Chapter 15: The Crimson Advance: Flames Over Cloves
Amiel Racta rode into Region 32 like a phantom king, black robes billowing in the desert wind, his midnight horse snorting steam into the chill of dawn.
The morning sun cast a blood-orange hue across the horizon, glinting off the polished armor of the four hundred soldiers that rode behind him, who had chosen to follow every command of the 1st Prince Balek Aratat—grizzled men of the 3rd and 4th rank of the ocean opening realm, eyes cold with the arrogance of unchecked power.
They weren't elite, but they didn't need to be. Region 32, by all their reports, was a wasteland, small in size with jut 12 cities within it, soft—ripe for conquest, perfect for blooding green steel.
He had come not merely to conquer, but to train, to test the mettle of his subordinates on something more living than a straw dummy.
A trail of black banners fluttered in their wake, each emblazoned with a crimson serpent—the mark of House Balek Aratat- The first prince.
Although Amiel Racta had his plans to sit on the throne, he would ride the waves of Balek Aratat until he had the power to overthrow and sit on the throne, without any opposition worthy or able to dethrone him.
Back in Region 2, the 1st Prince, Balek Aratat, waited with the stillness of a spider, sipping wine and expecting tidings of swift conquest.
Amiel Racta himself was a beast in human flesh. 6th rank of the Ocean Opening Realm, every breath he exhaled bent the air around him. His right-hand man, Uzziah Bilu—stern-eyed and broad-shouldered—stood at 5th rank, just beneath his lord. Everyone else beneath them were disposable pieces on a grander board.
A week ago, Amiel had sent a sealed letter to Lady Jerusha. She hadn't replied.
The silence bothered him more than he cared to admit.
When they reached Cloves City, which was the entrance hub of Region 32, a creeping unease fell over the soldiers. Streets were deserted. Market stalls sat abandoned, bread and dried fish rotting under the heat. The air buzzed with the stench of abandonment. Crows circled overhead, mocking them with their cries.
Not a child. Not a dog. Not even a beggar.
Amiel pulled his horse to a halt and scanned the empty town square. His crimson eyes narrowed.
"This isn't right," he growled. His voice rolled like thunder. "This place breathes death... but no corpses."
Even a Christmas chicken knew to run and escape when the blade was near—why wouldn't humans?
Behind him, his soldiers muttered. Some reached for their blades.
"Scouts. Any word from ahead?" Amiel barked.
Uzziah shook his head as he stood ahead of the scouts. "None. It's like the entire city vanished."
Unknown to Amiel, two days prior, Josh Aratat, the rumoured dead 8th prince and half-brother of the 1st Prince, had journeyed from Moremo, a remote city in region 32, and entered- Provlean, the capital city of Region 32 and spoken with the sitting regional leader. Skeptical at first, the elder had sent his own scouts into the hills—and when they returned, pale and shaken, confirming Amiel's invasion route, the regional leader bowed. He handed over command to Josh, swearing allegiance. That very night, horns blew across the mountains, and war drums echoed through forest and cave. The region did not plan to be conquered.
It planned to bleed its enemies.
Amiel, unaware of this brewing trap, sneered at the silence.
"Uzziah," he said coldly, "Burn it. Burn this ghost city to ash."
Uzziah nodded, eyes gleaming. "Yes, my lord."
He raised a curved horn and blew three sharp notes. Soldiers moved with grim precision, tossing oil-soaked barrels into homes, igniting torches. The crackling of flame began as a whisper and swelled to a roar. Soon, the entire city glowed red against the morning sun, smoke spiraling toward the heavens like a dark omen.
Wood exploded. Roofs collapsed. And still—not a soul stirred.
Amiel turned his horse away from the inferno, eyes fixed on the mountains in the distance. If the people of Region 32 thought they could hide behind their rocks and trees, they were mistaken. He would rip the entire region apart stone by stone.
His voice was low, but it carried like doom.
"Onward. To the next city. If they won't greet us with open arms... they'll greet us with burning graves."
And with that, the army of House Balek Aratat marched into the smoke, unknowingly deeper into the jaws of a war far more cunning and vicious than they'd imagined.
The first city, Gloves city was empty, but that was not the case for the second city —Brimhold city. Josh's plan was to give the enemy a false sense of superiority and security and to ride the waves of a ghost town as they marched further, unaware of what awaited them.
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Brimhold City
Cloves City had burned like parchment in a fireplace—silent, eerie, and eerily compliant. Amiel Racta had mistaken the emptiness for surrender. He couldn't have been more wrong.
The second city, Brimhold, told a different tale. Where Cloves had offered smoke and silence, Brimhold breathed with nervous energy. Soldiers shifted restlessly behind their battlements, weapons clutched in sweaty palms, hearts hammering like kettledrums. Unlike the ghostly streets behind them, this was a city bracing for war.
In the heart of the city square stood a man cloaked in shadow, a sleek black mask veiling his face. His eyes, though, burned with fire and quiet fury.
Josh Aratat.
The 8th prince.
The forgotten one.
The dead one.
Only—he was anything but.
At his sides were his most trusted: Lola, the velvet dagger—an assassin maid with a smile sharper than her blades, and Conrad Stan, the rock-jawed warhound whose voice could flatten confidence like a steamroller.
Behind them stood 8,000 soldiers, quaking slightly in their boots—an undisciplined mass of steel and fear. They had once served the regional leader, now they served the looming threat of annihilation.
The average soldier stood between the 2nd and 4th rank of the Ocean Opening Realm—decent, but not enough. Especially not when a war-devouring beast like Amiel Racta approached.
Josh himself had clawed his way to what could only be compared to the 6th rank of the ocean opening realm, having recently broken through after reaching a 60% mastery of First Sergeant rank, ascending steadily away from the Major 1 rank with a speed that made his ancestors blink from the afterlife.
Lola and Conrad were no less terrifying—both at 80% Major 1, both brimming with the power similar to that of the 5th rank of the ocean opening realm.
But raw power wasn't the issue.
It was morale.
The square buzzed with frightened murmurs, armor clinking nervously, a couple of grown men already looking as if they might wet themselves.
Then—BOOM.
"SILENCE!" Conrad's voice detonated through the plaza like a cannon blast, amplified by his Voice Command skill, this was recently acquired as he grew closer to the Major 1 rank. Dust flew from rooftops. A few men dropped their spears in shock.
Even Lola arched an impressed brow. "I think you just scared a pigeon out of the mayor's statue," she muttered.
The voice command skill is a lower version of Josh Aratat's Voice ability, and it could only work when Josh is around and under his command. If Conrad Stan were to use it independently it won't work.
Josh Aratat, the 8th Prince, with the masked face, stepped forward. The breeze tugged at his cloak as he surveyed the sea of faces before him—uncertain, trembling, human.
He didn't raise his voice at first. Instead, it slipped through the silence like a blade across silk.
"How many of you..." he paused, letting the tension rise like a drumbeat, "...are willing to stand with me and save this region?"
Not a hand. Not a murmur.
You could hear a flea sneeze in the silence that followed.
Josh sighed—long and loud. He looked genuinely disappointed, like a teacher who just caught a student eating glue.
"Let me make this clear," he said, eyes narrowing. "I'm trying to save your mothers from being butchered like chickens, your sisters from being defiled by the boots of Amiel's thugs, your fathers from dying in chains, and your brothers from becoming glorified mop boys in some salt mine."
He let those words land, one after the other, heavy as iron.
"Amiel Racta is not coming to rule. He's coming to erase."
He took a step forward, and now his voice thundered—still just at a D+ level, but fueled by raw emotion.
"I can raise your strength. An entire rank, if you show loyalty. I can turn farmers into fighters, and fearful men into legends."
Then, his tone dropped, colder than winter steel.
"But if you choose cowardice…" He raised his gloved hand, clenched it into a fist. "…then whether you fight or not, you'll still die. Alone. Screaming. Unmarked."
That did it.
After a period of silence...
Suddenly...
First, a single hand rose.
Then three.
Then a dozen.
And suddenly—a wave of hands shot into the air, like blades unsheathed.
A murmur spread like wildfire. "For Our families... For Region 32…"
Lola blinked. "What in the—?"
"Did he just... talk confidence and bravery into 8,000 scared weaklings?" Conrad asked, genuinely baffled. "I was already prepared to give up on these people myself."
Josh smiled faintly under the mask. "People don't follow strength alone. They follow a reason."
And now, Brimhold had found one.
The city no longer trembled.
It stood.