Ben brought the captured Botodor king into the throne room while a portion of his cultivators swept through the palace rounding up and officials or servants who were working through the night.
What Ben and his men didn't realize was a spy implanted into the Botodor palace slipped out a side entrance before being captured. He had used a rope to repel down the city wall while the female infiltration regiment was busy dealing with the captured city guards of the city.
It wasn't until a half a few hours after the sun had risen that his rope still tied to the battlements was discovered. By the time the report had made it to Ben's ears the man had slipped into a town just northeast of the Botodor capital.
When Ben used his map to do a search of the surrounding area he could not find any suspicious people or groups outside of the towns or city who stood out. He could only hope it wasn't anyone important who got away that may come back later to cause trouble in the region.
This was the fifth kingdom Ben had now captured, and he had already developed a system on how to absorb an enemy kingdom into his Avalon Kingdom.
The King was imprisoned for the time being and the people of the kingdom were told their kingdom had fallen due to their attack against the Avalon Kingdom. It is always difficult to win over the people of a conquered kingdom.
Ben used tactics to slowly win that would slowly win the trust of the people. By having them elect one of their own to govern as regent and implementing lower taxes and introducing improved infrastructure and defenses, he could improve their lives.
The majority of these changes would be placed on hold for now. They were still in the middle of a campaign and they couldn't afford to sit in the Botodor capital for the next month.
As it was they had spent a full week there before setting out to move east. The Aithereal capital is around four hundred miles away from the Botodor capital. If Ben were to march his troops there it would take over another week to travel there.
He could travel at fast speeds alone with his Whirlwind Maneuver, but he would need to remain on the roads when using it. It was even to difficult for him to run at speed up to sixty miles per hour in rugged wilderness terrain. If he wasn't careful he could run into a tree or possibly run off a cliff and injure himself.
Ben went to where his dragons were and asked one of them to fly him into the Aithereal Kingdom. By flying they would not need to follow the roads which zigzagged across the landscape.
With a rope tied around the neck of the black dragon to hang on to they quickly climbed up into the sky. It is an exhilarating feeling flying high above the land without having anything to block your line of sight.
He had flown in a plane once when he was younger and looked out the window as the ground grew further away. This was much different from a plane. With the wind tearing his eyes and howling in his ears it was as if he were riding a motorcycle hundreds of feet off the ground.
Far below the forests, rivers, and small villages could be seen as they flew along. It still took them most of the day to fly to a remote location near the Aithereal capital. Ben had the dragon land in a large open flat field, and he brought out a pre-cut stone slab with a teleport formation chiseled on it.
Ben inserted a spatial energy crystal into the formation socket and connected it to the formation stone he had left behind where his troops camped outside the Botodor capital city.
The black dragon went to lay down some distance away and rest after the long flight while Ben used the now connected formations to return to his troops. His troops now completely used to using the formations began to file through it in a line to find themselves having traveled over three hundred and fifty miles in the blink of an eye.
They repeated the same process as they did in the Botodor Kingdom by sending the Infiltration regiment in to secure the city and open the gates that night.
This time around everything went smoothly until they entered the royal palace to capture the king.
After questioning the officials and servants Ben found out that the person who had escaped the Botodor capital was a spy who the Aithereal king had implanted in the Botodor palace.
The spy returned to the capital and warned the Aithereal King that the Avalon King had captured the Botodor capital before anyone had even realized they had arrived.
To be safe the Aithereal King rounded up his palace guards and hired a large mercenary army to travel west to an ancient fortress that had been built many years ago.
Back when these northern kingdoms were still young and weak they could not defend against the winter attacks from the savage beast-men of the frozen lands. Their ancestors of these northern kingdoms constructed stone fortresses on top of steep mountains where they would stay locked up in over the winter.
Over the years the kingdoms began to grow and prosper with the help of these forts until they were no longer needed. They had walled in their cities and towns and could defend against the winter raids without having to retreat to the fortress anymore.
These stone forts may no longer be used, but they still maintained them to be used during emergencies. The Aithereal King figured if he could move to the ancient fortress, he and his troops could put up a better defense than trying to defend the huge capital city.
He made a difficult choice giving up the city to the enemy, but as long as he was alive and free he could always return to retake it at a later date. For now, he could remain safe and levy more troops while hiring mercenaries to drive the Avalon troops out of his kingdom.
This was a wise decision on his part if he were battling troops of any other kingdom. The flaw in his plan was that Ben now had a variety of specialized units who he could use in many ways to solve such a problem as this.
Ben left behind a garrison of two hundred dismounted knights, two hundred Elven archers, and four cultivators to make sure the city remained under his control.
He turned right around with his army and marched back west to the ancient fortress located near the Aithereal western border. A few days later they arrived at the base of the steep mountain which had only a narrow road leading up to the stone fortress above them.
It was the most defendable location Ben had ever come across by an enemy. If an army of poorly armored civilian troops were to march up this mountain road toward the fortress above they would take heavy losses from the archers looking down at them.
From the information learned through the officials, the king had around five hundred palace guards and one thousand mercenaries up there right now.
Ben stood there at the base of the mountain looking up at the defenses. In his head, he ran through a number of battle simulations until he found one that fit his style.
The men drew back from the mountain and set up a camp and began preparing food for everyone. With all the marching his men did the past couple of day he decided to allow them some rest before they took on the fortress.
He knew they had been seen approaching the fortress from long ago, so he wasn't in a hurry to strike before being discovered. If he camped in full sight of them it would put pressure on the enemy to the point they would be constantly on alert.
They would begin to lose morale and sleep as they stressed over what the enemy below them was going to do.
After three days of relaxing below the fortress, Ben had his generals come to his tent for a mission briefing.
Just as the sunset that night Ben had General Helena slip out of camp with her regiment. Ben gave her orders to have her troops use their climbing gear to scale the sides of the mountain the fortress sat on.
He also sent out the regiment of two thousand Draconians. They were ordered to circle around the back of the mountain and to fly up to the mountain peak.
The Draconians have large wings on their backs, and they can easily fly as well as a bird and can reach a speed of up to twenty-five mph when flying in a straight horizontal line. The regiment of Draconians reached the upper peak to where they could look down into the fortress below them.
Instead of attacking they waited on the infiltration regiment as ordered. A couple hours later the female squad decked out in all black had made it up the hillside to the sides of the fort.
The sides of the mountain are so steep it would normally be impossible for anyone to climb them. What made this fortress so defendable was there is only the narrow road leading up to it.
This allowed the defenders to concentrate their defenses all to the front of the fortress. There was no need to have people on the back or side walls. When Ben had noticed this he decided to use their defense against them.
Once again the infiltration regiment scaled the walls and lowered rope ladders to their sisters below to join them on the walls. When the Draconians above them saw the majority of them were now scaling the walls they dove off the sheer cliffs from above to glide down into the fortress courtyard and onto the walls.
The exhausted defenders who had been watching the army below day and night for three days were suddenly scared witless when seven-foot tall creatures with wings and tails began to land around them in large numbers.
The sounds of battle began to ring out in the fortress as the defenders woke up to find they were suddenly outnumbered four to one and the fortress gates were still standing firm!
The Infiltration regiment split up into squads to assist the Draconians while another squad made for the gate.
Ben watched the attack unfold from below with his Night SIght activated. When he saw the Draconians floating down into the fortress from above he began marching his troops up the narrow road.
Now that the defenders were fighting for their lives against his troops inside the fortress they could no longer guard against Ben as they casually walked up the mountain path and stood outside the gate.
They only had to wait a couple minutes before the gates were swung open. Ben drew his sword and led his men into the attack.
It wasn't much of a fight after they poured in with thousands of troops. Those who fought died while others chose to surrender. The king had barricaded himself in a room behind a secured door at the top of the fort that gave way to Ben after he used Enhanced Form and kicked it in off the hinges.
The Aithereal King was escorted down the mountain along with his surviving troops. Ben purchased two heavy-duty padlock latches from the System Store and installed them on the outside of the doors of a carriage.
The former Aithereal King was thrown into the carriage and the doors were locked with padlocks to prevent him from escaping as they traveled back to the Aithereal capital.
With the captured former king, his palace guards and mercenaries in tow, they packed up the camp and made their way back to the Aithereal capital.