Chapter Summaries

Allen received a warning that a massive Withered Tree Tribe Troll army had entered the northern mountains and prepared his territory for war. As refugees crowded into town, he ordered a cavalry force to ride out and delay the Trolls, leading it himself.

• Allen deflected visiting nobles’ questions about the Empire’s plans with evasive political talk and explained his approach to Lyle.
• A messenger reported that a huge Withered Tree Tribe army had appeared in the northern mountains, alarming the town.
• Allen ordered messengers sent to Stromgarde and nearby lords, residents evacuated, the walls reinforced, and adult men mobilized for training.
• After three days of refugees overwhelmed the town, Allen rejected Lyle’s concerns and ordered a cavalry force to depart and slow the Troll advance.
• Allen armored himself and led 150 cavalrymen toward the Troll army as the Withered Tree Tribe destroyed human settlements along its route.

Allen’s cavalry ambushed and wiped out a Troll force, using poisoned arrows to overcome the Trolls’ regeneration. After securing a brief victory, Allen revealed his plan to lure the Amani Trolls into a territory filled with Thunderstorm Elementals.

• A Troll Warlord ordered his forces to hunt down Soladin and destroy human armies, while promising the task to whoever first defeated a human army and killed an important noble.
• Allen’s 150 cavalrymen met a Troll force of more than 400 in the hills and rained neurotoxin-coated arrows down on them from higher ground.
• Allen’s cavalry killed every Troll in the encounter, losing seven men, and stacked the Trolls’ heads as a warning.
• A knight urged Allen to withdraw, admitting he feared his decisions could get them all killed, but Allen reassured him and proposed a trap.
• Allen told the knight that they would lure the Trolls into a nearby containment array surrounded by thousands of Thunderstorm Elementals.

After the Amani Trolls discovered their warriors had been killed by poisoned arrows, the warlord sent Gale and the Raptor Cavalry after Allen. Allen challenged them to a Sacred Duel, killed their first champion instantly, and faced a mounted Troll Berserker as he charged.

• The Troll reinforcements found their headless dead, and their Witch Doctors determined that poisoned arrows had made the warriors suffocate.
• The warlord ordered Gale to lead the Raptor Cavalry after the humans and capture their leader alive.
• Gale caught up with Allen and his cavalry, while Allen ordered his men to follow the plan and not interfere with him.
• Allen issued a Sacred Duel challenge, and a Troll Raptor Cavalryman accepted.
• Allen crushed the first challenger with a single blow from his greatsword, prompting Gale to send his deputy to fight mounted.
• The deputy charged Allen on his armored raptor as Allen refused to mount a horse.

Allen killed a Troll Berserker in a Sacred Duel while provoking Commander Gale, drawing the Trolls’ attention away from the Human Cavalry. The cavalry lured thousands of Thunderstorm Elementals toward the Trolls, and Gale ordered his forces to attack the approaching humans without realizing what followed them.

• Allen killed the raptor with a greatsword, then mocked the Troll Berserker and provoked him about the Amani Empire’s defeat by the High Elves.
• The Troll Berserker attacked Allen, but Allen split him in two, shocking Gale and the other Trolls.
• Gale failed to notice that the Human Cavalry had vanished, while the knight led them toward the Thunderstorm Elementals surrounding the sealing formation.
• The Human Cavalry fired flaming arrows at the elementals, enraging them, then fled toward the Troll Raptor Cavalry with thousands of elementals in pursuit.
• Gale saw the Human Cavalry approaching and ordered the Trolls to kill them, unaware of the elemental horde behind them.

Allen used the Thunderstorm Elementals to destroy the Amani Empire’s Raptor Cavalry, then killed Commander Gale and the last Troll riders with a rage-powered strike. The Human Cavalry began stripping the battlefield while one knight wondered what Allen would demand in exchange for teaching him the same power.

• Gale dismissed the Human Cavalry’s charge and declared that the Amani Empire would destroy Arathor and sacrifice Emperor Soladin.
• Allen revealed that the Human Cavalry had lured the Thunderstorm Elementals toward the Trolls, and the elementals devastated the Raptor Cavalry while human archers attacked those trying to flee.
• Nearly forty Human Cavalrymen died in the chaos, but the Thunderstorm Elementals withdrew after the Raptor Cavalry was almost wiped out.
• Enraged, Gale charged Allen with the six remaining Raptor Cavalrymen, and Allen killed them with a rage-fueled strike that carved a deep sword mark through the ground.
• The soldiers finished off surviving Trolls and stripped equipment from the corpses, while one knight wondered whether he could learn Allen’s power.

After defeating the Amani Raptor Cavalry, Allen sent his troops back and rode alone toward the main Troll army with Gale’s head to undermine enemy morale. In Stromgarde, Soladin dispatched two thousand cavalry to support Allen, while Artoria reassured him that the Trolls were the ones in danger.

• Allen ordered Gale’s head hung from a saddle and explained that he would deliver it alone to the Troll commander to shatter the Amani Trolls’ morale.
• Allen sent his eighty-seven surviving soldiers back to regroup while he rode alone toward the main Troll army.
• In Stromgarde, Soladin concluded that Allen intended to hold the Trolls in place and decided to send help despite his uncertainty about Allen’s plan.
• Soladin ordered a weathered middle-aged man to lead two thousand cavalry north, tie down the Trolls, and follow Allen’s orders if they made contact.
• Artoria told Soladin that he should worry about the Trolls rather than Allen, and her confidence eased his concerns about the war.

Allen confronted the Troll Warlord with Gale’s severed head, then escaped the Troll army after killing many warriors and wounding the Warlord. He returned to the fortified town, where he reported the victory and began planning how to exploit the Trolls’ lost cavalry, but Lyle warned that their poison supply was limited.

• The starving Troll army marched across the plains, and the Warlord learned that Allen had destroyed Gale’s Raptor Cavalry.
• Allen showed Gale’s head to the Trolls, declared that their era had ended, and called the Warlord doomed to defeat.
• The Warlord ordered his warriors to seize Allen, but Allen cut through the encirclement, scarred the Warlord, and escaped on horseback.
• Allen returned to the fortified town, ordered compensation and tax relief for fallen soldiers’ families, and told Lyle the Trolls would be unable to attack for a week.
• Allen proposed using horse archers to harass the Trolls, but Lyle warned that the town had enough poison for only ten to twelve thousand arrows.

Allen prepared poison arrows and planned to use them against the invading Amani Trolls, while recruiting a skilled young woman into his cavalry. At a wartime banquet, he told Al Barrowf he would harass the Troll army and proposed capturing hundreds of thousands of Trolls as slaves.

• Allen inspected the poison workshop, ordered at least ten thousand arrows to be poisoned within three days, and promised a worker he would avenge those killed by the Trolls.
• A young woman asked to join the army, and Allen assigned her to the cavalry for the upcoming march after learning she could shoot accurately from horseback.
• Allen welcomed nobles who had brought soldiers to support him, and Al Barrowf questioned the lavish banquet during wartime.
• Allen told Al Barrowf that his cavalry would harass the Troll army and that poison arrows would overcome the Trolls' regeneration.
• Allen invited Al Barrowf to discuss a plan to capture Trolls as slave labor, and Al Barrowf followed him to the study.

Allen joined forces with Ignatius and their cavalry to exploit the Trolls’ vulnerability to poisoned arrows and horse archers, devastating a seven-thousand-strong vanguard. The survivors fled as an Amani Troll Warlord arrived, and Allen warned Ignatius about the warlord’s witchcraft and toxins.

• Ignatius arrived with two thousand reinforcements, including a thousand Highland Cavalrymen, and learned that Allen had destroyed the Trolls’ Raptor Cavalry using Thunderstorm Elementals.
• Allen revealed his poisoned arrows made with Deathvine, and Ignatius recognized the plant as a toxin that had nearly killed him in his youth.
• Allen and Ignatius led their cavalry northwest and used circling maneuvers and horse archers to break the Troll vanguard’s shield formation.
• The Trolls’ vanguard collapsed after more than forty minutes of fighting, with over two-thirds of its roughly seven thousand warriors killed and the survivors fleeing.
• An Amani Troll Warlord arrived in a rage, and Allen warned Ignatius that the warlord wielded witchcraft and could use deadly toxins.

Allen and Ignatius planned a night attack on the Troll army using burning grease-laden boats and a released lake flood. As the demoralized Trolls camped, the ground began to tremble and a thunderous roar approached.

• Allen withdrew his cavalry after harassing the Trolls, and the Troll Warlord seethed at his unconventional tactics.
• Allen and Ignatius discussed the battle, agreed to share poison-making knowledge, and planned a night attack using burning boats and floodwater.
• Ignatius prepared crude fire ships while Allen’s Horse Archers harassed Trolls building their camp.
• The Troll Warlord’s adjutant promised that capturing a nearby town would restore morale, but the Warlord warned that human horse archers could become a major threat.
• The Troll Warlord felt the ground tremble, then heard a roar approaching like thousands of galloping horses.

Allen used a flood, fire, cavalry, and horse archers to devastate the Troll army, then harried it with a second surprise attack and smaller raids. Five days later, the exhausted Trolls reached Allen’s heavily fortified fortress, where they faced a difficult siege with few supplies or siege weapons.

• Allen destroyed the irrigation dams, flooding the Troll camp as burning boats and grease spread fire through the fleeing warriors.
• Ignatius led two thousand cavalrymen into the chaos while Allen’s Horse Archers fired volleys, and the two forces withdrew after inflicting heavy losses.
• Allen and Ignatius met at an abandoned village, exchanged tactical knowledge, and returned before dawn to raid the exhausted Troll camp again.
• Allen’s attacks and patrol hunts slowed the Trolls’ march for five days, leaving them hungry and worn out when they reached his fortress.
• The Troll Warlord saw the fortress’s layered walls, arrow towers, and swift moat, while Allen and Ignatius judged that the Trolls had little choice but to attack.

Allen used the Trolls’ failed assault on the fortress to persuade the nobles to join a raid on the Withered Tree Tribe’s vulnerable families in the Hinterlands. While the Trolls prepared another siege, Soladin marched to the battlefield with Artoria and the imperial army.

• The Trolls charged the fortress but lost thousands without reaching the walls, and their Warlord ordered them to withdraw.
• Allen told the nobles that the Withered Tree Tribe’s elderly, women, and children were guarded near a Hinterlands basin and proposed raiding them for slaves and treasure.
• Allen had Al Barrowf explain a plan to wipe out the Withered Tree Tribe’s men and enslave its women and children, and Ignatius joined the venture.
• The Withered Trolls began building siege equipment while their Warlord worried that Allen’s Horse Archers would attack again.
• After learning that the Trolls had surrounded the fortress, Soladin ordered the imperial army to march, with Artoria leading the vanguard.

Artoria considered a political marriage with Allen to stop the nobles’ advances, while High Elf Rangers watched Allen’s battle against the Trolls and decided to approach him as a potential ally. The Rangers secretly entered his fortress and headed for his study after dinner.

• Soladin told Artoria that he was arranging a banquet for Allen to meet noblewomen, and Artoria insisted that Allen would prefer High Elves from the north.
• Aliya and the other knights suggested that Artoria marry Allen, leading Artoria to consider proposing a fake marriage after the Trolls were defeated.
• The Trolls launched a full assault on Allen’s fortress while two High Elf Rangers observed the humans’ defense and praised their tactics.
• The Rangers agreed to contact Allen and secretly entered the fortress that night, avoiding the guards despite alarming a dog.
• After eating food from the nobles’ dinner, the two Rangers made their way toward Allen’s study.

Allen’s experiments on two Trolls revealed a spellcaster’s thalamus could remain active beyond the limits of the body, until a High Elf ranger stumbled into his study. After they cleared up the misunderstanding, she identified herself as an envoy carrying a personal letter from the Sun King and asked Allen to arrange a meeting with the human emperor.

• Two High Elf Rangers infiltrated Allen’s fortress, and the female ranger entered his study alone.
• The ranger discovered Allen experimenting on a Troll Witch Doctor and a Troll warrior, whose brains and bodies reacted differently to a black liquid.
• Allen knocked the ranger down as she tried to flee, then restrained her and discovered she was a High Elf.
• The ranger mistook Allen’s experiments for a demonic ritual, but relaxed after he explained that he was studying spellcaster brains.
• The ranger introduced herself as an envoy from Anasterian Sunstrider and described the Amani Trolls’ escalating attacks on the High Elves.
• The ranger showed Allen a sealed personal letter from the Sun King and asked him to introduce her to the human emperor.

Allen hosted two High Elf envoys seeking an alliance against the Amani Trolls, but told them the Arathor Empire would not enter the war yet. As Soladin’s arrival approached, Allen prepared a night operation to threaten the Trolls’ rear while the Troll warlord devised a costly plan to breach the fortress.

• Allen told the female elf envoy that humans needed time to recover and would not fight alongside the High Elves until they were ready.
• Allen discovered the male elf ranger hiding near the study, and he and his companion accepted rooms at the fortress while they waited for Soladin.
• Allen told Lyle that Silvermoon City was nearing defeat and ordered him to notify Ignatius about a nighttime operation as Al Barrowf and the nobles prepared to depart north.
• The Troll warlord gathered the Witch Doctors, arcanists, and priests and presented a plan to break through the fortress, despite the many Troll lives it would cost.

Allen led a nighttime raid that sent an expeditionary force toward The Hinterlands to attack the Withered Tree Tribe, then used the threat to divide the Trolls. As the warlord and priests prepared a sacrificial witchcraft counterattack, two High Elf envoys recognized the danger and went to warn Allen.

• Al Barrowf sent Ignatius, Allen, and the expeditionary army through the fortress gates, and they overwhelmed the sleeping Troll camp before heading north toward The Hinterlands.
• Allen told the Trolls that the humans were going to massacre the Withered Tree Tribe’s people, provoking its warriors to demand that the warlord retreat and protect their homeland.
• The warlord and the priests resisted the warriors’ demands, and the Withered Tree Tribe’s leader threatened to act on his own if no better plan came before dawn.
• The warlord and the high priest decided to advance their plan and used the power of faith to deceive the Troll warriors as they prepared large-scale witchcraft.
• Two High Elf envoys saw a fiery magical shadow over the Troll camp, recognized it as a sign of impending witchcraft, and went to Allen’s bedroom to report the danger.

Allen learned that the Trolls planned to summon the Dragonhawk God, Gayle, and vowed to face the threat himself. At dawn, the Trolls sacrificed three thousand mutineers and their High Priest, whose body merged with Gayle’s projection to become a giant Dragonhawk.

• Two High Elf envoys warned Allen that the Trolls intended to summon Gayle and offered him two enchanted arrows, but Allen sent them away and said he would deal with the threat himself.
• The envoys speculated that Allen was hiding a way to fight the Dragonhawk God, then decided to wait and see what he would do.
• At sunrise, the Troll Warlord and the High Priest prepared a ritual using three thousand captured mutineers as sacrifices.
• The Trolls killed the captives over two hours, and their blood and flames formed Gayle’s powerful projection.
• The High Priest stabbed himself in the heart, and his body merged with Gayle’s projection to transform into a Dragonhawk over thirty meters long.

Allen ordered the fortress’s civilians and soldiers into shelter, then faced the Dragonhawk God’s incarnation and the Troll High Priest alone. He severed one of the Dragonhawk’s wings but was caught in a fiery crash that destroyed the fortress gates, while the High Elves recognized that he seemed able to command or repel elemental fire.

• Allen realized the Troll High Priest had merged Gayle’s power into his body and ordered Ignatius to evacuate everyone into the cellars.
• Allen leaped from the wall to confront the Dragonhawk incarnation as the High Priest flew toward him and attacked with a torrent of fire.
• Allen used the moat’s steam as cover, leaped onto the Dragonhawk’s back, and drove his Thorium greatsword into its body.
• Allen endured the Dragonhawk’s fiery transformation and cut off one of its wings, sending the injured High Priest crashing into the fortress gates.
• The Dragonhawk’s impact unleashed flames that destroyed the nearby wall and buildings, while an unseen force kept the fire from touching Allen.
• Ya and her companion suspected Allen could command elemental forces, and the male elf proposed reporting him to the Silvermoon council and Sun King.

Allen fought off the Troll army after severing the Dragonhawk God High Priest’s wing, but the Trolls wore him down until the High Priest and Warlord attacked together. Two High Elf Rangers intervened, and one was poisoned and captured as the battle continued.

• Allen’s attack severed the Dragonhawk God High Priest’s wing, forcing him to change into a half-man, half-eagle form, while Allen’s greatsword began absorbing the Dragonhawk God’s fire energy.
• The High Priest sent a sea of flames at Allen and ordered the Troll warriors and spellcasters to attack him; Allen cut down and burned many of them with his flaming sword.
• The Trolls surrounded Allen and used hexes, lightning, venom, and poisoned attacks to exhaust him while the Warlord and High Priest waited for an opening.
• As Allen weakened, the Warlord and High Priest joined the fight, and two High Elf Rangers emerged to shoot down Trolls and wound the Warlord.
• The Warlord ordered his Berserker Hunters to capture the elves alive, and the female elf was struck by a poisoned arrow that left half her body numb.

Emperor Thoradin’s reinforcements arrived just as Allen’s forces were on the verge of defeat, and Artoria joined Allen in fighting the Troll Warlord and the Dragonhawk High Priest. After the High Priest sacrificed himself to unleash the true Dragonhawk God Gayle, Allen struck a deep wound in the god’s neck and held on as his sword absorbed its blood.

• A poisoned female elf asked her companion to kill her, but Emperor Thoradin’s cavalry arrived before he could deliver the blow.
• Allen revealed that he had volunteered to serve as bait, and Artoria rode into battle and struck the Troll Warlord with overwhelming strength.
• Artoria attacked the Warlord and High Priest while Allen warned her about their weapons and the High Priest’s fire powers.
• The High Priest sacrificed himself to release Gayle’s Incarnation, and the Dragonhawk God healed its wounds and unleashed devastating fire attacks.
• Allen resisted Gayle’s flames, leapt into the air, and cut deeply into its neck with his greatsword, which began absorbing the god’s blood.