Chapter 162: Capture
Time rewinds to one day earlier.
Near the Fallen Leaf Path, Norton Duchy.
“Hurry! Master is staring at you!”
“This is the Will of the Great Red Dragon!”
“For the Kingdom of Ashen!”
Dolo led hundreds of Great Goblin and Bear Goliath soldiers in a lightning-fast advance along a hidden, winding path. Their mission: capture the capital of Norton Duchy—Kenyaza City—within the shortest possible time.
Though styled a duchy, Norton Duchy’s territory was smaller than many powerful earldoms. The entire realm had only three cities, and three-quarters of its population lived in Kenyaza City—the city built with aid from the Bosk Duchy. In Scania Language, the name meant “Place of Rising,” a symbol of the duchy’s deepest aspirations.
The city housed nearly twenty thousand souls. Capture it, and Norton Duchy would be all but extinguished. The Kingdom of Ashen’s strategy was simple: a Blitzkrieg. Strike fast, strike hard, and seize the capital before resistance could form.
To achieve this, they brought ten cannons—massive siege weapons forged by Storm Armory players through round-the-clock labor.
Fortunately, the strength of the Dragonblood Goblins was unmatched. Even burdened with the heavy cannons, they marched swiftly, unimpeded by the weight.
A Bear Goliath at Dolo’s side, puzzled, grunted, “Boss, these rusty iron pipes… really gonna do anything? Feels like my club’s better.”
“Naive fool,” Dolo snorted. “You’ll learn soon enough.” He grinned, eyes gleaming. “This is real Blood and Fire—the true symbol of war.”
After countless battles and tasting the power of firearms, Dolo had become a full convert to the Modernization Faction. He even counted Steel Tide, leader of the Mechanical Divinity guild, as a close friend.
The defenders, however, remained utterly unaware. They hadn’t even detected the hidden forces of the Kingdom of Ashen, concealed in the blind spots of the terrain.
Veteran Great Goblin troops set up the cannons, adjusted the angles, and prepared with precision. Scattered Goblins readied themselves for the charge.
Dolo wiped blood and gore from his Bloodfire Battle Axe, tearing off a clump of flesh clinging to the blade. Then he roared:
“Open fire!”
The Goblins obeyed, loading shells into the cannons.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The cannons roared like thunder, shaking the earth. The Bear Goliath beside Dolo flinched violently, clutching his ears, collapsing to the ground, muttering, “G-good… good god, those iron tubes… so loud…”
“Pathetic,” Dolo sneered, glancing down with contempt. “You’ll no longer serve as my attendant.”
A coward who feared cannon fire wasn’t fit to be a bodyguard of the Kingdom of Ashen’s great general.
“Hahahaha!”
“That’s it! Burn them to ash!”
Dolo laughed triumphantly, breathing in the sweet scent of gunpowder smoke. Even the deafening cannon blasts couldn’t drown out his laughter.
The city walls of Kenyaza were now guarded by fewer than a thousand soldiers—most of Norton Duchy’s forces had been deployed to the Allied Forces.
The garrison atop the city towers had never seen anything like this. Cannon fire erupted in unison, flames leaping across the sky.
They saw only blurred shadows streaking through the air, then—explosions. Firelight blazed across their vision.
Dozens of defenders were torn apart instantly. The rest remained frozen in terror, too stunned to comprehend the war that had already begun.
“Gods above… is this divine punishment?”
“What… is this?”
“Ah!”
“Where are the enemies?!”
Centuries of assimilation and subjugation by the Bosk Duchy had stripped these once-fierce tribes of their ancestral ferocity. They no longer fought with the wild courage of their ancestors.
Shells rained down mercilessly. The centuries-old city walls—once unshaken by siege—crumbled under the relentless bombardment, collapsing in a great gap, several meters wide.
It was enough.
“Charge!” Dolo bellowed, lifting his Bloodfire Battle Axe with one hand. “With me! Break through! Crush them!”
He leapt forward, clearing the gap in a single bound. With a single, sweeping arc of his massive axe, he severed over a dozen defenders at the waist.
“Monsters!”
“Help! For mercy!”
“It’s Envy War-Fury Dolo!”
“It’s the Kingdom of Ashen!”
Hearing the absurd, mocking title, Dolo’s fury flared. He lunged forward, covering dozens of meters in a single leap, then brought the flat of his axe down with brutal force—crushing the offending human into a red pulp.
“I am Dolo!”
“The greatest general beneath the Great Red Dragon!”
“And you will know me as your eternal nightmare!”
The Great Goblin shield-bearers surged forward behind him, hacking and slashing at the disorganized defenders. They unleashed the pent-up bloodlust of years of waiting, slaughtering with merciless joy.
“Damn it, these monsters!”
“I can’t even wound them!”
“Are those… scales?”
Under the Kingdom of Ashen’s lightning assault, the city walls’ defenders collapsed entirely—fleeing in panic, abandoning their posts.
Meanwhile, the Great Goblin skirmishers raised their Long Spears. Following the order from their squad leader—“Free Fire!”—they fired in rapid succession, picking off heads that dared show themselves above the broken walls. Many defenders tumbled to their deaths below.
Within moments, the entire thousand-man garrison was wiped out.
By now, the battle was no longer a battle at all—just a one-sided massacre.
And it had taken less than an hour.
In more common terms: killing a thousand pigs would take longer. Yet the Kingdom of Ashen’s army had eradicated an entire garrison in just sixty minutes.
Dolo, in particular, had become a killing machine—cutting down at least a hundred enemies with his own hands.
“Something’s wrong at the city wall!”
“What’s happening outside?”
“Enemies! I think I hear thunder!”
“Damned… what is going on?”
The citizens inside Kenyaza were still in the dark, trembling with fear, unaware that their city had already fallen.
But soon, they would know.
A deep, thunderous roar split the sky.
“ROOOOAAARRR!”
Above the city, the terrifying visage of the Red Dragon materialized—flames dancing in the air, golden eyes scanning the earth below, wings like waves of living fire, as if ready to consume the entire city in flame.
“By the gods…”
“What kind of monster is that?!”
“I… I know what this is…”
“Is this the Purgatory Cataclysm… the legend?”
The people stared upward, paralyzed by terror. The sky-born phantom of the Dragon struck fear into their hearts, and chaos erupted among the crowds.
Then, from the heavens, the Monster spoke—its voice heavy, commanding, suffocating with authority.
“Kenyaza citizens… greetings.”
“I come to inform you.”
“From this moment forward, there is no more Norton Duchy.”
“Only the Kingdom of Ashen.”
“Welcome… to your new home.”
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
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