Kyle had raised every able bodied man in the province to fight. Every one of them had some metal armor and a bolt action rifle. Many teams had heavier armor and semiautomatic weapons. The SMGs weren’t perfect and jammed occasionally, but they would certainly suffice. Most of the frontline infantry now had basic impact grenades as well.

  Some 5 steam tanks were also ready to assault any hardpoints the Scourge constructed. Not to mention a fleet of Mark two logistical trucks, and some armored variants that carried a machine gun. The trucks were still flimsy and expensive to make, but an army of nearly 10,000 only needed 400 trucks to supply them.

  The real showstopper was the completed blimp. The Sky Destroyer had many machineguns and a fully armored canvas, but its real armament were the two 130 mm howitzers firing 80 pound shells. It could move fast and rotate quickly, and nothing short of an AP round would get through the quarter-inch sheeting of manasteel that covered it.

  Manasteel was exactly what it sounded like-a strain of steel that was mixed with powdered crystal during forging which allowed it to be charged with mana to massively increase its strength. The crystals had been rather expensive to procure, although the small amount of them found in the dragon's hoard had helped tremendously.

  The test flights had gone swimmingly. Using Bariyon to charge the plating, raking a machine gun across the canvas produced nothing but dents. If 12 mm bullets couldn’t pierce the sheeting, then even a magical ballista couldn’t do it. Hopefully the artillery of the Scourge wouldn’t be accurate enough to hit the blimp, as the magical barrages Kyle and witnessed near Pirezohn were quite fearsome.

  Kyle’s troops had marshaled and marched out of Altrai with time to spare before the campaign would begin. They would link up with the 98th Legio Jeltaskra and the 77th Legio De’Aratach and march south towards the city of Elchatar. No one knew if the city still stood, but its location before being conquered was still known.

  The first multi-battle campaign of his time on the planet was about to begin.

  ————

  Deep in the Caresinium Mountains, Heart of the Scourge

  The Hyperintellect watched the nations across the region gather their armies and prepare for war. Hidden drones across the borders kept the governing supercomputer of the Iron Scourge well informed of what was going on around it. Across its lands, the fires of thaumaturgical industry burned and more war forms were produced every day. Armies of unfeeling drones and work forms carried lumber to the mills and crystals to the refineries in the thousands.

  Ever since it had awoken some 6 decades ago, it had built its legions of war forms and rolled over the small border kingdoms and petty warlords in all directions. The Hyperintellect itself didn’t know anything about its origins or purpose, aside from one thing: the ever burning need to expand and consume.

  The heartland of the scourge was centered around the ore-rich Caresinium mountains, a once volcanic chain of tall mountains that stretched for hundreds of miles and cut the southern reaches of Veskaya off from Canasta. Factories and mana gathering arrays sprawled across its once untouched slopes, all shepherded by hordes of black mechanical spiders.

  Across the six districts of the Scourge legions of war forms marched to the frontlines and fortresses and redoubts arose in their wake at the hands of the work forms. The Hyperintellect would make the primitives pay in blood for every mile they took. The alien intelligence began drafting the construction of super weapons and war plans for flanking enemy spearheads and counterattacking key areas.

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  The Iron Scourge was preparing to wage a war of survival like the world had never seen before.

  ————

  Djenshaun Destarter quietly fumed as an attendant read him a report. “Milord, production of your orchards near Tulsa has increased greatly over the past year, nearly doubling in scale. The farmers are getting ready to expand…” The ancient cultivator snapped at the attendant. “Do I look like I care about some godsdamned orchard!? Tell me what news you have of my son's murderer and begone!”

  “O-of course, Grand Patriarch. We narrowed down the location of his death to Pechemvar province, although any more information is not forthcoming. The Magocracy is stymying our efforts for reasons unclear at the moment.” “Of course. The bastards couldn’t just let the opportunity to get in my way go… Continue searching.”

  House Destarter and the Magocracy of Elenermagon had been enemies for centuries, dating back to the blood feud between their founders and more recent geopolitical tensions in the Senate. “Send a contingent of young masters to the Iron Scourge front. We will not display weakness in front of the Magocracy.” “At once, Grand Patriarch.” The attendant all but fled from the room.

  Every subject and ally of the Empire was deploying at least a token force to the front, and the entire professional army of the Empire itself would deploy to the region as well. Djenshaun couldn’t care less about the massively distant front, but appearances must be maintained.

  “My precious boy… I’ll avenge you yet…”

  ————

  The Great Khan watched as the clans brought their horsemen from across the southern plains. The sky was clear and blue, and the winds characteristic of the flatlands coursed over the grass rustling his long brown hair. A huge collection of square tents was slowly growing as the warhorde collected more parties and retinues.

  Canasta was nominally a kingdom, but the individual clans were fiercely independent of the Great Khan and the kingdom itself. Aside from paying a small tithe, they did little else for the nation as a whole. The soft northerners had finally decided to fight the Scourge in a proper war, and the Canasatans were known for being long-term thinkers. They would support the Veskayans in their war even if they were rivals geopolitically.

  “Kheramit, the assembled horde stands at 60,000 across all three armies. We are ready to move on your order.” “Rally the men. I plan to be moving in three days, and inform the commanding lords of my will.”

  The Great Khan nodded and turned his Steppe Charger-a famously strong and enduring breed of horse-down the hill towards the distant encampment. His entourage of Khanguards followed him on their warhorses as the advisor rode away on his own horse.

  The southern horselords were known for their strength in combat. That same strength which had repelled the Ghallisian troglodytes and crushed dozens of invasions by tribes of mountain orcs would finally be brought to bear upon the Iron Scourge.

  —————

  The great powers of the southern hemisphere were about to collide. Aside from Cascetta and the Continental Union, nearly every single nation south of the equator was joining the war against the Scourge.

  The northern hemisphere was packed with smaller nations. The large power blocks weren’t centered around superpowers, but were instead conglomerations of smaller states, like the Arnrond Alliance or the three main sides in the Lamarcian civil war.

  But in the south, superstates were far more common. Veskaya, Cascetta, Canasta, and the Continent Union dominated politics and power generally. There were many smaller powers, like the molemen in Vocutsocil and the Princedoms in K?íjemsky, but they held little sway in the world.

  The Iron Scourge had appeared 62 years before the present day. They had spread from a single mountain and enveloped a wide region in the wilderness between Veskaya and Canasta. Eventually, they started pressing into the borders of both Canasta and Veskaya, prompting a war between the Scourge and the powers of the region.

  The first war of annihilation had ended in a bitter and costly stalemate. Now, the gathering storm had finally come to a head in the second war of annihilation. Only time would tell who would come out on the other side.