With a flick of Chen Yu's will, the battle axe in Durlong Tan's hand floated into the air like a weightless leaf, rising to midair.
Durlong Tan felt the sudden emptiness in his grip. He took a deep breath and tensed his body.
Come on.
He was ready to die.
But several seconds passed, and the expected pain of the axe splitting his skull never came.
Then he heard the Slime Emperor speak.
"What? Such a lousy axe, light and flimsy. You're a commander—why aren't you using something better?"
Durlong Tan was stunned.
He opened his eyes just in time to see his battle axe get tossed aside. With a *clang*, the weapon crashed into a muddy puddle nearby, splashing black sludge.
Why?
Why wouldn't he kill him?
Why treat a defeated commander with such seemingly dismissive contempt?
Yet there was no real disdain in that light tone—it sounded more like a matter-of-fact complaint.
"I want to know why," Durlong Tan asked, his voice hoarse.
Chen Yu didn't give him time to ponder further.
He turned his gel body around and hopped away, leaving Durlong Tan only the sight of a red cape retreating, along with a parting remark.
"Because we're brothers, of course."
"Commander Durlong Tan, take your people home—back to the ice fields. If you need help, you can always come find me in the swamp."
Durlong Tan was still on his knees. He watched the figure slowly getting surrounded by knights, his lips trembling as he murmured.
"Brothers..."
He never expected that a title sounding so much like a joke would save his life.
Their acquaintance with the Slime Kingdom was pitifully short—from the army's southward march to the allied forces joining to breach the capital, it had been less than half a year.
Even the orcs themselves hadn't taken it seriously.
Everyone knew that once Casaric died, the Orc Palaver and the Slime Kingdom would once again be at each other's throats.
But the Slime Majesty still let him go.
"Commander!"
"Commander, are you all right? Get up!"
The orcs rushed over in joy—shamans, wolf cavalry, berserkers, hunters. They helped Durlong Tan to his feet, brushed the gravel and dust off his knees, fished the battle axe out of the mud puddle, and wiped the sludge from the handle with their sleeves.
Durlong Tan shook his head. Though he didn't know what to say for a moment, he still let out a sigh of relief.
Everyone was rejoicing in their narrow escape.
"It's fine, it's fine as long as you're okay..."
An old shaman held Durlong Tan's wrist, his rough fingers pressing against the pulse, his lips moving in ancient prayers, his face brimming with joy.
Durlong Tan snapped back to reality. He looked at the faces of the orcs around him—faces of those who had survived the disaster—and tightened his grip on the axe he had just fished from the mud.
The allied forces' battle was over.
They had lost.
They had lost the expedition, lost the spoils, lost their only chance to go south. They were the losers. In this bitter winter, even the road home as defeated soldiers might be longer than anticipated.
But at least they were alive to go back.
Durlong Tan steadied himself. His gaze swept across the orcs before him, looking at each face one by one.
"Give the order."
His voice returned to its deep, commanding tone, cutting through the surrounding noise.
"Withdraw from the capital."
"Yes!"
The wolf cavalry flipped onto their wolves' backs, the spear cavalry began to reform their formation, the shield-bearing infantry and the axe-wielders each returned to their units. The entire orc army began methodically preparing to retreat.
The old shaman hobbled over to Durlong Tan on his bone staff, asking, "Commander, where are we going?"
Where to go?
Durlong Tan didn't answer immediately.
His gaze shifted from the shaman, past the battlements sheared flat by cannon fire, all the way to the distant north.
This year was the Winter Year. At this time, the northern ice fields were still a vast expanse of white.
The blizzard would blow in from the direction of the Endless Ice Sea, freezing the tents into white stone and the rivers into iron-gray roads.
But there were no demons there, no slimes.
The children of the tribe would chase ice hares in the snow, and the women would sew winter furs by the bonfire.
There was only a warm home there.
Durlong Tan raised his hand. His rough index finger pierced through the smoke of gunpowder and the morning mist, pointing toward the distant north.
"Home."
"Let's go home."
The banners of the orc legion were raised once more. The frost wolves howled as they turned, retreating eastward out of the capital to board the orc ships and sail home.
As for the tribal orcs still on the snowy plains, they would return with the main army to the Palaver.
---
Nilly emerged from the shadow beside Chen Yu, a look of confusion on her face.
"Your Majesty, why did you let that guy go?"
"This was a golden opportunity to wipe out those orcs. What if they catch their breath back on the ice fields and come south next year with even more orcs? Won't we have to fight them all over again?"
She rubbed her hands together. "If you ask me, we should have just taken them all prisoner..."
Before she could finish, a small stone sword materialized out of thin air and tapped her on the head.
"Ouch!"
"Your Majesty, why did you hit me?"
Nilly crouched down, clutching her head.
"Clueless," Chen Yu said, crouching back onto his flying sword. "What kind of slime do you think your Majesty is? I can chase off even a legend. No way the orcs will dare come south again after this."
Sekashi, standing nearby, couldn't hold it in. A quiet laugh escaped her lips.
She snickered to herself.
Finally, someone else was being called stupid by the Envoy.
Of course, to avoid being the next one to get tapped, she quickly covered her mouth.
Nilly shot Sekashi a glare and was about to say something to salvage her pride when Galvin's voice came from beside them.
"I've dealt with quite a few orcs. I know their temperament well."
The Magical Creature Legion Commander walked on Chen Yu's right side, his knight's sword hanging at his waist, his helmet tucked under his arm, his pace unhurried.
"Even half-beastmen with only half orc blood are nothing but hotheads—stubborn and single-minded. If Durlong Tan had died, those orc soldiers would never have settled down."
"This is a race built on struggle and combat. Orcs would rather die fighting than be enslaved."
"Unless you offer room and board," Chen Yu added.
If Durlong Tan had died, he would have become a spiritual totem for the Orc Palaver.
A hero executed in death stirs far more hatred than a living commander. There would have been no room left for reconciliation between the Slime Kingdom and the Orc Palaver.
Even if he could conquer the ice fields by brute force, all he would enslave would be generations of hatred.
He didn't want the Slime Kingdom to have a bottomless pit in the north that could never be filled.
You couldn't go hard on the orcs.
Nilly rubbed the bump on her head, looked at Galvin, then at Chen Yu, her brows furrowed.
"What does that mean?"
Her cultural studies grades were terrible. She only half-understood what the two were saying. She vaguely sensed that His Majesty had deliberately let Durlong Tan go, but as for why he did it, or what it had to do with room and board, she had no clue.
Chen Yu wobbled his gel body.
"Those orcs will come looking for us again. You'll understand what it means soon enough."
This year was the Winter Year. The Orc Palaver had failed to conquer the south and suffered heavy losses.
The provisions they had brought from the ice fields wouldn't last long. The warriors who fell on the battlefield wouldn't come back to life. The entire year would be tough—they might not even recover by the next Winter Year.
The first problem the orcs would face upon returning to the ice fields was having enough food to survive the winter. And the northern ice fields in the Winter Year were so barren that even demons found them unbearable.
The only place the Orc Palaver could turn to was the Slime Kingdom in the south.
Louisa, standing nearby, understood his reasoning. She spoke with admiration. "As expected of Your Majesty."
Nilly looked at Louisa, then at Chen Yu. She bit her lip, decided not to ask any more questions, flicked her cloak to cover half her face, and muttered to herself.
"Is my cultural studies really that bad?"
As the greatest Assassin Master in history, Lady Nilly certainly wouldn't doubt her own intelligence.
Anyway, at worst, she would just stop dozing off during the next lesson.
---
Although Casaric had fled in defeat, he left behind a complete mess.
Just this capital alone had been battered to pieces. Even if the most experienced Slime Artisans were put on the job, it would take at least a year or two before it was habitable again.
The inner wall had been blown into a pile of rubble by the Floating Fortress. The western district had been completely shaved dozens of meters deep by that single sword strike.
Only the southern city wall was still somewhat usable, but at its base lay piles of demon corpses and collapsed ruins that hadn't been cleared yet.
Fortunately, the Slime Legion had enough numbers to do a quick cleanup and set up camp on the spot.
The legions got busy. The Merchant Alliance's golems hauled away rubble and broken timbers, the Restoration Army's knights cleared corpses from the streets, and the slimes handled sorting and recycling.
Demon bodies were piled up in the east, waiting to be burned. Usable weapons and armor were loaded onto carts. The bodies of fallen soldiers were wrapped in burial shrouds, waiting to be sent back to their respective homes.
But the things that needed handling went far beyond this.
Large numbers of scattered demon troops were still lingering around the capital. Remnants of the Burning Legion had scattered into the Golden Tassel Plain after the city walls fell.
That was the largest grain-producing region of the White Horse Kingdom, filled with vast wheat fields and countless farming villages. The demons posed a huge threat to the surrounding farmers.
Clearing out the nearby villages would take at least half a month, and they also had to guard against small groups of demons slipping into the mountains and hiding there.
If the demons managed to find enough mana to sustain themselves, they might spawn new demons in a year or two, causing another headache.
Aside from mopping up the stragglers, there was a mountain of other things to do.
First, send cavalry to supervise the orcs' retreat.
Although Durlong Tan had given the order to withdraw and take ships from the eastern coast back home, if no one kept an eye on them, no one could say for sure whether the orcs would raid a few human villages along the way for supplies.
Second, assess the total losses of the White Horse Kingdom and reclaim the kingdom's final Northern Territory and eastern coastal regions.
All in all, the White Horse Kingdom right now could only be described as riddled with holes.
Putting it nicely, it had high development potential. Put bluntly, it was a wreck.
But a wreck had its advantages too—at least there were no more nobles or wealthy gentry to deal with.
When Louisa came to Chen Yu's tent with the Restoration Army's clerk to report, she was holding a stack of paper thick enough to be used as a brick.
"Your Majesty."
"All the mine registrations within the White Horse Kingdom are here. The northern border has two adamantine mines, three iron mines, and one mithril mine. Although the shafts were damaged when the demons occupied them, the veins are still intact. The dwarves estimate it will take two months to repair the tunnels..."
"Next is the Golden Tassel Plain, the kingdom's largest grain-producing region. Most of the farmland is now barren, but once the demons are driven away and the farmers are called back, we can sow seeds next spring."
"And then there are the salt fields and fishing ports on the eastern coast. Once production is restored, our salt supply won't be at the mercy of the southern trade routes anymore..."
Chen Yu crouched on the low table, his tiny eyes following Louisa's finger as it moved across the paper, listening to her report.
The White Horse Kingdom's mines and fertile plains were indeed excellent. The swamp kingdom's limited arable land had always been the biggest bottleneck restricting population growth.
Although the Dryad domain's magical farmland was highly productive, it was limited in quantity. It was already a stretch to feed the constant influx of immigrants.
Now, with the need to support the refugees spread across such a large area as the White Horse Kingdom, even with the Dryad domain's vast fertile fields as a backup, the food supply was quite tight.
With the Golden Tassel Plain and the Forge Region now in hand, the food supply gap could finally be filled.
But restoring large-scale agricultural production still had a long way to go.
Just dredging the irrigation channels, rebuilding the farmland, and setting up gel greenhouses would require a massive amount of manpower and stone materials.
Each gel greenhouse needed arcane runes to provide a constant temperature, and setting up even one would burn through a considerable amount of gray gravel crystals.
Roughly calculated, the amount of gold coins that would need to be spent was astronomical.
Chen Yu's heart bled.
But food was the foundation of a kingdom. This money simply couldn't be spared.
Louisa probably noticed Chen Yu's pain. She flipped the paper to the last page, a subtle shift in her tone.
"However, Your Majesty, it's not all bad news."
Chen Yu's tiny eyes looked up.
"The war has gone on long enough that the nobles of the White Horse Kingdom are either dead or have fled. The nobles couldn't take their land or their treasuries with them. Their estates, their territories, the shops in the towns, the property in their vaults—all registered assets, if we can fully inventory and confiscate them, that will be an enormous sum."
Chen Yu's tiny eyes lit up.
"Take inventory. Do it now."
The corner of Louisa's lips curved up slightly.
---
Over the next few days, the soldiers of the Restoration Army were busy as bees in the ruins, barely touching the ground.
The Merchant Alliance's golems were a huge help. These constructs, built by the alliance's mages, were incredibly strong and could move the heaviest stone beams and collapsed pillars. They worked tirelessly, searching through the rubble for gold coins, silverware, jewelry, and land deeds left behind by the fleeing nobles.
The slimes weren't idle either.
The Slime Knight Regiment split into small squads, hopping and weaving through the ruins, helping the Restoration Army clear out buildings that hadn't completely collapsed yet.
A blue slime the size of a fist rolled out from a tailor's shop that was half-burned, dragging a length of silk cloth longer than its own body behind it. It squelched its way toward the collection point.
"Muu, this can still be used!"
"This can be used too!"
"Mumu, so many things!"
Dwarf artisans set up temporary smelting furnaces in the camp, melting down the recovered iron into ingots to be used for reconstruction.
The Forest Sages cast restoration spells on the ruins. Wherever the green glow of magic touched, rubble flew back of its own accord to fill the gaps in the walls.
In addition to clearing the capital's ruins, there was another important task.
That was handling Ark's demon legion and the Fear Legion.
Under Chen Yu's orders, the Slime Legion escorted these two demon legions out of the capital, marching away along the southern highway scarred by war.
Their destination was the nearest Abyss fissure.
Ark had told them that this fissure was hidden beneath a certain cliff.
The fissure wasn't very large—only about as tall as two people. It had originally been the Burning Legion's secret transfer station. Now it was unguarded, and probably quite a few lesser demons had crawled out.
Chen Yu kept his promise. He returned Ark's soul to him. As for the souls of Azazel and his brothers, he still held them in his grasp.
Banishing them back to the Abyss was effectively planting his pawns on that side. If he ever decided to invade the Abyss, he would have ready-made guides.
As for whether Ark would cause trouble once he gained his freedom—that would depend on Azazel and his brothers.
He had only promised to free his soul, not his body.
---
Compared to these troublesome trivialities, Chen Yu was more concerned about something else.
Night shrouded the camp. Moonlight leaked through the gaps in the clouds, shining down on the tent in front of the ruins of the royal palace.
Chen Yu crouched in his own tent. Outside were the sentries of the Slime Knight Regiment—a few slimes riding beetles patrolled in front of the tent entrance, their tiny eyes warily scanning the surrounding shadows.
Beet flew in through a gap in the tent.
The faint hum of his wings vibrated through the tent as he circled half a turn before landing in front of Chen Yu.
"How many fear venom wasps have the queen wasps produced?" Chen Yu asked.
Beet extended his forelegs, gently rubbing against Chen Yu's gel as a gesture of respect.
"Your Majesty, twenty queen wasps have been bred through accelerated reproduction and have already generated over a thousand fear venom wasps."
Chen Yu was satisfied.
Poison-stinger wasps had always bred quickly, but the reproduction cycle of fear venom wasps was much longer than that of ordinary poison-stinger wasps.
Furthermore, the current production of poison-stinger wasps was still limited by the food supply.
The main food source for poison-stinger wasps was moss monsters, which didn't have a very high meat yield and were even harder to produce than grain. Raising moss monsters required occupying swamp land and using feed. With the food supply already tight, taking on any more would simply be unsustainable.
A thousand fear venom wasps would be enough.
These fear venom wasps possessed a fear aura that could spontaneously release a weak field of terror. When a thousand of them spread out, the area they could cover would be even larger than what he had released in the capital. This would help him rapidly accumulate fear energy during battle and convert it into mana.
Of course, these fear venom wasps had their limitations.
The fear they provided through the gel network was less effective than that provided by his gel clones, and there was a delay. The greater the distance, the more noticeable the lag.
It was sufficient for maintaining the normal absorption of his Mana Will. But to replicate the effect of the battle in the capital, he would need to combine it with other methods.
At the very least, it could free up several of his gel clones, allowing those clones to stop their long vigil in the corrosive mountain range and return to normal duties.
Chen Yu nodded at Beet.
Beet withdrew his forelegs, let out a low buzz, vibrated his wings, and flew out through the gap in the tent, disappearing into the night.
Chen Yu crouched in the tent, his tiny eyes glinting in the darkness.
He had a feeling that Casaric would return eventually.
By the time that new northern emperor truly mastered the Soul Crown and returned in his true legendary form, nothing would go as smoothly as this time.
And it wouldn't be long.
Besides securing a supply of fear, he needed to prepare a few more trump cards.
Chen Yu blinked his tiny eyes and began pondering new ideas.
---