The Stoneheart Horde. The Ogre Province.

To Orion, the name "Ogre Province" was laughably generic—a lazy placeholder he'd come up with just to shut Aldous up.

When Aldous led his tribe to join the Stoneheart Horde, Orion had granted them a high degree of autonomy. But Aldous, never one to be satisfied with scraps, had demanded a new, official title for his territory to prove he was a core part of the Horde.

So, Orion gave him "The Ogre Province." It stuck.

In a sun-drenched valley carpeted with wildflowers, deep within this autonomous zone, Aldous sat leaning against a small hill.

Or rather, they sat.

One head was dozing off, drool pooling at the corner of its tusked mouth. The other head was wide awake, admiring the scenic beauty with a philosopher's gaze.

"That familiar stench," the awake head murmured. "War is coming."

As a seasoned Lord, Aldous possessed a sharp intuition for the shifting tides of the realm.

"Aldous has rested long enough," the head whispered to itself. "Aldous has hit a ceiling. Aldous needs to break through. Aldous wants to be stronger."

"Aldous needs help. Aldous needs his friend."

Years ago, when the White Dragon ignited the first Civil War, Aldous had allied with Orion. Back then, he was a mid-tier Lord. After integrating his territory into the Stoneheart Horde, he had gorged on their resources.

Over a decade of feeding on Legendary-level materials had pushed him to the absolute Peak of the Legendary Rank.

But there he stalled. It was a chasm he couldn't cross alone.

Aldous realized that without Orion's direct intervention, he would never ascend to become an Arch Lord within the Titanion Realm. The continent had been carved up; the pie was gone. There were no more resources to plunder, no more land to conquer.

This was exactly why Orion had launched his long-term campaign to invade other worlds.

"That damn idiot," the smart head grumbled, its philosophical mood souring as it looked at its sleeping counterpart. "All he knows is eat and sleep. No ambition. No concern for the future."

The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.

Smack.

Aldous controlled their shared hand to deliver a vicious slap to the sleeping head.

"Grah! Why did you hit me?!"

The larger head snapped awake, eyes wide with rage. It glared at the smart head, baring its teeth, ready to start a brawl with itself.

"What are you looking at? It's your shift!" the smart head snapped back. "You useless lump of meat. You have zero vigilance. What if an enemy ambushed us right now?"

Smack.

Another backhand across the face.

"Get this through your thick skull: this body belongs to me. You are just a squatter. You exist here because I allow it, and that means you pay rent."

"You haven't paid rent in two months," the smart head hissed. "Are you planning to work off your debt? Or should I go ask my friend, the Great Giant King Orion, to pop your head like a pimple?"

It was a boast, but it was also a very real threat.

Aldous despised the brute-force head, but he couldn't deny that he needed the muscle.

"I... I'll start working now," the brute stammered, the rage draining out of him instantly. "Don't... don't let Him pop my head."

The threat worked.

The larger head possessed terrifying combat instincts. It could sense the sheer, abyssal horror of Orion's power better than anyone, and it was terrified of him.

"That's better," the smart head scoffed. "Do your job. We need to prepare a lavish gift for my friend. We need to beg him to show us the way forward."

Aldous was lost. He lacked direction.

The truth was, his power—and the power of every other Lord on the continent—was being artificially capped by the Alliance of Four in the South. Without vast new territories to breed massive populations, no Lord could gather enough resources to break the Legendary limit.

Even Orion, with all his might, had been forced to look to the stars for expansion.

"Those foolish Lords in the North... what are they thinking?" Aldous mused, looking toward the horizon. "Do they not realize that if they lose this war, they won't just lose land? They'll lose their right to exist."

Aldous stared North. He had once lived there.

He knew that the Northern Lords were a fractured, selfish lot. They wouldn't band together to start a suicide war unless they had a massive backer—someone promising them power and protection.

Although he smelled the war, he didn't have the specifics yet. The news of the "Alliance of the Hundred Races" hadn't spread this far. But Aldous was cunning; he knew the math didn't add up.

He shook his heads, a dual migraine setting in.

"Let's go," both heads agreed. "To Stoneheart City."

The Sixth Layer of the Abyss. The Foundry Citadel.

Since the annihilation of the invading Demon armies, the Foundry Citadel had enjoyed a period of explosive stability and growth.

However, while the interior of the Citadel flourished, the geopolitical situation outside its walls was deteriorating rapidly.

"My Lord, intelligence reports are coming in," Bidalun announced, his expression grim. "Our neighbors to the South and the West are mustering their forces."

"I cannot confirm yet if they are targeting the Conquest Legion directly, but the signs are ominous."

Bidalun, as the Commander of the First Army, had spent the last decade weaving a complex intelligence network throughout the layer. If he was worried, the threat was real.

"Don't doubt your instincts," Orion said calmly from the Four-Sided Tower. "They are coming for us. Prepare the defenses. We will purge the invaders."

Orion sat motionless, his aura as the Deathly Soul-Reaper deeper and more inscrutable than ever. Unless he chose to unleash it, most Demigods would look at him and see nothing but a void.

"But why, My Lord?" Bidalun asked, puzzled. "First it was the Reklos Demigod from Iron-Forged Ridge. Now two other Abyssal Lords? Why the sudden coordination?"

"It is the shadow of House Julius," Orion replied, his voice laced with cold amusement.

"Our neighbors are not attacking because they want to. They are attacking because they are terrified. If they don't give me trouble, they disrespect Lord Julius."

Julius was the Ruler of the Sixth Layer. The family of the Arch Lord Eudan—whom Orion had killed—was leveraging the Ruler's name to bully the local Lords. They were forcing Orion's neighbors to do their dirty work.

It was simple politics. Orion had seen through it instantly.

"My Lord," Bidalun hesitated, "The scale of the enemy force... it could be several times larger than the last invasion. And..."

He trailed off, but the implication hung heavy in the air.

It wasn't just about the number of grunts. It was about the high-end power. More armies meant more Demigod commanders.

Bidalun was silently asking: Can we handle a multi-front war against multiple Demigods?

Hmph.

Orion let out a scoff, his face twisting into a sneer of absolute disdain.

"Do they really think," Orion said, his eyes narrowing, "that they are the only ones with a family? That they are the only ones with friends?"

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