"That would be excellent," Draven said. "I will also mobilize a unit of my own men. I will send them south to assist you with the Viscount."

"There is no real need for that," Adrian replied quickly. "I can handle him. But I appreciate the support, and I will receive your men properly when they arrive."

"Have fun with your hunt, Baron."

The device clicked and the call ended.

Adrian pulled his finger from the slot and didn’t even bother checking the time. Or asking the receptionist if he went over his limit.

Because the talk was actually pretty short.

So he just got up, pulled his hood over his head, and walked right out the front door.

He had absolutely zero business left in this city. He mounted his horse and rode straight back to Oresfall.

The moment he walked through his mansion doors, he summoned Cassius.

The financial manager hurried into the study and stood in front of Adrian.

"Cassius," Adrian ordered. "I need you to buy food."

Cassius opened a notebook. "Standard resupply, my lord?"

"No," Adrian shook his head. "Buy everything. Every single cow, chicken, and pig."

"Every sack of grain and barrel of flour." he added. "Buy every crate of vegetables and basket of fruit. Just clear out every single piece of food sitting inside Alexander’s territory."

Cassius stopped writing and just stared at Adrian in complete shock.

Adrian knew this plan would work perfectly because he understood exactly how Alexander managed his economy.

Alexander was lazy. When the Viscount needed to supply his territory or handle trade, he didn’t deal with individual farmers or manage storehouses. He just bought massive, bulk shipments of goods from merchants in his territory at a slight discount, and then immediately resold them to his foreign buyers like a glorified middleman. It was a completely hands-off, hassle free system.

The merchants took care of all the storage and he could just buy stuff directly from them and sell whenever he had someone ready to buy stuff from him.

But it also meant Alexander had zero direct control over his local food distribution. He relied entirely on the merchants holding the stock.

Adrian, on the other hand, handled his territory completely differently. Cassius and his team meticulously tracked every single import and export. They had a lot of control over the flow of goods.

And right now, Adrian was going to abuse Alexander’s lazy management style to trigger a catastrophic, artificial famine.

"I am giving you my spatial rings," Adrian said.

He pulled several silver rings from his dungeon. They were exact replicas of the high-capacity storage ring he had bought for Aria back in the capital. Crafting them was incredibly pricey compared to other things, costing him nearly a hundred mana points per ring, but he didn’t care. The investment was worth it.

"You cannot use these," Adrian told the merchant. "So I am sending a team with you."

He decided to send the five kids who had mana veins, along with the captured third-circle rogue mage. That gave Cassius six active magic users capable of operating the spatial rings.

Three days later, Cassius returned.

The merchant walked into the study looking completely exhausted but incredibly smug. He didn’t bring a massive convoy of wooden carts since there really was no need for it. He just dropped the silver rings onto Adrian’s desk.

"It is done, my lord," Cassius reported. "I bought every single scrap of food in his markets. I even paid premium bribes to the merchants just to force them to empty their private emergency inventories. A few stubborn merchants refused to sell, but we still acquired over ninety percent of the territory’s entire food supply."

Cassius smiled darkly. "He has no food, Lord Adrian. Almost none."

Adrian grinned. "Perfect! Go rest, Cassius. You earned it."

Once the merchant left, Adrian turned to Claire. The knight general was standing quietly beside him.

"Tell the kids to get ready," Adrian ordered. "And tell every single soldier to gear up. We are going to war."

Claire nodded and ran out to mobilize the men.

Adrian sat down at his desk, grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a completely brutal declaration of war. Then he pulled out his new official seal.

It was a totally custom design. An owl in mid-flight with its wings forming a sharp V shape and it had a monocle over one eye.

He dripped hot red wax onto the bottom of the page and slammed the seal into it, handing the letter over to a messenger right after.

"Go and deliver this to Viscount Alexander."

After that, Adrian just went to bed and he slept like a rock.

The sun came up the next morning, but today was definitely not a normal day.

The training fields were packed tight and a massive army of five thousand men stood in perfect, silent formation.

They weren’t training like they always did and they were all in steel armor. Knights wore steel plate armor while the regular soldiers went with thick quilted coats on the inside and chain mail on the outside.

It was a terrifying force. Out of the five thousand troops, approximately one thousand men had successfully broken through their physical limits and had become knights. They stood at the front, clad in heavy steel armor, while the remaining four thousand highly trained soldiers backed them up in chainmail.

Adrian rode to the front of the army on a massive white horse.

Aria sat right in front of him on the saddle, looking totally fearless. The three ex-bandits rode nearby. The five elite kids, Cassius, Celeste, and Caelum were all mounted and ready. Even Serena Ashford sat quietly on a white horse, having decided to witness the battle while she read through Adrian’s book that she still hadn’t finished reading.

Adrian did not bother with supply carts or logistics wagons. All the food and weapons they needed were safely stored inside the rings and if he wanted more, he could just pull some out from his dungeon.

"March!" Adrian ordered, and the army moved.