Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"Yet another busy day at work… I can't wait the time when we will finally be able to rest and enjoy the fruits of our labour."

Shaking his head, Victor looked at the young friend of his before reaching out with his hand.

"Safe travels, brother. May our plans bring us riches and fame."

As little as anyone thought about it at this stage, this was the ultimate motto of the mercenaries. If someone wanted to fight, he could go to the military. If someone wanted fame, he could strive to become a knight. But those wishing for both? 

This was the ultimate drive of the mercenaries. Using their own power and skill, buy themselves a better life. That was one of the many reasons that this was the formation with a very quick turnover. Only a few remained in the formations for longer than just a few years, with how the few contracts fulfilled during that time could easily pay for the rest of their comfortable lives. 

Instead of living in the field for their entire life, most people would opt to return and become a part of the middle class. Some would become merchants, some would turn into craftsmen, others might reach for an administrative or official job. But some…

Some remained. And Fen could see this in the eyes of his older friend. It was a fact that the situation forced them to constantly increase their involvement, but the truth about it all was entirely different. If they wanted, they could just take what remained in the province and leave it behind. But they just couldn't.

The call of blood was too strong in them.

"Let's meet in three days, as planned. If we set ourselves some strict frames of what we plan to achieve, we will be unable to respond to the changing situation in a timely matter. Let's not waste the opportunity that my insane speed brings."

Shaking Victor's hand and nodding his head to this sworn brother of his, Fen turned to the crossroads in front of them.

"I wonder when this road will take us."

Suddenly stopping to contemplate, Fen managed to catch Victor off-guard. With all his insane ideas, it was a rarity for the usually calm-headed Fen to suddenly turn nostalgic like that. And that made Victor all the more focused on his younger friend's words.

"Well, let's hope somewhere at least a bit less bloody as our experiences so far."

Suddenly silencing himself, Victor entered the state of contemplation as well. The road they were walking wasn't devoid of violence, questionable morals and emotional scars. As long as they were capable of putting all of this crap behind them, blame it all on their job, they could remain mercenaries. Once the moral questions started to appear in their heads…

It was the first sign, that both of them were reaching their limit insanely quickly. The question now was, would they overcome it, or break down and just retire?

"Anyway, let's not stall any longer."

Breaking the silence after a few moments, Fen struck the side of his fist against his chest before looking behind his back. A long-tail made with about two hundreds of mounted mercenaries was a clear indicator as to what their mission would entail.

It was a pity that they would have to split their ways here.

"Fare well!"

Raising his hand in a goodbye, Fen snapped the reins of his horse. Jumping forward, the young arcanist didn't leave his men any choice. In a moment, about a half from the combined unit rushed forward, following their leader. On the other hand, people under Victor's command remained on the road, watching as their compatriots took the path forward. 

After all, their destination was far closer. 

"Are you sure about it all?"

Sticking right beside him, Orsha hurried her horse with a happy look on her face. Given how Fen preferred to travel with the help of his wings, it was a rare chance of her to galop on the horses together. 

"That's the best idea that I could come up with on the spot. As little as I want to do any harm to this road as its well-being is the main lifeline for all our hopes, we still need to follow through with that plan. On the other hand…"

A sudden gust of wind forced the young arcanist to close his mouth and lean over the neck of his horse. Despite currents being far more violent in the high skies, on the ground, Fen couldn't really protect himself with his catalyst from its influence. Only after a moment did the young man moved up and picked up his sentence.

"On the other hand, I'm quite surprised by your lack of reaction when I told you what I need you to do. Given how untested this method is…"

Shaking his head with worry, Fen looked back at the horses of the half of the group that remained. With big boxes attached to their sides, clearly filled with something heavy, they were slowing the pace of the entire group quite considerably. 

Soon, the two of them had to stop talking, as the even road of the old kingdom's making entered the part where former military actions left it in a sorry state. Unless they were willing to risk the integrity of their jaws, talking was strictly unadvised once the hooves of their horses hit this uneven road.

'We will have to quickly fix it…'

Looking down, Fen couldn't stop himself from thinking about all the insane costs of what he was planning to achieve. With his part of the group riding directly to Kinzarian capital, he would be left out of the loop of the actions of his friends for exactly three days. Once in the capital, he could covertly use his wings to get in contact with the other groups. Because the scale and complexity of what was going to transpire over the neighbouring province of the remaining part of Heptarchy, if successful, would come down in the books of the greatest military exploits of all time.

"It seems that we arrived. If I can see the city already, that means we have to split our ways."

Lazily slowing her horse down, Orsha gestured at her part of the unit. In just a few moments, the horses with additional baggage moved to the left side of the road.

"Remember. You need to do two things. Start spreading those papers amongst the villages and warn everyone about the incoming nobility. While I don't have personally high hopes for this idea, it's still worth the shot."

Over the course of the last three days filled with preparations for this grand plan, the objectives changed a bit. Since they were going all in, they might as well aim to achieve something more than just the plain stability. No matter how rich they could get, if they remained small and weak, they would sooner or later become a feed to a bigger country, be it by becoming just another state in the Republic, returning to the Kinzar or turning into Shallian's borderlands.

That's why, instead of aiming to establish their position on the single crossing they needed, Fen modified the plan to reach for expanding their Kingdom with unorthodox means!

And as little were the chances that this additional part of the plan would succeed, Fen couldn't help but wish for it to happen. As long as everything would go perfectly according to the plan, then while the near future of the Kingdom would be quite active… In a relatively short time, he would be able to turn it from a small provincial joke to an actually powerful state building its internal wealth from the immense amount of money their strategical position could provide!

"Everyone!"

But for now, Fen had to go through with the very first step of the plan. Openly establishing contact with Kinzarian Ruler. As little of real power as he had, once the nobles that truly pulled the strings from behind the scene would learn about Fen's version of the events…

By simply threatening their money bags with a vision of completely broken connection through the golden route to their major trading partners, Fen was quite positive that he could spark a lot of attention in the people he would attempt to bait.

All the while Victor would be busy disguising his troops as bandits on their borderlands, while Orsha would spread the notes describing the danger and openly acting surprised when hearing about the insane taxes they have. Once the world about the situation in the mercenary controlled land would spread over three days, the three of them would contact with Fen and coordinate their moves to play an act for the common folk of the surroundings. 

But this was just a low-level of scheming, as the true pressure at those lands would come later on, when Fen's forces would take over the city of Tlinra, laying low while the Kinzarian force would pass and declaring their change of allegiances as soon as that silly force would collapse under the logistic pressure of its own weight!

"Men! Forward!"

Finally giving the order, Fen struck the reins instantly making his trusty mount jump forward. As annoying as it was to travel so slowly on the land, Fen didn't really have any other option. As the sudo-official representative of the mercenary company that was 'hired to protect the roads', he couldn't arrive in a ball of flames in his casual clothes. Not only it would give the enemy information about his abilities, but without a proper entourage, he would never be taken seriously.

'But who could've known…'

With the air throwing his hair to all sides, Fen couldn't help but think about the situation.

'Who could've known that from the idea of carving out a small piece of land for ourselves, I would move on to single-handedly dismantling entire countries…'