Chương 366: 366:Dominion Over the Misty Swamp

Duke Fernando walked over to the wall, panting heavily. His eyes were locked dead onto the vast area marked as the [Misty Swamp] on the parchment map.

"Your Highness..." the Duke said, practically vibrating with excitement. Staring at the topographical borders of the Misty Swamp, Duke Fernando's words spilled out faster and faster:"Soren killed Warchief Blackstone."

"The Orcs' ace main forces have been annihilated. The Blood Province will absolutely erupt into brutal infighting to seize the vacant command! Which means..." The Duke violently snapped his head around, his face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated greed!

"The Orc military presence in the Misty Swamp is completely vacant!" Hearing this, The Prince Regent, who had been drowning in panic, violently snapped his head up. As fellow politicians who breathed manipulation and profit, it took only a split second for The Prince Regent to fully grasp the staggeringly massive implications behind the Duke's words.

"Yes... the Orc main force is gone." The Prince Regent staggered unsteadily toward the map. In this exact moment, faced with an astronomical payload of wealth, these corrupt aristocrats forcefully suffocated their visceral terror of Soren. The primal greed lurking deep within their souls violently erupted, overstimulated by absolute profit! The Misty Swamp! That was a vast, sprawling territory spanning the entire northern border of the Silvermoon Kingdom!

By pure legal right, this land was the inherent territory of the Silvermoon Kingdom, having been violently annexed by the Orc Alliance long ago and transformed into a forbidden death zone for humanity. But beneath that surface layer of toxic miasma and rotting muck... these apex aristocrats knew exactly what was hiding.

"Massive, exposed iron veins lying just beneath the shallow earth! And even silver veins ripe for mining!" The Duke panted heavily, listing off assets capable of making any nation drool with envy.

"Not just that!" The Prince Regent stabbed his finger onto the canyon pass on the eastern edge of the Misty Swamp, the exact chokepoint connecting the Holy Halycon Empire to the other human nations.

"Here! This is the absolute core transit hub connecting the Northern trade networks! Without the Orcs occupying it, the second this trade route is opened, the annual transit taxes and trade tariffs will be a staggering, astronomical fortune!"

"Furthermore, amidst the vast swamp, there are pockets of highly fertile soil! All we need to do is forcibly migrate landless commoners there to farm, and the endless stream of agricultural taxes will gorge our private vaults!" For The Prince Regent and this cabal of nobles, during the nation's darkest crisis, they hadn't coughed up a single copper coin in military funding for the Misty Swamp resistance. They hadn't bled a single drop of blood.

Yet now, using the miracle of two thousand men, Soren had violently shattered the Orc main forces. Without heavy enemy garrisons, the total reclamation of the Misty Swamp was only a matter of time! Greed instantly, violently overrode all rationality. The Prince Regent and the aristocrats were utterly consumed by it!

They were frantically desperate to seize this death zone they had previously despised, eager to violently plunder these incredibly lucrative spoils of war to gorge the royal treasury and the absolute wealth of their privileged class!

"We must take the Misty Swamp back! We must comprehensively restore the Kingdom's direct rule over this territory!" An aristocratic minister proposed with frantic desperation:"Your Highness! The Misty Swamp is the inherent territory of the Kingdom! Soren, in name, is nothing more than a lowly Deputy Border Commander officially commissioned by us!"

"Since the Orcs have routed, we should immediately issue a Royal Edict!" The minister waved his fist, loudly scheming.

"Directly strip him of his military command! Dispatch the Capital's mainline Knight Orders and a Governor to forcefully garrison the region!"

"Order him, and that pathetic army of bottom-tier refugees, to act as a local garrison! Force them to unconditionally surrender all defense zones, mineral maps, and armaments to Capital-appointed officials! Every single one of his spoils of war belongs exclusively to the Kingdom!"

"As long as he surrenders his military authority, the wealth of the Misty Swamp belongs entirely to us!" However, the exact second this minister—completely devoid of all military common sense—finished his rant...

"Imbecile! Shut your damn mouth!" The Prince Regent, who usually maintained immaculate aristocratic poise, exploded in absolute fury. He violently spun around, roaring at the minister who suggested a forced military takeover.

"Forcefully issue an edict stripping him of command?! Dispatch the Capital's armies to forcefully garrison the region?!" The Prince Regent severely reprimanded him, his voice cracking:"Has your brain completely rotted out of your skull?!"

"Did you fail to understand a single damn word on that battle report?!" The Prince Regent marched right up to the minister, furiously interrogating him:"Are you seriously telling me to go strip the military command of a supreme powerhouse capable of blowing a hole through an enemy commander's heart from within an army of a hundred thousand?!" The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"That is a monster army that met thirty thousand Orc elites in a frontal clash and utterly destroyed them with ZERO casualties! They are not pathetic serfs you can casually bark orders at in some tavern!" Duke Fernando walked over, coldly adding to the brutal reality check. The Duke knew perfectly well just what kind of apocalyptic, devastating power their terrifying opponent possessed.

"My Lord, forcefully use whatever pathetic scraps of rationality you have left and think. Currently, Soren commands an invincible, heavy-hitting army. Furthermore, within the human faction, he just delivered a literal savior-level victory!" The Duke continued, "In the hearts of all Northern commoners, soldiers, and even frontline generals like Galahad, his prestige has already hit the absolute zenith! He is worshipped as a god!"

"And you want to take an arrogant Royal Edict, march a bunch of Capital Royal Guards over there, and forcefully strip away the territory he bled and fought to conquer?" The Duke asked rhetorically:"That is tantamount to directly declaring war on him!"

"Soren wouldn't compromise for a single second! He would only need to raise his hand and sneer, and every single official and Knight we sent would be violently butchered by that army in the blink of an eye."

"Immediately following that, that invincible army that just annihilated the Orcs would use the banner of resisting tyranny to violently launch a full-scale armed rebellion!"

"When that happens, the ones strung up on the Capital walls as sinners won't be Soren! It will be us, for igniting a popular uprising and triggering a blood-soaked civil war!" Hearing this furious, razor-sharp geopolitical dissection from The Prince Regent and the Duke... The aristocratic ministers, who had just been drooling over mineral taxes and clamoring for a military takeover, finally snapped back to reality. A marrow-freezing terror rapidly shot through their entire bodies. Yes.

In the face of absolute, overwhelming military might, Royal Edicts and pathetic scraps of legal right possessed absolutely zero binding authority. Trying to actively steal the spoils of war from a God of War who had just executed the enemy's supreme commander? That was purely and utterly suicidal. The council chamber plunged into absolute silence once more. Everyone could clearly hear the ragged, heavy breathing of their peers. What an agonizing, maddening torture this was!

The astronomical wealth and Royal dominion of the Misty Swamp were clearly visible just dozens of miles away, filling The Prince Regent and the aristocratic ministers with bottomless greed. Yet, the entity garrisoning that territory and holding absolute control over everything was an apex powerhouse they couldn't possibly defeat, let alone afford to provoke! They possessed a desperate, burning desire to seize it, but absolutely lacked the courage to take a single step!

The Prince Regent forcefully compelled himself to regain the cold, calculating composure of a ruler.

"Listen to me." The Prince Regent spun around, facing this cabal of the Silvermoon Kingdom's core corrupt elites, establishing a definitive, ironclad direction. He warned them:"Taking over the Misty Swamp involves the national lifeblood, core military authority, and territorial divisions of our Kingdom for the next several decades! We will take it!"

"But, we absolutely must not rush!" Paralyzed by a profound, visceral dread of Soren's physical military might, The Prince Regent vetoed all aggressive military measures:"Pass down my orders! The Supreme Command and the Cabinet are absolutely forbidden from immediately dispatching any Kingdom official to Greywater Village with the intent of a takeover! Furthermore, absolutely no military force is to be mobilized near the swamp zone to exert garrison pressure!"

"During this highly sensitive period, while his prestige and military power are sitting at the absolute apex, we absolutely cannot afford to trigger even a fraction of an ounce of his armed resistance." The aristocratic ministers were deeply unwilling to accept this.

"But Your Highness, are we truly just going to sit here and watch him completely privatize that territory, fully breaking away from our control?"

"Of course not!" Duke Fernando let out a sinister, icy chuckle. This politician, notoriously famous for playing dirty political tricks and mastering the art of the scheme, now exuded absolute focus.

"Gentlemen, do not forget. Wars can be conquered with absolute force, but politics and seizing power? That is rarely achieved through violence." The Duke walked slowly over to the strategic map and picked up a piece of parchment symbolizing Royal Authority from the table. In the dead-silent council chamber, his actions seemed exceptionally sinister.

"We don't dare use force to strip him of his power. We don't dare launch a direct attack."

"However, at the end of the day, Soren still hasn't publicly declared open rebellion. His current, illustrious status is still technically that of an official vassal commissioned by our Silvermoon Kingdom!"

"As long as he remains trapped within this system of rules... As long as he still cares about his pristine reputation as the 'Hero of Humanity' who saves the masses..."