Chapter seventy-three: Pol Qo.
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~~~Azrael Jaesyrian, Third Moon, 277 AC~~~
~~~Yin, Yi Ti~~~
I walked through the winding corridors of the emperor's palace of Yi Ti, a castle rivaling Ischyros in grandeur and opulence. It was undoubtedly a man-made masterpiece worthy of being called a castle.
However, what differentiated the two monsters of a castle was that Ischyros was meant to be more of a fortress type. While one could see much wealth or opulence if one went into the private part, away from the chancellery and bank area, it was not on the same level as the emperor's palace, a place where even the roof slabs were made of gold.
"Roar!"
I could still hear the roars of Endoxes flying over the city and making themselves 'noticed'. The dragon had a barbaric level of self-centeredness, and to notice how the guards accompanying Feng Yi tensed up, the people all over Yin must be the same, frightened by Endoxes' presence.
After several minutes, the procession reached a spacious hall full of wealth in every sense of the word, and, hell, the golden color of the gold was already starting to take its toll on me. I felt that if I kept seeing the damn color, I would vomit.
In the hall, a contingent of over fifty well-dressed soldiers stood at attention, while at the far end was a man sitting on a throne of gold and jade.
"My throne is better," I blurted out the thought aloud, looking at the throne, which, while pleasing to the eye and made entirely of gold, fell short of the grandeur of my seat at court, a thing that had earned my throne the name of the golden tree.
Because it resembled a golden tree sprouting from the black slabs and extending to the ceiling, which made my throne much better than this.
"What is the purpose of King Jaesyrian coming to my empire with an army and a dragon?" The emperor, who sat on the throne and wore blue garments with gold and silver threads, raised his voice once I approached him.
"You know very well the meaning of my presence in your forgotten empire, so don't honor yourself by looking like someone confused in front of me," I said with undisguised hatred. Yi Ti may have been a glorious and powerful empire in the past, but that title now belongs to Xandar. No human power could defeat the armies of Xandar, and if I joined along with Endoxes, the victory was won long before it began. Not to mention that four dragon eggs had been found turned to stone in the previous Vaes Tolorro.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the emperor answered me in a confused and skeptical manner. Either he was a very good actor, or he knew nothing.
"A moon ago, Qarth, with the help of Yitian soldiers, attacked Port Royal under the control and protection of Xandar, don't you remember?" I stressed, watching as a man, who had been to the emperor's right, approached him and spoke in his ear.
After a few seconds, the emperor spoke again, and what he said filled me with anger; "Yi Ti has no part in that."
The emperor saw my mood and immediately said, "Yi Ti is not in cahoots with the attack on your kingdom. The attack is coming from someone else."
"The name! Give me the damn name!" I said, unable to continue wasting my time and not burning the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to attack my kingdom.
"Pol Qo," the emperor said, making my head spin, trying to figure out who this man was.
"He is known as the Hammer of the Jogos Nhai; although he also calls himself the orange emperor, he claimed noble titles after his many victories against the Jogos Nhai, to the point where he rebelled against me, took much of the army of the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, and now controls almost all the Jogos Nhai stationed north of here."
He still couldn't manage to remember anything about said man; however, he was now a dead man; he didn't know it yet.
"Where is he?" I asked the man who had failed as emperor, a disappointment just to be called that. He is to the north, in the garrison known as Bazar, on the Steel Road. He has one hundred and seventy thousand Yitian soldiers, and if the rumors are true, he controls over two million Jogos Nhai warriors."
'Two million warriors?'
Such a scale was absurd, even in Xandar, which at the moment had almost eight million inhabitants, counting Xandar, Port Royal, Tavalar, and Elya, along with the people brought in from the conquered cities of Bhorash, Tolos, Mantarys, Elyria, Velos and Ghozai. It could not add up to such several soldiers; being the maximum, if one took even the reserve soldiers, it would amount to an army of one million seven hundred thousand, both men and women.
The amount of food to feed such an army would be colossal, and from what I had seen, only Xandar could feed such an army, and that only after stretching the use of bone dust to the maximum.
However, if this Pol Qo had such an army in his possession, then the urge to assassinate him had gone up several notches, the main one being to eradicate the weed growing right next to my kingdom. Still, also for his army because, as I remembered, the Jogos Nhai were somewhat similar to the Dothraki, and if I could conquer them, then these Jogos Nhai would be the same. If such an army truly existed, destroying it would be a waste.
Once I had made new machinations in my mind, I turned around and looked for the exit without saying a single word, my mind motivated by what I had to do from now on.
"Valka, send word to Xandar; have the Black Sea meet us on the west side of the way of Steel; send wyvern riders to the Sea of Grass and Qarth; have all the legions of the Imperishable Horde meet us there as well; also, notify General Micaela that her new toys brought from Valyria will be needed at the start of the way of Steel."
Once I finished barking orders, we arrived at the clearing where the airship was, and without wasting time, I boarded it, wanting to leave this city as soon as possible.
Soon, the airship took course towards Tavalar while I was immersed in my thoughts. This Pol Qo was a very experienced man in terms of war, especially if it was about the Jogos Nhai; however, the fact that he had an army of two million warriors did not make him an invincible force unless he had weapons that managed to penetrate the massive defense of Endoxes, such an army would be a pig to the slaughter.
Another thing was that the Dark Wave, the nickname the Enderman had earned, was perhaps the most powerful army in the world since its corps could avoid damage from ordinary weapons, which would give Pol Qo's army of Jogos Nhai no chance of victory, and while the Enderman had the weakness of water, which the Faceless Men took advantage of in the destruction of the Temple of Black and White, along with the sun's rays, an attack at night could bypass the latter weakness, plus the water issue would be unusable in the heat of battle.