Chapter 661 - 660- The Arriving Battlefield

Chapter 661: Chapter 660- The Arriving Battlefield

The camp sprawled across the valley like a wound on the earth.

Ten thousand tents. Ten thousand banners. The Eldoria faction’s war camp stretched from the treeline to the river, the white and gold standards catching the late afternoon wind. Supply wagons formed defensive perimeters around the perimeter. Cook fires burned. Horses stamped. Armor clanked. The organized, mechanical, ’we-are-here-to-conquer’ noise of a professional army preparing for a siege.

The command tent sat at the center. Largest. Grandest. Reinforced canvas, carpeted floor, a table that could seat twenty. Candelabras. Wine. A roasted boar. Platters of chicken, the grease still sizzling on the silver trays.

The men inside were not nobles. Not truly. They were faction commanders — the military aristocracy that had risen during the civil war’s opening salvo. Men with enough soldiers to be dangerous, not enough lineage to be royal. Self-made warlords with borrowed crests and purchased titles who had sensed weakness in the kingdom’s fracturing infrastructure and moved to claim territory before the larger houses could respond.

Commander Hentia sat at the head of the table. Thick-necked. Broad-shouldered. A scar running from his left ear to his jaw. His armor was off — the breastplate hung on a stand behind him — and his shirt was stained with wine and chicken grease. He gnawed on a drumstick, the meat tearing under his teeth, the fat running down his chin.

"Millbrook," he said, the word muffled by chicken. He swallowed. Wiped his chin with his sleeve. "A small town. A pathetic, overgrown frontier village that thinks it’s a settlement because some lord’s grandson built a few cobblestone roads and put up some fancy lamps."

The table laughed. Ten men. Commanders, strategists, lieutenants. All eating. All drinking. All sharing the casual, confident, ’this-is-already-won’ camaraderie of men who had brought ten thousand soldiers against a town with no standing army.

"The resources alone justify the excursion," said Strategist Varmen. Thin, bespectacled, a man who had never held a sword but could calculate supply line logistics in his head. He pushed his glasses up his nose. "The dungeon — the tower, as the locals call it — has been producing drop items of B-rank and above. The tax revenue from the adventuring traffic alone is worth more than our entire eastern campaign budget."

"And the territory," added Commander Bracht. A heavyset man with a red face and a louder voice. He bit into an apple, the crunch echoing. "The civil war has fractured the eastern provinces. If we take Millbrook now — before the royal army mobilizes — we control the northern trade route AND the dungeon resources. We become a faction. Not a raiding party. A legitimate faction."

Hentia threw the chicken bone onto his plate. Wiped his hands on a cloth. Leaned back.

"That’s the plan," he said. "We start here. Millbrook. The first stone in our foundation. We take the town, we take the dungeon, we take the resources, and we hold it until the kingdom has no choice but to recognize us as a governing authority."

A young lieutenant — nervous, new to the campaign, his uniform still crisp — raised his hand.

"Commander Hentia," he said. "What if the kingdom sends a royal army?"

The table erupted.

Laughter. Loud, derisive, the kind of laughter that men produce when they have already dismissed a concern and are amused that someone else hasn’t. Varmen removed his glasses and cleaned them, still chuckling. Bracht slammed his hand on the table, his apple bouncing.

"A royal army!" Bracht howled. "The kingdom is eating itself! The royal houses are too busy fighting over the throne to send a single battalion anywhere! There IS no royal army anymore — there are factions, fragments, broken pieces of a military that can’t even agree on who commands it!"

The lieutenant shrank. "But—"

"But nothing," Hentia said. His voice carried the easy confidence of a man who had already won in his mind. "It’s impossible for anyone to come here to save that idiotic town. The nearest faction stronghold is three weeks’ march. By the time anyone hears about the siege, we’ll be inside the walls, the dungeon will be under our control, and Millbrook will be ours."

The lieutenant nodded quickly. Then hesitated.

"Isn’t it ruled by the grandson of the Ktorian family?" he asked. "Wouldn’t that be dangerous? The Ktorian bloodline is—"

Hentia’s hand moved. Fast. He grabbed the chicken bone from his plate and threw it. It hit the lieutenant in the chest — not hard, but the gesture was clear. Dismissal. Contempt.

"Ah, come on, you idiot," Hentia said. "Do you really think it matters? The Ktorian family? A bloodline of thick-assed women and sword-swinging traditionalists who haven’t held political relevance in twenty years?"

He clapped his hands together. The sound was sharp. Not applause — the sharp, ’I-am-done-with-this-topic’ clap of a man whose mood had soured.

"Hey," he said. "You ruined my mood."

He stood. The chair scraped back. His belt was loose, his shirt untucked, the casual dishevelment of a man who had been eating and drinking for an hour and was now looking for entertainment.

"Those bastards won’t even be there," he continued, walking around the table. "The Ktorian grandson — whoever he is — left the town weeks ago. Our scouts confirmed it. The town is being run by women. ’Pregnant’ women."

He grinned. The expression was not pleasant.

"I have an army of ten thousand soldiers," he said. "I’m going to walk into that village, take every resource, and fuck those women. I heard Brad — that pig of a supply captain — got himself a beautiful maid as a wife." He cracked his knuckles. "It would be fun to fuck. Just bring some bitch here."

The commanders shifted. The lieutenants exchanged glances. The order was understood — not formal, not written, but clear. Entertainment. A woman. Now.

The tent flap opened. Two soldiers dragged a woman inside.

She was thin. Malnourished. The kind of thin that spoke of weeks without adequate food, of a body that had been consuming itself. Her hair was matted, her dress torn, her bare feet dirty. She was a commoner — a local, captured during the army’s advance, one of the civilians who hadn’t fled fast enough.

They threw her on the ground.

She hit the carpet. Her knees buckled. Her hands caught her weight. She looked up — eyes wide, wet, the whites showing, the pupils dilated with the pure, animal terror of prey.

"Please stop," she begged. Her voice was a croak. Dry. Cracked. "Please — I haven’t done anything — please, let me go—"

Hentia walked toward her. Slowly. The confident, unhurried pace of a man who had done this before. His hand found his belt. His fingers worked the buckle. The leather loosened. He unzipped.

"Your pussy must be tight," he said, looking down at her thin body. "How thin you are." He laughed. "Haha."

The table laughed with him. The commanders. The lieutenants. The strategists. Ten men, laughing, drinking, their faces flushed with wine and cruelty and the casual, ’this-is-our-right’ confidence of men who had never been challenged.

The woman on the ground trembled. Her eyes found the floor. She couldn’t look at him.

"Haha—"

Hentia’s laugh died.

His hand was on his belt. His cock was half-exposed. His mouth was open — the grin still frozen on his face, the ’haha’ still hanging in the air. But his body had stopped.

His hand went to his chest.

"What—"