Badge in Azure

Saleen said to Marquis Carloranna, “I’ll take care of Pompeii City. You won’t have to bear much of the brunt from the assault. You can use the materials I provide to build new armies, which can be trained when attacking Pompeii. The true battlefield should happen between us and the Holy See.”

“Your Highness, you’ve brought less than 2000 with you!” While Marquis Carloranna was very impressed with Saleen’s powers, he still deemed it to be too straining for Saleen to take on the Grand Duke personally. From his perspective, the power of one person was always limited.

“No, I brought 100,000 with me and there are hundreds of level nine ones among them. The Grand Duke’s Pompeii’s estate is not a true duchy, so he can’t have amassed too large of an army. Take down Pompeii City and it’d be the end of everything. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Marquis Carloranna knew that the mage would not lie to dupe his allies, but the marquis was unable to see Saleen’s army. Saleen smiled. “I can guarantee that my demon army has absolute loyalty.”

“Well then, Your Highness Saleen, I’ve heard that you’re capable of employing special equipment to mobilize large demon armies. Now I wonder if we can be of help in anything at all.”

“Marquis, whether Lex ends up becoming empress is of no concern to me. What I’m concerned about is your loyalty towards her, and how far you’d back her. The war between the Holy See and Qin might slow down due to what is happening in Daliang City, but the war will come back sooner or later. The south side of Qin is connected to Cloudflow geographically. Would you fight Cloudflow for Lex?”

Marquis Carloranna answered without much doubt, “I and the other two marquises are willing to back Her Highness Lex to become the next empress, but our current emperor… well, he’s still Lex’s biological brother after all. We’ll only be able to keep things as they’re now until he steps down, not supporting any of the prince’s decisions.”

His words were as clear as they had to be. The current Qin emperor was of common folk and of poor health. Lex, on the other hand, was a level nine sorcerer and could live at least for over 1000 years.

“There are more than 300 nobles in the southwestern region other than you, and they have considerable military power. How many of them do you think you could sway to your side?”

“274 of them. The others are not worth buying over.”

“Excellent. Few places in southwestern Qin are connected to Cloudflow. What you need to do is to make sure the remaining ones will not get any chance to sneak up on you. Your enemies will come from Cloudflow.”

“What about Pompeii City?”

“I won’t be handing the city over to Safilos once I’m done taking it.”

“Are you sure about that, Your Highness?” Carloranna did not fear Safilos. What he meant was if Saleen was sure that he could hold Pompeii City. The city was right beside a river, which made it tactically important.

“Safilos won’t be a problem. The problem is Alchemy City.” Saleen paid close attention to Carloranna’s expression. No fluctuations were seen on Carloranna’s face. He’s truly a golden grand swordmaster. They might have reservations about mages, but they do have limits.

“Your Highness, Alchemy City has never posed a threat to the empire. It was due to the expansion of the empire’s power throughout the ages that led to how things are today.” Carloranna’s view was new, but Saleen had no intentions of delving deeper to see if it was accurate. He only needed Carloranna and the nobles to not fear Alchemy City.

Saleen asked for 20,000 soldiers from Carloranna. He did not ask for them from Carloranna alone. It was a total gathered by all three marquises as well as some from other nearby nobles. The 20,000 soldiers were tasked with escorting Saleen into the grand duke’s estate, and he had no intention of saying hi first. If that proved inadequate in angering the Grand Duke, then Saleen would resort to writing a letter demanding the Grand Duke to hand over his son.

Southern Qin had always been prosperous and powerful. The three marquises and over a dozen nearby nobles took just one day to gather the needed numbers for Saleen. It had to do with being prepared, but being able to mobilize a 20,000-person army meant that the southern nobles’ combat capacity had always been intact.

Saleen stayed at Gauss City for two days before meeting the southwestern nobles, signing over 300 contracts and taking the 20,000 soldiers onto the Grand Duke’s turf.

Saleen only took notice of the perks provided by his status. He was able to get the southwestern nobles to comply because he was a king and had land and troops. It was as if he was begging for help even though it was a joint operation.

The wars that Saleen participated in before usually involved millions, but wars involving 10,000 were large enough. The 20,000-persin marched and protected Saleen’s entourage all the way into the Grand Duke’s territory. The nobles siding with the grand duke panicked.

The first to rise against Saleen out of panic was a viscount who attempted to mobilize his forces, about 1000 soldiers, to stop Saleen’s attempt. Saleen was invading, after all!

It was the kind of response that Saleen had wished for. He commanded his army and crushed the noble’s personal guards. The viscount did not expect Saleen to truly make a move, and Saleen did more than that. He took well over half of the opposing forces prisoner.

While hostilities between the southwestern nobles were not really serious, but Grand Duke of Pompeii’s actions had led many to resent him. The Grand Duke’s noble army suffered over a hundred casualties and the rest were taken prisoner by Saleen, who then handed them over to the southwestern nobles to be returned to their respective territories. They would be dealt with after the war was over.

Qin people did not have a habit of killing prisoners, especially with skirmishes fought between nobles within their own country. While the prisoners all looked dejected, they knew well that it was a fate better than dying on the battlefield.

Saleen deliberately slowed down and headed for the coordinates of the temple. Less than 2000 miles took Saleen almost ten days. Even to the Qin people, that was too slow.

Saleen had to deal with opposing forces coming to harass him over and over. The forces were always small, even mercenaries. Saleen kept the casualties in check, as the lesser nobles were not at each others’ throats. The troops consisted entirely of Qin locals. If he went too far with the killing, it would be bad for his rule in the future.

When the weather gradually turned cold, Saleen’s forces reached outside of a city.

Saleen dispatched a messenger and wrote a letter to the city lord. The letter was written in an incredibly pompous manner and made his intentions very clear: he wanted to take this city for himself for six months. During that period, everyone in the city were scattered outside. The city lord, a veteran earl, included as well.

Saleen then set up magic cannons outside the city, aimed at various targets in the city. His cannons were all installed on artificially created hills, allowing the weapons to fire directly into the city.

The earl read Saleen’s letter and got incredibly angry. His underling, however, knew the power difference. “Sir, Saleen is a king, which means that he’s being incredibly callous with his actions. You’re not his match, sir. How about this? You agree to scatter the people of the city, but he would need to pay for the losses suffered.”

The earl thought for a bit and figured that the proposal made sense. While he had over 3000 elite troops, but the lesser nobles before had already proven sufficiently that if he went against a 20 thousand-strong southwestern noble army, it would be like throwing eggs at a stone wall.

Saleen watched in the military camp outside the city. He knew what the Qin elites were capable of. Despite having become a level ten mage, he remained as elated as he was before.

The prior battles had proven the demons’ combat prowess. With the cannons set up, the city before him could be taken at a very small cost. The troops, however, did not let their guard down about the upcoming battle. The camp’s atmosphere was tense. Even the soldiers feeding the horses were on guard.

Military discipline was strictly enforced and the troops were divided into two major camps. Things went very smoothly, which meant that the troops’ training had been done professionally.

Saleen patrolled the camps, accompanied by the commander when a soldier delivered the news, that the messenger dispatched by the city asked to meet His Highness Saleen.

“I’m not doing it. I don’t want to risk getting angry and killing the messenger. Just tell the messenger what I said.” Saleen fully intended on shooing the messenger away before Nailisi whispered in his ear. Saleen stopped the soldier and took out a piece of paper, writing several lines on it with magic and handed it to the soldier. “Tell the messenger to take this back to the city. If they dare dispatch anyone else, I won’t go easy on them.”

The earl waited anxiously for Saleen’s reply. He was thinking about running even if Saleen refused to compensate him. It was stupid to fight such a powerful enemy. However, Saleen was there to ask for trouble. The letter that the messenger brought back contained news that brought him to tears.

Saleen told the earl that in order to show that he meant business, he had decided to bombard the House of the Lord with the magic cannons. Saleen gave the earl an hour to tell his family to run.

There was a map drawn below the lines of words, which clearly showed the layout of the city, as well as the location of the House of the Lord. Saleen drew a red line around the House of the Lord, and area inside the line was where he intended to launch his attack.

“How can this be! How can this be…” The earl mumbled in pain. He stared blankly at the paper. It would only take him over a few minutes to scatter everyone; he was grieving over the treasures in the House of the Lord.

Saleen is going too far. Does he even see me as a noble?

A streak of magic light lit up on the paper and a powerful line appeared before the earl, glittering in the air.

“Earl, I’m here to invade the place, so be quick about it.”

Saleen’s words made the earl jump. He yelled, “what are you all still waiting for? Get the hell out of this blasted place now!”

The earl understood that Saleen had no intentions of killing anyone, but he did not necessarily have any reservations about killing. Ironwall City served as a good example. While he was an earl, the city had 80,000 people, less than one-tenth of the Ironwall City’s population.

The House of the Lord was emptied within half an hour. Everyone saw the magic cannons outside the city and knew how precious life could be. As for hidden treasures, the earl could only blame himself for not storing them in the imperial bank.

However, it was something that all nobles serving the Grand Duke of Pompeii did. They were all afraid of problems when putting their money in the imperial bank.