“My lord,” Seth murmured as he bowed.

  Eugene didn’t take his eyes off the paper he was reading until he had memorized its contents, then summoned a spark of flame to burn it.

  You would think our successes would have convinced the General Command to send us more resources, but they’re almost annoyed that we’re breaking through while they aren’t.

  It was no surprise, not after he’d seen how deeply rooted partisan politics were among the top brass, but he still couldn’t help feeling a flicker of disappointment.

  His father had always spoken of the High Generals as people of incredible integrity and valor. The reality on the ground was much different, which made him suspect that either his father had embellished his tales—not something he was known for—or that the quality of the top of Berea’s army had declined, at least when it came to the interior.

  From what Leon told him, the old monsters manning the eastern coast were still capable of turning the tide of battles single-handedly, and didn’t back down from a scrap with a Leviathan when they needed to let their men retreat.

  Wishing I could have someone like that here won't change anything, and if everything goes to plan, I might not be as alone in holding the line as I was before.

  He finally directed his attention to Seth, the new liaison between the 14th Special Company and House Crowley after the previous one had fallen to a dwarven ambush.

  “Go on,” he said, hoping for good news but ready to hear bad news. They’d been pushing hard into what was now called the 7th district of the dwarven territories, having already crossed the official Northern border of Berea, but the resistance only grew more intense as they neared the first city in their sector.

  Seth, a veteran knight who had participated in multiple military campaigns, showed no discomfort about waiting or any hint about the information he might have brought.

  “We received a report from Captain Sadie’s forward group, my lord,” he said. “They have identified the next choke point.”

  “That sounds like good news,” Eugene replied with a bitter twist to his mouth. “Out with the bad, then.”

  Seth slightly tilted his head, acknowledging his point. “The Captain believes there might be another demonic nest on the most direct path.”

  Closing his eyes for the briefest moment, Eugene wondered what deity he had offended to be forced to face so many of the damnable abominations. According to reports from other companies, they had only encountered minor demonic taint, not even enough to justify calling in exorcists, which made his own far more sensational encounters less likely to be believed.

  “What’s his assessment?” He asked, almost dreading the answer.

  Seth paused for a moment, clearly indicating how much he disliked what he was about to say. “He believes there might be a Lesser Demon,” he eventually reported.

  Eugene didn’t let that surprise him, however much he might have wanted to pause and process. Demonic creatures were nasty enough on their own, but it was becoming clearer that they had stumbled into a full-blown Incursion, even if it wasn’t yet enough to threaten the whole kingdom or summon a Greater Demon.

  “I shall inform the General, then,” he said, waving Seth away, who bowed and left him to handle the aftermath of his words.

  Leaning back in his chair, Eugene couldn’t help but long for the days when his biggest problems were that his sons were trying to skip training or that the new recruits at the wall weren’t progressing fast enough.

  “The burden of power, huh?” he asked himself. That was another thing his father liked to say, that he couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to bear the weight of an entire noble House on his shoulders. Well, he was understanding it now.

  A flick of his hand caused a chest on the other side of the tent to spring open, responding more to his will than to any mana use. Inside, among the spoils he’d taken from his fallen enemies, lay a communication orb, and he summoned it to himself a moment later.

  Pushing a thread of power into it, he let the complex enchantments do the work for him, focusing only on the person he wanted to reach.

  There was a brief pause before a face appeared inside the crystal.

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  “Lord Crowley, I hope this isn’t yet another report of demonic activity,” General Landster grunted, his prodigious mustache twitching. He was a heavy man, though Eugene knew there was solid muscle underneath the padding, and while he wasn’t the bravest man, he hadn’t been a bad leader so far, if one who preferred limited expansion to avoid overstretching.

  His face probably gave him away, because Landster exhaled in annoyance. “Well, out with it. This is probably gonna be good, if you are calling at this hour.”

  Eugene inclined his head and quickly went over the recent report he had just received. By the time he finished sharing his thoughts, the man on the other end of the orb was grinding his teeth.

  Still, even a passive man like Landster knew no one would make up for the presence of a Lesser Demon, much less the Captain of the 14th Special Company, a landed noble who was very close to reaching Prestige.

  This might even count as his final Feat if he successfully takes on the demon. I’ll need to remember to keep him involved in the fight.

  “Very well, this matter has escalated well beyond a few sightings,” Landster grunted. “It’s clear there is another player in the game, regardless of the dwarves’ reluctance to talk about what led them to push to the surface.”

  Eugene nodded. He had suspected that demons had been behind the current conflict for a while, but he thought of it more like dark whisperings in a ruler's ears rather than an actual force driving the dwarves up from the Underworld.

  Still, it didn’t change what was to come next.

  “Prepare to mobilize in force, Lord Crowley. I shall lead the rest of the company to meet you and drive into the nest. No abomination shall be tolerated under the Sun of Berea!” The usually moderate general growled, and Eugene stood up, saluting his figure.

  “Yes, sir!”

  Things are reaching a critical point. If we push through here, we’ll threaten the first real dwarven city, and the balance of negotiations will shift.

  He doubted the dark dwarves would surrender, even if they successfully took over the city, but they would need to adjust the flow of resources. More importantly, he’d be exposing whoever else was running things behind the scenes because the difference in treatment and results along the battle lines didn’t make any sense.

  It wasn’t that Rhea didn’t realize she wasn’t supposed to sneak out to meet every mysterious person who sent her anonymous letters. She knew that the older she got, the more likely it was that the Ultimers would send someone to finish the job, and taking her away from Ogden would be their first move.

  Even a powerful house like theirs would hesitate to face the dragon in human form, though admittedly, it was unlikely they knew, since she had only recently learned her master’s true identity.

  Point being, Rhea knew what she was doing— sneaking out on a moonless night to meet with an unknown person far enough in the fields where no one could hear her call for help— wasn’t very smart. But the message she received spoke of white dandelions in winter snow, something she had seen only once, during a walk with her older brother when life still seemed like it could never go wrong.

  That meant one of two things. The first, and the one she desperately hoped for, was that her brother had survived the past few years hiding from the agents of House Ultimers and had finally gained enough power or connections to meet her, no matter how secretive that meeting might be.

  The second option, which she hated even to think about but couldn’t completely ignore and had led her to prepare more than enough explosives to level a town, was that he had been caught, his mind plundered, and this was the Ultimers cleaning up the last remnants of her line.

  Rhea snuck past the patrols, having learned their routes over the past two days since she first received the letter.

  Not that they are paying much attention to this side of town, but there have been a few cases of people trying to sneak in without proper documentation, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. Floria’s growth has been nothing short of astounding, and it’s only natural for parasites to gather when the bounty is so tempting.

  Her [Amulet of Courage] ensured she never lost footing or made a sound as she moved through the tall cornfields, though she kept her mana expenditure low, wanting to reserve her full strength in case something went wrong.

  Eventually, she reached the meeting spot, a particularly gnarled tree that had long ago drained the life from the surrounding terrain, and that had been left untouched to mark the final stretch of Floria’s land, beyond which the grassland began.

  There, as she’d expected, someone was waiting for her. In the dark, it was difficult to see his features, even with her enhanced senses, but luckily, she wasn’t as limited as she once was.

  “[Magnifying Lens],” she murmured, and the scant light filtering through the cloud cover responded to her command, sharpening her view of the mysterious man.

  Her breath caught in her throat the moment she saw who it was.

  Dark auburn hair pulled into an elegant braid, glittering hazel eyes, the same as her own, and most importantly, a soft smile that told her he’d already seen her, a perfect mirror of the one in her memories, though a bit leaner than she remembered. Dark circles shaded his eyes, but they didn’t blemish his appearance, and although his frame was slightly thinner, he was taller than she recollected.

  “It’s been years,” she whispered. She’d known he’d be different, but seeing it was a shock, especially because it told her that while she’d been learning from one of the greatest masters of the alchemical arts, he was living a much more dangerous life with few comforts.

  “It has, and you’ve only grown more beautiful,” he said back.

  Rhea felt the overwhelming impulse to run into his arms. She desperately wanted to let go and return to the little girl who believed her brother was the most amazing person in the world. But she couldn’t. That girl had been killed when her grandmother had whisked her away from the burning ruins of everything she’d known, when she faced a Greater Demon in a shattered temple.

  She squared her shoulders and released a fine powder into the air, just enough to set the area ablaze with alchemical fires at the slightest wrong twitch.

  “What was my nickname among the ladies of my class?” She asked.

  Her brother, or the person she desperately hoped was her brother, blinked in surprise before inclining his head. “They called you Wallflower, which I never really understood.”

  She relaxed slightly, but still didn’t disperse the powder. If the worst-case scenario had happened and her brother had been captured and his mind broken, that could have been discovered too, no matter how minor. Someone skilled enough to impersonate him this far would remember that such details made all the difference.

  There was, luckily, one thing she could ask that only her brother would know. Not because they had talked about it before, but because she was sure he shared the same thoughts and arrived at the same conclusion.

  “What is our duty?”

  This time, there was no hesitation, only a dark glint in his eyes that revealed he had indeed taken the same path as her. “The eradication of House Ultimer, the death of everyone involved in our family’s downfall, up to and including Duke Mordhau, who gave them the power needed to destroy us. Only then shall their spirits rest,” he replied, unsheathing a blade with a harsh screech.

  Rhea didn’t back down from what could have been seen as an aggressive move. Instead, she moved closer, her eyes locked on the smoky sword, from which she could feel the trapped, vengeful screams of at least a dozen souls.

  45+ chapters: