Chapter 198 - 100,000 Troops

The first thing Holden noticed was the smell of coffee. The kind of smell that could pull someone out of unconsciousness by the nose and refuse to let go. After spending what felt like an eternity fighting through the Nightmare Dungeon, it was almost enough to make him believe he was still dreaming.

The second thing he noticed was Lyra’s hand resting on his shoulder. Holden opened his eyes, blinking against the morning light filtering through the curtains.

Lyra was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and she was already dressed in her full combat gear, her spear strapped across her back. Her glowing blue eyes were steady, but the slight tension in her jaw told him everything he needed to know before she even opened her mouth.

Something was wrong.

"What time is it?" Holden asked.

"Noon. You slept for twelve hours."

"Twelve hours isn’t enough."

"It’s going to have to be." She held the coffee out to him. "Drink this. Get dressed. Instructor Vespera just called an emergency war council. She wants Team Soup at the Command Center in fifteen minutes."

Holden took the cup. The warmth seeped into his fingers and traveled up his wrist, chasing away some of the lingering ache from last night’s Nightmare session. He took a sip. The coffee was strong. The kind of coffee that tasted like it had been brewed by someone who needed it to work, not someone who cared about making it enjoyable.

He drank it anyway.

"What’s happened?"

"Vespera didn’t say. But the look on the messenger’s face when he arrived told me enough." Lyra stood and adjusted the strap of her spear. "Fifteen minutes, Holden. Don’t be late."

She left the room, and the door closed behind her.

Holden sat on the edge of the bed for another moment. His body was stiff, but the twelve hours of sleep had repaired most of the physical damage from the Nightmare Dungeon. The Star Core Elixir had restored his energy reserves overnight, while the Blood-Amber Ring had quietly sealed the remaining cuts and bruises as he slept. He was functional.

He didn’t feel functional. He felt like someone had taken his body apart, put it back together slightly wrong, and then told him everything was fine.

Holden dressed in under three minutes. He checked his System interface.

[Current KP: 1,496,290]

[Multiplier: 10,000x]

[KP Booster: 2x Active]

He had crossed the million mark.

But whatever Vespera needed, it wasn’t going to wait for him to farm another point.

He walked out.

The Command Center was in the palace district, three blocks from the villa. Team Soup was already moving when Holden reached the front door. Emric had his shield strapped to his arm, and a look on his face that told Holden he had already been briefed and was running calculations in his head.

Renna was quiet. That was the tell. When Renna was quiet, things were bad. Renna being quiet was basically the equivalent of an air raid siren.

Lyra walked beside Holden. Whatever was waiting for them at the Command Center, she was going to face it with him.

They reached the Command Center in eight minutes.

The building was a concrete structure near the palace, covered with antenna arrays and satellite dishes. Vanguard soldiers stood at every entrance, and the security was much tighter than normal.

They were waved through without a word. The soldiers knew their faces. They also knew the expression on Vespera’s messenger when he had arrived at the villa that morning.

The war room was on the third floor.

Holden pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The room was large and rectangular, dominated by a massive glowing tactical map that occupied almost the entire center of the floor. It was a 3d projection of the Kingdom and its surrounding territories, rendered in precise detail. Mountains, rivers, cities, roads, borders. Everything was there in pale blue light.

Vespera stood at the head of the map. She looked worse than the last time Holden had seen her, if that was even possible. The dark circles under her eyes had deepened. She held a pointer in her right hand and a cup of something that wasn’t coffee in her left. It smelled like ginseng and desperation.

Four Vanguard officers stood beside her. All Rank 3. All looking grim.

Vespera looked up when Team Soup entered. Her eyes moved across them slowly. Four academy students. Yet they were the strongest fighters in the Kingdom, standing inside a war room designed for generals.

She didn’t waste time with pleasantries.

"We are under attack," she said. "The grace period is over."

She brought the pointer down on the eastern edge of the map. The projection zoomed in, expanding until the Kingdom’s eastern border filled most of the room. The border was highlighted in red.

"Three days ago, the Iron-Blood Empire officially declared war on the Kingdom of Veshar. Their declaration cited the assassination of Emperor Regis as justification, claiming that a nation which cannot control its own internal affairs poses a threat to regional stability."

Holden studied the map. The Iron-Blood Empire was a massive territory to the east. Three times the size of the Kingdom, with a military that dwarfed anything Veshar could field. He had read about them in the academy. A militaristic society built on conquest, where rank and strength determined everything. Their army was the largest on the continent.

"They’ve been planning this for a while now," Vespera continued. "The declaration was a formality. Their troops were already mobilized before the ink was dry. We didn’t see it because we were too busy fighting monsters and cleaning up the mess the Emperor left behind."

She tapped the map again. The projection pulled back to show a wider view. Along the eastern border, a massive red stain was spreading across the map. Thousands of individual troop markers were clustered into formations, moving steadily westward.

"Maeve," Vespera said.

Maeve was already at the console. Her fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard, bringing up satellite feeds and intercepted communications. The main screen above the map lit up with grainy aerial images.

"The Iron-Blood Empire has deployed their Third and Fifth Grand Armies to the eastern border," Maeve said.

She switched feeds. New images appeared across the screen. Long columns of armored vehicles moved along dirt roads. Rows of cannons were being pulled by massive draft beasts. Supply trains stretched so far into the distance that their ends disappeared from view.

"They’ve also deployed heavy magic artillery," Maeve continued. "I’m counting approximately two hundred and forty siege cannons, enchanted with Rank 3 explosive ordinance. And here."

The image zoomed in. Behind the main column, enormous shapes moved through the landscape. Beasts. Tamed siege beasts. Creatures the size of buildings, armored in thick iron plates, with howdahs mounted on their backs where soldiers operated heavy weapons.

"Thirty siege beasts," Maeve said. "Classified as living siege engines. Each one is equivalent to a Rank 3 combatant in terms of destructive output."

Renna inhaled sharply. "A hundred thousand troops. Two hundred and forty cannons. Thirty siege beasts. That’s... that’s a lot."

"The largest military deployment in the continent’s recorded history," Emric said. He was staring at the map, his 10x cognitive buff already running calculations. "The Kingdom’s standing military force is approximately thirty thousand. Including reserves. We’re outnumbered more than three to one."

Vespera set her pointer down on the map. The red stain representing the Imperial army was thirty kilometers from the border.

"The power vacuum killed us," Vespera said. "I told you, Voss. Politics. When you killed Emperor Regis, you eliminated the central authority of the Kingdom. The Royal Family is gone. The noble houses are in disarray. The military is reorganizing under Vanguard command, but it’s not ready. To the outside world, we look weak. Leaderless. An open wound waiting for someone to stick their fingers in it."

She looked at Holden.

"The Iron-Blood Empire decided to be those fingers."

Holden stared at the map. At the red stain. One hundred thousand troops. Two hundred and forty cannons. Thirty siege beasts. The largest army ever assembled on the continent, marching toward a Kingdom that had thirty thousand soldiers and a handful of academy students.

He finished the rest of his coffee in one swallow.

"What are our defensive options?" he asked.

His 10,000x processor had already started running possible battle scenarios before anyone else in the room had finished processing the numbers.

"The Eastern Border Fortress is our primary defensive position," Vespera said, tapping the map. A fortification marker appeared on the border. "Fortress Kharadon. It’s the only structure between the Imperial army and the interior. It’s strong, but it wasn’t designed to hold against a hundred thousand troops."

"How long can it hold?"

"At current force levels? Three days. Maybe four."

"And after that?"

"After that, they roll through the eastern provinces and reach the Capital in two weeks."

Silence settled over the room.

Vespera straightened. She set down her cup. Then she set down her pointer. She stood at the head of the map and looked at Team Soup.

"I don’t have time for traditional military ranks," she said. "The chain of command is too slow. The generals are too cautious. The soldiers are too scared. I need fighters who can hold a line against an army and not break."

She looked at each of them in turn.

"Emric Vance. Renna Locke. Lyra Sterling. Holden Voss."

She said their names like she was carving them into stone.

"As of this moment, you are all promoted to Vanguard General. Effective immediately. This gives you field command authority over all military units in your operational zone. You can issue orders to senior officers, redirect troop deployments, and command defensive positions as you see fit."

Emric straightened. "Vanguard General. That’s, that’s a substantive rank. The youngest Vanguard General in the academy’s history was twenty-six years old."

"You’re younger," Vespera said. "Deal with it."

Renna’s mouth fell open. "General? General Locke? I’m a GENERAL? I can’t even vote!"

Lyra said nothing. She simply inclined her head, accepting her words without question.

Vespera looked at Holden.

"You’re going to the border," she said. "Pack your gear. Stop the Iron-Blood Empire."

She picked up her pointer and brought it down on the Fortress Kharadon marker.

"Dismissed."

Holden turned and walked out of the war room. His team followed.

The hallway was empty and quiet. The muffled sounds of the war room’s activity leaked through the walls, but out here, it was just the four of them.

Holden stopped. He turned around and looked at his team.

Three Rank 2 elites and one hidden Rank 3, 2-Star. Against a hundred thousand troops and thirty siege beasts.

"Pack light," he said. "We’re going to war."