CHAPTER 328: CHAPTER 328 NETWORK

The action that followed was swift and decisive — and shockingly bloodless.

With three major clans now bound together under Riley’s banner, the prospect of overrunning the scattered smaller houses seemed almost trivial.

The camp hummed with nervous energy: commanders whispered plans, supply wagons rolled into order, and scouts reported only scattered, demoralized resistance.

It should have meant a long, grinding campaign. Instead Riley offered a single, unnerving alternative.

"Nope. We don’t have to march around wasting men and time," he said, voice flat and cold with authority. "Send messengers. Tell every clan to come to the Rice Clan. We will lay out the reforms I intend to make — and whoever refuses need not return. I will bring swift death to their clans."

His words landed like an iron bell.

For a moment the only sound was the wind over the plain and the soft creak of leather straps.

Then, as if coordinated, men around him straightened and reached for seals and parchment.

No one dared oppose him. Riley’s calm commandeered the scene; his certainty filled the space that hesitation might have occupied.

People still struggled to wrap their heads around what he had achieved.

He had done the impossible: he had won a war without a drop of blood spilled on either side.

The enemy commanders had been outmaneuvered, out-negotiated, and out-thought, convinced to surrender not by slaughter but by the inevitability of his plan.

Even those who had known Riley the longest — his father Alexander and his father-in-law Gaben — stood dumbfounded at the edge of the command ring, faces marked by a mixture of pride and disbelief.

Alexander’s jaw worked as he watched young officers marshal the first messengers.

He had fought in dozens of skirmishes, seen banners fall and cities burn; he had never witnessed victory handed over so cleanly.

"He’s my son," Alexander murmured into his beard, but there was awe beneath his words.

Gaben’s eyes were sharper.

He had married into Riley’s house and heard of the boy’s legend from brash youth into something else entirely.

He shrugged once, almost imperceptibly, and said, "I know. You have a cunning son, Alexander."

By dusk the camp became a bustle of preparation.

Scribes inscribed formal summons; riders readied their fastest mounts.

Messengers — young, wiry men chosen for speed and discretion — drank a final cup at the communal table, tightened their cloaks, and rode out beneath a sky bruised with sunset.

Each carried the same sealed decree: an invitation to parley in the Rice Clan’s great hall, and a single, unmistakable clause: Refusal will result in immediate and total retaliation.

Across the countryside, the summons spread like wildfire.

In small villages, men put down their hoes and listened as riders shouted names. In hilltop keeps, lieutenants gathered round the fire to debate whether to come and plead for mercy or to prepare for defiant resistance.

Some elders whispered that Riley’s tactic was dishonorable; others, less sentimental and more pragmatic, breathed a sigh of relief — fewer battles meant fewer widows, fewer orphans, and fields left unburned.

The political ripples were immediate.

Lesser clans that had dallied with rival houses suddenly reconsidered their alliances.

Merchants recalculated trade routes; local magistrates postponed hearings; priests crossed themselves and murmured for peace.

Meanwhile, among Riley’s own men, a chorus of suppressed approval swelled.

They saw a leader who could win without wasting lives — and that was a rare, dangerous kind of power.

At night, when the campfires guttered soft and low, Riley walked the perimeter with a few trusted captains.

He did not gloat.

He spoke in measured tones about the changes he would enact — land reforms, centralized grain stores, a new levy system that would bind the clans closer through mutual obligation rather than fear.

He spoke of law and order, of rebuilding instead of pillaging, of making the Rice Clan a place where men could lay down arms and become craftsmen again.

Some ideas were met with nods; others with skeptical frowns. But all listened.

Still, the shadow of his final warning lingered.

"Swift death" was not an idle phrase.

It promised ruthlessness to those who would defy the new order and mercy to those who would bend the knee.

Riley’s gamble was not only military; it was moral.

He offered a path to peace that required submission — and he left no room for equivocation.

By the time the first delegations arrived at the Rice Clan — wary, heavily armed, eyes scanning for traps — the great hall had been prepared.

Banners were hung, torches lit, the long table swept clean and laid with fresh bread and salt.

Alexander and Gaben took their places near the dais, faces set but proud, while Riley ascended with the flat, steady gait of a man who had already won the argument in his head.

Outside, the gathered clans looked up at the banners and understood: this was not merely a conference.

It was a gathering of ideas.

And as the doors closed and the delegations filed in under the watchful eyes of Riley’s guards, a single thought pulsed in the minds of the older men — whatever else happened in the days to come, the rules of power had changed.

The old ways of conquest by blood were giving way to a new doctrine: victory by inevitability.

Whether that promise would bind the clans in peace or shackle them to a new tyranny was yet to be seen.

News of Riley’s victory spread like wildfire across the land, and with it came endless speculation.

How had a war been won so swiftly, so cleanly, without a single body left on the battlefield?

Everywhere Riley went, nobles, warriors, and common folk alike sought an answer.

Yet, Riley never revealed his hand.

"That’s not for me to say," he would answer calmly, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

"If I tell you, it won’t work the next time." His tone was always measured, deliberate, and frustratingly vague.

The more people pressed, the more elusive he became.

It only deepened the mystery, and with it, his legend grew.

But behind closed doors, the truth came to light—spoken only in whispers.

The Wheeler clan patriarch, once a proud man feared by his vassals and respected by his rivals, finally confided in a small circle of his most loyal retainers.

The old man’s voice carried no pride as he recalled what had happened on that fateful night.

"Do not spread this beyond this room," he warned, his gaze sharp despite the shiver running down his spine.

"When the Rice and Osprey forces arrived at our gates, I thought my end had come in battle. Yet what I faced was something far more terrifying. Riley Rice appeared in my chamber—just like that, as if he had stepped out of thin air. One moment I was asleep, and the next, I woke to find his hand around my throat. He choked me slowly, deliberately, his eyes colder than steel. And all the while, outside those walls, ten thousand of my warriors stood guard, alert, ready for war. None of them saw him enter. None even sensed his presence."

He paused there, rubbing his neck as though he still felt the phantom grip.

His retainers exchanged uneasy glances but said nothing, unwilling to break the silence heavy in the chamber.

"If he could do that once, he could do it a hundred times. He wanted me to know that nowhere was safe—not my chamber, not my fortress, not even the heart of my clan. Tell me, who in their right mind would risk war against such a man? I chose then and there. I would rather live as his ally than die as his enemy."

The patriarch’s hand trembled slightly as he lifted his cup, wine sloshing inside.

He drank deeply, trying to wash away the lingering fear that clung to him like a shadow.

He had seen many things in his long life, fought many battles, outlasted many rivals.

But never had he encountered a man who could slip through steel gates, bypass elite guards, and stand over him in the dead of night with death in his grasp.

To him, that night was not just a brush with death—it was a rebirth, a second life he had no intention of wasting.

He was already old, already at the peak of the food chain.

Dying now was not an option.

There was no glory left to chase, no kingdom left to conquer—only survival, and the preservation of what he had built.

From that day forward, his loyalty to Riley was not feigned nor born of politics—it was carved into his very bones.

And as he dismissed his closest men with a stern warning never to repeat what they had heard, the Wheeler patriarch leaned back in his chair, staring into the flickering candlelight.

For the first time in decades, he was afraid. Not of rival clans. Not of betrayal.

But of one man—Riley Rice.

And in that fear, he found clarity: better to bend, better to serve, better to live under the shadow of such a figure than to be crushed by the weight of his wrath.