Eventually even the Fox showed up. It didn’t say anything, but it appeared next to the Serpent, who only paid it a small glance before refocusing on the Village.

  Of course, Rogu noticed the fox as well, and while his stress and trepidation deepened further, he too said nothing.

  Rogu was only standing, waiting patiently for this to all be over and these two to leave.

  He was under no delusion that when Rick woke up, he would suddenly be able to compare with Tier 7 beasts, but he knew Rick would without a doubt be stronger than himself.

  While he would still be lacking in overall fighting since just to the disparity in number of battles fought in total, Rogu was very confident in the fact that Rick would be in a different league altogether simply based on the facts.

  For one, he was a Royal, the sole Royal of their race. Not by votes, or feelings, but by the law of nature itself. It was his literal birthright.

  It meant he would always have certain advantages that the rest of them wouldn’t. It only made sense for it to be that way since he was in fact their Future King, otherwise what worth would that title even have?

  Anyway, even though he knew Rick would be stronger than himself in terms of pure power, it would still be nothing in the face of the two beasts standing not too far from him.

  So, all he could do was hope.

  Now while all of this was happening in Rick’s Village, there just as important things happening in the Plains as well…

  ???

  “Is the army ready?”

  “Yes, War Chief!”

  “Advance, and don’t bother thinking about retreating.”

  “Yes!”

  The war Chief who was standing in the middle of a camp, had finally given the order he had waited to give in the past couple of weeks.

  Which was how long it took for him to gather all of his forces from across the Plains and get a fully fleshed out army staged and ready for war.

  Thousands of Orcs were gathered.

  Roughly 6-7000 of them to be specific.

  Barring a few hundred Orcs that wouldn’t be apart of this force for a few different reasons, this was practically the total amount of Orcs that lived in the Iris River Plains.

  In the grand scheme of things, this was a paltry number of combatants when compared to the powerful hegemons who lived in other parts of the Continent.

  Even the Goblins, who lived far away in the Dark Lands of Mir, easily dwarfed this number when it came to total population.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  And of course, this was not the total number of Orcs on the continent, just the ones who lived in the Plains.

  But despite all of that, there was a difference between Orcs, the Goblins in the Dark Lands of Mir, other powers on the Continent, or even the opponents the gathered army were marching towards.

  Orcs were built for war.

  The concept of non-combatants wasn’t in their score of understanding.

  If you were an Orc, you were a warrior.

  Of course, there were blacksmiths and other positions among them, but anything else would always be second to fighting. War was their nature.

  One that the small Nation of Dalor would now come to find out in earnest.

  They were a coastal nation, with their entire northern and western borders being bordered by the ocean.

  Only their Eastern and parts of their Southern border touched upon land. The Iris River Plains were to their East, and to their Southeast was the Jagged Edge Mountain Ridge, and within it, dwelled a small but powerful enclave of Dwarves.

  In this entire region, those Dwarves were there only allies, and the only group they engaged with when it came to trade.

  Now to their southwest, lay a large archipelago, with the largest island among them, being in equal in size to all of Dalor.

  These were the Fraconian Islands.

  A Nation of islands that were currently ruled by Isla. A man with an ambition that was as wide as the ocean itself.

  Part of that ambition was not only to maintain the rule of the Fraconian Islands, but to have control over the mainland as well.

  Once he rose to power, his first order of business was to invade the Nation of Dalor, and due to the fact the Dalorians didn’t have a single person that reached Tier 7, it was not hard for him to enforce his will on the small Nation, since he himself was firmly at the Peak of Tier 7.

  On the surface, Dalor seemed like they maintained their freedom and autonomy after Isla left, but it was somewhat of an open ‘secret’ that the Royal Family of Dalor were nothing but servants to Isla, and the Fraconian Islands.

  They were forced to pay yearly tributes and move to the whims and desires of the Fraconian Leader.

  That was only two years ago.

  When a man by the name of Radol broke through to Tier 7 himself.

  He did it far away from the land of Dalor, only returning once he had sufficient strength.

  He was not someone from the line of the Royal Family and he almost had to forcefully take control of his home Nation.

  What stopped it from turning into a Civil War was the fact the once prideful military leaders of the Nation, and even the people, backed the rule of Radol.

  Once firmly in the seat of power it didn’t take very long for him to make sweeping changes. With one of which was to cease all tributes.

  And that was when the problems for the Nation of Dalor got worse.

  Isla obviously did not take too kindly to what happened and immediately started a war with Dalor, which of course was expected by Radol.

  What he didn’t account for were the Orcs who swelled in the Plains to their East.

  He didn’t know that they were also paying tribute to the Orcs as well. In fact, almost no one in the nation was aware of that. It was a secret of the Royal Family.

  Paying tribute to monsters? That was inconceivable.

  What wasn’t inconceivable though…was the Orc’s strength. The War Chief reacted the same as Isla did. He started a war.

  It looked for a very long time that Dalor would cease to become a Nation due to have a war on two fronts.

  That was until Admiral Prag broke through to Tier 7. The current longest serving Admiral in Dalor.

  If had attempted to do that before, then Isla would’ve found out quick enough to pay a visit to Dalor and remove him before he could cause problems.

  Now that Dalor was once again ruled by Dalorians, Prag didn’t have to fear retribution and was able to not only safely break through, but then to bolster his Nation’s strength and help to not only push back the Orcs but also take ground away from them in the Plains.

  The Old Admiral had been a strong warrior for decades and his expertise and newfound strength had proven quite difficult to handle by the Orcs.

  Until now.

  The War Chief had done something that harmed his pride and went against his very core.

  He asked for help.

  Although it was in the form of deal.

  It was help nonetheless.

  Flying high above the advancing Orc Army, was a powerful creature with rough, and deeply brown scales.

  A Rygern.

  If Rick was here to see it, he would think it was a Wyvern of some sort that was covered in rock-like scales.

  The Dalorians trembled.