Overwhelming Firepower

In the throne room, Lucen spoke to the king about the events that led to the monster attack. The King and the others frowned as they heard the entire story.

”So there are now spies in the Kingdom, and they seem to be lurking, doing something unknown within the kingdom.”

King Ragnor’s voice was calm, but the intensity was there. ”So the coming chaos cannot be stopped...”

The King then looked at Alexander’s group and smiled. ”Thank you once again, young heroes, for your service.”

Alexander and the others immediately lowered their heads. ”It was our honor, Your Majesty,” Alexander answered.

King Ragnor nodded. ”You have all done more than enough for today. You are wounded, exhausted. I have prepared a few rooms for all of you to rest in, just follow the head butler.”

Alexander’s group understood that it was time for them to leave, as a serious conversation was about to take place. They bowed their heads and headed out, following the head butler to their rooms.

Once Alexander’s group was gone, the remaining people started discussing how to deal with the spies and which place the spies originated from.

King Ragnor leaned back on his throne, his fingers tapping once against the armrest. The sound was quiet, but everyone present immediately stopped speaking.

”We must prepare for war,” the king suddenly said.

A few were surprised by the sudden talk of war, but most already knew that this was something inevitable.

”The kingdom of Inevir has seemed to have gathered enough forces to rival or even surpass our own. As every single one of you should know, the Kingdom of Inevir is a descendant of the former Empire that struck down our own, which forced our ancestors to build the Kingdom of Norvaegard. They have always wanted to conquer us; their ambition has never faded, and now it would seem that they wish to try again.”

The Throne room was silent as they all listened to the King, who continued speaking. ”Of course, they won’t just attack a week or two from now, but it is better to always be prepared for war, especially now that the Rocton Empire seems to be stirring again.”

***

The mention of the Rocton Empire made the atmosphere in the throne room grow even heavier.

Unlike the Kingdom of Inevir, which had always been hostile toward Norvaegard, the Rocton Empire was a different kind of threat. It was a new empire that was created after the fall of a much older one.

This Empire was created for a single purpose: war and domination. It was no secret that the Rocton Empire sought to rule the entire continent.

In the beginning, its march was relentless as it conquered one kingdom after another, and that was when another empire rose.

The Varkath Empire was an empire created from the merger of multiple kingdoms to fight against the Rocton Empire.

Because of the Varkath Empire and the numerous rebellions happening within the Rocton Empire due to its relentless march of conquering, it finally stopped.

At least, that was how it had been until recently. That was until the Rocton Empire gained a new emperor.

The Iron Blooded Emperor Valcarius Rocten. He was a man who killed his way to the throne. To him, there were only allies and enemies.

He had all of his siblings killed, and those who supported them. To make sure that none would come back for revenge, he made sure to wipe out entire bloodlines.

Valcarius Rocten was not a ruler who wanted peace; he wanted one thing, and that was complete domination.

He, among all the rulers of the Rocton Empire, was the closest to what the first Emperor was like.

He had climbed to the throne over a mountain of corpses. There were even rumors that in some regions, entire towns had been burned simply because one influential family within them had been tied to a rival prince.

He ruled with an iron fist. The old Rocton Empire had been brutal, where might makes right, but under Valcarius, that brutality had become much more.

Now, there were once again talks of continuing the march forward to conquer the entire continent, but unlike before, when they fought with overwhelming military might, this time they planned something else.

They are now supporting various kingdoms, as long as they became vassals of the Rocton Empire, they would help with soldiers, weapons, funds, and even magic research.

On the surface, it sounded like diplomacy. In truth, it was conquest wearing a polite mask.

The Rocton Empire no longer needed to send its own army first. It only needed to whisper into the ears of ambitious kings, desperate nobles, and bitter warlords.

Submit, and we will make you strong. Resist, and we will make your enemies stronger. But there was another condition hidden beneath their support.

The Rocton Empire only recognized humans as true citizens of the continent. They only help those kingdoms that have human leaders and a human population.

Non-humans were considered lesser beings. Beastmen, elves, dwarves, fairies, and even mixed-blood communities were treated not as people, but as resources, slaves, obstacles, or filth to be removed.

In the lands influenced by the Rocton Empire, non-humans were not merely treated poorly. They were removed from society entirely. They could not own land, hold titles, or even carry weapons unless under human command.

Those who were useful were enslaved in all but name. Those who were not useful disappeared.

Dwarven workshops were seized in the name of imperial necessity. The empire claimed that dwarves had hidden too much of their knowledge from mankind, so their mines, forges, and ancestral halls were taken over.

Dwarven smiths who refused to work were branded as traitors to the continent and dragged away.

Elven forests were cut down and converted into military colonies. Their sacred trees were harvested for bows, staffs, and mana-conducting materials. The empire called it the proper use of wasted land.

Beastmen tribes were split apart, their strongest warriors chained and forced into auxiliary armies.

Those who survived enough battles were sometimes granted better food, better chains, and the hollow title of imperial servant.

Fairies and other mana-rich races suffered the worst fate. They were too small to be treated as soldiers, too valuable to be ignored, and too different to be pitied by the empire. So they became ingredients, mana sources, experimental subjects.

Living components in research that even the Black Tower would hesitate to touch without careful reason.

To the Rocton Empire, this was not cruelty. This was a mercy to use the lesser beings as they were created for.

This was their rightful place where they would be able to do what they were born to do, to serve humans.

That was the doctrine spreading across the lands influenced by the Rocton Empire.

It was not simply hatred shouted by drunk soldiers or cruel nobles. It was now written into law, taught in military academies, preached in public squares, and repeated by officials until people began to believe it was common sense.

To the Rocton Empire, all of this was order. To Valcarius Rocten, it was efficiency.

The Iron Blooded Emperor did not consider himself cruel. That was what made him terrifying. In his eyes, cruelty was a wasteful emotion. Hatred was something lesser men indulged in.

Valcarius did not hate non-humans. He simply did not see them as people. They were resources to be counted, assigned, used, and discarded. The same way one would count timber, iron, grain, horses, or coal.

That belief had made him beloved by the most fanatical human supremacists within the empire. It had also made him feared and hated by every non-human race living near Rocton’s borders.

If Valcarius treated non-humans as tools, then he treated rebels as diseases. A tool could be repaired. A disease had to be cut out from the body, lest it infect the body in its entirety.

When rebellions appeared within the empire, Valcarius did not simply send soldiers to defeat them. He erased the cause, the supporters, the families, the villages that sheltered them, and the roads that allowed them to move.

If a noble rebelled, his house was extinguished. If a city opened its gates to rebels, it was burned down its people were used as slaves.

If a town provided food to a rebel army, the town was emptied, its people scattered into labor camps, and its name removed from imperial records.

Valcarius did not care about the decrease in population; just like cattle, humans can be bred. So to those he considered sinners, he used them like cattle to produce more, to increase the human population, and from a young age, he would teach these new children the correct way to serve the empire.

Under Valcarius Rocten, the empire had become something colder than a conquering nation. It was now a machine built from obedience, bloodlines, and broken peoples.

Every village it touched was sorted. Every life was measured. Every child was shaped. The Rocton Empire did not merely seek to conquer the world. It sought to decide what kind of lives were allowed to exist within it.