Salwyn

## [source]

Iron Triangle Empire's prince

a genious general

The fact that the genius on par with Rislant now spent his days drowning his sorrows in alcohol as the last of his armies and allies were taken away only convinced them that they were right. In fact, Salwyn now had less than 5,000 men serving him in total, and even that number was going to dwindle. He had basically lost all hope for the throne, and the amount of land he possessed as a prince was definitely not enough to feed all of his men

Salwyn had been made a scapegoat once more. Accused of betraying the country, he was forced to surrender his military power and return to fishing in his lands. [6;10]

## Plot

Richard teleported to the Frozen Throne and met Emperor Salwyn in the palace. The man had grown thinner over the past few days, but his aura had evolved to truly match his position as the ruler of the Iron Triangle Empire. Of course, all that majesty had to give way as he bowed respectfully, “Your Majesty.”

“The original ten corps have been rebuilt and reequipped, and we added ten more. There are also twenty secondary divisions with basic training complete, as well as fifty brigades of militia. Combining everything, we have more than four million soldiers ready for war.”

“Not bad, but that’s a million short of our goal.”

“This army is already strong enough to sweep through Faelor, and it still can’t compare to yours. You never told me why we needed to build up such a force,” Salwyn stated in confusion. Maintaining an army of this size was a huge burden that would have left him bankrupt without Richard’s support.

Richard sighed, “The enemy I mentioned is here now, and they’re terrifying. Even with full power, I have no confidence in defeating them.”

“Impossible!” Salwyn’s eyes went wide. As someone who had been on the other side, he knew just how powerful Richard’s army was. Conquering all of Faelor was a simple task for someone of his power, only delayed because of commitments elsewhere and a shift of focus to the divine. What did it mean if someone who had torn Runai from her throne was now uncertain of victory? This was the man whose three subordinate gods were currently wreaking havoc in the south!

### **Reaper War**

hat surprised Richard the most was that the Frozen Throne was still standing, with the enemy beaten back. This was supposed to be excellent news, especially since Richard had barely sent any reinforcements, but when he found out the specifics of just how they had managed it he found himself unable to smile. Salwyn had abandoned the surroundings and pulled all of his troops back into the city, giving any warriors above level 10 an unusual weapon. These were basically balls that contained three reaper energy cores each, with a spell formation engraved on top to break the energy balance. As the reapers charged into the city, they were forced into the narrow streets where the warriors rushed towards the more powerful drones and activated their bombs. The explosions could turn even the mechanical elephants into scrap metals with three or four such attacks, while spider warriors went down in one. However, the warriors who placed the bombs down were certain to be blown to bits as well.

The battle against the reapers would have resulted in heavy casualties, so Salwyn had hardened his heart and gotten the soldiers who were destined for death to engage in a suicide attack. Even a one-for-one trade with a flesh warrior wasn’t too bad, but at a minimum these bombers took out a handful of the enemy drones.

When Richard’s messenger flew above the skies of the Frozen Throne, he could no longer see the lofty fortress that he had once brought down himself. Occupying its place was a ruined city that spanned several kilometres, with bomb craters all over. People were working like ants amongst the debris, some dragging the remains of the enemies while others dug out blankets and food from the ruins to stave off the frozen death in the night. In the crowd were the elderly, women, and even children as young as five or six years old. Not many were wailing, but it was obvious that the tears had already dried from their faces. Time was precious and it was impossible to know when the enemy would return; there was no opportunity to grieve even if they were dragging the bodies of kin away.

Most of Salwyn’s warriors had been blown up with their skeletons, leaving only the metal frames of the reaper soldiers intact. However, the mangled bodies of the soldiers were still stacked up in small mountains, even if no one seemed to want to go near them. There were signs of three processing centres on the outskirts of the city, and Richard was informed that the defeated reapers had chosen to stall with their drones while the transporters took entire cabins full of flesh and left. The fact that those processing centres didn’t have a single noticeable chunk of flesh was a testament to the cruel efficiency of the machines.

Within the Frozen Throne, the soldiers lucky enough to survive were dousing the mountain of corpses in oil. Mages started to cast fireballs onto the heaps of bodies, raging flames slowly engulfing them all. It was only as night fell that one could hear sobbing from around these mountains, slowly growing to a crescendo. Unfortunately, there wasn’t even much time for those wails to build. As the flames started to burn, people started yelling to clear some of the ruins.

### **Decision**

The most ideal plan for all of Faelor was to gather the humans into one cohesive force. However, the journey from the Frozen Throne to Bluewater Oasis was a few months long for the ordinary citizen, and most of them would die to the reapers even if it was only a week.

Even Richard’s own soldiers weren’t gathered together. With the Bridge of Hope still under construction, he had deployed Gangdor with 50 rune knights, 300 night elves, and four saints to Goldflow Valley to clear up space for those that would move there. Unfortunately, that stretched him even thinner than he hoped. With most of the remaining soldiers having died just at the second line of defence, dividing his troops further was a death wish.

The most rational course of action was to give up on the Frozen Throne entirely, allowing the people there to be destroyed. The third wave of reapers could only be stopped by a combined effort, not a number of distant cities fighting for survival.

Richard looked Salwyn in the eye, only to see a frozen calmness without hope nor apprehension. This puppet ruler had obviously thought of the very same thing.

## References

1. ↑ Book 9, Chapter 25
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Book 9, Chapter 48