Chapter 764: The King Without a Banner (Patreon)

That night, Luke sat in his office, staring at the Kingdom Core interface. The room doubled as his laboratory. One side held the small garden he used to grind Profession experience. The other held a desk and chair he’d brought back from his mission with Franky. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the place feel like an actual office.

Kingdom CoreMonarch: Luke MoonKingdom Name: -Level: 4Citizens: 321/400Soul Energy: 5,147/30,000

Skills: [Dark Lord’s Army], [Citizenship Card], [Sovereign’s Gaze], [Domain Mana], [Kingdom’s Calling], [Safe Domain], [Kingdom Bond], [Core Soul Reservoir], [Crown Vigilance]

[Quests]: [Kings of the New Era (Optional)], [Teleportation Array (Optional)], [Establish a Large Farm], [Establish a Military Guard], [Have 1 Kingdom Builder], [Have 1 Kingdom Blacksmith], [Have 1 Kingdom Farmer]

Reaching level 5 would take more than simply gaining citizens. New quests had appeared, and some of them seemed mandatory for advancing the Core.

[Have 1 Kingdom Blacksmith]: A citizen of your kingdom must possess the Blacksmith Profession. They must unlock the Profession while they are a citizen of your kingdom and reach at least level 10 while producing only items intended for use by your kingdom. This achievement must take place within your kingdom.

At least the skill I unlocked at level 4 should let me cheat that requirement.

[Kingdom’s Calling]: When the Monarch personally grants citizenship to a human through the Citizenship Card, the Kingdom Core analyzes the individual’s life experience, talents, skills, education, and personal affinities to determine the Profession best suited to them. If the minimum requirements are met, that Profession will automatically awaken when the citizenship bond is formed. This effect does not occur when citizenship is granted by a third party, as citizens personally recognized by the Monarch hold greater significance.

I’ll need to make the humans in the village my citizens.

Luke switched to another section of the interface. Right now, his greatest concern was what the earlier quests had revealed.

[Teleportation Array]: A structure created by the system. One currently exists on each continent. Your worlds were once separated across layers of reality. Now that they have been joined on a single planet, bridges can be formed between them. An Array allows a person to teleport to another Array, provided they possess the correct coordinates and the receiving Array approves the transfer. Complete this quest’s requirements for additional information.

Requirements: [Kingdom Core] Level 2 (Completed).

Additional Information: The Teleportation Array is located on the southern coast of this continent, within the territory of a Kingdom Core. The Monarchs of this continent are advised to work together to determine who will control the Matrix. Although the structure symbolizes unity between continents, it may also be used as a weapon of war. If an invader seizes your Matrix, they may configure it to connect to the Matrix on their home continent and teleport an army through.

Finding the Matrix would be difficult. The other quest was worse.

[Kings of the New Era]: The full integration of your universe has begun a New Era across the multiverse. Such eras bring countless changes, and often produce seeds that may one day grow into Gods. Congratulations on becoming part of this New Era. This quest has only been made available to Monarchs who participated in the Sunken Realms Event. A World Council of Monarchs from your former planet will be held within one year of the conclusion of Stage 3. Only Monarchs whose communities demonstrate the greatest growth will be invited.

Invitation Requirement (Unlocked): Rank D Monarch and a Kingdom Core with 10,000 citizens.

Luke stared at the requirement. He had 321 citizens. The System wanted ten thousand.

“You really want to screw me, don’t you, System?”

Luke leaned back in his chair. He’d gotten lucky with the goblins because he’d helped Illyra. But ten thousand citizens? That was already a seriously developed kingdom. Not the amateur operation he was running now, with a bunch of tents scattered around a castle.

“If it keeps throwing kingdom improvement quests at me... what the hell am I supposed to do to reach ten thousand citizens?”

He closed the interface. He had less than eleven months to earn that invitation.

Maybe I should focus on finding the Teleportation Array, use it to reach another continent, and continue the search from there. Building a kingdom that large in a few months is completely insane.

The door slammed open.

Angie stepped inside. “Norn just got back. He nearly charged straight into the human and goblin camp.”

“I’m guessing it’s urgent.”

“The orc army is moving against the humans.”

Luke went still. Ten thousand citizens suddenly felt like tomorrow’s problem.

“Yeah. That qualifies.”

He rose from his chair. “Gather Joseph, Cecilia, Caleb, Otto, and the goblin leaders.”

Angie stared at him. “What are you going to do, my lord?”

Luke walked past her toward the door.

“I’m going to war.”

***

The alarm sounded before Garen could get a straight answer out of Baron Vessel.

“Y-you can count on the Emerald Cloaks,” the noble said. “As for my own presence in the battle... well, I have a city to govern and protect. Unresolved matters. A chain of command that could collapse in my absence.”

Everyone in the guild’s meeting hall rushed to their feet. Garen was already moving toward the exit when Kyran sighed behind him.

“Giving us the adventurers is help enough. Level 70 adventurers are rare these days.”

Edrien Vessel was clearly not a man raised for battle. He had grown up orbiting the high nobility of the capital, where his greatest dilemma had probably been how to address counts and dukes without sounding too arrogant or too submissive.

Garen pushed through the doors.

Reinforcements had poured in from Veyra and other parts of Rosemark, turning Nyvma into a command center. He and Kyran had both been offered the chance to retreat deeper into the kingdom, travel to the coast, and return from there to their respective territories. They had refused. The orc problem had to be dealt with here. The orcs had dug in between three kingdoms, making them everyone’s problem.

“A rider’s coming!” someone shouted from the wall.

Garen was mounted by the time the rider passed through the gates. He rode straight past the messenger without waiting for an explanation. He didn’t need one. The alarm, the restrained panic, and the way the men on the wall were moving told him everything he needed to know.

The orcs.

Five level 70 adventurers. Garen was stronger than any of them, and Kyran might be stronger still. That put them near the level of the orc captains. The general was the problem.

Rank D? If he is, fighting him alone will be dangerous. At the very least, I’ll need the right conditions. If I still had my equipment from the days of the Star Smiths, I’d feel a lot safer.

But he didn’t. He would have to fight with what he had.

When he reached the front line, the human soldiers were already standing ready. Orc corpses lay scattered across the plain, remnants of earlier assaults, and the ground beneath his horse’s hooves felt unusually soft. Garen frowned, but movement in the distance pulled his attention back to the orc camp.

Every orc was on their feet, armed and lined up in a dark mass, awaiting a single command.

“What happened, Commander?” Garen asked, pulling his horse to a stop beside an officer.

“They all stood up at once. Now they’re just staring at us.”

The orcs remained motionless, weapons in hand.

“What does that mean? Some kind of intimidation ritual?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

The answer came all at once. Every orc charged. Their roars rolled across the plain, deep and savage. This was no small assault meant to test the humans’ strength. It was no probe. This time, all of them were coming.

“Archers!” someone shouted. “Loose!”

Arrows rose into the night sky and rained down over the charging orcs. Many were hit, but few stopped. In the darkness, they looked less like soldiers and more like beasts.

Kyran raised his sword from horseback. Across the field, the orcs blew their horns, filling the plain with a harsh, grinding wail. Then Kyran charged, his soldiers surging after him, and Garen followed.

Minutes later, the armies collided.

The orcs’ brutality became obvious at once. Some of them seemed to have no souls, only instinct. They attacked with absurd strength, ignored wounds that would have dropped ordinary men, and kept advancing even as blades tore through their defenses.

A giant boar smashed through a line of spearmen, sending men sprawling in every direction. Garen rode to meet it, aiming for the rider as he slipped past the mount’s massive tusks and carved through the orc with his sword. Every strike had to be clean. One mistake could mean being crushed beneath the beast’s weight.

Time vanished inside the battle. Garen crossed paths with Kyran several times amid the chaos, while the Emerald Cloaks fought together with practiced coordination, focusing their attacks on the captains. Those were the worst of them. Their bodies swelled, steam poured from their skin, and their strength climbed higher as rage consumed them.

Garen broke away from the others because he needed to fight alone. That was how he grew stronger; his buff skills became more powerful whenever he was at a disadvantage. Somewhere in the chaos, he gained a Class level, something that hadn’t happened in a long time.

With one precise strike, he killed an orc captain. For an instant, the world seemed to slow as Garen swept his gaze across the battlefield, searching for the enemy who mattered. The one leading all of this. He couldn’t find him.

What’s going on?

He forced his way through the fighting and ran toward Kyran.

“Kyran!”

The king was battling two orcs at once. Garen came in from the side and helped bring one of them down.

“I can’t see him,” Garen said. “The orc general isn’t here.”

Together, they finished off the remaining orc.

“I haven’t seen him either,” Kyran said. “And I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“That this is too easy.”

“Exactly.”

The general wasn’t losing this battle. He wasn’t even here to fight it. More orcs came at them, but the Emerald Cloaks continued cutting them down. Slowly, the orc army began to retreat as they lost their greatest advantage: superior numbers.

The terror on the humans’ faces began to fade. Some of the orcs were no longer retreating in formation. A few threw aside their shields to run faster, while an entire unit broke apart and scattered across the plain.

“We’re winning!” commanders shouted.

“Something’s wrong,” Garen said.

His voice vanished beneath the cheers.

“Hold the line!” he shouted. “Don’t pursue them!”

But units were already advancing. Commanders urged their soldiers forward, unwilling to let the enemy escape. Mounted soldiers arrived to reinforce the formation. One of the knights wore silver armor, and even his horse was protected. His clothes bore Rosemark’s wine-red color and the kingdom’s crest.

“Commander Garen Voss of Solvar,” Garen said.

“Halric, Veyra City Guard.” The knight lowered his spear toward the retreating orcs. “We finish this tonight.”

Then the ground trembled.

Garen looked down and finally understood what had felt wrong beneath his horse’s hooves. The earth was too soft.

Too hollow.

“Fall back!”

The ground split open before the warning could spread. The trembling returned with brutal force, and screams erupted all around him. Garen tried to run, but after only a few steps, the earth collapsed beneath his feet. He fell alongside men, horses, wood, stone, and clouds of dust as the world caved in around him.

He slammed into the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. His ears rang, dust filled his mouth, and for several seconds, he couldn’t tell which way was up. When he finally managed to rise, he saw that a large part of the army had been swallowed by the earth.

“What’s happening?!” someone shouted.

Garen looked around and realized they were standing inside an enormous crater. There was nothing natural about it. Timber-braced tunnels opened along the walls, connected by walkways carved into the earth, while torches illuminated the supports, paths, and the entire battlefield that had been hidden beneath their feet.

The orcs hadn’t simply been surrounding Nyvma. They had spent all that time digging, preparing, and waiting.

Figures began emerging from the tunnels, all of them orcs, all of them grinning. There were far more than before, and along the rim of the crater, the ones who had supposedly retreated returned with bows, spears, and stones already in hand.

“Did you really think it would be that easy?” one of them called.

Laughter echoed from every direction.

“Now it’s our turn!”

Arrows flew, and flaming stones rained down on the humans trapped below. Horses lay buried beneath the wreckage, while soldiers struggled to stand only to be struck down again.

Garen barely had time to brace himself before something seized him. A massive orc in heavy plate armor lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing and hurled him across the crater.

Garen hit the dirt, rolled, and forced himself back to his feet. The armored orc was stronger than any captain he had faced that night.

“What happened, little humans?” the orc asked with a vicious grin. “You were winning a moment ago.”

The survivors gathered in the center of the crater, forming a wide defensive circle as the orcs closed in. The creatures stomped in unison, pounding out a heavy rhythm like a war chant, each impact sending another vibration through the earth.

Dread tightened in the soldiers’ chests. An orc captain stepped toward the circle and raised his axe over a wounded soldier.

“Any last words?”

The axe started down.

“You’re in my way,” a voice said.

The captain froze.

A masked figure stood behind him, his black cloak shifting as though it were alive despite the absence of wind. He walked forward with an unnatural calm for someone surrounded by orcs.

“Oh? You’ve got coura—”

The orc’s head flew from his shoulders. His body dropped to its knees before toppling into the dirt.

Garen and the others stared in disbelief. His eyes swept over the masked man’s clothes, searching for a crest or insignia, but there was no mark of Rosemark, Solvar, or Marlow. He had no idea how the stranger had gotten there.

The masked man raised one hand.

All at once, debris began to tremble throughout the crater. Earth, stone, and shattered wood rose into the air, uncovering men who had been suffocating beneath the rubble and pulling trapped horses free from the wreckage.

Around the crater, the orcs’ grins began to fade as the entire battlefield bent to the stranger’s will.

Then the masked man spoke.

“Tell your general I’m here to kill him.”

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