Chapter Summaries

At the Dragon Throne Conference, Lin Ze reported the Northern Frontier’s devastation, and nobles and officials debated who should control its recovery. The emperor remained silent as a thin, small-framed man began to rise, leaving the conference’s power struggle unresolved.

• Lin Ze presented the postwar report, stating that the Northern Frontier had lost four-fifths of its population, its territory and government had collapsed, and its military forces had been shattered.
• A Heran Family representative demanded an investigation of Duke Edmund, accusing him of contributing to the Northern Frontier’s collapse.
• General Yuda Brutus proposed sending three legions to establish a centrally commanded military district in the Northern Frontier.
• Mace opposed an unchecked military deployment and proposed an Imperial Northern Frontier Military and Civil Affairs Office, with the represented families sharing responsibility for defenses and supplies.
• The emperor remained silent as a thin, small-framed man at the eastern end of the table began to rise.

At the Dragon Throne Conference, the emperor approved a reconstruction plan that protected Duke Edmund’s role while drawing noble heirs and forces into the Northern Frontier under imperial control. Eleanor reflected on the political settlement, then visited the unconscious Gaius before Arthur took him to a secret facility that might wake him.

• Marquis Collins proposed a Northern Frontier Disaster Reconstruction Bureau led by local nobles, while Mace and General Yoda called for imperial oversight and military authority, and House Edmund asked to preserve its rights and traditions.
• Lin Ze announced that Duke Edmund would lead the bureau under imperial supervision, that great noble families had to send core members north, and that Prince Asta August would go first.
• Eleanor concluded that Emperor Ernst had protected Duke Edmund, avoided diverting the main forces north, and used reconstruction to weaken the old nobility.
• Eleanor visited Gaius at the Imperial Capital Hospital, where his wife cared for him while he remained unconscious.
• Arthur arrived with orders to transfer Gaius to a secret imperial facility that might wake him, and Gaius’s wife agreed to let him go.

Louis reviewed intelligence about the Northern Frontier’s reconstruction plan, a prince’s arrival, and a promising heating resource, then inspected Red Tide City with Emily. He encouraged residents at a communal housing site and headed to check the greenhouse trials, while the coming winter’s fuel shortage remained unresolved.

• Louis learned that Duke Edmund would lead the Northern Frontier reconstruction framework, Asta August would travel north, and lava moss could provide efficient heat.
• Louis and Emily began their winter inspection after a simple breakfast, and Vale revealed that he had become a Mid-Rank Elite Knight at fourteen.
• Red Tide City residents welcomed Louis warmly, and he inspected the communal housing project, joining workers to dig a foundation.
• Louis and Emily visited the Fireback Turtle resupply station, where Emily learned the creatures could not supply enough heat for the whole winter.
• Louis said knights were investigating unusual plants near the Lava Fissures and led the party toward the greenhouse to inspect its trial planting.

Louis inspected Red Tide’s upgraded greenhouses and food reserves as winter approached, then received news that people from Magewood had arrived. He left the storehouse and returned to Red Tide Castle to meet them.

• Louis toured the Red Tide Type II Greenhouse with Emily and Agricultural Officer Mick, inspecting its reinforced structure, geothermal heating, lighting, and ventilation.
• Mick showed Louis trial plots of Snowbone Wheat and Bitterfrost Tubers, crops intended to help feed the fief through winter.
• Louis praised the greenhouse workers and ordered the complex expanded and a second round of planting started.
• At the Red Rock Storehouse, Bradley reported the fief’s food stocks and warned that a prolonged cold snap could strain supplies for the population of nearly ninety thousand.
• Displaced workers thanked Louis for providing food and work, and he told them they had earned their provisions through their labor.
• A Red Tide Knight informed Louis that people from Magewood had arrived, so Louis postponed his next inspection and returned to Red Tide Castle.

Louis took Magewood’s entrance tests in Red Tide Castle and passed by special exception, earning the Iron-Mask Mage title and an official permit. He left with access to beginner magic books and an invitation to seek further training at Magewood’s headquarters.

• Archmage Herman Elwood explained that Magewood needed to investigate whether the destroyed Doom Brood Hive could revive, and offered to test Louis locally.
• Louis guided the Siphon Hourglass with impressive control, then detonated a Coalstone with a precise burst of fire while concealing most of his strength.
• Louis smoothly cast an illumination spell, a wind blade, and a fireball, astonishing the visiting mages.
• Herman granted Louis an exceptional pass, an Iron-Mask Mage mask, a permit signed by the Supreme Mage, and beginner-level magic books.
• Herman explained that Louis would need to visit Magewood’s core district to pursue higher ranks, and Louis agreed to visit after the current period.

Duke Edmund received the Dragon Throne Conference’s order preserving his title while placing the Northern Frontier under growing imperial oversight. He chose Louis Calvin as his first appointee to the Reconstruction Council as he faced the region’s uncertain future and his own declining health.

• Duke Edmund read the Imperial Capital’s decree, which appointed him chief of reconstruction while sending oversight officials and the Sixth Imperial Prince to the Northern Frontier.
• Duke Edmund recognized that the decree would gradually strip House Edmund of control, though he retained authority to appoint eight of the Reconstruction Council’s thirteen members.
• Duke Edmund decided to give the first council seat to Louis Calvin, whose intact forces and popular support made him a strong ally for rebuilding the north.
• Duke Edmund reflected on the Northern Frontier’s weakened state and his doctor’s warning that he might have only a few years to live.
• Elena brought Duke Edmund medicinal broth and reminded him not to overexert himself as he worried about the future awaiting their child.

During a brutal winter, Louis and Emily mobilized Red Tide’s resources to keep refugees alive as disease and cold spread. Spring finally arrived, leaving Red Tide celebrated as a rare source of hope in a devastated Northern Frontier.

• Emily told Louis that Elena had safely given birth, then joined him in confronting the winter casualty reports.
• As deaths and illness rose in the refugee camps, Louis ordered reserve Fireback Turtles turned into heated treatment rooms and rotated access for those most in need.
• Mike’s craftsmen and refugee workers produced twenty thousand coldproof cloaks, while Emily’s Medical Support Team distributed medicines and hot soup.
• Louis and Emily visited the medical ward, where they brought blankets, medicine, and heat to sick refugees including Norn and his younger brother.
• Refugees came to regard Louis as the sun of Red Tide and Emily as a saint, while reports from beyond the fief described famine, disease, and widespread collapse.
• The harsh winter eventually ended, and the people of the Northern Frontier watched the first sunlight and melting snow in silence.

Asta August received an imperial order to establish a fief in the devastated Northern Frontier and struggled to decide whether it was a test, exile, or opportunity. Sever urged him to build real power there and warned him to befriend, but remain wary of, Louis Calvin.

• Asta read the emperor’s order sending him to the Northern Frontier and wondered whether his father expected him to die or hoped he would prove himself.
• Sever arrived and told Asta that the weakened Northern Frontier’s chaos could give him a chance to establish his own territory and gain influence.
• Sever challenged Asta to overcome his fear of failure and learn to command troops, govern, and win support by protecting people and providing supplies.
• Sever identified Louis Calvin as a capable rising figure backed by Duke Calvin and connected to Duke Edmund, advising Asta to cooperate with him while staying cautious.

After winter, Louis sheltered refugees and shared food with Red Tide Fief's residents while assessing the devastation across the Northern Frontier. With a governors' reconstruction conference approaching, he planned to secure new territories and resources under the guise of helping rebuild.

• Louis ordered Red Tide City to open a refugee shelter, quarantine arrivals, and provide food and medical care.
• Louis learned that Red Tide had lost 3,261 people over winter and marked several silent fiefs as part of the dead lands.
• Louis canceled celebrations but distributed spring rations equally to new and longtime residents.
• Louis learned that Asta August had arrived and that the governors' reconstruction conference would take place within a month.
• Louis marked the Southeastern Lowland Valley, northern mineral deposits, and Frosthowl Fjord as targets for expansion and planned to claim them through reconstruction proposals.

Louis arrived in Frost Glaive City with Emily, reunited her with her family, and secured a large land grant from Duke Edmund. Prince Asta reached the devastated Northern Frontier and was summoned to a reconstruction meeting without warning; Sever advised him to observe the factions and avoid taking sides.

• Louis and Emily entered Frost Glaive City, where Emily reunited with Duke Edmund, Elena, and her infant brother.
• Edmund told Louis the emperor had rejected his promotion to count, then granted him his proposed lands and three times as much additional territory.
• Asta traveled through the devastated Northern Frontier with a large royal column and resolved to make a future for himself there.
• Edmund welcomed Asta, assigned him a southwestern territory, and invited him at the last minute to the Directorate's first plenary meeting.
• Sever explained that Edmund meant to test Asta and use him to balance competing factions, then advised him to observe without choosing sides.

Louis helped Duke Edmund resist the Imperial Capital departments’ attempt to seize control of Northern Frontier resource allocation, and the three-day conference ended with Edmund’s authority intact. Louis returned to Red Tide with vast reconstruction territory, settlers, laborers, and supplies that positioned his fief to lead the coming spring recovery.

• Heruda, Mace, and Kant proposed a centralized logistics department that would shift allocation authority away from Duke Edmund, while Asta declined to take a position.
• Louis urged that the proposal be submitted to the Dragon Throne Conference or decided by the emperor, exposing the officials’ coordinated pressure and prompting Edmund to reject their attempt to bypass imperial approval.
• Edmund thanked Louis for intervening and warned that the next day’s negotiations would bring further disputes; Louis and Asta exchanged formal courtesies and began a cautious acquaintance.
• During the remaining conference, Edmund secured the Reconstruction General Administration’s authority, Gareth obtained permission to station troops, and Louis quietly gained influence over reconstruction decisions.
• Louis left Frostspear with more than eight hundred thousand square kilometers of reconstruction territory, twenty-three thousand registered settlers, over twenty thousand incoming slaves, and priority grain, tools, food, and production equipment for Red Tide.

Louis planned a four-zone development system for the Northern Frontier, with Red Tide as its administrative hub, and began reorganizing territory and resettling displaced people. The chapter ended with him riding to the River Valley Basin to prepare for spring planting before the snow melted.

• Louis explained to Emily his plan to develop Red Tide as the central city and divide the new territory into three development tiers, including river, forest, and mining settlements.
• Louis outlined a system that granted knights administrative rights and a share of profits while keeping resources, taxes, and civil administration under his officials’ supervision.
• After returning to Red Tide, Louis met with surviving nobles, compensated them with new lands, returned their knights, and established a joint defense agreement.
• Louis sorted displaced people by region, skills, and condition, then assigned them to farms, workshops, outposts, markets, and relief work across the new territories.
• Louis set out for the River Valley Basin to get the first seeds planted before the snow melted.

Louis led a carefully prepared ambush that destroyed the Frost Giants occupying the River Valley Basin, securing the land for spring planting. The tribe was exterminated without any deaths among Louis's forces, and its remains were collected for fertilizer.

• Louis confirmed that ninety-eight Frost Giants occupied the basin and divided his troops between explosive bombardment and elite knight squads.
• Louis lured the hungry giants into the valley with bait broth and signaled the Heavy Demon Explosive Bombs to fire.
• The two explosions devastated the giants and cut off their escape, leaving twenty-two survivors for Louis's knights to pursue.
• The Red Tide Elite Knights killed the remaining Frost Giants, including the blue-eyed defenders and the last red-marked berserker, while suffering no deaths and twelve light injuries.
• Louis ordered the giants' remains processed into fertilizer, and preparations for spring planting began in the cleared basin.

Louis established Wheatwave Fief as a farming settlement and promised land and a future to the refugees and Red Tide residents who moved there. He issued the Spring Plowing Mobilization Order, leaving the new fief organized for its first sowing and development.

• Louis named the reclaimed valley Wheatwave Fief and arranged public hired-labor farms alongside small private plots for settlers.
• Louis promised refugee households land after five years of helping build the fief, with earlier or larger plots for those who distinguished themselves.
• The settlers cleared land, built semi-underground communal housing, developed water supplies, and laid roads across the valley.
• Louis gathered village representatives and officials in the assembly hall and issued the Spring Plowing Mobilization Order.
• Louis introduced performance incentives and penalties for village communities, settlements, workshops, and administrative teams.
• Louis urged the settlers to make spring plowing a fight against hunger and distributed official tags to village representatives and senior officials.

Louis oversaw the organized start of spring plowing in Wheatwave Fief, where geothermal greenhouses, coordinated labor, and cultivation rankings supported the region’s grain production. With seedlings emerging and most preparations progressing, he reflected on the beginnings of Red Tide Fief and the hope taking root in the Northern Frontier.

• Agricultural Officer Mick and the villagers surveyed and registered fields while workers built geothermal greenhouses across Wheatwave Fief.
• Louis plowed the ceremonial first furrow as villagers watched, then left the practical work to Mick and the agricultural administration.
• Villages prepared heated soil, applied fertilizer, tended seedlings, and distributed seeds under strict records and a three-shift work system.
• The General Affairs Hall posted daily cultivation rankings, encouraging villages to compete for annual rewards such as land rights and supplies.
• Louis inspected the fields and emerging wheat seedlings, then learned that half the area had been tilled and the second batch of staple crops could be sown in five days.

Louis received intelligence about barbarian scouts, shadow moss in a dangerous cavern, and emberdeep iron near Snowpeak Commandery, then prepared to return from the Wheatwave Fief to Red Tide. He left Knight Green in charge of the spring planting and set out with the Red Tide Knight Order, taking a detour to inspect a location.

• Louis learned that the northern barbarian tribes were fighting but had sent scouts toward the Empire, and he planned to strengthen Red Tide's border watch.
• Louis discovered that shadow moss and Soul-Eater Lizard Beasts were in a cavern in northern Wheatwave, and he considered using them to improve knight training and develop mental weapons.
• Louis learned that valuable emberdeep iron lay north of Snowpeak Commandery and decided to establish a mining and armaments outpost there.
• Louis told Sif they would return to Red Tide and handed Knight Green irrigation plans and instructions for managing Wheatwave's spring planting.
• Louis departed Wheatwave with the Red Tide Knight Order and asked Lambert to take a detour to inspect a place.

Louis and his knights discovered Shadow Moss and Soul-Eater Lizard Beasts in an ancient tomb beneath Rift Scar Hill. After capturing most of the beasts, Louis decided to turn the cavern into a Red Tide research and training site called Shadow Vale.

• Louis led Lambert and a squad of elite knights into a cavern, where they found an ancient Snow Kingdom tomb covered in Shadow Moss.
• Louis identified the moss as a valuable magical plant, and the knights’ Frostleaf Vine masks protected them from its psychic attack.
• Lambert organized the knights into a formation, and they subdued sixty-five Soul-Eater Lizard Beasts while killing one by mistake.
• Louis found that the moss, beasts, and cavern formed a stable ecosystem and chose to develop the site instead of transplanting everything.
• Louis ordered guards to remain, samples and five beasts to be collected, and researchers and builders to be sent to the cavern, which he named Shadow Vale.

After returning to the Red Tide Fief, Louis reunited with Emily and discussed the fief’s growth and plans to resettle refugees and establish a city. He then tasked Silco with turning shadow moss and Soul-Eater Lizard Beasts into sustainable resources, leaving Silco to lead research and breeding in the cavern at Rift Scar Hill.

• Louis returned to the Red Tide Fief, embraced Emily, and told her about discovering shadow moss and more than sixty Soul-Eater Lizard Beasts in an ancient tomb at Rift Scar Hill.
• Emily reported that spring planting was going smoothly but that refugees remaining in the Red Tide Fief were causing growing resentment, and Louis proposed creating more fiefs and an Immigration Dispatch Office to resettle them.
• Louis told Emily that he intended to transform the Red Tide Fief into the southeastern Northern Frontier’s administrative center, and she agreed to continue supporting him.
• After resting and practicing the Tide Breathing Technique, Louis visited Silco’s Laboratory and gave Silco shadow moss samples and a Soul-Eater Lizard Beast magic crystal for research into cultivation, terror bombs, and interrogation devices.
• Louis ordered Silco to assemble specialists and establish a laboratory and breeding facility in the cavern in the northern Wheatwave Fief, and Silco accepted the assignment.

Louis planned a new structure for the Red Tide Knight Order, with branch regiments, elite units, merit-based rewards, and written benefits for knights. After setting preliminary plans for Red Tide City's expansion, he prepared to travel north to inspect the Snowpeak mineral vein and left the next morning.

• Louis and Lambert drafted a reorganization of the Red Tide Knight Order, including regional regiments and elite groups reporting directly to Louis.
• Louis proposed a battle merit system that tied promotion, resources, land grants, and formal living benefits to service and achievement.
• Louis showed Bradley plans for Red Tide City's outer walls and ordered preparations to begin after the spring-plowing recovery period.
• Louis told Emily he would leave for Snowpeak to inspect its unstable mineral vein, and she agreed to join him later when spring planting was underway.
• Louis mounted his horse and rode north with the assembled knights the next morning.

Titus Shuanglie called the eight clans to war after the Shattered Axe and Red Rock Tribes rejected his authority, then rallied the warriors behind a vision of a united Snowfield Kingdom. As the elders questioned his bloody rise, he remembered how he had poisoned Harold Frostmane and eliminated the Frostmane family, and prepared to lead the Frostfire Legion against the Northern Frontier with a secret power behind him.

• After learning that the Shattered Axe and Red Rock Tribes had humiliated his envoy and denounced him, Titus ordered the army to assemble at Whitefrost Ridge.
• At the Frostfire Oath, Titus condemned the old alliance and called for a Snowfield Kingdom, winning the support of many warriors while Ortan, Hegen, and other elders opposed him.
• Titus recalled poisoning Harold Frostmane after witnessing Harold submit to an imperial envoy, then secretly arranging the deaths of Harold's family and consolidating power as the Frostflame Tribe's leader.
• Titus blamed the Empire for Harold's death and reorganized the tribes' surviving troops into the Frostfire Legion to unite the Northern Frontier.
• Titus prepared to campaign against the Redrock and Shattered Axe Tribes, relying on an ancient being he had summoned as a hidden trump card.