Setting aside the overseas islands, the continent's topography resembled a stout cross.
The Ryan Empire sat squarely at the center of the cross, while the Silvermoon High Court lay at its southern tip. Arranged vertically from north to south were the Emerald Dream Forest, the Ryan Empire, Salokma, the City of Alchemy, and the Silvermoon High Court. Horizontally from west to east were the Tiefling Kingdom of the Unholy Hymn, the Ryan Empire, and the Orc Mountain Kingdom.
Ryan bordered four realms, three of which were ruled by non-human races, while the fourth—the Emerald Dream Forest—followed an entirely different faith. Calling Ryan surrounded by enemies on all sides was no exaggeration. Yet, through sheer imperial might, Ryan had kept all four regions thoroughly suppressed, barely able to breathe.
War breaking out between Ryan and the orcs was hardly surprising. Even a desolate expanse like the desert had friction with Ryan; it would have been truly bizarre if an exceptionally belligerent race of roaring warmongers like the orcs didn't clash with the empire.
In fact, minor border conflicts had flared continuously between Ryan and the orcs over the past century. The orcs usually came out on the losing end, but thanks to their rugged, mountainous terrain, they had always managed to hold their ground.
The peaks here resembled jagged spears thrust upside down into the earth, with hardly any proper paths to be found. Only wild mountain orcs, evolved almost like apes, could thrive freely in such a landscape.
Ryan's sudden, preemptive strike against the Orc Kingdom caught everyone completely off guard.
Setting economic strength aside, the Orc Kingdom's military might was arguably the greatest on the continent after Ryan. While "every citizen a soldier" was a poetic exaggeration in other realms, in the Orc Kingdom it was a literal fact.
Any orc over the age of ten was stronger than an ordinary human militiaman. Naturally robust and utterly fearless, they became qualified warriors with only minimal training. In such a brutal environment, none of the legends produced by the Orc Kingdom were ever frail or untested.
Moreover, they cared nothing for chivalric duels or honorable combat; they invariably swarmed in overwhelming hordes and never hesitated to butcher ordinary foot soldiers. Ryan's paladins were undeniably powerful, but not every soldier could match them. Whenever an orc legend entered the fray, they reaped swathes of lives, cutting deep into Ryan's ranks until the empire wept for its losses.
In earlier wars, the champions of the orcs knew they could not easily defeat Ryan's foremost paladins, so they deliberately hunted the rank-and-file soldiers, inflicting catastrophic casualties. On one occasion, an expeditionary force of a thousand men—composed of paladins and auxiliaries—was slaughtered until only the commanding officer was left alive.
It had been a profound humiliation for the Ryan Empire, yet once anyone entered those treacherous mountains, the elusive orc warriors were nearly impossible to counter.
Because of this, Ryan did not dispatch grand legions this time. Instead, the Silvermoon Knight took the lead with an elite squad of only thirty warriors—ten of whom were legends, while the rest were high-ranking paladins and clerics of light standing on the very threshold of legendary power.
Unburdened by standard troops, the unit marched with incredible speed. Before the orcs could even register what was happening, the Silvermoon Knight launched the opening strike.
Fang City, situated on the border between the two realms, was the only viable gateway into the mountains. It curved skyward like the tusk of a wild boar.
Even if one could take flight, they still had to pass directly over Fang City. All other routes were perpetually engulfed in thunderclouds—a bizarre meteorological anomaly conjured by a bored legendary mage using the World Weaving spell, much like the Golden Desert.
Back then, the orcs had seized upon this natural barrier and spent decades turning these storm-shrouded peaks into their stronghold.
Fang City was the mountains' sole entrance. In the past, against its sheer, soaring cliffs, Ryan had lost countless soldiers without ever breaching its walls.
Yet this time, Fang City held out for merely half an hour.
A brilliant sword light larger than a mountain plunged from the heavens like cascading moonlight. The skyward tusk was cleaved in two, the iron gates shattered, and seventy percent of the city's defensive installations were obliterated in an instant. Chanting praise to the Holy Light, the Ryanites surged through the breached gates, and every orc that refused to surrender was cleansed by the Holy Light.
Two legends were stationed within the city, but the moment these mighty orc warriors stepped forward, that terrifying sword light descended once more, cutting down one of them in a single strike. His door-sized greataxe, his heavy plate armor, and his body of forged steel and bone were powerless to resist the dazzling arc of radiance; he was cleaved cleanly in half from head to groin.
Seeing his comrade fall, gripped by a tempest of dread and fury, the second orc legend was driven into a raging frenzy. His body swelled like a balloon, transforming into a colossal monster four to five meters tall as he prepared to avenge his ally.
Yet before he could even pinpoint the master of the sword light, several paladins had already surrounded him on all sides.
Divine Smite! Divine Smite! Divine Smite again!
The orc lasted merely a few minutes before holy-light-clad longswords minced him to bits.
The battle unfolded far too quickly. The orc forces had no time to assemble, and the sorcerer corps meant to support the legends hadn't even reacted before the clash was already drawing to a close.
Throughout the entire engagement, the deciding factor had been the Silvermoon Knight's two slashes.
One strike breached the city; the second struck down a legend. Fang City was crippled in an instant.
Though the remaining orcs were numerous, without their commanders they turned into a scattered rabble. After several legendary paladins charged back and forth through the streets, the orc lines broke completely, scattering in all directions.
Mopping-up included, the battle lasted less than an hour before this "tusk" fell firmly into Ryan's hands.
Next came the construction of a temporary teleportation array, through which prepared contingents of the Ryan army were warped in one after another. The first batch consisted entirely of spellcasters, who immediately began expanding and reinforcing the teleportation array for subsequent waves.
Through this exorbitantly expensive method, the Ryanites teleported three thousand soldiers within a single day. The cost far exceeded that of fighting a conventional war involving tens of thousands of troops. But the return on this lavish expenditure was absolute: within twenty-four hours, Fang City was fully under Ryan control.
With so many spellcasters at hand, the battered fortress was swiftly restored, followed by the deployment of various abjurations and wards that fortified the city far more rigorously than ever before.
On the day after Fang City fell, the orcs rallied their forces to recapture this critical gateway.
A gathered host of orcs was immensely formidable, particularly their sorcerer corps. Through joint spellcasting, they could unleash a catastrophic, titanic fireball capable of leveling a city in a single blow.
Yet before the orc army could even close in on the fortress, Ryan dispatched its legendary paladins, each equipped with Time Stop scrolls worth hundreds of thousands of gold coins.
Concealed by Greater Invisibility, they lurked in ambush, hurling the scrolls the moment the orc army marched into sight.
The paladins flung the Time Stop scrolls like artillery shells, sending them hurtling hundreds of meters into the midst of the orc army.
This was warfare by sheer economic brute force. As several Time Stop scrolls unrolled and flared, ninety-nine percent of the orcs were frozen in place within temporal fields, rendered lambs to the slaughter.
The rare few orc powerhouses capable of warding against the Time Stop effect received Ryan's undivided attention. In this ambush, another orc legend was slain, and two more were grievously wounded.
What followed was a one-sided massacre. The clerics of light blasted massive swathes with Dawn Radiance, cutting down the orcs like scythed wheat.
One surprise raid, one deadly ambush—and the campaign settled into a virtuous cycle for Ryan.
Fang City became Ryan's forward staging post, funneling in massive reinforcements. They even began reshaping the terrain, using magic to fill in steep ravines and turning rugged mountain paths into broad, smooth highways.
Meanwhile, Ryan's powerhouses did not rest. Using Fang City as an operational base, they swept across the region, waging war everywhere like an unstoppable juggernaut.
Natural hazards and treacherous terrain were negligible to legendary champions. Above all was the Silvermoon Knight: since the war began, he had drawn his blade only eight times, yet five cities were cleaved open, and three orc legends fell by his hand.
In just ten days, five legends of the Orc Kingdom had perished. The figure was so appalling that even the fearless orcs were forced to pull back their defensive lines, no longer daring to venture out on counteroffensives to reclaim their cities.
Anbaixiu finished reading the Rose of Decay's message, suddenly feeling a cold dread creep up his spine. He couldn't resist replying: [That old man's strength is completely absurd. Isn't he on the verge of death? How can he be this ferocious?!]
Cleaving a city in one slash, felling a legend in a single strike—if this old man had been thirty years younger, how could any other kingdom have fought at all? They might as well have surrendered on the spot.
Back then, he had swindled tens of millions out of the Silvermoon Knight. If the Silvermoon Knight had risked becoming an oathbreaker just to deliver him one sword strike, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
[Rose of Decay: He truly is dying. I can sense that death is not far from him now. Perhaps that is precisely why Ryan had him launch a surprise raid on the Orc Kingdom in the final chapter of his life. This is their last real threat; once this problem is resolved, Ryan goes from being surrounded on all sides to facing only the tieflings. The Emerald Dream Forest will never take the initiative to march out.]
Anbaixiu fully agreed with the Rose of Decay's assessment. The druids would never provoke Ryan of their own accord; they would most likely hide behind their Dream Barrier like turtles in a shell.
In this way, the Ryan Empire's situation would be completely transformed, becoming vastly safer.
Anbaixiu knew all too well that Ryan was preparing for the upheaval to come. The Lord of the Dawn had surely given them revelations to eliminate these latent threats in advance, allowing them to focus entirely on the cataclysm capable of bringing down the gods.
Anbaixiu asked again: [Lady Rose, have you been in the Mountain Kingdom all these days?]
[Rose of Decay: Yes. The moment I learned of Ryan's troop movements, I traveled through underground tunnels into orc territory. In fact, thanks to Ryan's invasion, I've reaped quite a harvest: three corpses of orc legends, and the soul of one legend. I plan to use these to craft a legendary undead, but I'll need your help.]
[Tiga Ultraman: You want to modify that orc's soul?]
[Rose of Decay: Exactly. Although this orc failed to ascend to a divine realm, his will is extraordinarily resolute. Using conventional methods to alter it would easily cause irreversible damage. You specialize in soul alteration, so you should be able to resolve this for me, right?]
Anbaixiu hesitated a moment, then replied: [I can give it a try, but I can't guarantee a hundred percent success.]
Souls were delicate things; altering them required the target's complete consent to guarantee success. Anbaixiu wasn't sure of his chances, but for a task this difficult, he figured the Rose of Decay wouldn't skimp on the gold.
With business concluded, Anbaixiu turned his attention back to the Orc Kingdom's plight. At the rate Ryan was going, wouldn't the orcs be wiped out within a month?
[Tiga Ultraman: Lady Rose, how long do you think the orcs can hold out?]
[Rose of Decay: Who knows? It all depends on how many days that old man has left to live. Ryan's offensive tempo has already begun to slow down. From where I stand, the Silvermoon Knight is on his last legs.]
Chapter 203