The next day Ben had visited his sect and had the Elders rouse his cultivator/magi. They all equipped their armor and weapons in their homes as ordered before making their way over to the sect central square.
Sixty men and women stood before, Ben as he explained the mission they would accompany him on. Once the mission briefing was explained they followed Ben over to the military Training Fields to assemble outside the concrete bunker.
Before Ben had woken everyone up earlier he had used his Zoom spell to travel to the formation bunker. He inserted the space energy crystal and powered up the formation.
Everything was prepared for them to teleport over to the new land. They stood in a single file line and followed Ben into the formation.
On the other side, they were confused at first. They traveled to a bunker which looked identical to the one they were in so they thought something had gone wrong. As everyone left the bunker they found they were in a clearing surrounded by trees.
It was strange to realize they had just traveled over a thousand miles and didn't even realize it until they step outside to see the change in the surrounding terrain.
Ben removed the energy crystal and locked the bunker and began the journey southwest to the Caegon Dynasty to make their move on the Rodara cultivators hiding out in Woodford City.
The few techniques Ben knew had been added to the sect library when he built it. This allowed his recruits to learn Whirlwind Maneuver Aura Assault, and, Cultivation Reader. By learning these techniques along with the spells they knew his recruits could fight on par with cultivators of a higher stage than them. This also allowed them to almost keep up with the speeds at which Ben could move.
Ben adjusted his pace to run just out in front of the group as they made the journey to the capital. Just over two hours later they arrived near the capital and spit up into five-man teams. Each team entered the city separate from the other teams and made their way to the royal palace.
This was done to not alert the Rodara cultivators. If they had a noble on their side then it could be possible they had others working for them. If they had eyes watching the city a group of sixty plus people showing up together may put them on alert.
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Ben entered the royal palace and reported to an assistant that he wanted to speak with the monarch or the royal cultivator. He explained he had sensitive information to report and would wait in the meeting room for them.
Fifteen minutes later the royal cultivator came to the meeting room. Ben explained he had discovered the location of the Rodara cultivators and had brought sixty cultivator/magi along with him to assault the noble's manor.
They planned to make a move during the night to make sure the cultivators were in the estate and not out shaking down businesses.
At midnight Ben, his sixty cultivator/magi, the royal cultivator, four Caegon cultivators, and thirty palace guards surrounded the estate. The large manor had has three entrances which they would all enter at the same time.
They had plans to storm the house and capture everyone in there. If anyone resisted they were free to use force. Ben ordered his men to not use their fire magic inside the home. It would be a bad situation trying to fight the cultivators inside of a building which was burning to the ground.
The palace guards were left outside on the perimeter to keep anyone away who was drawn to the sounds of fighting inside the manor.
When everyone was in position and prepared to breach the house, Ben cast a Mana Javelin into the air. When the three teams saw the glowing Javelin shoot off into the night sky they all stormed the house together.
The two-story manor was instantly flooded with men and women looking for targets. Two teams of twenty people each went directly to the second floor and Ben led the third team with twenty-five people including the royal cultivator from room to room on the first floor.
It did not take long before the sounds of people yelling and fighting erupted throughout the place. Ben teams only happen to come across servants who worked in the manor on the first floor. They were all zip tied and escorted outside as the six Rodara cultivators made it clear they were not going to go quietly.
The six of them were strong enough to injure a few of Ben's recruits but they were badly outnumbered even if they were stronger than his recruits. With the combination of lightning bolts and chain lightning arcing across the second floor the enemy was quickly killed or captured.
Ben would have almost preferred they all died during the fight after what they had done to his employees, but a few captured Rodara cultivators would also be useful.
They could parade them before the Caegon people to boost morale and show the monarch was on top of things and Ben could use them as an excuse to declare war on the Kingdom of Rodara.
Ben planned to announce himself as a foreign king who had opened a store in the Caegon Dynasty to improve relations between their two kingdoms. He would then announce the Rodara kingdom had secretly used the captured and killed cultivators to attack his store.
This attack would be considered an attack on the Avalon Kingdom and the killing of Avalon subjects. Ben would explain his kingdom planned to work together with the Caegon Dynasty to strike back at the Rodara Kingdom for these unprovoked attacks.
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A few days later Ben's plans were set into motion and Avalon's declaration of war was sent out to neighboring kingdoms with an explanation of what had happened in the Caegon capital. It wasn't a surprise to the other kingdoms and dynasties. They knew Rodara began to make aggressive moves toward Caegon but it was news to hear a foreign power had been drawn into the situation.
Now that things were settled in the capital the monarch decided to work with Ben after hearing reports of how he did have sixty cultivators. They could only imagine he told the truth about the strength of his troops and wished to work together.
The monarch did not care if Ben planned to invade Rodara later he just wanted to stop the invasion from damaging his dynasty the best they could.
The decision was made to give Ben a small strip of land from the shore of the eastern inlet and to the western side of the northern road.
This changed Ben's defensive plan now that he was given so much land to work with. After he returned his cultivators to Dragonshome, he began to build a fifty foot high by two feet thick wall. The wall began one hundred feet off the shore of the eastern inlet in the deeper waters and extended west to cross the northern road.
A thirty foot wide by a thirty-foot deep moat was placed along the northern face of the wall and was connected to the ocean inlet.
If the Rodara army wanted to enter the Caegon Dynasty they would have to swim or use boats to cross the ocean inlet or march down the western side of the northern road.
Just northwest of the northern Caegon town a Conqueror's Castle was built. To defend the town from attack. There is no way the invaders could attack the town without being in arrow range of the castle defenders.
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One the new Conqueror's Castle was constructed Ben brought his two spies up form Greenlyn to stay in the castle. From the castle, he began sending them into Rodara to spy on the military camp across the border and to gather information in the town near the military camp.
Ben figured the Rodara troops were having their supplies shipped to this town and were being given time to visit the town on their free time. Those soldiers would begin to brag and gossip after they spent some time in the taverns getting drunk.
Hopefully, this would provide them with information on the invasion and when they planned to attack.
The only thing that worried Ben was the western lands along the border are undefended. If the troops spotted his castle and choose to march toward the western coastline to invade into Caegon they could completely bypass his defenses.
If it came to that he would have to depend on his Mounted Knights and Javelin Cavalry. He did not feel comfortable about bringing his foot soldiers out of the town and castle defenses to fight against an army of near 20k even if they were civilian soldiers.
There was only so much preparation he could do and it soon became a waiting game. He began sending out light cavalry to patrol the undefended borders to watch the invasion while his spies covertly gathered information.
'I guess all I can do now is begin teleporting my troops over here to begin defending the border and hope this battle goes as smooth as the ones in the past.' Ben thought as he began to cast Zoom to return to Dragonshome.