Emperor of the Borderlands (Book 6): A Historical Progression Fantasy Series

The next book of the series!
Emperor of the Borderlands (Book 7): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2FW57CZ

“When things go too smoothly, it means you're missing something.”

I petitioned for official recognition of my settlement. Prince Veratine granted it with suspicious speed. In a realm where bureaucracy moves like frozen honey, such efficiency can only mean one thing: enemy wants me to succeed. And that alarms me more than open hostility.

After all, there's no shortage of those who'd celebrate my death. For generations, two industrial dynasties have controlled the rarest metal in the realm—the one that makes the difference between a blade that shatters against a Soulless and one that cuts through their cursed flesh. Now I've found what they've spent centuries hiding, and thus became an existential threat to their power.

Those who safeguard arcane knowledge nurse their own hatred. They teach only the wealthy, license only the connected, and ensure that magic remains in the hands of those who already have it. A peasant child with the gift of a grand magister will die never knowing what they could have become. The academy I’m building threatens the very foundation of The Academic Council’s dominion: the lie that magic belongs only to the highborn.

Yet all these human enemies pale before what stirs in the dark forests. The Harbingers have been sighted—twisted creatures whose appearance heralds the coming of the Surge, when the Soulless multiply beyond counting and sweep across the land like a tide of death.

Now the trap is clear. My adversaries are betting that I'll break myself against this challenge. That the coming darkness will do what their assassins and intrigues could not. They'll watch from behind their high walls as the Borderlands burn, and toast my demise with expensive wine.

They've made only one miscalculation: they think I'm defending a village. I'm building an empire. And I've done it before.