Chapter Summaries

Ang investigated why Lizardmen bone blades seemed linked to changes in the fighting, then launched a three-pronged assault that devastated their camp. As his troops regrouped and searched the site, they found a strange statue and trough that Ang ordered sealed off.

• Ang inspected captured Lizardmen bone blades and found no magic or other detectable treatment, then questioned Temple about unusual Lizardmen activity.
• After another raid caused no significant damage to the steel armor, Ang ordered the army to attack the Lizardmen from the north, east, and west.
• Ang used concealed airships to bombard the Lizardmen camp, then signaled ground forces to advance and pursue the survivors.
• The assault drove the Lizardmen beyond the mountains in the north and nearly wiped out their eastern and western forces, leaving a little over sixty thousand survivors from the original one hundred and forty thousand.
• Ang halted the airships, ordered the flanking forces to regroup, and oversaw the cleanup and burning of the battlefield dead.
• Ang investigated a strange stone trough and statue found in a central Lizardmen tent and ordered the site sealed off.

Ang and his aides discovered that a foul-smelling liquid could temporarily enchant a lizardman bone knife to pierce fortified armor, while a black-and-white statue reacted dangerously to Holy Light Magic. After containing both objects, Ang received reports that the lizardmen had retreated toward the mining area, and the army prepared to advance into the Milaginbi Mountains.

• Ang tested the liquid on a lizardman bone knife and found that its enchantment could cut through Fortification Rune armor for five strikes.
• Ang and his aides failed to damage the black-and-white statue, then saw it react to Holy Light Magic and influence Puri, Ade, and Georgie with an eerie murmur.
• Ang stopped the spell, sealed the statue in a Demon Sealing Box, and ordered the tent burned.
• Puri, Ade, and Georgie reported that the surviving lizardmen had retreated toward the mining area after the fragmentation-shell bombardment.
• Ang regrouped with the main army, where an officer reported that the lizardmen had been driven back to their tribes.

Ang assigned forces to clear three lizardman tribes with airship support, then met Quintina, who brought a fifth airship and discussed a potential recruit and merchants seeking to follow the campaign. After Quintina left for Amnath City with wounded soldiers, Ang made the new airship his mobile headquarters.

• Ang assigned an officer, Slock, and Puri to attack three lizardman tribes, ordering fast strikes supported by airships.
• Ang’s units bombarded and swept the lizardmen’s defenses, and Quintina arrived aboard the fifth airship, which Ang designated as headquarters.
• Quintina told Ang that Janice wanted to join the pioneering force to restore her family’s former status, and Ang agreed to hear her plans.
• Ang told Quintina to auction places in the accompanying merchant group for five hundred magic crystals each.
• Aisha received two Rings of Healing from Quintina, tested one on Ang, and Ang promised to make her a ring himself.
• Quintina departed for Amnath City with severely wounded soldiers, and Ang entered the new airship to use it as his mobile headquarters.

Ang’s army advanced through the Milaginbi Mountains toward the mines, using airship bombardments to suppress the lizardmen. When a Lizardman Great Warrior attacked their soldiers, Ang and Dana flew in to confront it.

• Ang briefed his officers on the route to the Dampier Highlands and ordered them to clear lizardmen tribes along the way.
• Slock and the other forces destroyed lizardmen tribes with cluster bombs and magic bombs, then regrouped near the mines.
• Temple reported that fewer than sixty thousand lizardmen remained after awakened hatchlings increased their numbers, so Ang ordered an airship bombardment.
• Puri’s airships dropped cluster bombs and then magic bombs, driving surviving lizardmen into caves as the ground army began advancing.
• A Lizardman Great Warrior appeared northwest of the mines and attacked fleeing soldiers, prompting Ang and Dana to rush toward it.

Ang and Dana killed two Lizardman Great Warriors, then learned that the Cavalry Regiment was struggling against two more. They reached the battlefield and prepared to flank the remaining enemies.

• Dana and Ang worked together to kill the first Lizardman Great Warrior after Dana survived a bone-blade strike with ice armor.
• Puli warned Ang that a second, larger Lizardman Great Warrior was approaching, and Ang and Dana killed him in a fierce fight.
• Puli reported that two Lizardman Great Warriors were overwhelming the Cavalry Regiment at the No. 2 position.
• Ang and Dana flew to the No. 2 battlefield and watched the cavalry retreat under pressure from the two Lizardman Great Warriors.
• Ang decided they would flank the enemies from both sides and end the fight quickly.

Ang and Dana defeated two Lizardman Great Warriors, then Ang directed the campaign to clear the surface and avoid the unstable caves. After learning about a rich mithril deposit and preparing a poison mixture based on the poison that killed his father, Ang ignited it near a cave full of lizardmen.

• Ang rescued injured cavalrymen, then joined Dana in defeating two Lizardman Great Warriors with fire, melee attacks, and Earth Spike.
• Ang ordered Slock to lead the cavalry in clearing the remaining lizardmen and rested before returning to the command airship.
• Ang ordered the troops to clear surface enemies and camp rather than enter caves whose deep, shifting passages risked collapse.
• Isi reported that all 374 Lizardmen Ovary sites had been destroyed and showed Ang a resource map identifying a rich Mithril Ore mine, which Ang assigned to the mages.
• Ang prepared Mandrake Wolf Root Poison powder and other ingredients in a basin near a cave, ordered everyone back, and tossed a fireball into the mixture.

Ang cleared the lizardmen’s caves with deadly Mandrake Wolf Root Poison, secured part of the Milaginbi Mountains, and began organizing mining and future trade. As word of his victories spread, a young baron decided to seek a chance to join him, while Kodo Roland sensed that something unprecedented was taking shape.

• Ang used Mandrake Wolf Root Poison to clear the lizardmen from the caves and ordered the smoke-tainted areas sealed off.
• Ang reported that his forces controlled one-tenth of the Milaginbi Mountains, then sent battle news to Fortress of Will and planned to continue north.
• Quintina brought three thousand kobold miners, who quickly outperformed the soldiers, and discussed with Ang how to develop the territory and recruit merchant groups.
• Ang fortified the mountain passes as news of his victories spread, and a young baron left a gathering in Fortress of Will to seek a chance to join him.
• Kodo Roland heard confirmation of Ang’s victories and quietly sensed that something new was taking shape.

Kedo told a young nobleman that he was leaving the Archipelago Plane and urged his allies to make amends with Viscount Ange. After Kedo departed, the nobles accepted that they had lost their chance to rely on him and decided to approach Viscount Ange.

• Kedo told the young nobleman that he would marry Helen Morgan and leave the Archipelago Plane, saying their family could no longer rely on their current allies.
• Kedo ordered a warrior to have the family’s merchant group seek land from Viscount Ange, while the young nobleman went to a club to tell the other nobles Kedo was leaving.
• The nobles debated their conflict with Viscount Ange, and the round-faced baron argued that Ange’s strategic judgment and development surpassed Kedo’s.
• A guard confirmed that Kedo had already left the Archipelago Plane, and the nobles realized they had to find another way forward.
• The prestigious nobleman learned that Kedo had called this their last chance to reconcile with Viscount Ange and ordered the guard to proceed with Kedo’s suggestion.

Quintina arranged merchant groups to supply Ang’s camp in the Milaginbi Mountains, while North Wind Territory’s residents organized their own civilian merchant group. The caravans and Janice’s team reached the camp, bringing the new venture to the edge of its next stage.

• Nobles tried to secure military merchant group slots, but Quintina refused to auction more and ordered the two existing merchants to prepare to carry thirty percent of the listed goods.
• The two merchants planned to use their slot to negotiate joint investments and profit sharing with nobles, hoping to build wealth and gain titled status.
• Quintina and Dusha finalized the North Wind Territory Civilian Merchant Group, which gathered twenty thousand magic crystals and arrived in Amnath City.
• Quintina and the two merchants departed for the rail station, while Quintina joined Ang at his Milaginbi Mountains camp and told him Janice had agreed to come with her own team.
• Fourteen days later, the merchant groups and Janice’s team crossed the mountains and arrived at Ang’s camp.

Ang’s camp prospered as merchant groups traded with his soldiers, and Janice joined his development effort with two thousand veterans. The chapter ended with Ang advising Baron Jennings to settle undeveloped land north of his fief instead of joining Ang’s already well-staffed project.

• Isi and Puli reunited with their brothers, who had arrived with the North Wind Territory Civilian Merchant Group, while Janice surveyed the rapidly growing camp.
• Ang set the merchants’ prices, sold stored goods for thirty thousand magic crystals, and saw them buy soldiers’ spoils and offer a popular letter-and-money mailing service.
• Janice told Ang she had sold her family’s eastern lands and brought two thousand veterans, with three thousand more due in three months, and Ang welcomed her into the development effort.
• Janice apologized to Dana for her past arrogance, and Dana accepted her apology before Quintina took Janice to tour the camp and settle her troops.
• The merchant convoy departed safely after Janice’s troops cleared threats along its route, and Baron Jennings arrived the next morning seeking to join Ang’s project.
• Ang told Jennings he did not need more people and suggested that he develop the undeveloped land north of his own fief instead.

Ang accepted Jennings into the pioneering force in exchange for his family’s Crimson Armor Swordsman Corps training manual, then welcomed Jennings’s and Janice’s troops and prepared to advance toward Third Peak. The legions set out on separate routes, and Ang later led the main force north, leaving seven thousand defenders behind.

• Jennings offered Ang a centuries-old Crimson Armor Swordsman Corps training manual in exchange for joining the pioneering force, and Ang accepted under the conditions that Jennings provide his own supplies and follow unified command.
• Jennings’s roughly fifteen hundred soldiers and Janice’s two thousand disciplined troops arrived at camp, and Ang assessed their readiness.
• At the officers’ meeting, Temple reported that fourteen lizardman tribes lay between the army and Third Peak, with small tribes migrating west and two large tribes preparing defenses.
• Ang assigned the First and Second Legions to attack the two large tribes while he led the main force along the northern route; Janice and Jennings were to accompany him for their first battle.
• Three days later, the First and Second Legions departed, and Ang led the main force north, leaving seven thousand defenders at the rear.

Ang’s army rapidly cleared the lizardman tribes around Third Peak and discovered a vast mithril deposit in a canyon. He secured the mine’s secrecy, began organizing its exploitation, and left the story with specialized furnaces arriving for the hidden operation.

• Ang accelerated the central army’s advance, using airship bombardment and infantry assaults to destroy lizardman settlements as the First and Second Legions attacked the flanks.
• Ang and Dana killed the Lizardman Great Warriors threatening the southwestern and northwestern fronts, and the legions wiped out both tribes.
• Isi revealed a lizardman ovary containing traces of raw mithril, and Ang’s forces captured a herd of about five hundred Stampede Beasts in the canyon.
• Ang uncovered a rich mithril deposit, bound the witnesses to secrecy with a Magic Contract, assigned Isi to oversee mining, and ordered Yasi to clear the remaining lizardman ovaries.
• Ang summoned Quintina through a Magic Teleportation Array and asked her to obtain three high-temperature enchanted furnaces and authorize the kobolds’ population to exceed one hundred thousand.
• Quintina arranged the furnaces, and Ang secretly moved kobold laborers into the mine to begin extracting the mithril.

Ang learned that nearly seven hundred thousand lizardmen were marching toward his camp and chose to prepare for a decisive war of attrition rather than withdraw. The chapter left his forces building a towering fortress and denying the lizardmen supplies as they advanced.

• A Lizardman Great Warrior sought guidance from Therese, who directed him to Gelongla; Gelongla ordered a tribe to handle the threat in the Milaginbi Mountains.
• A lizardman elder relayed Gelongla’s decree to his tribe, and its horn summoned forces from nearby peaks to march toward the First Peak.
• Ang ordered Zuo Ning to oversee construction of a fortress and instructed Isi to begin mithril smelting when more kobolds and magic furnaces arrived.
• After learning that nearly seven hundred thousand lizardmen were approaching, Ang rejected withdrawal and persuaded his officers to fight from the fortress.
• Ang’s forces planned a war of attrition, set a twenty-day deadline for the fortress’s main wall, and expanded patrols to deny the lizardmen supplies.

Ang oversaw the fortress’s construction and approved Black Claw’s plan to buy more kobolds, while the new workers were brought under strict discipline. He discussed the wider lizardmen war and noble politics with Isi, who asked him to enchant a pendant; the chapter ended with Ang asking how much mithril was in storage.

• Veterans and Ganbu recruits completed the fortress’s forty-meter walls, after which Ang sent the soldiers back to military training.
• Ang approved Black Claw’s request for a five-thousand-magic-crystal advance to buy forty thousand kobolds, and Black Claw trained the newcomers for construction work.
• Black Claw beheaded three kobolds for slacking and inciting others, after which the workforce became more disciplined and helped build roads, drains, warehouses, and barracks.
• Ang and Isi discussed Yas’s planned purge, the growing lizardmen forces on the Litchfield Plains, and the political dealings of Imperial nobles.
• Isi gave Ang a bronze pendant and asked him to engrave Guardian and Magic Amplification arrays; Ang agreed and asked how much mithril remained in storage.

Ang crafted a pendant combining a Guardian Magic Array and a Magic Amplification Array, then led a hands-on equipment seminar for his mages and apprentices. The pendant exceeded Isi’s expectations, and Isi revealed that he had requested it for his magically gifted daughter.

• Ang arranged a seminar where mages and apprentices would practice crafting beginner-level magic equipment with mithril.
• Ang spent three days carving and assembling a pendant with protective and amplification arrays, using a magic crystal as its energy core.
• At the seminar, Ang taught the group and encouraged them by praising the strong fundamentals they had gained through extensive rune work.
• Ang gave Isi the finished pendant, and Isi tested it, discovering that it greatly increased the area and power of his Earth Spike spell.
• The mages and apprentices took turns testing the pendant, and their equipment designs began incorporating Magic Amplification Arrays.
• Isi thanked Ang and explained that he planned to give the pendant to his daughter, who had recently been found to have magical talent.

Ang trained the mages to craft magical equipment, then spent half a month upgrading their wands and making protective bracelets for the approaching battle with the lizardmen. After waking from two days of exhaustion, he learned the lizardmen were gathering near the fortress and studied a map of their widely scattered camp.

• Ang guided the mages through crafting their first Magic Amplification Array equipment and gave five water-element apprentices Ring of Potent Healing rings for the coming battle.
• Ang upgraded Puli and the other official mages' wands with mithril and Magic Amplification Arrays, then gave them personalized Magic Sense Guard Bracelets.
• Ang collapsed from exhaustion and slept for two days, during which his magic power and mental strength increased slightly.
• Ang learned from Temple that the lizardmen were less than three days away, with scouts near the fortress and their main force gathering twenty kilometers away.
• After Temple reported that the Lizardmen Camp was too spread out for efficient shelling, Ang examined a detailed map of its scattered encampments.

Ang and his forces used a ring of fire to drive the scattered lizardmen into a dense camp, then launched an airship bombardment. The lizardmen sent Great Warriors riding Screaming Serpents to attack, and Ang’s airships began shooting them down.

• Ang’s officers debated how to attack the widely scattered lizardman camps as scouts approached the fortress walls, where Lookout Tower soldiers detected and killed them.
• Jennings proposed setting a ring of fires to herd the lizardmen inward, and Ang led eight mages in dropping fire bombs around their camps.
• The fires forced the lizardmen to gather and build firebreaks; Ang kept them under surveillance until their camp was densely packed.
• Ang led five airships over the camp and ordered them to bombard the lizardmen, causing widespread chaos.
• Ten Lizardman Great Warriors on Screaming Serpents attacked the airships, and Ang ordered the magic ballistae to target them.
• A magic ballista bolt struck a Screaming Serpent, sending it and its rider plummeting to the ground.

Ang’s forces defeated a lizardman attack outside Small Plain Fortress after repelling their Singing Snake riders and ambushing the army with catapults and cavalry. The surviving lizardmen withdrew east toward rugged cliffs, where Ang feared the terrain would blunt further bombardment.

• Ang’s airships drove off the Lizardman Great Warriors riding Singing Snakes, then returned to Small Plain Fortress for repairs.
• After Temple reported nearly twenty thousand lizardmen approaching, Ang sent Slock’s Cavalry Regiment to hide in the woods and led the First Legion onto the plain.
• Ang’s catapults shattered the lizardmen’s charge, and Slock’s cavalry struck their rear while Ang and Dana led the First Legion into battle.
• Ang and Dana killed the enemy’s Lizardman Warriors, and the First Legion and cavalry annihilated the attacking force before collecting its magic cores.
• A larger lizardman force appeared but withdrew, and Temple reported that nearly two hundred thousand lizardmen had been lost and the survivors were relocating east.
• Ang studied the map and realized the lizardmen could use the rugged cliffs to evade accurate bombardment.

After repelling the lizardmen, Ang celebrated the victory and prepared to exploit their retreat into the Blackrock Hills by attacking their hunting parties. The lizardmen suffered from dwindling supplies, then assembled a hundred thousand warriors and advanced toward Small Plain Fortress for a dawn surprise attack.

• Ang announced victory at Small Plain Fortress, reviewed the lizardmen’s heavy losses, and ordered Slock to harass their hunting parties in the Blackrock Hills.
• Ang visited the wounded, where apprentices reported that the Ring of Potent Healing helped them cast and learn the Water Therapy Technique.
• The lizardman elder regrouped his tribes in the Blackrock Hills, learned from Gronva that he could call up reserve forces, and ordered the tribes to reorganize.
• After the lizardmen’s food supplies ran short, Ang sent Slock and Puri’s cavalry units to ambush their hunting parties for a week.
• The lizardman elder ordered a surprise attack, and one hundred thousand Lizardman Warriors advanced toward Small Plain Fortress, reaching the forest near the fortress by dawn.

Ang’s forces ambushed the arriving lizardmen with catapults and mines, but the survivors climbed the walls and attacked. Ang fought the Lizardman Great Warrior, killed him after a hard battle, and then healed his wounds while Dana lay badly injured.

• Ang ordered the catapults to fire once the lizardmen entered the ambush zone, and the explosions devastated their ranks.
• The surviving lizardmen crossed the minefield, shot at the defenders, and climbed the wall while ballistae eliminated their archers.
• Ang reached the wall and confronted the Lizardman Great Warrior, trading powerful attacks as the battle raged around them.
• Ang wounded the Lizardman Great Warrior, and Dana struck the enemy’s head with his Steel Mace before being knocked away.
• The Lizardman Great Warrior healed his injuries, but Ang attacked with the Dragon Thorn Spear and killed him with a flame-wreathed thrust.
• Ang checked on the badly injured Dana and used holy light to heal his own wounds.