Kingdom Building Game: Starting Out With A Million Upgrade Points! - Chapter 197

Chapter 197: The Dawn of War
The field stretched far beyond what the eye could take in, a sprawling sea of bodies, banners, and sharpened steel. It was no longer just earth and grass, this land had become the breath between silence and violence, the exhale before a scream.

Arkanos stood at the forefront, his gaze casting over the host assembled in his name. Thousands upon thousands, each soldier a spark waiting to ignite. They bore his crest, the black dragon wreathed in crimson, and yet, he couldn’t help but wonder how many would fall before they ever saw home again.

The ground beneath them vibrated with restrained anticipation. It wasn’t nerves, not entirely. It was a kind of stillness born only in the moments before change, a hush not of fear, but of fate.

Behind him, the winds stirred, thick with the scent of sulfur and burning herbs. Magic. Heavy, old, and precise.

Archmage Sylvana stood at the center of an intricate magic circle, her silver green and white fluttering around her as if caught in a storm.

Her staff pulsing with her green mana, rose slowly into the air. The ground lit beneath her feet, lines of ancient glyphs etching themselves into the soil with a brilliance that made even the sun seem pale.

Arkanos closed his eyes for a breath.

He felt a weight settle at the depths of his belly, the ancient weight of every war that had ever been waged in the name of power, or vengeance, or survival.

Was this what it meant to be emperor? Not the glory… but the burden of knowing you held the lives of countless others in your hands?

He opened his eyes again, watching as battalions were gathered by regiment, each assigned to a different part of the Akiran Empire.

Sylvana’s magic would not take them as a single unit, no, his strategy demanded coordinated strikes. Precision. Disruption from every angle.

They would arrive not as one great wave, but as many small storms.

The circle’s light flared brighter, and the sigils pulsed like a heartbeat.

“Your command, my emperor,” Sylvana called out.

Arkanos raised his hand, letting it linger in the air.

His knights watched him.

His generals waited.

The mages held their spells in check.

And in that moment, with all the might of the Bloodbane Empire standing still under the sky, he felt something fragile stir within him.

A memory suddenly flashed.

His father’s voice, from a time when war was still just a story told beside the hearth.

The first one he had ever recovered since coming to this world.

“The crown is not worn on the head, Arkanos. It’s carried on the back.”

He smiled.

He lowered his hand.

“Begin.”

The first circle activated with a roar of wind and light, swallowing an entire regiment in a shimmer of heat and arcane distortion. Then another. And another.

One by one, they vanished into war, their fates scattered like dice across a distant board.

The light struck like a hammer, intense and blinding. For a heartbeat, Arkanos felt unmoored from flesh, a breath held in the lungs of the world.

The world tore open in a flash of blinding light.

Then—impact.

Arkanos blinked against the afterglow, the scorched-white haze still dancing behind his eyes.

His warhorse, Midnight Veil, snorted beneath him, hooves stamping into the soft grass of foreign soil.

The beast shifted restlessly, nostrils flaring, muscles taut beneath its sleek onyx hide, sensing the shift in atmosphere before thought could catch up.

The hills of Viremont greeted them with a deceptive calm.

Rolling and wide, the land sloped gently like the curve of a sleeping beast’s back.

Golden stalks of wheat bent in the wind. Patches of wild heather dotted the terrain in muted purple, and far beyond, a narrow river curled through the valley like a silver thread drawn too tight. The sun was beginning its descent, casting the sky in streaks of amber and copper.

Arkanos sat upright in the saddle, reins firm in his gloved hands, the red-and-black threads of his cloak fluttering behind him in the wind.

The crisp scent of dew-damp soil and far-off woodsmoke touched his nose. Beneath his helm, his eyes narrowed—not at the beauty of the place, but at what it would become.

Beside him, Seraphine materialized on her white horse, hooves striking the earth. She gripped the reins lightly, one leg already sliding to dismount, blade half-drawn and glinting with her blue aura. Her gaze swept the horizon like a blade tip, searching, measuring.

Utilia appeared next, landing with one boot planted on a rock. Her massive crimson gauntlets gleamed in the dying light. With a fierce grin splitting her face, she slammed both fists together with a sound like a hammer hitting iron.

“Hell yes,” she bellowed.

Velder Meldon arrived last, perched astride his lean, grey steed. He adjusted his sword by his side, his cloak settling around him like coiled smoke. One look at the surrounding land, and his lips curled with distaste.

Arkanos raised his right hand, reins still in his left. The wind curled around his gesture like a leash tugged tight.

“Tonight,” his voice rang out, low but heavy with promise, “we camp in the house of Viremont’s last noble breath—House DeLambre.”

His warhorse stamped forward, muscles coiled. “Come. Charge inward!”

The soldiers—nearly ten thousand strong—answered in unison, blades and banners catching what light remained. Armor clattered like distant thunder as they surged forward into the fields.

“Mages!” Arkanos barked, “Begin preparing the teleportation anchor!”

Crimson-robed spellcasters peeled off from the main group, descending from horses and moving into formation in the hill’s hollow. Staffs hit soil. Circles of runes began to burn into the ground beneath their boots, pulsing softly.

Arkanos spurred his horse forward. His eyes never left the distant silhouette of the village—quiet, unknowing, framed by a setting sun that would not rise for all within.

“Everyone else,” he growled, drawing his blade in a single motion, “with me.” With that, they charged onward.