CHAPTER 934: THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT

Stoneheart Citadel, seat of the Stoneheart Horde.

Orion sat high on his throne once more. Below him stood Delilah and a single, black-clad shadow.

"Princess Ava of the human kingdom has left Rose Manor," Delilah reported, her voice a suggestive murmur. "By my calculations, she should be arriving in Soaring Bird City any day now."

"She’s the one presiding over this little three-way summit they’ve cooked up."

She let the silence hang for a moment before leaning forward slightly. "So, my lord... Are we going to grace them with our presence?"

Orion didn’t answer. His focus was elsewhere.

"What about Kronos?"

Ava’s movements didn’t seem to concern him nearly as much as Kronos’s.

"Still at Rose Manor. From all reports, he does nothing but train, day in and day out."

Orion said nothing, closing his eyes to think. Sending Ava to Soaring Bird City was an obvious move by the human kingdom—a calculated effort to placate both the stoneheart horde and the blood elf race.

An emotional play, Orion thought. A blatant attempt to use my history with Ava and Kronos to stall us from holding the traitor Torin accountable.

He opened his eyes, his decision made. "Since King Harold is extending such a personal invitation, you will attend the summit. See what they have to say."

He had already chosen his envoy.

"But before you go to Soaring Bird City," he added, a sharp glint in his eye, "make a detour to the City of the Guardian. And ride Xalathar."

A flicker of genuine delight crossed Delilah’s face. She accepted the command with a pleased bow.

Arriving on the back of Xalathar, the Legendary-level abyssal dragon, meant she wasn’t just a representative. She was Orion’s voice. She was his will made manifest.

That distinction was critical, not just within the Stoneheart Horde, but to every other major faction watching.

"And the northern lords? What’s the situation?"

Now that the Horde had solidified its foothold in the south, Delilah’s Sentinel Corps had cast a wide net of scouts across the territories of the other races. Torin’s rise was bound to cause ripples in the north.

"Most are watching and waiting," Delilah said. "Only two have actively joined the human Baron’s rebellion: a werewolf lord and a satyr lord."

"Their encampment is a fortress. It’s crawling with specialists, an unnerving number of them. We’ve lost every scout we sent to penetrate their perimeter."

Orion’s brow furrowed at that. "Pull the Sentinel Corps off any intel gathering related to the Avenger Armies for now."

"As you command," Delilah replied. She cast a sidelong glance at the silent shadow on the other side of the throne before taking her leave, her steps silent as she exited the great hall.

Only when she was gone did Orion turn his attention to the remaining figure. "Report."

"My lord," the shadow began, his voice a dry rasp, "the human, Torin, has successfully reached Legendary level."

The air in the hall grew heavy.

"But his aura is unstable. It fluctuates wildly. Our strategists believe he used some forbidden technique to ascend. There will be consequences."

It was a bombshell. Torin hit Legendary level faster than I did.

But then, considering he was now tethered to a patron like Ogu the Clown, it wasn’t entirely surprising. With that kind of backing, anything was possible.

"Continue," Orion commanded, his voice flat. He wanted to know just how powerful Torin had become.

"Latest intel confirms five primary leaders in the Avenger Armies: Torin himself, Brokk of the Dark Dwarves, Gotte-Steel of the Blacksteel gnomes, the werewolf Orwar, and the satyr Jin."

"However, we believe there are two additional Legendary-level powerhouses hidden within their camp."

"We don’t have an ID on them yet," the shadow admitted. "They’re ghosts."

Seven Legendary-level combatants.

To the man Orion was now, it was a trivial threat. But if he were still just a lord, that lineup would have been more formidable than an entire theater command during the last North-South War.

"What about the other northern clans? Have you made any inroads?" Orion asked, his tone almost casual.

Torin was a nuisance, but the real threat was the entity pulling his strings—Ogu, the traitor to the Champions Alliance.

Fortunately, the human kingdom was taking point on this one, allowing him the luxury of observing from the shadows.

"Our intelligence largely corroborates what the succubus reported," the shadow said. "However, our strategists predict that if the Avenger Armies win their first major engagement against the kingdom, a flood of northern clans will join their cause."

"In their eyes, the human kingdom has already lost one continental war. They believe it can lose another. The victory of the white dragon Frostsire convinced them all that humanity is in terminal decline."

So that’s it. They wanted a repeat of history. The northern lords were greedy, ambitious. They craved the resources and fertile lands of the south.

"Makes sense," Orion murmured to himself, putting himself in their position. "If I were a northern lord, I’d probably join the invasion too. If things go south, you just retreat back to your territory. Nothing wagered, nothing lost."

He sat in the silence of the throne room, turning the thought over.

"A pity for them," he whispered, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. "This time is different."

His own prior conclusion was wrong. The last war was a coalition of dwarves, humans, and blood elves against the dragons and the northern hordes. But this time, the board had changed.

The dwarves had been corrupted and had switched sides, true. But the southern coalition now included the Stoneheart Horde.

Even if Ogu the Clown manifested a powerful archlord avatar, it wouldn’t be enough. The north was going to lose this war, and in the process, their lands would be squeezed even further.

"Any word on him?"

The "him" was obvious. Ogu.

"Apologies, my lord. The Hall Master is handling that file personally. I am not privy to its contents."

Orion nodded. The shadow bowed low and simply dissolved back into the darkness he came from, leaving no trace he was ever there.

Orion closed his eyes again, his mind slipping away to the Survivor’s Platform, ready to go shopping.

Emerald Dream Realm, the Kasenna Sea.

The invasion by the dragon flights was a relentless meat grinder. The mid-to-low tier combat units on both sides were locked in a brutal, attritional struggle.

After weeks of sustained combat, Orion’s thunderhawk army and Demon Makareth’s gargoyle army were both shattered remnants.

Having lost all unit cohesion, they had been rotated to the rear to lick their wounds and reform. The raw aerial combat prowess of the dragons’ lesser dragon beasts and drakes was simply overwhelming.

Now, holding the front line was a new force Leonidas had deployed: a flying beast called the green-scaled fireraven.

Though its name suggested a raven, the creature looked more like a grotesque, featherless vulture, its screech echoing over the churning waves of the Kasenna Sea.