Over the course of that week we had numerous individuals come to us as refugees who wanted to avoid war. It was mostly homeless or other people who were hopping to get a better life in a different country. We did however get a few individuals that were assassins sent to kill us when our guards were down. It was hilarious to watch them freak out whenever they stabbed one of the vampire brides I had handling the refugee intake. The knife cut through their throat and as soon as the assassin looked away to go after the next person the vampire bride would cut off the assassins arm as if nothing had happened. Which was generally true since they healed as soon as the knife left their neck. The assassin would be screaming on the ground until the vampire bride would crush their head or throat. It scared the refugees into being better behaved.
After the week of waiting was over there was a number of people led forward in chains by a group of men who were apparently peace keepers or something. I had them stay to watch the soul and mind reading, they wanted to leave, but I wasn't having them say we faked the outcome so that we could attack them unjustly. I already knew that they wouldn't be willing to give up their leaders and their children.
I had a soul gazer attach itself to each of them and used a couple of scrolls and wands to get a large screen that showed what was being shown to the gazer.
The scenes were as I had figured they would be. They showed that all of these men who were chained up had nothing to do with this and were in fact just criminals who happened to be in lockup at the time.
I executed the serial killer and the serial rapist, but the rest just got sentenced to hard labor for a month to 5 years depending on how serious the crime was. Beating up a government employee in a bar fight isn't really something worth losing sleep over and the hard labor was just to show that he served his time. Basically just a slap on the wrist.
I sent the peace keepers back to the city and said. "Tomorrow morning we are going to attack since your leaders insist on not accepting the punishment for their crimes."
The rest of the day was spent getting ready for war. We had a ton of refugees show up ever since it was confirmed that there was indeed going to be a war.
Every group had their own way of getting ready for war.
The trolls had a feast and watched the stars. The minotaurs got drunk and used paints to paint themselves. The centaurs actually joined in with the minotaurs and they sang into the night while painting themselves and partying. The beastmen all had their various practices depending on their species. Some prayed or offered sacrifices for a successful fight and some had orgies. The humans prayed or partied. The vampires just did vampire things and Aura hopped from group to group.
I myself went and had some drinks and food before turning in for the night. Sonya and Shaltear were of course there to keep me company and we only had one assassin that tried to kill me that night. It was pretty sexy to have sex on top of the body of our slain enemy. I may have been getting more and more like a dragon lately.
The next morning we were all in formation. I didn't want to give any super long speeches, so I simply sat on top of my Sleipnir at the front of the troops and looked at them before saying loudly. "We are here to get revenge for the death of a child and wife who died in suffering and pain. Today we begin our war for righteous justice. Kill all who stand in our way and remember that we are here to get justice while conquering these lands and nothing more, do not harm the innocents and do not act as if we are bandits. We will show these people the path of righteous strength. Show these poor fools that they can not stand in the way of the strong. For glory and justice." I shouted out.
"For glory." The army shouted out.
"For the empire." I yelled out while riding across the front of the troops..
"For the empire." The army shouted out so loudly the rocks on the ground shook.
After my short speech the drums started to beat out the marching rhythm and I turned around and led my troops from the front while Phil trotted next to me.
"Thank you for this Alex." He said softly.
"As one father to another, I can tell you that we will have vengeance for your child and wife one way or another. You can ask the trolls how I react to people harming kids."
Phil simply chuckled. "I have already heard of what you and lady Sonya did when they made the mistake of aiming their weapons at your children. I do not envy your enemies in the least and know that when we do catch the ones responsible they will suffer immensely."
"Yes they will." I promised him. I then reached out and grabbed an arrow out of the air that was going straight for his head as he was speaking to me. "Better get focused, they have already started."
I then began yelling out orders as troops from the city showed up having formed barricades made of earth and had started to throw spells at us.
I had the human mages cast purely defensive spells to counter the attacks while the trolls and beastmen with magic resistance used their strength and other skills to throw or shoot at the other side. Because they were mixed between attacking and defending while our side had groups focused purely on one or the other their attacks did nothing and they started to die left and right.
The first encounter was our win. We kept on advancing and when we reached a certain distance the minotaurs rushed into the barricades and ripped them to pieces before using the kite shields to block the attacks of the enemies. They created a shield wall where the barricade once stood and the trolls started to throw stones over the top of the shield wall in a reversal of the earlier positions.
The beastmen eventually managed to get into the lines of the alliances soldiers and began ripping into them. Beastmen were physically more powerful than humans and most of them weren't capable of properly using weapons. This of course meant that there was a limited amount of damage that a beastman could do to their enemies at a distance, but they had numerous ways to fight at close range with their claws and fangs. Both the empires soldiers and the alliances soldiers clashed with my soldiers stabbing out with their weapons before dropping them entirely and pouncing on them to bite or claw into their throats while they were still focused on the weapons. It was a surprise tactic I had designed for them since I knew they had a hard time using weapons.
The tactic worked surprisingly well. The alliances beastmen and demi human soldiers had been constantly trained to fight using human tactics and weapons and very few were able to cope fast enough to the attacking styles of beastmen who used their weapons as a distraction or to block attacks. My beastmen were trained to use their bodies as weapons and were able to react faster with their bodies that had little to no armor than the fully armored alliance soldiers.
My human soldiers continued to use defensive magic with more of them focusing on spells to protect the beastmen than to stop projectiles since with the beastmen in the alliances lines their mages and archers were in chaos and were sending spells at the beastmen and minotaurs more than they were sending them at our backlines.
I had taught the beastmen soldiers to attack the mages and archers while leaving the physical fighters to the front minotaurs after causing chaos to their formations, and most of them followed through, but a few seemed to enter into a berserker state after they killed a couple. It was mostly just a single species of beastmen and I figured it might be some sort of species trait Jackalmen had that others didn't. They did alright though and after killing most of those frontline troops they did go to the backlines, if only to keep on killing.
Once the beastmen soldiers were in the alliances backlines the minotaur soldiers turned their shield wall and lashed out with an entire line of axes that killed the entire front row of the alliances soldiers who weren't expecting the sudden change. The minotaurs stepped forward and continued chopping enemies like a wall of death. Whenever they took a step forward there would be an axe swung downwards even if there wasn't an enemy just in case they dodged another attack and to keep a rhythm. The minotaurs were amazing soldiers and once they saw how effective a tactic was they would follow it religiously.
After a few minutes of the alliances army getting bulldozed by my troops the first soldier threw down his weapon and shield and turned to run. Shortly after that the rest followed when they saw that my troops ignored him. The few commanders tried to get their soldiers to stop fleeing, but we focused our attacks on those commanders and anyone unfortunate enough to be near them were pelted with troll thrown rocks or arrows and were killed with them. It was funny to see the soldiers realize this since they made a huge circle around the commanders and let us have a nice target in their attempt to avoid being collateral damage.
I of course wasn't going to just let them get away and had the centaurs charge around them and capture them using nets or bolas. The soldiers gave up running away once they knew they couldn't escape and instead knelt down with their hands raised in the air to show they wouldn't resist. The centaurs led them back and had the beastmen and minotaur soldiers tied them up before having them seated.
I had the beastmen who had entered a berserk state tied up as well if they weren't able to calm down after the battle and then walked in front of the captured soldiers.
"You all have lost the battle and are now prisoners of war. We do not execute or torture prisoners of war unless we need to, so make sure you do not attempt to escape or fight back and answer our questions to the best of your abilities. If you do give good information we will gladly reward you for your help. We shall be holding you here for the time being while we finish conquering your city and searching for the city lords who caused you to fight this pointless battle. If any of you are one of the people we are looking for I would ask that you give yourself up immediately and your death will be much faster than if we have to find you ourselves."
A single soldier stood up and said. "I am one of the soldiers who had attacked the Equestrian king thirty years ago. I was ordered by the city lord to do so and even now feel ashamed for having done so. I was later moved to the military due to incurring the displeasure of the city lord and would like to say that I am truly sorry for having defended the rotten bastards son. The other guards of that time are either dead from old age and other things or are still serving next to the city lords. The city lord from that time has also passed on and the current city lord is one of the men who caused your sons death. If it would atone for my stupidity from back then I will gladly die, I only ask that my family be spared." He then bowed to Phil who looked at him with eyes that were shadowed.
Phil after waiting a few seconds slowly walked up to him and towered over him. The soldier stood up straight and looked at him in the eyes without flinching. It was obvious that he was truly prepared for death. Phil punched him in the jaw and sent him flying back into a few other soldiers and caused them all to fall to the ground.
Phil said with a pained voice. "I can see in your eyes that you truly regret what you did that day and that you are truly willing to die to atone for your actions. You are showing a true warriors spirit and that is something that any centaur brave can understand and respect. With this I forgive you for your past wrongs against me and hope that you will never again allow such evils to happen."
The soldier kneeled down to Phil without a word. I had to admire the guy since it was obvious that Phil had broken his jaw with his punch and the guy didn't even show it.
I left the defeated soldiers tied up with vampire brides watching over them and had the rest of my army, not including the berserkers, invade the city. It was a surprisingly simple thing since they had apparently sent out 90% of their troops and had left the bare minimum to man the gates. The soldiers on top of the walls gave up before we even had to do anything and opened the gates themselves.
The city was completely barren with everyone who hadn't already fled hiding in their houses. We did have a few young men run at us with weapons, but they were quickly stopped with a stunning spell and were tied up. Not that they were all that dangerous since they were beyond clumsy in their attacks. They might as well have sent children at us, would have been more of a threat since children are smaller and harder to hit with spells.
I went with Phil to the city lords mansion and found the place looking like a tornado had gone through the place. The vault was partially empty and the safe in the lords study was empty. The city lord had obviously fled since before the battle had even started.
I went to the square out front and had Sonya use magic to amplify my voice so that everyone could hear me. "I, the emperor of the Romeus empire wish to tell all of the citizens who still exist within this city that the city has been defeated. Soldiers who surrendered have been captured and will be sent back home to their families. The city will for the time being remain under martial law and all citizens are asked to remain in their houses unless they have an emergency or require food and other necessities. If anyone is in need of these things they may call on any patrolling soldier and the soldier will write down their address and will have the requested items sent to the address given free of charge until martial law has been lifted. Do not attempt to abuse this as anyone found to be hoarding goods in an attempt to resell them later will be punished in accordance to the law and any attempt to use this good will as a way to ambush my soldiers will find that we will react badly to you doing so."
"I also wish to let the citizens know that the city lord has fled the city since before the battle had even begun and obviously sent your family members and friends to their deaths to gain more time for him to flee, should anyone have information on this evil bastards whereabouts or on the whereabouts of any of the other individuals we are searching for it would be appreciated and rewarded based on the usefulness of the information."
"You lie." One of the men we had captured earlier yelled out. "The city lord wouldn't have just left us to die. You must be tricking us." His yelling had caused a small crowd to gather around the square and they were all muttering to each other.
"If you doubt my words then you can go to the city lords manor and see for yourselves." I said "while having his guard cut his bindings.
The young man raced to the city lords manor with a few other people and a couple minutes later everyone there could hear the sound of the young man screaming out the city lords name in fury and pain.
After that the people of the city were much nicer and were even often welcoming to us. The people who lost someone from the battle were still rather upset, but they didn't blame us as much as they blamed the city lord and a good few of them had actually taken to hanging our flag above their doorways to show their support of our troops. It also helped that I kept my word and helped anyone who requested it for the two days my army spent in the city. Nothing helps to ingratiate a new ruler more than free benefits and keeping my word.
Crime dropped to an all time low and once some administration personnel and police forces came to the city to help take over we were sent off with well wishes and people asking that we make that cowardly backstabbing city lord suffer for sending their troops to a battle he never planed for them to win in the first place.
The next five cities fell with roughly the same thing happening in all of them. We would defeat the cities forces and would take over the city only to find the city lords mansion emptied out of anything they could take. It didn't even matter that one of the cities had been completely off our normal path.
We had simply used some gate spells to move to a random city and attacked it without warning. Somehow the city lord had gotten enough time while his troops were fighting us on the walls to get his stuff and leave through a tunnel. He wasn't even one of the guys we were looking for and didn't even have any reason to run. The city lords were obviously idiots.
The sixth city we reached was a surprisingly decent city and actually surrendered to us without a fight. I met with the city lord where he presented one of the missing city lords to me.
This city lord was a very upstanding individual who hated the cowardly actions of the city lords abandoning their people to save themselves. He saw our quest for justice as a truly righteous one and told me that he was more than happy to surrender under my rule and help catch the evil bastards. He believed in keeping his honor and he had been unhappy with the other city lords for a good while now. The only thing he asked was that if he needed to die for us to take over his city that we not harm his citizens and that he be allowed to die as a warrior in a duel. I liked this old fellow a lot.
I was very happy to take this city lord under my banner and once he willingly had his mind and soul searched to make sure he was not under someone's spell or trying to trick us into a trap I made him one of my officials and left him to continue ruling his city as was. I gave him full rights to do as he pleased within the bounds of my empires laws, which he apparently loved since they were so wide reaching yet so simple. I also gave him a gift by making both him and his wife young again. We had some water from the fountain of youth just sitting in the treasury at Nazarick and I felt he would be a good person to invest into.
The next city we went to also tried the same thing, though they didn't have anyone to give us. The city lord tried to butter me up with nice words and ass kissing with a few bribes, but once the soul gazer was brought out to see if he was telling the truth he tried to stab me in the throat. It of course didn't work and Sonya had removed his arm before he could even get the knife onto my neck. He had of course did all of this in the city square with an entire crowd watching like an idiot.
I had his other arm and his legs removed while healers healed him enough to not bleed to death and we used the same spells as what I had done to the criminals given to me before the war started. The citizens were horrified to find out that the city lord had been torturing and killing young girls and boys and had even been selling demi humans to slavers from the Slane theocracy. He wasn't even given a chance to defend himself once one of the people saw the face of one of the girls and realized that it was his sister who had disappeared over ten years ago. He was a bear beastman and he had rushed up to the city lord and ripped his head off while screaming in anger at the scenes he had seen. He killed the soul gazer when he ripped his head off, but even I was about ready to kill the guy for the screwed up things he did. I thought I was bad with how I tortured people who had wronged me, but this guy did things that even made me flinch.
After that whole situation got around the citizens were actually thankful for me taking over and ending the rule of the vile monster that they had as a city lord. I had to actually save his daughter from being raped and killed since it turned out that his son and his wife were in on his monstrous actions while she was innocent. I sent her through a gate to live somewhere nicer. I had Alfred, the city lord who liked justice, take her under his wing and teach her. He was shocked at what her family had done and swore that she would be taught the difference between good and evil.
Word of what the city lord I had killed had done and how I dealt with them and how I treated the general citizens spread out to the remaining cities. The common citizens and even the soldiers who weren't receiving special privileges from the city lords all saw me as a crusader of justice who was exposing the evils committed by the city lords and their followers. My reputation grew with each telling to the point that I was talked about just like the 13 heroes.
It reached the point that by the ninth city the soldiers who came out to the field of battle tossed down their weapons and surrendered by sitting down on the spot. I thought the looks their commanding officers were giving them was hilarious. They just had gaping mouths and bugged out eyes from how shocked they were. Even Phil wasn't sure how to react to this situation and we simply tied up the commanding officers and left the rest of the soldiers to lay down where they were. It wasn't like they were going to attack us after we gathered up their weapons and gave them something to snack on and drink. It had become a cookout and I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry at that situation.
The best part was when we got to the city and the guards on the walls let us in and even led us to the city square where we found a crowd of people surrounding two groups of nobles. It was obvious from the bags next to them that were left lying on the ground and spilling out jewels and gold with a few other items that this city lord had also tried to run. The other group was obviously one of the other city lords who had run away.
I used a soul gazer without a seconds hesitation and watched the various crimes and wrongs they had committed. It was great to see the family members of the city lords act all shocked at the terrible things they had done only to receive the same thing happening to them. The most hilarious thing I got to see though was when one of the city lords wives had been shown to have had affairs with his guards. The city lord wasn't even the father of his kids and she had given birth to some other guys kids.
The city lord actually managed to become so angry that he got loose from being restrained and had stabbed her in the chest repeatedly. It took 5 minotaurs and a couple spells to get him off of her. By the time we managed to get him away she was already dead and the kids were crying.
He was one of the people we were looking for and so was the guy with him. They both were tortured and executed later along with the guards who had defended them back then. Phil was beyond happy at finally having some of his revenge and was smiling for the rest of the day. Their kids were executed if they had committed crimes knowingly or sent to Alfred if they were innocent.
The final three cities fell quickly after that. We had gotten all of the rest of the people we were looking for in the second city and just outside of it trying to flee towards either the Baharuth empire or the last city.
We gave them their trials and I sent the innocent people to the city with Alfred while the rest were given punishments as fitted their crimes. Ironically one of the city lords had fled only because he had been told a horror story about how I had beaten up the Brightness dragon lord and had destroyed an entire city using the dragon lord like a club. I had been described like some sort of hulking man eating demonic monstrosity and he was terrified of me. I let the guy go with a letter back to his city while only keeping his son who had been into raping married women, which shocked and disgusted the city lord a lot. The letter told my administrative people that he was an innocent guy who had been terrified of some over exaggerated stories about me. I even included the stories so that they could get a good laugh about it too. The ex city lord would be fine, even if he was a bit of a coward and was super awkward. He was still a good guy though and was really good at paperwork and following orders. I thought he would make a great office worker.
The last city was Bebad and was ran by the very attractive Ri Kista Kabelia. I got to call her Riri just to irritate her. She had given up and agreed to come under my rule since her city was the last city left in the alliance and she felt that it was pointless to fight me about it now. I proposed for her to become my concubine to show the unification of our countries and she just smirked at me. I think she knew that I was spouting crap and even her grandfather, who was a scary old bastard, looked like I was being an idiot since we all knew I just wanted to sleep with her.
I swear her grandfather gave off the same feeling as what I would think a demon god or something equally as scary would give off. He just had that kind of prescence. I might be an all powerful being, but his glare could even make me step back and apologize for misbehaving. This of course made Riri laugh at me for being scared of him. "Look at the big bad emperor, scared of an old man who can't even fight anymore." She would mock me. I would stop her mocking by kissing her with a small growl. I think she might have been doing it on purpose sometimes.