"Hee hee... I recall the Master once saying: before we can conquer the outside, we must first secure the inside!"
"While the continental plates are expanding, the wild insectoid populations outside our borders are also exploding. Now is absolutely not the ti to march out and conquer."
A crisp, youthful voice—laced with just a hint of playful mockery—rang out, drawing everyone's attention to Lorelia.
Had they not known the bloody history of Lorelia's rise, anyone looking at the Cave Spider Queen right now would easily mistake her for a harmless, innocent human girl.
"Can't you feel it?" Lorelia asked. "Oh... my apologies. I forgot. You aren't insectoids. You can't sense the raw, pulsing thrill electrifying the air!"
Under the heavy stares of the commanders, Lorelia didn't shrink back in the slightest. If anything, she radiated a distinct sense of superiority. She reached up, twirling a small braid that fell past her temple. Lilith had personally braided it for her not too long ago, and she absolutely adored it.
"I believe that before we march north, we need to survive the enemies in our own backyard."
"Gentlen, the mont the Master returned, the insectoid tide had already begun!"
As she spoke, Lorelia's eyes glead as bright as stars. Her crimson tongue darted out, dragging across her thin lips. It was obvious she was practically salivating at the prospect of the impending war and chaos.
However, in the very next second, the color violently drained from Lorelia's face, leaving her pale and stricken with terror.
Chitter-chitter-chitter!
A terrifying, majestic insectoid screech erupted, rolling in from the northern reaches of the Titan Continent. The sound was deep, dark, and guttural—like the wet, tearing crunch of millions of nightmarish horrors clustering together to feast on a fresh carcass.
As a Broodmother herself, Lorelia was uniquely hyper-sensitive to this specific screech, and uniquely terrified by it.
For a split second, every single insectoid on the continent was paralyzed by the sound.
And then ca the madness. The absolute, unhinged frenzy of the swarm.
The grand feast was about to begin!
Roar!
Upon the throne, Orion parted his lips and unleashed a thunderous bellow that physically shattered the invading insectoid screech.
"Lilith will chair the remainder of this war council. Lorelia will assist her."
It was an absolute command. The mont the words left his mouth, Orion took a single step forward and vanished into thin air.
"A supre entity has descended upon the continent. The Master has gone to intercept them!" Lorelia quickly explained, clearing the room's confusion. That bone-chilling screech was the undeniable herald of an insectoid Demigod's arrival.
"The council will continue!" Lilith declared. "Lorelia is entirely correct. Before we launch any outward crusades, we must completely purge the threats within our own borders."
With Orion gone, Lilith stepped up to the throne. In this mont, she wielded the absolute supre authority of the Stoneheart Horde. Perched on her shoulder, the Fire Phoenix, Fenyra, let out a low, resonant trill. The majestic aura of an Archlord cascaded over Lilith, crowning her with the regal, commanding presence of a true empress.
"Gentlen. The war has begun." Lilith rested her right hand on the arm of the throne, her expression solemn and icy.
"Alien swarms from another realm are about to flood in from every conceivable direction. They will trample our lands, slaughter our outlying tribes, and lay siege to our cities."
"You are the pillars of the Stoneheart Horde. You are its living legends. You are the unbreakable walls that shield our people."
"Right now, the Horde needs you to defend its honor and safeguard this vast territory we call ho."
Lilith's gaze swept across the room. Led by Dirtclaw and Gustalon, the Horde's most seasoned, blood-forged commanders all wore expressions of ironclad resolve, ready to fight to the bitter end.
"Our threats co from four fronts: the wilderness, the North, the sky, and the sea."
"Before I issue deploynt orders, we must draft a comprehensive battle strategy to repel the insectoid invasion."
Lilith's mind was sharp and clear. The most imdiate threat facing the Stoneheart Horde right now was the feral insectoids swarming the wilderness, their numbers multiplying by the second.
In truth, before the two worlds fully rged, Dirtclaw, Gustalon, and Kaelen had led the three major legions and practically wiped the surface clean of wild insectoids. The ones currently erupting across the wilds were a mix of fresh drops from the exosphere and dormant hives that had remained buried deep underground.
With the integration complete and the cosmic laws stabilizing, this was the era of the swarm. It was an age of apocalyptic insectoid proliferation.
"Our ultimate operational objective for this war is to expel the swarm, march north, and unify the continent."
As the Horde's supre administrator, Lilith displayed her logistical mastery flawlessly.
"To achieve our strategic goals, we will temporarily establish five core tactical divisions."
"The First Division will handle intelligence gathering and analysis, operated by the Sentinel Corps embedded within the major legions."
"The Sentinels will form specialized task forces dedicated solely to the swarm. They will be responsible for tracking the real-ti movents, sheer numbers, species classifications, and combat threat levels of incoming insectoid forces."
"Furthermore, the intelligence division will capture specins, analyze the swarm's behavioral patterns and lethal weaknesses, and relay that data instantly to the relevant combat zones."
The true head of the Sentinel Corps was, in fact, Lilith herself. Ever since Witch Queen Delilah had departed for the Abyssal World, Lilith had taken total control of the Horde's intelligence network.
"The Second Division will oversee defensive fortifications. This will be a joint effort between the major legions and the city castellans."
"My mandate is simple: garrison the major cities heavily. I will not accept the fall of a single city in this war."
"To that end, the Horde will arm the legions with heavy artillery and advanced defensive gear. I expect you to leverage the strategic topography of your cities and local natural resources to construct impenetrable fortifications imdiately."
The Horde's major cities had actually been preparing for this for a long ti. Lilith bringing it up now was simply to finalize the protocols and plug any remaining vulnerabilities.
"The Third Division will manage foreign alliances. This task falls to Kaelen, who is holding the line at the City of Sophia in the south."
"Kaelen, assuming the dragons' territory hasn't drifted away from the Titan Continent, you must establish contact with them imdiately. Form a joint command center to coordinate our military operations, share resources and intel, and stabilize the Horde's coastal territories as quickly as possible."
This was critical. Only with a secure southern border could the Stoneheart Horde fully commit to its core strategic objective: the Northern Crusade. At present, the dragons were the only viable foreign ally the Horde could still rely on.
"Rest assured, Mother," Kaelen swore. "I will exterminate the insectoids in the southern territories and stabilize the region in the shortest ti possible."
Lilith gave a slight nod. She had absolute faith in Kaelen, who had inherited Orion's bloodline. Though he wasn't officially an Archlord yet, he already possessed the combat prowess of one.
"The Fourth Division will handle tactical counterasures."
"The Horde's intelligence branch and the Bureau of Weapons will analyze the swarm's biological traits to develop direct counters. They will engineer specialized tactics and anti-swarm weaponry."
"Sylvana will spearhead this, with Ava assisting."
The insectoids were neither omnipotent nor invincible. As biological organisms, they inherently possessed elental weaknesses—be it a fear of fire, light, or water. Identifying the fatal flaws of specific swarm castes, devising targeted tactics, and forging the right weapons would heavily tilt the scales of this war in the Stoneheart Horde's favor.
"The Fifth Division will be Logistics."
"I will personally oversee this division. I am establishing a warti dical corps. Every single healer, mage, priest, and paladin within the Horde's borders—regardless of origin—will be forcefully conscripted."
"Furthermore, I will dictate the distribution of supplies and the deploynt of reserve troops based on the shifting tides of the battlefield."
"I guarantee this: no warrior on the front lines will go hungry. You will march into battle wearing unbreakable armor and wielding razor-sharp weapons."
"And if you bleed, you will receive imdiate dical aid and resupply."
This was Lilith's unyielding commitnt. This was the grand vision of Orion's wife.
"Next, the operational phases. Before we can march north, we must scour the wilderness of the swarm..."
Everyone in the room knew they were buckling in for a long, grueling war of attrition. Whether the ultimate enemy was the insectoids or sothing else entirely, the Stoneheart Horde had to advance with calculated, thodical precision.
Preparation, Defense, Counter-Offensive, Pursuit, Consolidation... Only with an ironclad, ticulously crafted battle plan could they maintain order amidst the chaos and secure the contingencies needed to survive the unpredictable.
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