The war bells of Frostpeak Fortress clanged out in a frantic, irregular rhythm that smelled of pure panic. Down in the snowbound trench of the canyon, five hundred Rank-4 Frost Orcs surged forward like an avalanche of iron, tusks, and raw muscle.The three remaining Imperial guards stared down at the frozen valley, their swords trembling in their gauntlets. "The outer gate won't hold!" one yelled, his voice cracking. "Without the Captain’s mana-key, the barrier stones can't ignite! We're dead! We're all dead!""Shut up," Leonidas commanded.His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the terrifying weight of a man who had commanded armies through the extinction of species. The guards snapped their heads toward him, terrified of the strange black iron tube still smoking in his right hand.Leonidas ignored them, stepping over Captain Vance’s cooling corpse to look at the fortress courtyard below. Fifty starving conscripts in thin leather armor were running around like headless chickens, holdi

The echoes of the prince’s hasty retreat had barely faded into the howling blizzard before the reality of their treason settled over Frostpeak Fortress.In the courtyard, the fifty conscripts stood in stunned silence, their knuckles white on the foregrips of their submachine guns. They had spent their lives believing that Imperial mages were untouchable demi-gods. Watching a disgraced cadet drop Crown Prince Valen into the dirt with a single quiet crack of cold steel had shattered a lifetime of conditioning.Kael walked up to Leonidas, his eyes darting toward the southern horizon where the golden carriage had vanished. "Commander... Valen won't just report this. The Imperial Capital is three days away by mana-carriage. By the time the snow clears next week, the Royal Guard will march with high-tier war mages and armored cavalry. We have fifty men, wooden gates smashed to splinters, and no food supplies for the winter.""Then we make sure we are ready before their boots touch our snow,

The subterranean vault beneath Frostpeak Fortress vibrated with blinding azure light as fifty thousand high-purity mana-stones dissolved into raw, digitized code.[HIGH-PURITY MANA-STONES CONVERTED.][SYSTEM ENERGY BALANCE: 53,135 CREDITS.][UNLOCKING TIER 3 ARSENAL: HEAVY ARMORED VEHICLES & TACTICAL ARTILLERY.]Leonidas stood at the center of the vast underground staging bay, watching the holographic interface spin through lists of war machinery. In his past life, fighting an Imperial legion required tens of thousands of commoner casualties just to breach their enchanted shield-lines.This time, he wouldn't waste a single human life in a war of attrition."System," Leonidas commanded softly. "Execute deployment."[PURCHASE LOG:]2x M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Main Battle Tanks (120mm Smoothbore Gun + Reactive Armor): 16,000 Credits4x M2A4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (25mm Chain Gun + TOW Missile Launchers): 12,000 Credits2x M109A7 Paladin 155mm Self-Propelled Howitzers: 10,000 CreditsSupply P

The snow-covered pass turned into an absolute meat grinder.Grand General Marcus Vane watched three decades of Imperial military supremacy disintegrate in front of his eyes. The 7th Iron Legion—the very force that had unified three southern provinces—was being methodically dismantled by six steel leviathans that didn't even use mana."Archmages! Form the Great Aegis NOW!" Vane roared, his voice cutting through the thundering chaos. "Concentrated offensive magic on the lead iron beast!"The surviving thirty high mages scrambled into a tight circle behind a row of dead warhorses. Their staffs flared with intense, violent purple light as they pooled their mana together."Tier-6 Arcane Strike: Meteor Spear!" the lead Archmage screamed, his face veins bulging with strain.A swirling, thirty-foot spear of compressed plasma and molten rock materialized in mid-air above the mages. With a deafening whistle, the magical projectile launched forward, streaking down the canyon directly toward the

The sky above the Northern Province turned a strange, bruise-purple as three Imperial Flying Battleships tore through the clouds.These floating leviathans were the pinnacle of Solaria’s military might—massive wooden hulls reinforced with dragon-scale armor, kept aloft by gigantic, glowing antigravity mana-cores. Surrounding the flagship The Imperial Sun were two hundred flying Mage-Knights riding armored hippogriffs, their staffs crackling with pre-cast lightning spells.Standing on the forward deck of The Imperial Sun, Grand Archmage Vorian peered through a crystal spyglass toward Frostpeak."No troop formations on the plains," Vorian reported to Crown Prince Valen, who stood beside him wearing a newly forged set of rune-inlaid armor. "The cadet has retreated his iron land-beasts behind his stone walls. He thinks high battlements will protect him from high-altitude aerial bombardment."Valen’s face twisted into a grotesque, vengeful grin. "Position the fleet at ten thousand feet—wel