Four years after the Byzantine Civil War and the Byzantine Sassanid War, life for the average Byzantine citizens became difficult as they needed to work harder to rebuild their lives, the mages also started to clear the poison gas from the farms and fix the ruined farmlands.
While Byzantium was recovering, an unexpected event happened, on a fateful day on the last day of the year 430, an unexpected event happened in the Lorian elven Empire.
Loria Petrograd, year 430 to November 7th 431 :
Oleg Rurik, the guy who was one of the supporters of Empress Lorna in the first Elven civil war requested to have the empress visit him but she refused due to some state affairs.
Unfortunately, none of the Elven officials in Petrograd was aware of the plan that Oleg and his allies prepared for them.
After waiting several months, Oleg's forces finally stormed the winter palace in the Lorian capital of Petrograd and declared the Empire of the Rus while dissolving the Lorian empire and even arresting the Empress and her court then he killed them all.
Everywhere in Loria from November 7th 431 to Winter 432:
The empire disintegrated very fast, one city after the other began to fall to the rebels while every ethnic group from the Baltics to Ukraine declared independence.
In Central Asia, the Centaurs were finally free and declared the Khanate of Turan.
After the revolution, the Elven opposition rose in the Far Eastern provinces of the former Lorian Empire with the backing of the Dragons of the Qin Dynasty and forced the revolutionary Rus Empire from their territory back to the European part of the empire.
Now the civil war in Loria was noticed by its neighbor, the Scarlet Empire whose Vampire lord Alistar van der Reich received a request for help from the Demi-Humans in the Baltic, the Dwarves in Ukraine alongside the Slavic kingdom of Poland requested the protection of the Vampire Government.
The vampires decided to send three million troops and occupied the former Elven territories of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic regions forcing the Rus troops out of the territory.
Meanwhile, in Byzantium, the nation is finally prospering as the effects of the civil war began to disappear. Alex is extremely happy and doesn't bother doing wars until a messenger appears claiming that Loria collapsed and he seeks alliance with him.
Byzantium, 10 January 432:
Svyatoslav, the Son of the new Emperor of the Rus appeared before Alex: "Hello Your Excellency, we in the newly founded empire of the Rus seek your alliance and support".
The Byzantine Emperor was quickly reminded that he intended to create a demon state and told the messenger his demand.
Not only he was shocked, but Samantha who suddenly came also was shocked, and his advisor Zagrios opposed his idea, even Samantha: "I believe in the year 416 where there were tensions between you and Kahn Anders, you wanted to use the demons to destroy the Scarlet Empire but I opposed it and you forgot it due to the civil war and the threats from Persia but now YOU WANT TO CREATE A DEMON STATE THAT CAN DAMAGE THE POWER BALANCE IN THIS WORLD". Everyone was shocked that Samantha yelled at the emperor however Alex expected the opposition as he honestly doesn't have a complete plan of what to do and said: "Samantha, a state for the demons will grant our security because it will secure us from the threats of the Sassanids"
Suddenly an evil started to appear as Alex started to gather dark energy, the messenger got scared even Zagrios got scared and asked: "Why are you gathering this much dark energy?"
Alex ignored him and teleported to the city of trebizond in Pontus.
Pontus Region near the caucasus, 11 January 432:
While the civil war in Former Loria is getting more brutal, Alex appears in the dark forest of Pontus and he uses all the dark energy he gathered and creates multiple hell gates to summon a massive horde of demons.
He succeeded in his task as the entirety of the demon race from all classes appeared and their leader appeared before the Byzantine emperor: "You used a lot of energy, by summoning almost the entire demon race I believe you intend to invade a certain region".
Alex smiled and told him his intention and he even promised to support him but the demon rejected his help saying:" We don't need the protege of Hades' help, we can take care of the mission, so you want us to establish a demon state in the South of the Caucasus region?".
"Oh and split up cause the next target is the Avars and Southern Ukraine, I ain't allowing the Vampires to gain any more lands".
The demon emperor Lucifer assigned his most loyal prince Azmodeus to go to the Byzantine Balkans and start an invasion of the Occupied provinces of the former Lorian Empire".
Both Leaders of the demon race obeyed their master's orders and started their invasion.
Olympus:
The news stunned the gods, even Hades was utterly surprised because not only his protege wanted to create a single demon state but two.
Zeus thought that Alex had gone mad after he gained a lot of power and survived the first challenge to his rule.
Hades thought that it was time to visit his student to see what he intended to do and even complained: "This plan will lead to an even more dreadful chaos, the demons will exterminate everyone and will desire a monoethnic demon kingdom, Alex! This plan will bite you in the back one day and I will try to convince you to listen"
Byzantium, 20 January 432:
The Byzantine government officials were busy administering the empire and ensuring its prosperity, Hades the god of the Underworld visited the imperial palace and encountered his student.
"Hello, Alex, it's been a long time and now I see you became the Byzantine emperor but now we are going to discuss your plans".
Alex was surprised that he knew his intent and what made it even worse was that Lucifer and Asmodeus came to report they were ready to start their campaign, when they saw Hades they were scared but Alex assured them that everything was fine and told them to leave.
He then looked at Hades and said with an assertive tone: "I can see what you want to talk about, and I even know that you will oppose the plan for a demon realm but I will do it as it serves my interests". Hades understood that opposition was pointless and said calmly: "Well Alex I ain't here to oppose you but to inform you that the Scarlet Empire is receiving backing from Poseidon as he thought you're a warmonger and I'm here to teach you more skills myself and now we shall start".
The Byzantine emperor realized that he needed more power so he left the imperial palace and gave his officials instructions on what to do during his absence.
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Demon wars in the Caucasus front, Spring 432 to Summer of 433:
After preparing for war, Lucifer split the demons into two groups: he led the Caucasus group and Asmodeus led the Slavic group and both left for their frontlines.
The Demon army in the Caucasus immediately conquered the entire Dwarven kingdom of Lascium with ease due to the immense power of the Demon forces, then Lucifer's forces advanced to the capital Tysbilium after conquering half of the kingdom and started a siege there.
The Dwarves fought fiercely killing at least four thousand demon soldiers but due to the intervention of Lucifer's primordial demon units, the dwarves chose to surrender seeking to avoid a massacre.
The demons invited the dwarven king to negotiations. Once the dwarven king entered, Lucifer greeted him and said: "Hello good gentlemen, we as new rulers of this state will treat the people nicely, we just need this region to settle the population of our race".
"The dwarven leader laughed as he looked at him and said, 'Ha ha ha, my friend. We are just a small tribe that is scattered in the former Lorian empire. We seek to immigrate to our homelands in Kiev, which is currently ruled by the collaborators of the Scarlet vampire state." Lucifer promised the dwarven leader to help their population move to Kiev.
After the meeting, Lucifer decided to write a letter to his boss in Byzantium to report his achievement and the creation of the demon state of Khazaria with him assuming the title of Khan.
Byzantium somewhere Unknown, September 433:
Alex was training with Hades learning spells such as the arms of Hades, controlling the Earth and creating Earthquakes, luckily it was a random forest.
After finishing the training, Alex and Hades went back to the Imperial palace to check what was going on while they were absent.
Imperial palace:
Once Alex arrived, he was handed a letter from Lucifer reporting his victories and establishment of the first demon state in the Caucasus, he also found the messenger from the Scarlet Empire awaiting him and he also handed him a letter.
Alex took the letter from his hand and started reading it:
"Dear Alex
We know you are behind the disturbances in the South of the Dwarf kingdom of Ukraine where you brought the demons from their realms to this world, if you do not stop this escalation and bring the demons to where they belong, then we will have no choice but to declare war on you and your thugs who disturbed the peace in our allies lands". Right after reading this letter, Alex tore it apart and decapitated the messenger.
"Send a letter to Kahn, the ruling Van Der Reich of the Scarlet Empire will pay for threatening me and threatening Romans and Zagrios go tell the Italian kings in Rome and the Alpine kingdom that I haven't forgotten them, tell them to hand over their lands or they know what will happen". Zagrios obeyed and went to do his mission.
Berlin:
Alistar the vampire lord was discussing state matters when two mysterious women appeared in front of him and brought him the head of the messenger.
The vampire lord was so pissed, that he drew his sword but was stopped by his son Alexander. The messenger smiled and said: "The Byzantine emperor wants to send you his regards and desires that you do not disturb the demons in southern Ukraine or we shall let the Rus armies advance into your occupied lands." Said the woman with pure Arrogance.
"Ah, you're sent by your unhinged Emperor so tell him ok we will not disturb..." He was interrupted by Alex and Azmodeus who came to visit him and ordered his subordinate to return, he then turned his attention to the vampire emperor and his officials and greeted them all: "Well I came here to agree that we split the dwarf kingdom of Ukraine with the Demon kingdom controlling the Odessa province and Nikolaev, while you control the rest" The vampire emperor gladly accepted and shook hands with the Byzantine emperor, then Alex left back to his own empire.
Caucasus:
Lucifer desired more lands so he went to the capital of the newly established Khazar Khanate Samandar, Killed the leadership, and made the rest follow him leading to the integration of Abkhazia into the new lands while Lucifer proclaimed the Khazar Empire with himself as the emperor.
He started establishing new institutions such as the guilds, and the banks, and his economic policies were effective as he could manipulate merchants into favorable trade agreements.
He spent the entire Autumn consolidating his power by promoting loyalists into his court while killing off opposition, he announced that he would send an envoy to Byzantium to seek an alliance with Emperor Alex.
Byzantium, January 434:
Both Alex and Zagrios returned to Byzantium, they both discussed the results and congratulated each other for a successful task.
They were ecstatic when they received the news that Lucifer annexed the north caucasian Khazar Khanate and accepted the alliance, he then proceeded to integrate the Italian Kingdoms and annexed the kingdom of two Sicilies uniting the entire Italian peninsula under the administration of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Samantha teleported to the imperial palace and congratulated her emperor for becoming close to unifying the Roman Empire.
"Well thanks love but the empire is unified unofficially because Kahn and I are friends," Said Alex with confidence
Alex decided to move the capital of his empire from Byzantium to Rome and told his officials to start a massive maintenance of the city to restore its former glory; moreover he sent a letter to Kahn requesting a meeting with him.
He told everyone to start doing their jobs and Samantha returned to her province of Africa to govern it. He was left alone in the palace, so he decided to start meditating and teleported straight to the divine world desiring to meet the gods himself.
Olympus:
As the gods were about to start their annual meeting, Alex barged into their room while disregarding everyone.
Zeus was extremely angry and was ready to smite him but Alex stopped him when he apologized for his behavior and told everyone that he sought to meet with both Kahn and Demetrius.
"But he is...." Hades was interrupted by Alex: "Cut the crap Hades, he is a demi-god and is serving you and I kinda need to meet him"
Zeus signaled for everyone to be quiet and all listened, he then asked Alex: "Am I right to assume that you want us to support your plan of unifying the empire and eliminating the Persian threat and the vampire once and for all?". Alex laughed maniacally and proved him right and that scared all the gods but only one man celebrated and that is Demetrius, he praised Alex and told him that Hades supports all his decisions.
Kahn teleported to the divine realm and before Alex could say anything, Kahn told him he would hand him the Gallic Realm and finally unite the empire.
Both quickly left the divine realm to finalize the unification of the roman empire
Ecbatana, March:
The new Shah Shapur I contacted the dwarven tribe that didn't immigrate to Kiev and one of their envoys came and asked about the reason.
"I need you to build tunnels that stretch from Babylon to Jerusalem and I can start paying you this sum of gold," Shapur said with confidence after he handed him over a bag of gold and told him he would receive the complete payment once the job was done.
The dwarven envoy accepted and went to contact his fellow tribesmen to start building the tunnels that will reach their target.
The tunnel building site, next day in March 434 up to October 434:
The dwarves immediately began digging the tunnel in the forest of Ecbatana, started constructing walls to stabilize the tunnels, and kept digging.
While in the Tunnel, the Dwarves found plenty of gold and started stacking their bags as they kept digging
The tunnel building site, next day in March 434 up to October 434:
The dwarves immediately began digging the tunnel in the forest of Ecbatana, started constructing walls to stabilize the tunnels, and kept digging.
While in the Tunnel, the Dwarves found plenty of gold and started stacking their bags as they kept digging. One of the dwarves kept checking for the progress of the destination until he found that they reached the Roman borders.
Fortunately for the dwarves, the Roman border guards were unaware of their activity due to a certain event that had been prepared.
Ecbatana, October 434:
Shahanshah Shapur the first, woke up in the early morning and instructed his scribe to send a letter to the Vampire emperor:
"Dear Vampire Emperor:
I hope this letter reaches you, we are the Persian empire and we are enemies of the mad Emperor of the Romans. Now I am here to inform you that due to his aggressive policies against his people, we will issue an ultimatum demanding that he halts his aggression on neighbors and stops supporting the demon state of Khazaria as their existence violates every sacred law that humanity and other people have". he gave the letter to his messenger to be sent to the Scarlet Empire.
Scarlet Empire, from October to December 434:
The messenger of the Persian emperor arrived after extreme difficulties due to the long distance and having to travel Roman lands, finally, after two months of difficult travels due to the harassment of Roman guards, he arrived in Berlin and entered the vampire imperial palace.
In the imperial palace, he delivered a message to the Vampire Emperor and when he read it, he immediately informed him that he shall accept his plan and prepare for war.
The persian messenger returned to persia to report the news of the alliance back to his shah.