Extra's Life: MILFs Won't Leave the Incubus Alone Chapter 396 - 391: Rivers and Crowns

One month after the passes fell, Aiden stood on the observation deck of the sky-palace as it drifted south above the Great River. The vessel no longer flew alone.

Below it, a reinforced fleet of captured barges and armed riverboats stretched for miles. Troops moved between decks with crisp efficiency, their gear marked with the new imperial sigil. The river was the prize.

Whoever held it controlled trade, food, and movement for half the continent. Right now, the cities and barge lords along it played both sides. Aiden intended to end that game today.

The first stop was Highbank and Stoneford, two cities separated by a crumbling dam that had leaked threats of flood for three generations.

Aiden gave no speeches about loyalty. He simply acted. The sky-palace settled into position above the dam while engineers and Golden Womb operators descended on ropes.

Crowds gathered on both banks, watching. Golden light pulsed from the stabilization field. Stone cracked and reformed. Earth shifted and hardened under visible waves of energy.

In under two hours, the dam stood stronger than any structure the locals had ever seen. Water level stabilized. The threat that had hung over their granaries and docks vanished.

Highbank’s warrior-prince, an old man named Garrick with scars across his forearms, met Aiden on the riverbank. He respected strength more than words.

"Impressive trick," Garrick said. "But tricks don’t clear the river serpents."

"Then hunt with me," Aiden replied. "Bring your best boats. I’ll bring spotters."

The hunt began at dawn the next day. A thirty-foot serpent had been smashing barges for weeks. Sky-palace observers called out its position from above.

Garrick’s boats raced along the current while Aiden’s troops dropped ropes and harpoons from low altitude. The chase turned chaotic when the serpent dove under a narrow channel.

Aiden jumped from the palace deck onto a speeding barge, command aura sharpening every soldier’s reactions. Spears flew. Blood churned the water.

Garrick landed the killing blow himself, driving a reinforced spear through the creature’s skull. When the prince stood on the bank holding the serpent’s fang, he gripped Aiden’s forearm in the old warrior greeting.

Stoneford proved different. Two merchant families had deadlocked the city council for years. Aiden offered a single imperial contract for priority grain shipments—enough silver to make the winner rich for a decade.

He gave them one afternoon to load and launch a tribute fleet. The docks turned into a madhouse. Crates flew. Men shouted. Barges rocked dangerously as rival crews raced. One family tried sabotage; imperial troops quietly stopped it.

By sunset, the victors launched first. Their rivals swallowed pride and joined the next wave. Both families now competed to serve the empire instead of each other.

The procession continued downriver. Tribute barges joined the fleet daily. Grain, timber, iron, and gold flowed north toward Valthar. Then the storm hit.

It wasn’t natural. Lingering Sky Dungeon influence twisted the clouds into a black wall that struck at midnight.

Rain hammered sideways. River levels rose fast. Weeks of accumulated tribute strained against their moorings. Aiden took direct command from the sky-palace bridge.

Golden Womb pulses pushed back against the floodwaters in rhythmic waves, holding key sections of bank stable. Nyra’s shadows moved through the darkness like silent extensions of his will.

They guided rescue boats, secured lines, and pulled crews from sinking vessels. Troops worked through the night without panic, their enhanced stamina and coordination keeping losses low.

By morning, the storm broke. Exhausted barge-folk stood on stable decks and watched the sky-palace hover overhead like a shield. No speech was needed. The common workers who moved the empire’s goods had seen who protected them when it mattered.

The real test came at Blackgate, seat of the largest river coalition. Lord Varen had played along until the fleet reached the narrow choke point he controlled.

At dusk, his men opened the river gates. Water surged in a controlled flood meant to strand and damage the imperial vessels against rocks and sandbars. Varen expected chaos.

Instead, the sky-palace descended. Massive lifting fields locked onto the heaviest blockade sections. Stone and timber rose dripping from the riverbed and were deposited on the banks like children’s toys.

Imperial troops secured the gates before Varen’s forces could react. By the time the sun rose, the entire coalition fleet sat trapped and vulnerable.

Aiden met Varen on the central barge in full view of both sides. No raised voices. No theatrics.

"Swear fealty and keep your fleet," Aiden said. "Or watch me dismantle it piece by piece while you live. Your choice."

Varen looked at the sky-palace, the reinforced troops, and the river now flowing under imperial control. He knelt. By noon the entire network declared for the empire.

Trade taxes, shipbuilding capacity, and food shipments now fed directly into Aiden’s growing domain. The southern route was open. Leverage over distant empires through trade denial was now real.

Aiden did not rest. Ten days later he crossed the northern border under truce banners with Elizabeth at his side and a small diplomatic escort.

Eldrenholt was a wealthy duchy of green hills, strong walls, and rotting politics. The aging Duchess had no clear heir.

Private armies already skirmished in the countryside. Church agents, local nobles, and exiled southern opportunists all circled the coming corpse.

The capital city of Thornhall buzzed with tension. Aiden held public audiences in the great hall. He listened as faction leaders poured out grievances—taxes, old blood feuds, trade rights.

He said little. Privately, his scouts and command aura fed him precise information on every weakness. Nyra’s shadows delivered more.

The deception started small. Nyra planted documents suggesting the anti-Pope planned to install his own puppet once the Duchess died. The papers looked authentic enough. Within two nights, rival nobles turned on the Church agents embedded among them.

Midnight arrests swept the noble quarters. Accusations flew. One count dragged a screaming priest from his bedchamber while servants watched.

The masquerade ball on the third night tested everything. Aiden walked openly among masked nobles, plain imperial armor under a half-mask. His aura worked quietly. Conversations shifted.

A baron who had plotted with Church agents suddenly found his allies questioning him aloud. A merchant lord who intended to back a weak claimant heard his own captains discussing defection in real time.

Elizabeth moved through the crowd like a blade in silk, noting every reaction. By midnight, three separate alliances had fractured without a single sword drawn in the hall.

Then the Duchess died. Poison, most likely. Three claimants declared themselves before her body cooled.

Lord Harven, a cousin with heavy cavalry. Lady Seris, backed by merchant gold. And Captain Elara, the Duchess’s illegitimate daughter who had spent fifteen years commanding border guards and never once asked for favor.

Most saw her as a footnote. Aiden saw competence and loyalty potential.

He chose her.

Golden Womb-enhanced weapons and healing kits went to Elara’s small force. The results were immediate. Her troops moved faster, hit harder, and recovered from wounds that should have killed them.

In three lightning strikes they shattered Harven’s larger host at a river crossing, broke Seris’s mercenaries in a night raid on their camp, and forced the remaining nobles to choose sides or die.

Elara stood on the battlefield after the final clash, blood on her armor, breathing hard. Aiden rode up with Elizabeth.

"You kept your people alive when bigger fools threw them away," he said.

"That’s why I picked you. Swear fealty and Eldrenholt becomes a protected vassal. Imperial garrisons. Trade access. Protection from the Church. Refuse, and you’ll fight the next war alone."

Elara looked across the field at her exhausted but victorious soldiers. Then at the imperial banners already rising over captured positions.

"I swear," she said. "On my mother’s name and my own."

The ceremony was short. The new Duchess bent the knee in the great hall the following day. Eldrenholt’s banners now flew beside the imperial sigil. Garrisons moved in.

Trade routes linked directly to the river network secured weeks earlier. The Pure Church lost its last clean buffer without a single major battle on their heartland soil.

In the war room that night, Aiden reviewed maps with Elizabeth and Nyra. Korran Vale’s agents had tried to influence the succession from the south and failed spectacularly. Reports showed the man’s reputation sinking further among his own allies. Good.

The empire now held the Great River and a wealthy northern vassal that pressed directly against Church territory.

Wealth flowed north. Troops trained with new equipment. Shipyards on the river expanded. Southern trade partners already sent cautious envoys.

Aiden set the reports down. "Two fronts stabilized. Next step is turning that border into a launch point. But not yet. We consolidate first."

Elizabeth nodded. "The river gives us the gold. Eldrenholt gives us the position. The Pure Church will feel both soon enough."

Outside, rain fell steadily on Thornhall’s roofs. The empire kept moving.