That made the battle of the capital much calmer than ever. I didn’t feel any joy in that achievement. After all even if the fight here was over, I’d still remain seated here, guarding this place and merge.

As things started to calm down, time started to pass slowly. I even thought about taking a nap or something, yet to be stopped when I saw a change.

Lord, there are enemies spotted coming from the north!

I forgot totally about my scattered teams. Yet one of them spoke about an army approaching.

North? Wasn’t it the place protected by that big gulf?

Where?

They are approaching the big gulf at north

Who are they?

Lord, they are a mix of races, Dragons, Illusionists, Succubi, and even Hectors!

That dude looked a bit scared, and he should be. Such a coalition army wasn’t something new. And I knew how fierce such a union would be..

However, they got to cross that gulf first. Besides, my forces here are really strong right now.

Trying to come here? At this moment? Humph! It seemed their paragons had a death wish for their forces!

Besides… coming from the north meant only one thing.

How are things at your end? I didn’t hesitate to open a chat with an old friend.

Boring! They all retreated back to their lands, asked for a treaty of peace

Did you sign it?

Not yet. My paragon is a bit sceptical about doing that

Tell him this… They moved a large number of their forces towards my lands. You know what does this mean, right?

Damn! Are you sure? This is big! This is huge! Damn bastards! That’s why they ran back to their lands and asked for a peace treaty!

They are here, far away from your place. You know what to do

Leave it to me, bro! I’ll smash their homes over their heads! I give you my word, this war will end today!

Good luck then

It was Wryly, that Berserker who went missing for such a long time already.

He was busy fighting in the epic war in the north. But when I heard the report from my scout, I knew they had to come from there.

And with what Wryly said, it was quite obvious. They moved most of their forces here.

But wait… If they did so, didn’t that mean the size and strength of their forces were different from the foes we were fighting so far?

And before I could think of a way to stop the incoming army from getting here, I got two more disturbing messages.

Damn! This is bad! The fourth quest just started! And we all got punished for not taking part in it!

Right now? it was Fang, and he seemed pissed off.

It just started a few minutes ago. The messages that I received are all bad! We got debuffs, lowering our stars by half! In the meantime, our enemies will gain double of their stats! Not to mention they will add more stats at this moment, according to the quest rules

I get it I knew this was bad. And weirdly enough, the timing of this came just with the arrival of the new army. Can your forces hold the line out there?

With such debuffs? I doubt it man! We need to retreat, regroup and try to control a small piece of land. It will be better this way

No, no retreat, only advance forward

But…

Just do as I say. I’ll find a way to help

I closed the chat before getting another one. And this came from one of my dragon rider girls monitoring the northern gulf region.

Lord! Big news! Lots of aquatic monsters appeared out of nowhere and formed a big bridge. A colossal army of many races are about to cross it now!

“So they prepared this to cross the gulf? As expected,” I sighed while trying to sort out my mind.

Lots of enemies were heading towards my capital, and the fourth quest just started.

This quest was all about the struggle and conflict between lords! It was expected to give the enemies a boost, but combining this with our lack of additional stat and that unjust punishment, made it a bit impossible to come out of this with the gains I had so far.

Numbers wouldn’t matter anymore! With such punishment, my entire forces would be at a huge disadvantage.

Should I recall them back and let them be together? It was the most logical solution so far.

However it meant my kingdom would lose much of its current expanding territory.

Would I risk doing that?

Just when I hesitated, the old words of Sith rang in my mind again.

You’ll regret that!

That was what he said, and just recalling this in his voice made me reject such an easy way out.

I wouldn’t select such a safe path.

As I decided to keep fighting, I started to reconsider the current situation.

“The West is facing only monsters, little of races so far,” I looked at the big map in my chariot and was lost in thoughts for a few minutes.

“The West is the real problem. They are facing Hector, and they were struggling from the beginning. If they continued…”

I paused as I knew the answer. If they stood there without any reinforcements, then they’d end up dead without doubt.

I knew I should send out my forces to help. But if I did, who was going to save my capital?

Come back right away, the battle at the capital will be left for you to handle

I didn’t hesitate to make the toughest choice. Staying here would mean one end for my eastern forces. I had to move out, and I’d give the task of handling the battle here for Isac and her forces.

The only problem was that her forces were scattered over a wide area. They would take at least three up to six hours to arrive and gather up here.