The Shadow of the Northern Grand Duke
Black King Castle was quiet. Ominously so. Just yesterday, the reception hall had been packed with envoys, the scent of boiling porridge had drifted from the kitchens, and the captured soldiers in the detention camp had sat clutching their spoons with faces that screamed the end of the world.
But this morning, the castle was subdued. Far too subdued. The envoys spoke in hushed whispers, the scribes turned their parchments with agonizing care, and even the guards trod lightly, muffling their footsteps.
I didn't like it. In politics, silence is rarely a good sign. It either meant everyone had suddenly found their conscience, or they had started a new group chat without me. Usually, it was the latter.
"Your Majesty." Hermoon entered. He was as polite as ever, as old as ever, and wore the exact expression of a man carrying absolutely dreadful news.
The trouble was, his composure was flawless. Men who bear truly catastrophic reports rarely panic. They have already passed the point of panic.
"Speak."
"Movements have been confirmed at the Eastern Military Camp."
I paused. "Belion?"
"Yes." A terse reply. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Barkan's hand drifted down toward his scabbard. I tapped my finger against the armrest. Once.
"A retreat?"
"No, sire." Hermoon looked up. "An advance."
"The scale?"
"Too large to be a mere vanguard. We have received reports that portions of the main army are already breaking camp."
"Their destination?"
Hermoon hesitated for a fraction of a second. That silence was answer enough. Still, I asked, "Where?"
"Black King Castle, Your Majesty."
Ah. Right. The other shoe had finally dropped. It's funny how people work. Even when you expect something, when it actually happens, you can't help but think: No way, really? And then life takes great pleasure in trampling right over that naive hope.
"The rebel has made his move," I said. Hermoon bowed his head. "Yes, Your Majesty."
Belion Vergrad. The Shield of Noxbain. Master of the Eastern Military Camp. The rebel who had once saved the Demon Realm. My second brother. He had finally mobilized.
The Eastern Military Camp was packing up. They were not scattering like a fleeing mob, nor were they abandoning their baggage and running like defeated stragglers.
The tents were struck in order of height. The lightest shelters were folded first, while the command tents remained standing until the very end. The horses did not clamor to feed; they lined up first. Even the starving beasts knew their places in the column.
The spearmen wrapped cloth around their spearheads to muffle any unnecessary noise during the march. The archers did not unstring their bows; instead, they wrapped them in oiled cloth to protect them from the damp air.
The cavalry did not lead the vanguard; they fanned out to the flanks. The supply wagons took the center, flanked closely by the spearmen. At the very rear marched the exhausted conscripts.
The private soldiers of the Great Houses were kept strictly separate. An army that lacks mutual trust will rot from within if allowed to mingle. Belion knew this all too well.
They were a starving army, but they were not a broken one. That was both their greatest strength and their deepest vulnerability. An army isn't strong simply because its bellies are full. The true measure of an army is one that maintains its ranks even while starving.
The soldiers of the Eastern Military Camp spoke no words. There were no shouts, no murmurs of complaint. They simply moved.
The clinking of iron, the snorting of horses, the scraping of boots against the dirt, the dry rustle of collapsing tents—all of it coalesced into a single, rhythmic pulse. The Eastern Military Camp was rising. Like a colossal beast awakening.
Belion Vergrad stood before the command tent, clad in his armor. It was devoid of ornate decorations, his scabbard was worn, and the hem of his cloak was stained dark with old blood and grime.
Yet, the moment the soldiers caught sight of him, they held their heads high. Belion still held absolute sway over this army.
"Your Highness," an officer approached, saluting. "The reorganization of the rear guard is complete. The wounded have been transferred to the fourth wagon line, and all combat-ready troops have been moved to the vanguard."
Belion nodded. "And the private forces of the Great Houses?"
"We have deployed them separately, sire."
"Good. Keep them apart."
"Understood."
"Right now, they are our soldiers, but they are also the eyes and ears of their respective houses."
The officer fell silent. Belion walked over to the tactical map. Black King Castle was marked upon it as a single black dot. But what surrounded that dot was far more than mere stone walls.
There were roads, villages, storehouses, low hills, forests thick enough to conceal cavalry, sluggish rivers, collapsed stone bridges, and nameless clearings. War was forged from these very details.
Belion did not look at the castle in isolation. He saw the roads, the stronghold, and the precise choke points in between where an army could be broken.
"What are our remaining provisions?"
"Three days' worth, sire."
"Three days," Belion murmured. The officer's throat tightened. "If we ration them strictly, we might stretch it to five—"
"Rationing will only slow us down," Belion cut him off. "And a slow army is a useless army."
The officer held his tongue.
"We cannot survive ten days on three days of rations," Belion said. "But three days is more than enough to reshape the entire battlefield."
The officers' faces shifted at his words. It was a reckless declaration, yet undeniably true. To wait was to starve. To negotiate was to fracture. To halt was to invite the soldiers to whisper of the warm meals waiting inside Black King Castle.
Therefore, they had to move. That was the nature of war. It always presented an illusion of choice, only to leave you with the single most wretched option in the end.
"Your Highness," another officer inquired tentatively. "Are we planning a direct assault on the fortress?"
Belion merely looked at him. Under that heavy gaze, the officer instantly lowered his head. "Forgive me, sire."
"Assaulting a fortress head-on is not valor." Belion pressed his fingertip against the map. "It is a luxury reserved for those with troops and coin to waste."
His finger did not rest on the main gates of Black King Castle. Instead, it traced the surrounding terrain. The low roads, the side paths, the narrow passes—the vital arteries leading into the stronghold.
"We have no time to waste," Belion said. "Therefore, I have no intention of trying to breach those walls."
"Then what is our target, Your Highness?"
Belion fell silent. Outside, a single drumbeat echoed. Boom. It was the sound of the army aligning their pace.
"The place where we can choke the life out of Lucion."
"We will force my dear little brother to come charging out of his castle, red-faced and desperate," Belion said. "That is where we strike."
Lucion. The third prince. The brother who had never known a single callus on his hands. The pretty boy sitting upon the throne of the Demon King.
For the longest time, that was how Belion had viewed him. A prince who couldn't even wield a sword. A prince whose face would turn pale at the mere scent of blood. A boy who was coddled and manipulated, but could never, under any circumstance, be trusted to rule.
But things were different now. Cardia had been captured. The outer supply depots had been dismantled. The Great Houses were busy drafting letters of apology. Even the common soldiers were whispering about the rations of Black King Castle. Lucion had not drawn a sword.
Instead, he had simply erased the very targets a sword could strike. Annoyingly, the very first trait his newly crowned brother had displayed was sheer, unadulterated competence.
"I have never recognized Lucion as king," Belion said. "And I still do not. A coddled weakling has no business sitting on the throne."
The officers remained silent.
"But it seems I can no longer ignore him, either."
The moment he finished speaking, the drum outside struck a second time. Boom. This time, the entire camp responded. The first column marched. The spearmen fell into lockstep, and the heavy wheels of the supply wagons began to groan. The drivers snapped their reins.
The cavalry on the flanks matched their pace. The banners were held low—not to boast of their might, but to silently guide the columns toward their destination. And then, the army began to move. Thousands of boots struck the earth in perfect unison.
The ground groaned under the weight, spitting up endless clouds of dust. Aside from Belion, only the earth itself knew the truth: the Eastern Military Camp had turned its gaze toward Black King Castle.
Belion watched the spectacle. This was his army. Starving, yet unbroken. Shaken, yet still holding their ranks. The one thing he refused to abandon. The one thing he was willing to tear the royal palace apart to protect.
"We march," Belion commanded. His voice was barely a whisper beneath the thundering footsteps, but it was more than enough. The order had already rippled through the ranks, and the army was already in motion.
It was then that a scout practically tumbled off his horse, rolling to the ground. With a face caked in mud, he scrambled to his knees before the command tent.
"Your Highness!"
Belion's gaze shifted. "Report."
The scout gasped for air, his chest heaving. "The Northern Grand Duke's army from the human realm has mobilized!"
Several of the officers gasped.
"Their heading?"
"They are marching north, sire. They have already crossed the southern border of the Demon Realm and are entering the neutral buffer zone."
"Their pretext?"
The scout's lips trembled as he delivered the next words. "They claim... they are marching to support the legitimacy of Prince Belion Vergrad's claim to the throne."
Reinforcements. To some, it might have sounded like a godsend. But Belion did not smile. He felt no joy. Instead, the last vestige of warmth drained from his face, leaving his features cold and rigid. His brow furrowed deeply—not out of mere anger, but disgust. Weariness.
It was the expression of a man who had just caught the scent of a foul, familiar rot he had hoped never to smell again.
The Northern Grand Duke. To Belion, that title was far more than just the name of an enemy commander. It was the stench of rotting mud. It was the smell of smoldering palisades, of soldiers who would never return, and of the day a border village was wiped clean off the map.
He had faced that man too many times. A monster who would sever the limbs of captured demons one by one while demanding surrender. A commander who would grind his own soldiers into the bloody snow if it guaranteed victory. The Northern Grand Duke was brilliant at war. Disgustingly so.
An incompetent villain could be avoided. A foolish butcher could be broken. But that man? He calculated his atrocities before lighting the match, abandoned his own with a smile, and when the dust settled, had the audacity to call the carnage "order."
Belion took a slow, deep breath, but the air caught in his throat. A sudden wave of nausea washed over him. He clenched his jaw and forced it down. He could not afford to retch in front of his officers. If a war hero gagged at the mere mention of an enemy commander, his men would mistake his revulsion for terror.
"That man," Belion said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "He dares to use my name as his shield."
The scout could not find the words to reply.
Belion stared at Black King Castle on the map, then shifted his gaze to the southern border of the Demon Realm. He had mobilized his forces to strike down Lucion.
Yet, a foreign invader had piggybacked on his march, hoisting his name like a banner—all to ensure the blood of the Demon Realm would flow for as long as possible.
"Support, is it?" The corner of Belion's mouth twitched, though it was far from a smile. "That old fox claims he is helping me?"
He raised his head, his eyes cold and dead. "No."
A suffocating silence fell over the tent.
"He is not marching to place me on the throne." Belion slammed his finger down onto the southern border of the map. "He is coming to use my name to tear the Demon Realm apart for as long as he possibly can."