Hephaestus Kingdom

The Hephaestus Kingdom is a place that is called the hub of all illegal activities in the Dying Isle Continent. Over the years, this Kingdom has grown into the capital of the Dying Isle Continent's underworld. All kinds of illegal activities existed here.

People were killed in broad daylight. This was the only place in the whole continent where the nobles had no respect or real power. The nobles were basically dogs of the big gangs. It was the big gangs and thugs that ran the Hephaestus Kingdom.

The boundary between legal and illegal had been erased. This was a place where most of the common people earned their income by working for the big gangs and thugs. The big gangs provided jobs to many common people. But that doesn't mean that these big gangs were made up of good people. The workers were treated like slaves and received very little salary or no salary at all.

The king of this Kingdom wasn't taken seriously and was openly mocked by anyone and there is nothing that the King could do to stop it. The big gangs were more dominant than the King in the Hephaestus Kingdom. If the big gangs wanted, then they could easily overthrow the King and all of the nobles and take control of the entire Hephaestus Kingdom. But doing that would bring them more chaos.

Even though the King had no real power, his presence kept the whole Kingdom together. Once the King is removed, a big fight among the big gangs will break out on the matter of territory control. At the same time, the possibility of another neighboring Empire trying to take over the Hephaestus Kingdom existed if the King happened to be removed.

The Echo Nexus Empire already had a big influence in the Hephaestus Kingdom. It was because of the Echo Nexus Empire that the current Hephaestus Kingdom had become so miserable.

The Hephaestus Kingdom was located at the edge of the Northwest region. In terms of power, the Kingdom is considered to be the weakest among the 8 Empires that existed in the Northwest region.

The geography of The Hephaestus Kingdom is quite interesting. The southern and Eastern sides of the Kingdom are coastlines. The Kingdom has the longest uninterrupted coastline in the Northwest region of the Dying Isle continent.

In the west, the Kingdom shares borders with The Uzacan Empire. However if one wanted to head to the Hephaestus Kingdom from the Uzacan Empire, there is two ways of going there. Due to the presence of the Hargeo Mountains, one cannot directly walk straight into the Hephaestus Kingdom. Because of its presence, travelers and merchants from The Uzacan Empire would need to take a detour around either side of the Hargeo Mountains and reach The Hephaestus Kingdom.

And finally, the North, Hephaestus Kingdom faces most threats from their northern neighbors. The Methia Empire is an Oracle Alliance member and a close friend of the Echo Nexus Empire. Travelers from The Uzacan Empire has to go to The Methia Empire to reach the Hephaestus Kingdom. Or the travelers could take head towards the sea and use a boat to travel. But most travelers and Merchants retrain from using this route.

The first and most important reason for this is the numerous pirates that have spread their terror into the sea. The pirates live happily among themselves and solve their disputes by hosting swimming competitions. There is almost no fighting among the pirates or the gangs on the land. Besides the pirates, the Sea was active with powerful Oceanic Magic Beasts.

If one did manage to survive the pirates and the Oceanic Magic beasts, once they reach the shore of Hephaestus Empire, criminals would be waiting to charge them 100 or even 1000 gold coins sometimes; depending on the traveler's appearance, the gangs could charge more and less. And most of the travelers don't usually have this much money with them. If they had 1000 gold coins, they would use the teleportation array which was way quicker than a month-long journey to the Hephaestus Kingdom.

The Hargeo Mountains are the tallest in the whole Dying Isle continent. The Hargeo Mountains were almost double the size of Mount Everest. The Hargeo Mountains acted as a natural barrier and prevented any direct interaction or trade between the Hephaestus Kingdom and The Uzacan Empire. Not only that but also, the Hargeo Mountains are one of the few forbidden places in the Dying Isle continent.

There are a few places in the Dying Isle Continents that are considered Forbidden zones or Forbidden places. The Hargeo Mountains were one of those places. Not even a Peak 5th-order cultivator can make it out alive. Hargeo Mountains and almost 100 km of surroundings remain covered under snow and frost. It is said that powerful Magic monsters capable of using Ice Magic live in the Hargeo Mountains.

Some think that Ice Phenix also lives at the top of the Hargeo Mountains. No cultivator to this day has managed to reach the top of the Hargeo Mountains. The cultivators that did try to explore the Hargeo Mountains and their surroundings never made it back. Hargeo Mountains is a place that is avoided by everyone.

In this war, the Echo Dominion Empire is very unlucky. The Empire has been attacked from three sides. While the Hephaestus Kingdom only has to face attack from one side. This meant, that the Hephaestus King won't have to divert his attention, resources, troops, and money.

Several Kilometers away from The northern border of the Hephaestus Kingdom, the Kingdom's troops stopped for a break. The troops that King Aidan Scott was leading himself were mostly Istarin Empire's troops. If Aditya hadn't sent 500,000 troops and 5,000 dragonians to the Hephaestus Kingdom, the Kingdom would have been the first one to fall in this war. Excluding the half Million troops of the Istarin Empire, the Kingdom barely had 100,000. And among the 100,000 troops, almost all of the troops were lacking the proper training, discipline, and basic equipment that a soldier needs to have.

The troops of the Hephaestus Kingdom looked more like thugs than Soldiers. Their dresses were dirty. Their appearance was disheveled. And some of them were even fat and had big stomachs which were as big as the stomach of pregnant women.

This was all the troops that the Hephaestus Kingdom had left. Honestly looking at his own troops, the Hephaestus King felt embarrassed and ashamed. He felt he wouldn't give them a single penny. Other than licking the boots of the gangs and thugs all day around and bullying the common class people with their authority, these soldiers did nothing else. Abusing their authority, they eat and slept for free.

Standing on top of a small mountain, King Adian And his Prime Minister Fabian watched their soldiers while sitting on horses. "Sometimes, I feel I have been raising an army of pigs."

Prime Minister Fabian chose to remain silent at this moment as he didn't have any words to respond to the King. "Look at the soldiers that I have raised. They look so strong and frightening. Just seeing them, the enemy troops will flee from the battle. My Troops are the best army in this continent." Beneath these Sarcastic sentences, the pain of King Adian was felt by Prime Minister Fabian.

"Your Majesty, if we win this war, then we can ask His Majesty to help us out. With the Istarin Empire's help, soon everything will be fixed. There will be no matter gangs, thugs, and corruption in this Kingdom. Peace will once again return to the land of Hephaestus Kingdom."

Sigh!

Adian came down and looked at the night sky. "If we win, we win everything. If we lose, we lose everything."

The reason Adian joined this war by offending the gangs in his Kingdom is because of a ray of hope that he saw in the Istarin Empire. It was the very ray of hope that he and his Kingdom's people desperately needed to bring peace and to find their happiness. And that ray of hope lay inside the Dragon Palace located at the Capital of the Istarin Empire.

For years Adian has been enduring everything that the gangs were doing. But after years of enduring, just when he thought that he was going to be consumed by darkness and lose everything, a light shined upon him from Heaven. The light guided him to Aditya. The light gave him an opportunity. It was an opportunity to take revenge for the death of his father, it was an opportunity to rebuild and restore everything that he has lost over the years, it was an opportunity to bring peace to his people, and finally, it was an opportunity to wipe out all of his enemies once and for all.

The Echo Nexus Emperor, Lucas was responsible for the fall of the Hephaestus Empire and Adian's father.

His own nobles called him a fool when he declared that they were going to join the Istarin Empire and wage war against the Oracle Alliance. But Adian didn't care. He was tired. He wanted to change. Whether this change was going to end him or bring great revolution to his Empire was still unknown to him. But Adian felt it. His heart told him that this was the chance. This type of opportunity won't knock on his door for the next thousand or even ten thousand years.

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