Ember Dragon

Chapter 880 A Future That Gradually Becomes Firm

Seleucia Viceroyalty, the City of Sunset.

The air was filled with the sounds of gongs and drums, the blaring of horns, and a loud broadcast from the city gate. Banners were also unfurled.

"A warm welcome to the triumphant return of the Imperial Army!"

"Seleucia hero Adrian has once again performed a great feat, quelling a rebellious group that intended to join the Kingdom of Cassander!"

Adrian rode his dragonblood warhorse, leading his fully armed army along the newly paved, wide asphalt road, preparing to return to the Duke's mansion.

He gazed at the towering cranes and framed buildings in the distance, at the giant airships hovering above the city, and at the two-legged dragons flapping their wings. His feelings grew increasingly complicated, and he sighed softly on horseback.

Wow, that was fast!

too fast.

In just one month, the city had undergone tremendous changes, gradually becoming unrecognizable to him.

But is this change good or bad?

At least for now, Adrian has no idea and can only watch helplessly as the busy crowds and strange buildings rise from the ground.

"Yes, this is the speed of our empire, unparalleled in the world!"

Beside him was a half-dragon from Anzeta.

The city he knew so well was becoming unfamiliar at an alarming rate, filled with the noise of construction and the roar of machinery. The plan that would change everything—the "Sunset City Development"—was signed by his own hand.

As the procession approached the city gate, the knights gathered there couldn't help but puff out their chests, their voices filled with pride, while Adrian merely nodded thoughtfully. The people had already spotted them and began to cheer enthusiastically, with cannon salutes and fireworks lighting up the sky.

"It's Duke Adrian!"

"Hero! Hero!"

"I heard he wiped out all those traitors who sided with Kasander this time! Haha, I've seen the battle reports from the front lines, not a single one of those despicable fellows escaped!"

"Truly impressive, worthy of being our governor."

"Yes, he is a true hero! It is said that the old empires from the north admire him greatly."

People crowded both sides of the road, cheering enthusiastically.

Adrian waved and glanced around the crowd. Among them were mothers holding children, workers with dirty faces, and neatly dressed officials. Almost all of them had warm smiles on their faces.

When they got closer, the child being held in someone's arms was waving his arms incessantly.

After the treaty was signed, a large number of the Empire's elite troops were stationed in Seleucia to throw wildflowers gathered in the wild toward the convoy.

Adrian casually accepted the bouquet, smiled and nodded. The child immediately let out an excited cheer: "He's greeting me! The Sun Knight is greeting me! I'm going to be a hero too!"

Seeing these scenes, Adrian's mind finally calmed down, and the guilt and self-blame for killing his former comrades with his blood-stained hands dissipated considerably.

Perhaps this is the best outcome, and all the effort has been worthwhile.

With that thought in mind, Adrian puffed out his chest, raised his chin, and walked toward the Duke's mansion like a true hero, surrounded by the crowd.

—And this is also the responsibility the empire has given him: to become a glorious and harmless puppet who can enhance cohesion.

Over the past month, Count Tifflin, under Medrach's command, led the Imperial Guard and the Nocturne Special Forces to swiftly eliminate all the mixed armed forces throughout Seleucia.

Whether they were bandits, robbers, remnants of the Dragon Cult, or private armies of the old nobles, they were all wiped out, and this ravaged land ushered in a long-awaited peace.

With the signing of the Seleucia Aid Program agreement, the Seleucia region has received numerous policy benefits and conveniences.

Compared to Anzeta, with its factories everywhere, and Aethel, with its exorbitant land prices, Seleucia, which is being reborn from the ashes of war, has become an undeveloped "virgin land," attracting the attention of all parts of the empire.

Wealthy merchants from the north naturally wouldn't miss such a valuable opportunity. They spent millions of gold coins in the south to develop a wide variety of investment projects in industry, real estate, entertainment, and more.

Meanwhile, many imperial official enterprises under the Royal Foundation Association were also engaged in large-scale construction projects, repairing roads, expanding cities, and building factories. For a time, the entire southern part of the empire was bustling with activity, and was caught up in this economic frenzy known as postwar recovery.

Those who suffer more in war can better understand the value of peace and development, but in the long history of mankind, war has been the norm.

In this thriving and flourishing atmosphere, the Seleucids' sense of belonging and identification with the empire was rising rapidly. Many even abandoned their ancient belief in the sun god and converted to the "Emperor Cult," which worshipped the Burning Emperor as a deity.

This land seems poised to be completely absorbed into the colossal beast known as the "Ember Empire," becoming an integral part of its body, filled with bulging muscles and deadly weapons.

The City of Sunsets, the Duke's Residence.

On the expensive beechwood desk inlaid with gold trim, stacks of documents were piled high, almost taking up the entire desk. From a distance, they looked like a dozen mountain peaks, inspiring awe.

And among the mountains of documents, the bespectacled cannibal was browsing and reviewing them at an unimaginable speed.

With a gentle wave of his rough hand, more than a dozen scrolls of documents fell from the mountain, arranged neatly in mid-air like trained soldiers.

"Application for the Southern Expansion of Sunset City," "Three-Year Economic Development Plan for Fraser City," "Construction Plan for the Mitchell District Industrial Zone," "Application for the Sixth Ring Magic Experiment Zone," and "Enterprise Bidding Qualification Certificate for the No. 26 Magic Tower Project."

The ogre's glasses glowed blue, and numbers and words the size of ants swept across the surface of the lenses. His narrowed eyes swept across the lenses with incredible speed, and his head, which was swaying from side to side, left afterimages.

Meanwhile, the documents in mid-air were flipping through pages rapidly, the papers rubbing together and making a crisp "whoosh" sound.

Snapped.

The ogre snapped his fingers and muttered something under his breath.

A dozen or so fountain pens flew out of the drawer, writing and annotating with fluid grace, as if they were alive. The writing was neat, concise, and flawless, almost as if it were printed.

"."

Adrian, who had just pushed open the door and entered Duke Seleucia's office, stared wide-eyed at the scene before him, silently repeating "Amanata above" several times in his mind.

Adrian felt no jealousy or hatred towards the ogre who had taken the place that should have been his. Instead, he was shocked and even felt a strange sense of pity and relief.

'Perhaps... being a puppet controlled by others isn't so bad.'

Such a thought arose in Adrian's mind. In the old Holy Falland and the southern kingdoms, dukes were symbols of power and wealth, and could enjoy the most luxurious lives.

In a special country like an empire, this position seems to symbolize endless work.

It is said that this former deputy of Trump once created a "Barbarian's Bracelet" to forcibly reduce his intelligence, but Trump eventually broke the spell and he returned to his post in tears.

Adrian dared not disturb Trump, who was in the middle of a work session, for fear of distracting the Imperial Prime Minister and incurring his wrath.

And so, silence filled the spacious, bright, and luxuriously decorated office, with only the sound of pages turning and pens scratching across paper.

"."

"Adrian?"

Finally, the silence was broken, and it was the cannibal who spoke. As he spoke, the dozen or so scrolls of documents fell from mid-air and were neatly stacked in the "processed" storage box on the ground.

"This method of information transmission is too inefficient and primitive, and it can't compare to what Anzeta has done."

Trump took off his glasses and placed them on the table, rubbed his temples, then exhaled and sighed softly.

"As expected, we still need to accelerate the deployment of the magical communication network in the Seleucia region and realize the magical networking of government information as soon as possible."

"."

Adrian seemed to be under a spell of silence, immersed in the awkward atmosphere of 'not understanding what others are saying, but having to say something'.

After a long pause, he stammered out a sentence.

"Sir. Wise."

"What are you doing here?"

Trump stared at Adrian and smiled knowingly: "Do you want to take back the power that belongs to Grand Duke Seleucia?"

Adrian's expression changed drastically. He looked at the mountain of documents in a panic and shook his head repeatedly.

"How could I dare to entertain such a thought! The will of the Empire takes precedence above all else. I am merely a puppet under the Empire's protection, as long as the peace of Seleucia can be maintained."

"It's good that you have this kind of awareness."

Trump nodded in satisfaction, then changed the subject seriously:
However, His Majesty's expectations for you go far beyond being a useless puppet. You must not only become a hero of Seleucia, but also take on the responsibility of commanding the local army and gathering the strong. After all, you are a native Seleucia, and you are more familiar with the terrain and military situation here.

The ogre tapped the table rhythmically with his large fingers and said, word by word, "War is coming again."

"How could this be? We clearly destroyed the Dragon Worship Cult and repelled the apostles of the evil god!"

Adrian immediately frowned, and even disregarding the authority of the chief minister, he subconsciously adopted a rebuttal tone.

"Could it be... His Majesty's intention?"

In his view, Seleucia had just emerged from the flames of war, and the land had accumulated too much death, sacrifice, and suffering; it must never be allowed to fall into the quagmire of war again.

"His Majesty Cassius has not yet awakened; he has more important matters to attend to."

Trump shook his head and said in a deep voice, "Whether the war begins is not something you or I can decide. Even the supreme emperor cannot stop this war from coming."

How do you think the Burning Empire achieved such an incredible rate of development? How do you think it acquired massive amounts of resources and built such a vast industrial system?

He turned around, looked at the huge map of the empire's territory hanging on the wall, and said coldly, "Do you know how many bullets and shells the empire produces each year? How many guns does it manufacture?"

Trump snapped his fingers.

The magic power in mid-air condensed into tiny particles of light, which eventually coalesced into magical images: from an overhead perspective, rows of military factories were neatly arranged on the ground, like gray skeletons.

The chimneys, like a forest of concrete, spewed out towering black smoke, turning the sky a deep, gloomy color and exuding a sense of oppression, ruggedness, and grandeur.

"."

Adrian stared in astonishment at the sight Trump presented, his mouth slightly open, but he couldn't utter a word.

Trump stared directly at the image, his tone stern: This country has long been suffering from an overheated disease. Once the war ends, this massive system will struggle to function, and may even erupt into a terrible disaster from within.

As the highest decision-makers, we must find a suitable outlet to redirect this toxic energy outside the empire, especially since…

The ogre grinned, his voice laced with mockery: "Even if we don't start a war, they'll eventually come knocking on our door."

"who are they?"

“All the countries except the Empire.” Trump’s tone was unusually calm, as if he were stating a trivial matter.

"The Burning Empire seized two-thirds of the former Holy Falland territory, occupying most of the continent's high-quality resources—gold and silver mines, magic crystal veins, fertile farmland, and ancient magic books."
At the same time, the goods we produce each year are shipped to other countries in large quantities at prices far below normal levels. These include food, wine, clothing, handicrafts, and even guns and ammunition. Except for those old-fashioned countries that have completely closed their borders, no one can resist such an invasion.

As a result, their workshops went bankrupt, their wineries were abandoned, and these people could only keep helping the empire produce industrial raw materials such as cotton and rubber, and make a living by buying cheap goods in towns controlled by imperial merchants.

Of the twenty-seven kingdoms in the south, many nobles have become compradors for our empire, controlled by our wealthy merchants. The rest have resisted stubbornly, slaughtering their own imperial merchants in an effort to maintain their rule.

As Adrian listened to Trump's account, he felt a chill run down his spine.

The Empire's actions were undeniably righteous; what appeared to be a simple and fair "trade" had such terrifying consequences: the easy downfall of nobles and the collapse of the nation.
Beneath the seemingly prosperous, wealthy, and militarily powerful shell of this vast nation, countless bloody corpses appear to be buried.

But Adrian also knew that as the Duke of Seleucia, he had to be responsible for his people and abandon any pretense of pity and compassion.

Trump continued, "Ha, I suppose they've already allied with the Kingdom of Kasander, hoping to use the power of that fake sun god to gather all their strength for a desperate fight against the Empire."

The battle against the Dragon Cult is likely just a localized conflict; before long, a chaotic era like the Great Collapse of Holy Falden will arrive.

Adrian asked with a heavy heart, "My lord, what can we do now? What is the Empire's next target? Our Seleucia Viceroyalty is willing to do everything in its power to help His Majesty the Emperor clear away all obstacles."

Trump chuckled and pointed to the ground, to the area west of Seleucia, isolated by mountains, a place with a long and rugged coastline—Silver Moon Bay.

"Silver Moon Bay, Free Trade Federation".

(End of this chapter)