Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything!

"My Lord!"

"My Lord!!"

A Templar Knight, his white cloak stained with the dust of travel, broke through the advancing ranks of armored minotaurs. His voice cut through the march like a blade, desperate and urgent.

With heavy breaths, he approached Asher, who was in the midst of discussing troop formations with Kaelor and the other Wild Horn commanders.

By the time Asher turned, the knight had already knelt before him, hammer grounded in the soil as protocol demanded. Yet his eyes told a different story, haunted, troubled.

"What is it?" Omar asked sharply, already sensing something was wrong. His hand instinctively drifted toward the hilt of his weapon as murmurs stirred the minotaurs at the front.

Then the sounds reached them, gasps, startled voices, the dull thud of feet halting in disbelief.

Asher moved ahead without a word, his coat swaying behind him, the others following close. They reached the front, and as the canopy of trees thinned, the ground sloped downward into a silent, horrific plain.

Asher's eyes narrowed, his breath slow.

Rows upon rows of skeletons, impaled upon blackened stakes, stretched across the land like a sea of death. The sheer number was staggering, tens of thousands, rotten to the bone, each mounted like a warning to those who saw.

Their stakes pointed skyward like jagged teeth of the underworld, catching the orange glow of the sinking sun. The terrain had become a monument of slaughter, an endless graveyard, crafted not by time, but by malice.

Nero stood frozen. His Dreath Sight, which could see through everything around him and far beyond human sight, confirmed what none wanted to believe. "Twenty-five thousand," he muttered grimly. "All of them...wolves."

Kaelor stepped forward, yanked a skull from one of the stakes, and examined it. The cracked jawbone, the wide forehead, the thick canines, it was unmistakable.

"Wolf corpses," he confirmed, his voice low.

Even the smallest among the skeletal remains measured over two meters, the largest towering near 2.6 meters. They were once proud warriors, soldiers of the Wolf King, now nothing more than macabre trophies left to rot in open air.

Asher's jaw tightened. "This is the doing of the Werelion King?"

Kaelor nodded slowly. "He's brutal. The Werelion King may lack the sheer numbers of the Wolf King, but his soldiers are monsters, each trained to rend legions apart. This… this is his message. And his pride."

A long silence fell.

Omar muttered, "To do this, not just kill them, but display them…"

"This is no battlefield," Nero added. "It's a butcher's warning."

But Asher's expression remained unreadable. He turned away from the stakes.

"Let the march proceed," he commanded, voice calm as still water, but colder than ice.

At once, the Wild Horn Division advanced, stepping between stakes and scattered bones. Not a single soldier flinched. Their discipline held. They passed through the valley of death like a living tide of reckoning.

Yet, unbeknownst to them, high above, nestled within the crimson leaves of a hilltop tree, a lone figure watched.

Sharp eyes like forged steel, the silhouette remained still, cloaked in shadow beneath the branches. His black fur shimmered faintly as the sunlight tried to pierce the canopy.

"So… the Minotaur King finally joins the fray?" the figure murmured, voice deep and laced with contempt. "He comes now, when he thinks the Wolves are weakest?"

The figure rose.

Sunlight finally touched him, revealing sleek black fur and lean muscle beneath light plate armor. A longsword rested at his hip, and his face, a wolf's face, was carved with a savage beauty, his expression cold, unreadable.

Then he vanished, leaping from branch to branch, disappearing into the forest as quietly as a breath in the dark.

As the last light of day bled into the horizon, the Wild Horn Division made camp. Fires crackled softly across the clearing, casting shadows that danced between towering trees and resting minotaurs.

Soldiers huddled in circles, sharing tales, sharpening weapons, and laughing with the kind of relief only warriors know, the calm before the storm.

Asher stood apart from them all.

He faced the horizon, silent, the golden ring on his finger catching the final rays of the sun. The land before him stretched vast and ominous. These were the Wolflands now. Their scent carried on the wind, wild, ancient, and restless.

He knew what lay ahead.

They would either meet the Wolf King in his den, or face him on open ground. Or worse, stumble into a war already raging between the Wolf King and the Werelion King. It didn't matter. All paths led to battle.

But his thoughts drifted elsewhere, home.

Ashbourne.

He could see it in his mind's eye: the white spires gleaming in sunlight, the scent of water pathways wafting over marble terraces. Sapphira on the balcony, smiling at him with eyes that steadied his soul. Merlin and Atreides chasing each other through the gardens. Kelvin, grumbling under his breath, buried in scrolls and reports, likely cursing Asher's name for leaving so much work behind.

A soft smile touched his lips.

"They should be a year and seven months old now," he murmured to himself. "They grow so fast… or maybe time just runs faster when you're not there to see it."

His gaze darkened slightly.

The Angels had reported that Cyrenia had begun mobilizing before he came to Eden. He didn't know if they had attacked yet, but even if they had, Ashbourne was not undefended.

They had allies. House El stood with them. Fifty thousand naval troops patrolled the coastlines, and three hundred thousand ground forces were spread across the Dukedom.

Two hundred thousand of those were heavy and light infantry under the Grand Aegis Corps and the Frontline Corps, both having risen from humble legions to full corps status, each with multiple divisions under them.

The remaining hundred thousand? Fifty thousand Seekers, masters of the bow and Elvin like abilities.

The other half was the crown jewel of Ashbourne's cavalry: thirty thousand Black Knights, the Bladebreakers, each riding a white wolf the size of a destrier. Alongside them rode twenty thousand Stormbreakers, an archery cavalry trained to shoot down whatever stood in their path.

They were more than warriors. They were legends in the making.

With them, Sapphira, his children, Ashbourne… would endure.

But the enemy they faced, Cyrenia, was no ordinary nation. It was an empire, two or three times Ashbourne's size. Elves with their unerring arrows. Beastmen with unnatural strength. Humans with unrivaled discipline. Fairies who twisted magic like threads. Dwarves who carved knowledge into stone.

A coalition of chaos.

Yet Asher didn't falter.

He believed in Sapphira. In his people. In the strength of what they built.

All he had to do now was gather the armies of the five Monster Kings… and begin the campaign.

Once that began, every lord in Tenaria would be forced to look his way.