The Averton Plain, the front line of the battlefield.
The weather was bright and cloudless for ten thousand leagues. In the distance, wyverns swept past towering mountains from time to time, their prolonged screeches echoing across the heights.
Across the snow-covered wasteland stood encampment after encampment, where swarms of filth-caked slave soldiers threw up earthworks and hauled supplies. Armies from various northern realms—the Principality of Bosque, the Principality of Fano, the Principality of Carter, and others—had assembled here.
A middle-aged noble clad in ornate armor stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing into the distance with a grim expression. Emblazoned upon his breastplate was a crest depicting a lion and crossed swords.
"Have the Edsons still not arrived?"
"My lord, we have received no word from them. I fear..."
"Damn it."
A gloom instantly settled over his face. He paced back and forth, muttering relentlessly under his breath.
"The Edsons, the Durans, the Rosas, the Wolfs..."
"The agreed-upon seventy-thousand-strong army is not even two-thirds assembled! What am I supposed to stall the Kingdom of Cinders with?!"
His name was Loren Bosque, his noble birth immediately obvious from his surname. The second son of Grand Duke Leo, he was a count and a general of the Principality of Bosque, and simultaneously held the post of supreme commander of the coalition army's first line of defense.
To demonstrate his resolve to fight the evil dragon to the bitter end—and to silence the northern nobles—Grand Duke Leo had dispatched his highly regarded second son to the very front of the battlefield.
In the distant sky, the wyverns grew ever more numerous, gathering like a sprawling dark cloud. Beneath the churn of their wings, even the earth seemed to darken.
Loren stared fixedly at them, his expression grim beyond measure. He gave orders to the adjutant standing at his side:
"We are out of time. The Cinder army will be upon us shortly."
"Order all divisions to prepare for battle. I harbor no illusions of achieving grand victories; our sole task is to stall their advance, probe for weaknesses, and buy more time for my father—"
Suddenly, the heavy thrum of war drums boomed out, cutting off his words.
*Boom, boom, boom...*
Loren instinctively turned his head. Far away, both earth and sky were swallowed by the forces of Cinders.
Ranks of hobgoblins marching in lockstep, burly ogres, armored drakes vast as hills, dense swarms of wyverns blotting out the sky, colossal cannons angled toward the heavens... An army such as this, even in a routine march, radiated a soul-crushing oppression.
The rhythmic beat of the drums rolled on without pause, setting the ground into a faint tremor like the lumbering footfalls of the Reaper himself.
"By Tempus..." Loren could not help but whisper a prayer.
Cold though the air was, cold sweat seeped from his brow.
He had observed the armies of the Kingdom of Cinders through magical scrying before, and he had never thought them truly invincible. But standing before them in the flesh, Loren finally grasped firsthand what a horrifying legion of natural disaster this truly was.
"You've got to be joking..."
"Is... is that our enemy?"
"How are we supposed to fight that?"
"Are they sending us to die?"
Behind the earthworks, the soldiers stared out at the distant legions, murmurs spreading like wildfire, their voices trembling.
They were private levies drawn from across the northern realms to begin with, of vastly uneven quality. Among them were hired mercenaries, and even serf conscripts dragged from feudal estates, mixed in merely to pad the numbers.
Such an enormous, despair-inducing gulf in strength was obvious to any sane human being.
Loren listened to the frantic chatter around him, frowning deeply.
*This cannot go on.*
He knew that if this continued, their troops would completely break and flee in all directions before the Cinder army even arrived, and he would fail the mission entrusted to him by his father.
As a son of House Bosque, Loren enjoyed lavish privilege, yet he yearned desperately to succeed his father as the heir, perhaps even to become the nominal ruler of the Northlands.
Alas, he was a second son.
Unlike the idle hedonists who indulged in pleasure, Loren had labored tirelessly since childhood. He honed his horsemanship, studied tactics and drill, and observed family affairs, all in hopes of drawing Grand Duke Leo's notice, surpassing his elder brother, and becoming the true heir to the house.
Yet against the thousand-year-old "glorious traditions" of the Northlands, all his efforts had seemed pitifully fragile.
Now, however, Grand Duke Leo had placed high hopes on him. Loren, too, hoped to turn his fortunes around through this war—to prove his worth to the principality and become a heroic figure worthy of being etched into the house's epics.
At that thought, Loren gritted his teeth.
*I must step forward.*
His sword rasped from its scabbard as he strode personally onto the front line and raised the blade high.
A count by rank and the true-born son of Grand Duke Leo, Loren enjoyed considerable renown across the Northlands. His striking presence immediately drew the eyes of the soldiers all around.
"Soldiers!"
His voice was heavy, yet resonant and resolute.
"I believe you have all seen it: the enemy is formidable beyond expectation. This may well be a war that cannot be won. Our foes are monstrous terrors—wyverns, ogres, hobgoblins! They wield the terrible power granted by an evil dragon, while we are nothing more than ordinary mortals. Compared to them, the only advantage we Scanians possess is our grit!"
Loren paused, his tone rising in fervor, with the distant thunder of the Cinder war drums serving as a dramatic backdrop to his speech.
"Yet remember this! Beneath your feet lies the homeland that sustains every Scanian, the soil our ancestors have defended for a thousand years!
"I am an heir of Bosque! Nine centuries ago, my ancestor, the first 'Lionheart,' Rosell Bosque, led your forefathers onto this alien expanse of Anzeta! Here we cleared the wilderness, raised cities, and forged a glorious Scanian civilization! The frost giants and white dragons from the north never broke us! With our blood we built walls, guarding our homes time and time again!
"And nine centuries later, I, Rosell's descendant, Loren Bosque, stand here beside you! The enemy we face is mightier, cunning beyond measure, but I believe history will repeat itself..."
Abruptly, the distant drums went silent.
Even Loren, caught mid-oratory, froze in surprise. Only then did he press on: "Together we shall defend—"
Yet his words were cut short by a voice far deeper and more commanding. The soldiers' eyes drifted past Loren, converging toward something far grander in the distance. Murmurs and gasps broke out among them, as though they were beholding a divine miracle.
"Damned mongrels, completely devoid of honor," Loren hissed through gritted teeth, spitting a curse under his breath at having his speech ignored. He spun around—and froze on the spot, utterly dumbstruck.
The legions of the Kingdom of Cinders had halted, silently holding their formation. Suspended in the air above them was a colossal magical projection hundreds of meters tall.
Depicted in the projection was a handsome young man with raven hair and golden eyes, his bearing exuding a noble majesty surpassing that of any aristocrat in northern history.
A polite smile rested on his lips, and his deep, pale-gold gaze drew in every onlooker helplessly—even Loren Bosque himself.
"Greetings, people of the Northlands.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Cassius. You should know this name: the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Cinders, and the one you commonly refer to as the Lord of Cinders."
Chapter 307