white. It signaled to the troops that this was a campaign of utmost importance, led by her true self.
The clatter of hooves, the low metallic chime of armour, and the rhythmic, synchronized footsteps of the legions created a low, unsettling roar. The knights carried lances and greatswords, their shields emblazoned with the stark, proud banner of Avangard: a silver wyvern on a deep crimson field. The mages were laden with rune-inscribed pouches of catalyst crystals and carefully sealed potions.
The townsfolk poured out of their homes, lining the streets in confused clusters.
"What is happening?!" a baker shouted, wiping flour from his apron.
"Look at the sheer number of them! They're all armed, even the mages look tense," a woman whispered, shielding her child's eyes from the sun glinting off the polished steel.
The murmuring began, spreading like a brushfire. Where are they going? Is our kingdom being invaded? No, they're marching out! Who are we attacking?
Miles away, within the bustling, merchant-heavy district of the Lotus Citadel, two figures watched the unending stream of soldiers from the third-story window of a respectable tavern.
"That is… unsettling," said Sahara, his eyes wide with concern. "Seventy thousand troops. That's an offensive, Sasha, not a mere border patrol. Avangard has been utterly stable."
Sasha, took a slow sip of her lukewarm milk. "Calm down, old man. Avangard doesn't do instability. This is Leornars showing his teeth. The only question is who he's biting."
"But the sheer speed!" Sahara insisted, gesturing wildly. "They mobilized this entire force in under twenty-four hours. It's impossible!"
Sasha smiled, a thin, knowing expression. "Nothing is impossible for the White Plague."
Meanwhile, on the jagged, shadowed rooftops near the city wall, a hero named Kylie watched the troops depart with a jaw-dropping astonishment. He was perched on a gargoyle statue, his bow slung across his back, his sharp eyes following the white-haired commander.
"What the hell is going on?" he muttered to the unmoving stone of the gargoyle. "Stacian is leading them, and she's got her war-face on. Lurtra, maybe? That's the closest resource-rich neighbour that's politically weak right now. But a full-scale invasion? The King must be truly desperate for those coastal minerals."
Kylie shook his head, a mix of awe and dread chilling him. The King of Avangard was not one to make small moves. Every action was a seismic shift.
"Guess I need to raise my rates," he concluded with a wry grin, leaping silently across the gap to the next roof. "Big wars mean big coin for mercenaries."
The march was relentless. Stacian was a commander who demanded absolute efficiency. They moved for hours, the army a vast, metallic serpent winding through the Avangardian plains.
Then, Stacian raised a hand.
The massive army ground to a halt with practiced discipline. A wave of silence swept over the ranks, broken only by the snorting of horses.
Stacian dismounted. The air around her began to crackle with an unnatural energy. Her glacial white hair seemed to float on the static charge. This was her signature skill: Grand Scale Instant Teleportation.
"Prepare yourselves!" she shouted, her voice amplified by magic to carry over the ranks. "Forming five-hundred-man deployment squads! Maintain unit cohesion! Distance: Seventy-five Miles! Target: Lurtra Southern Coast."
A massive, shimmering dome of crystalline blue energy erupted from her position, engulfing the first wave of ten thousand knights. The ground briefly shuddered. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, the entire dome—and the ten thousand troops within it—vanished.
Stacian repeated the process seven times, the energy drain momentarily paling her face, but her resolve never wavered. Within thirty minutes, the entire army of seventy thousand had been shunted hundreds of miles across the continent, directly to the outskirts of Lurtra's capital city.
In the heart of the Lurtra capital, the castle of the current King, Julius, was a flurry of chaotic noise.
King Julius, a stocky, nervous man with a perpetually sweaty brow, had been enjoying a leisurely midday feast of spiced mutton and wine when his guards burst in.
"Your Majesty! You must see this! The horizon! It's… it's glowing!"
Julius, annoyed at the interruption, stormed out onto the parapet overlooking the plains. What he saw instantly sobered him. A massive, disciplined force—too large to be a bandit gang, too professional to be a raiding party—was rapidly advancing.
Their colours were unmistakable. Silver serpent on crimson.
"Impossible!" Julius choked out, dropping his goblet. "Are those Avangardian knights?! What in the nine hells are they doing here? This isn't the Durmount border! They have no quarrel with Lurtra!"
Before he could process the invasion, the forces stopped with a sudden, deafening finality.
A figure on a black warhorse rode forward, stopping just outside the range of the castle's primary archers. Her white hair was stark against the dark sky. It was Stacian.
She raised a single, gauntleted hand, and her voice—artificially enhanced by a powerful projection spell—boomed across the city, shaking the very stone of the castle.
"King Julius of Lurtra! You are demanded by the King of the Avangard Kingdom, Lord Leornars Servs Avrem, to hereby submit to the Avangard Kingdom and be annexed! You may select the simple way, or the other way!"
Julius's face, already flushed from the wine, drained of all colour. His plump frame began to shake uncontrollably. Annexed?
"No, no, no! This is not what we planned!" Julius shrieked, clutching the stone railing. "We had an agreement! I was to take the throne of Lurtra! I am the King! Leornars promised me!"
Stacian remained utterly unmoved, her face a mask of cold boredom. She had expected this theatrical outburst.
"Perhaps, 'King' Julius," Stacian's voice drawled, dripping with condescension, "you have forgotten the particulars of the agreement. Don't you recall the old Lurtrian Constitution, which Lord Leornars selectively revived?"
She paused for dramatic effect, letting the tension build across the battlefield.
"The constitution states that the person who eliminates the king has the absolute, undeniable right to claim the throne and territory. As I recall, Lord Leornars killed the previous King Edgar, and his entire family, seizing the Lurtra throne for Avangard. He did not give you the throne."
Stacian tilted her head, her gaze contemptuous.
"He merely installed you as the acting puppet king, using your ambition and greed to maintain the stability of the trade routes while he consolidated his resources. You have only six hours to submit peacefully and abdicate, or we will attack. Your usefulness has expired."
Julius, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple, roared, driven by sudden, hysterical fury. "Puppet king?! I'm no puppet! I'm the King! The nobles respect me!"
A cold, mirthless smile finally crossed Stacian's lips. "Farewell, then, Julius. You were a very predictable variable."
Stacian turned her head slightly to address the archer standing beside the deployment column, a woman named Ayesha.
Ayesha, a succubus with unnervingly steady hands, already had her legendary darkwood bow drawn, a specialized armour-piercing arrow notched.
"Are you sure you can hit him from here, Ayesha? We are eight hundred meters away," asked Salene, the field medic and resident necromancer, her own expression a mix of scientific curiosity and mild disapproval of the distance.
Ayesha focused, her golden, slitted eyes narrowing to pinpoints. She exhaled slowly, her voice calm and absolute.
"Don't worry, Salene. This range is nothing. I can shoot an arrow seven times this distance and still pierce an eye. Watch the form, not the kill."
She raised the bow to full draw, the darkwood groaning under the tension. On the parapet, Julius, oblivious to the deadly conversation, was still ranting hysterically at the Avangardian army.
Stacian paid him no mind. She was already focused on the signal. She lowered her black-bladed ceremonial sword, giving the silent command to the massed knights.
"Advance! Non-lethal force authorized!"
The army moved in a terrifying, unified wave. It wasn't a charge, but a relentless, professional advance. The goal was to disable, not to destroy, which was a far more difficult and intimidating feat.
The Lurtra knights, a mix of humans and various demi-human races, finally rallied and met the invasion head-on. Their battle cries were instantly swallowed by the sheer noise of the Avangardian advance.
The Avangard knights, massive figures in their silver-and-crimson armour, used the flat of their blades and the pommels of their greatswords. The sound of armoured bodies collapsing and heavy breathing was everywhere. The Avangardians moved like a perfectly oiled machine, their defense impenetrable, their attacks designed solely to strike pressure points and joints, knocking opponents unconscious.
From the rooftops of the Lurtra capital, the enemy mages finally appeared. They were frantic, casting spells of desperation—balls of fire, shimmering bolts of ice, and bursts of raw force. They rained down on the Avangardian ranks.
Just as a massive wall of cascading flame hurtled towards the main column, Zhyier, the Commander of the Mage Contingent, rushed forward. His hands erupted in a brilliant, almost blinding golden light.
He slammed his palms together. "Barrier: Aegis of the Wyvern!"
An immense, semi-translucent wall of shimmering golden magic sprang up, intercepting the barrage. The fireballs splashed harmlessly against it.
Zhyier didn't stop there. His palms began to glow a deep, sickening purple. He looked up at the desperate Lurtra mages on the rooftops.
"Skill Activate: Limella's Drain!" he roared.
The purple light shot outwards, forming thin, almost invisible tendrils that attached themselves to every Lurtra mage in sight. The mages, mid-cast, suddenly gasped, their eyes widening in horror as their physical and magical energy was violently sucked from their bodies. They withered, their faces turning grey, and they fell from the rooftops like sacks of grain, instantly incapacitated. The skill had temporarily drained them of all mana and physical stamina, leaving them utterly defenceless.
Elsewhere on the field, Bellian, the imposing Captain of the Heavy Knights, was a force of nature. He rushed into a group of twenty charging Lurtra knights. His greatsword, a colossal weapon named Earthsplitter, was still sheathed, but he used it like a massive battering ram.
THUD. CRACK. CRASH.
He rammed the hilt into chests and stomachs, scattering the knights like bowling pins. More were charging, their faces contorted with rage and confusion.
Bellian smirked, a dangerous glint in his eye. Time to end this farce.
"Skill Activate: Zuwelda's Curse!"
A wave of palpable dread and blinding, shimmering light exploded from his position. The knights closest to him instantly froze, their muscles locking up—Paralysis. The next ring of knights grabbed their faces, screaming as their vision was temporarily wiped out—Temporary Blindness. They tumbled to the ground, thrashing uselessly.
High above the chaos, Zhyelena, the elite Scout and Assassin, was an ethereal blur. She teleported around the city on the roofs, dodging the frantic but clumsy attempts of the Lurtra defense to corner her. She was mapping the defenses, looking for the command structure, and eliminating any focused threat to the main force with precise, non-lethal strikes.
A group of seven Lurtra knights looked up, their eyes catching a flicker of her black, cloaked figure before she vanished again. Their bodies instantly began to shiver in fear, their weapons trembling in their hands.
"It's her! The Keeper of Silence!" one knight whispered, his voice cracking. "We can't win! Not against her!"
Zhyelena instantly reappeared three feet behind them, her expression darkening with annoyance.
"I have always hated that nickname," she hissed, teleporting through them, her movement creating a sharp, compressed gust of wind that knocked all seven out cold.
She rushed away, leaping across a huge gap between two buildings. "Seriously, Silence? I'm supposed to be an assassin, not a librarian! This is so boring. I wish Lord Leornars had said we invade the Elven kingdom of Elarian or the Seraphim Kingdom. At least they'd put up a decent fight!"
Back outside the main castle, Stacian finally dismounted. The army had swept past her, neutralizing the bulk of the initial defense. The city was a mess of unconscious bodies, but the fighting was already subsiding.
The moment she touched the ground, her appearance changed drastically. Her natural white hair seemed to be a conduit for something primal and dark. Two curving, obsidian horns erupted from her temples, and a pair of massive, coal-black, leathery wings unfurled from her back. She had engaged her full dryiand transformation.
With a powerful surge, she launched into the sky, the wings beating silently, rendering her virtually invisible against the smoke-filled sky. She flew above the Lurtra Kingdom, an invisible executioner.
Hovering over the King's castle, she channeled her ultimate skill—a powerful, short-range, mind-altering magic that had earned her the infamous title, The Auditor.
Stacian gave the single, devastating, magical order. Her voice, though not heard, was imprinted directly onto the minds of every conscious soul in the Lurtra capital.
"Kneel."
It was an absolute command, bypassing conscious thought and directly attacking the will of the demi-human races that made up Lurtra's bulk. Every Lurtra demi-human knight, every guard, every conscious noble, and even King Julius himself, instantly felt a crushing, invisible weight press down upon them. Their legs buckled. Their bodies hit the floor. Their heads bowed. They were forced into a position of absolute, immediate submission.
The castle defenses were neutralized. Stacian descended, landing silently in the main courtyard, her black wings retracting. She walked, unhurried, across the courtyard and into the castle where Julius was found, weeping and still paralyzed in a kneeling position near the parapet.
A minute of chilling silence passed over the battlefield.
Then, a sudden, bloody, wet scream echoed from the castle's depths, followed by a heavy, sickening thud.
Stacian emerged from the castle, her white armour now splattered with dark red, her crimson sword dripping. In her hand, she held the severed, terrified head of King Julius, his eyes wide open and staring blankly.
She tossed the head to the ground contemptuously, wiping her blade on a discarded banner. She looked out over the conquered city and, with the same magically amplified voice she used for her command, she delivered the final decree.
"Lurtra Kingdom has fallen! From this day forward, the name Kingdom of Lurtra doesn't exist. You are now the City of Lurtra, a new coastal territory of the great Kingdom of Avangard!"
The Avangardian standard-bearers immediately rushed to the castle spires, replacing the fallen Lurtra flags with the silver wyvern on the crimson field.
The expected reaction was riots, protests, or a desperate last stand.
Instead, a curious thing happened. The demi-human populace, the majority of the city, erupted in cheers.
"So, we are under the White Plague now?!" a jubilant Beast-kin citizen shouted from the crowd, referring to the Avangardian army's merciless but highly organized reputation. "This is better! At least we'll have a fair taxation system and clean streets! Having a fellow demi-human king meant worse corruption! At least the white plague is honest about his ambition!"
A nearby Lizardfolk added, "Agreed! King Julius was a greedy fool. Lord Leornars offers stability! Long live the new administration!"
Stacian stared blankly at the cheering masses, her face utterly devoid of emotion, then muttered under her breath.
"The fuck? I will never understand these idiots."
Stacian walked to the outer wall to observe the territory. There, her second-in-command, Zaryter, was seated on the back of his massive, tamed silver wyvern, looking incredibly bored.
"Can we go home now, Stacian? This is boring. Utterly boring. I want to see my little sister Shullah. She promised to bake me an apple tart if I made it back early," Zaryter complained, stroking the wyvern's scaly neck.
Stacian sighed, running a hand through her hair. "First, we fully take over the nation and map it into the Avangard records. Lurtra is nearly two hundred thousand square miles. Our kingdom was only five thousand, Zaryter."
She swept a hand over the vast, newly conquered territory. "Taking Lurtra will benefit us immensely in iron ores, coastal minerals, deep mines, timber, wheat, and access to all southern trade ports. Lurtra is the goldmine. Lord Leornars didn't just conquer it; he funded Julius's rule and trade deficit slowly, weakening it from the inside, all for the sole purpose of taking it fully today."
Zaryter's eyes widened slightly. He often overlooked the political nuances. "So, keeping Julius as a 'king' was simply a tactical move to fully absorb the throne later, especially if a more competent ruler might have opposed Avangardian influence?"
"Yes," Stacian confirmed, nodding. "That's why Lord Leornars gave the specific, unusual order. We don't kill anyone but Julius—because his death, by the constitution he was ruling under, immediately and lawfully transfers all claim, property, and title to the executioner—in this case, Avangard. It was a perfectly legal annexation by their own laws."
A sudden, sharp twang of a bowstring interrupted their conversation.
In the distance, Ayesha, still by the main column, had fired a second, specialized arrow. It was aimed at a figure frantically trying to escape the castle grounds. The fleeing figure—King Julius's teenage son and heir, the Crown Prince—didn't even have time to scream.
The arrow, moving at impossible speed, struck him directly in the forehead, killing him instantly and pinning his body to a small, ornamental fountain.
Ayesha, adjusting her aim slightly, turned to Salene with a proud smile. "See? I told you I could do it! No loose ends."
Salene, the pale-faced medic, was already busy on the field, collecting the unconscious bodies of the few Lurtra nobles who were knocked out, placing them carefully into a dimensional storage pocket at her hip.
"Don't worry, Ayesha. I'll make good use of them," Salene said, a strange, hungry grin stretching across her face. A drop of saliva fell from her mouth. "I'll have so much fun dissecting them up. Their anatomy is wonderfully complex."
"Masochist," Zaryter, Stacian, and Ayesha said in unison, looking at her with a mix of resignation and discomfort.
Far away, in the ancient, shimmering, nature-bound capital of the Elarian Kingdom, Queen Selalyndra, the ruler of the elven kingdom was sipping a cup of rare, moon-grown chamomile tea.
She was the picture of serene calm, her long, golden hair resting on shoulders draped in silk, her pointed ears twitching slightly.
A breathless, non-elven messenger burst into her private tea garden, stumbling onto the perfectly manicured moss lawn.
"Your Majesty! Queen Selalyndra!" the man gasped, dropping to one knee. "Lurtra Kingdom has fallen! King Julius is dead! The Avangard forces, under the command of their King's Hand, Stacian, have annexed Lurtra entirely! It is now Avangard territory!"
Selalyndra placed her teacup back on its saucer with a delicate clink. She did not spill a drop. She did not even flinch.
"I see," she said, her voice smooth and like the quiet rush of a forest stream. "Leornars moves quickly. He is unpredictable in his ambition, but ruthless in his execution, I thought he'd invade us after the foolish stunt I pulled off by poisoining him."
She lifted her eyes, now focused on the messenger. "Tell me, has he arrived?"
The messenger instantly understood the shift in subject—she was referring to the S-Rank mercenary she had hired days ago, the one whose reputation alone was enough to topple kingdoms, the one tasked with the ultimate mission.
"Yes, Your Majesty. He is at the western castle wing, awaiting your final instructions. His price has been paid in full."
Selalyndra gave a slight, dismissive wave of her hand. "Leave. Go inform the Council that we will maintain a posture of cautious neutrality for now. Increase border patrols threefold."
As the messenger scurried away, the Elven Queen stared out at the towering, ancient trees of her kingdom. Her composure was absolute, but her internal thoughts were a storm.
You may have taken the coastal goldmine of Lurtra, Leornars Servs Avrem. You may have expanded your borders and distracted Durmount. But you will not have Elarian.
A faint, chilling smile touched her lips.
Lurtra was a piece of land. I, however, have procured a specialized weapon for you. One you cannot defeat with knights or mages.
In the troubled, unstable city of Durmount, the capital of a kingdom currently locked in a messy succession dispute, Princess Selrose was seated in her private study. Unlike the panicked reactions elsewhere, she was receiving the news of Lurtra's annexation with an evil, satisfied smile.
A spy, heavily disguised, finished reporting the full details—Stacian's victory, Julius's death, and the final order for Marrielle Sullivana to be dispatched to Durmount.
Selrose leaned back, her slender fingers steepled beneath her chin, her eyes gleaming with dark ambition.
"Yes, yes, it is almost time," she whispered to herself. "The stage has been perfectly set. The Avangardian army is occupied. The other kingdoms are distracted by Leornars's latest power play. My sister has been conveniently removed. And now, the final player, Marrielle, is arriving with Avangard's secret funding and tactical support."
She let out a soft, low, triumphant laugh.
"The populace will see my coup as a necessary defense against Avangardian aggression. My own family will be removed, and I will be hailed as the saviour of Durmount. Soon, I will complete the coup, take the throne, and show the world that I am the true power in the central kingdoms!"
She stood up, walking to her window, looking out over the city she was about to plunge into chaos, all thanks to the ambition of the King of Avangard.
"Thank you, Lord Leornars," she murmured, her smile turning predatory. "You have given me the perfect opening."
Leornars on the throne looked outside his crimson eyes gleaming as he walked to the balcony of the castle his crimson throne on his head .
" Up next, time to erase the term Durmount kingdom" he said coldly