Age of Heroes (Age of Heroes Chronicles)

Chapter 606: The situation around balhae

He knew that the Three Kingdoms even though the stories of their ancient proved to be true, it is not so easy to let go of their throne and kneel upon an Outsider.

The thing about ancient lore and old stories about Asrana is that it is biased toward Asrana. The story is about Him after all which explain the bias.

Arial knows it would not be easy to convince the three kingdoms to accept him. 

After all, for the gate to be opened, it is said one have to conquer all the Three Kingdoms.

Those who could do such a feat would be given the location of the Ancient Gate

And such, Arial knows whether he claim he is Asrana or not, the Three Kingdom is not going down without a fight.

The fact that they wanted to steal his fate, tell him what he already knows. 

The borders. Suddenly his mind went to the borders.

'Tch' he clicks his tongue. 

He is thinking about guarding the borders. 

Yet, there is too little information about the area surrounding the borders. 

If the mapmaker is here and told him about the forces there, it would be easier for him to plan some measures

But the question remains. 

Who should he send to the borders. His two great generals or should he send the generals from the New World?

Santiago and Giovanni could probably hold the enemy there on the border. But it would also make Arial unable to use two of his sharpest sword.

Giovanni and Santiago is a very offensive general. Defending forts is not really their specialties. It is putting the wrong person at the wrong position.

But, it is not like the generals that come with him from outside the Walls are that great with defending the borders eithers.

And since Giovanni was asking about mountains earlier, he might have repair that weakness of him.

Just because he had retired to the countryside, did not mean these twelve great generals suddenly stop improving themselves.

They are like hidden dragons in the Empire. 

Arial had always worried about them

If they w ere to be instability in the Empire and if a rebellion were to broke out, he did not worry if that rebellion comes from the lords or the factions of the old nobles.

He would worry that if one of the Twelve Great general were to raise their banners once again. 

Crouching tigers and hidden dragons all of them. 

But, regardless whether Giovanni or Santiago had managed to cover up their weaknesses in defending places, Arial still could not let them go toward the border.

At least not without information. 

For now, he must make sure that the capital of the state is not to be taken back by the Vernium forces or being taken by some rebel warlords.

And since he did not know the makeup of the forces all over the border, he did not know whether these forces could pose a threat to his soldiers.

If he had time, he would want to take it real slow, encroaching slowly. He might even lay out many schemes and instigate enmity between the numerous forces.

But he had no such luxury. 

Five to six years is actually really fast. 

To conquer such a large vast of land and make sure that he could keep it, if this was not under such a special circumstance, it would take him probably a decade.

But he could not take it slow. 

There is the Darkness that is spreading outside the Shadowlands, tainting the New World, filling it with monsters of all kinds. 

The people there is coming toward the Wall and into the Shadowlands. And he also could not take it slow because his base is not yet stable

There is still Arqua. 

It is unreasonable for them to not response at all. They would surely send an army to retake back Balhae. 

The only reason why the borders is not yet attacked is probably because the distance between Balhae borders and the Capital of the country.

If Arqua wanted to take back Balhae, they still have to mobilized the army. Unlike Eden where with his order he could field a million-man army, a private force belonging to the Empire, there is no such thing in the kingdom of Vernium.

Kingdom of Vernium still follows the same feudalistic methods. 

They have the royal army but in such a war, the royal army is not enough. They have to rely on the powerful High Lords of the state to march their army and aid the royals.

All of this takes time. They have to summon them, or send orders to them, negotiate with them the benefits and so on and so forth.

This would take even more time and there is always a chance for these High Lords to rebel against the Kingdom.

If not that some of them might wanted to be sitting on the fence and waiting until the opportune moment to enter the battle.

But knowing the Three Great tribes, they regarded the oath of honor very sacred. Those who have promise the King before would probably send their soldiers

Still, time is on his side. 

And that is not the only problem that Vernium has. They also have the problem of supplies. 

To field such an army, the supplies needed is also enormous. 

And from what Arial knows, Vernium itself is not without external problems. 

The two other kingdoms would also not just stay around. 

The moment that Arqua moves to retake back Balhae, the other two kingdoms might pounce over

Arqua had a lot of soldiers. 

But that did not mean they could mobilize their entire soldiers to go out. There are warlords rising all over. Some of them have already revealed themselves.

Some of them are waiting for an opportune moment. This is an age of chaos and only the strong would survive this

If they let the capital empty, then anyone could easily take over. The destruction of the Capital usually means the destruction of that kingdom power.

Hence, the kingdom could not wantonly just send all of their soldiers to fight against him

Not to mention that there is always a chance that some of the state would secede. Then there is the external problem like the two kingdoms.

Iathus might not send any invasion army toward Vernium, but that was only because they just recovered from a rebellion. 

Who knows what would they do when they regain back their vitality? Iathus itself has great military power. 

If there is a good enough chance, they might take a risk and attack Vernium regardless. 

As long as they could pass through the borders, they could probably take a few cities 

As long as they did that, those who were on the fence, those with ambitions hiding in the dark in Vernium might also come out.

And once that happens, it would not be long before the royal court loses all of its power. 

They might still be able to retain Arqua but if each of the nine states of the kingdom is in other people hands, then that is basically the dissolution of the kingdom.

And if Arial could see this, how could those nobles of the Kingdom of Vernium could not see it?

They must have also consider this possibility.

Luxermbough on the other hand might attack Iathus if Iathus moves their soldiers to take over Vernium.

There is all of this considerations. The Three Kingdoms constrained each other. 

And the warlords that is rising all over the Shadowlands is all adding more variables and stir up this status quo.

Arial is not the first rebel toward the rule of the Vernium kingdom.

There are others. But none were as successful as he is, who is able to take the administrative seat of one of the state of Vernium. 

There is an element of luck and also a bit of planning and the fact that he had caught them when they were unprepared.

How could they have thought that refugees that band together would have been so strong?

They also did not expect the presence of someone like Arial who could fight like some kind of deity in the battlefield.

Arqua is also not the only problem.

There is still city of Nuath that Arial had to worry about. The distance between the border lines of the state of Balhae and this castle is far away.

He did not dare send any of his scout further away from his seat of power. He worried that his people would get ambushed

He also did not have extensive network of information that he could make use of. 

Nuath loyalty toward Vernium is also something that he needed to consider since Arial did not know the closeness of the relationship of the High Lords and the King.

But if Nuath is loyal to the King and the Kingdom, then there is only a few moves that they would make

They would either send some reinforcement to aid the King, or they might even mobilize their army to move toward the northern borders of Balhae.

It had not been a week and it is already this hard.

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