Chapter 21: Counter Attack III
The advance of the Leo Principality's Northern Army did not stop.
It moved faster than anyone thought possible.
In the past, taking a town meant weeks of siege—cutting off food, starving the enemy to win, or building huge wooden towers to climb the walls.
But Alexius had changed the rules of war on the continent.
One town after another fell.
Ironwood.
Coldbrook.
Highpass.
They collapsed like dominos, unable to resist the new way of fighting.
The Earth Shaker cannons were placed on the high ground.
Boom.
City gates shattered.
Magic barriers cracked and broke.
Then came the 1st Royal Musket Battalion marched forward into firing range. Their volleys ripped through whatever weak defenses the Imperial garrisons tried to raise.
The fights were short.
And always ended the same way.
Imperial conscripts were terrified. These weapons killed without arrows and without magic. They could not see the attack coming, and they could not stop it.
By the thousands, Imperial soldiers threw down their weapons and surrendered, choosing captivity over certain death.
The liberators were welcomed as saviors.
n every town they liberated, they freed the people and the slaves. They provided relief never seen before, after years of rule by cruel nobles.
With each victory, the army grew larger. Men and women stepped forward to join, driven by anger and the desire to strike back after experiences of cruelty and suffering.
While the North advanced, the Western Front remained locked in a stalemate.
Marquess Custodias held the Fort of Occidents and did not push forward. He knew he could not win the war with only Captain Fidus and the forces at hand. Even if the two Sword Masters clashed, the result would likely be a draw—another deadlock, but with far greater losses.
The wiser choice was to wait.
Custodias chose to hold the fort, block the western choke point, and wait for reinforcements from the capital—reinforcements that would come once the Northern counteroffensive was complete.
Fidus's presence alone was enough to pin Der Gnadenlose in place. The Imperial Sword Master was forced to remain in the West, unable to move north without leaving his own flank exposed.
And so the West stayed quiet.
Finally, three weeks after the fall of Greenshire, the Northern Army crossed the last ridge of the Highlands.
Grand Prince Alexius pulled gently on the reins of his black warhorse. The wind here was harsh, sharp with the cold of the high peaks, even though spring had already begun.
Below him—and below his army—lay Ferrum.
The Capital of the North.
Lupus was shocked.
She barely recognized the place.
The city that had once been the industrial heart of the Principality—a land of smoke, iron, and busy streets—was gone.
Duchess Zemlya, the Rank 8 Earth Grand Mage, had changed the land itself.
The city walls were replaced by the towering cliffs of black obsidian, pulled straight from the earth, rose nearly fifty feet high, smooth and glossy like dark glass.
Huge spikes of rock rose from the ground around the city, forming a forest of stone thorns that made any cavalry charge impossible.
"What a terrifying defensive position," Lupus said softly, staring at the twisted shape of her childhood home. "This city will not be taken easily, unlike the others."
"There is always a way," Alexius replied, raising his hand.
"Deploy the battery."
The twenty Earth Shaker cannons were rolled forward to the edge of the ridge, aimed down at the black city two thousand yards away.
Below them, the infantry took their positions. Long lines of pikemen formed tight walls of steel, their spear points raised to guard the artillery.
The battle for Ferrum was about to begin.
"Target the central wall," Alexius ordered. "Let us see how strong her shell truly is."
"Battery! Fire!"
BOOM.
Twenty Iron shells screamed across the valley.
They slammed into the black walls of Ferrum.
CRACK.
Dust burst into the air, rising like a dark cloud. For a moment, no one could see what had happened.
Then the wind cleared the smoke.
The obsidian wall was cracked—but it was not destroyed.
This had never happened before.
Since Greenshire, an iron gate had shattered after only two shots.
A steel gate took three or four.
With the Earth Shaker, fifteen shots—or even fewer—should have smashed any wall apart.
But this wall still stood.
Only a thin crack ran across its black surface.
The soldiers fell silent.
Alexius narrowed his eyes.
"So this is the difference," he said quietly.
"A Rank 8 magic shield truly exists on another level."
"Reload! High-explosive!"
A second volley roared out.
Fire exploded against the black wall. Pieces of obsidian broke off and crashed to the ground—but the wall did not fall again.
It was still standing.
"It regenerates,," the man in the pure white robe said floating beside the Prince. "Look carefully, Your Highness."
The crack in the wall was already closing.
Alexius narrowed his eyes.
Using the [Grand Strategic View], he saw what was really happening.
Mana was flowing beneath the wall. The ground itself was moving.
Each time a shell struck, the earth below reacted. Melted rock surged upward from the ground, like thick liquid, filling the cracks. In seconds, it hardened again, sealing the damage as if it had never existed.
The wall was not just defended.
It was alive.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the army began to tremble.
A loud grinding sound rolled out from the city, so loud that it swallowed the howl of the wind.
At the top of the highest obsidian wall, the black stone moved. A section of it rose upward, stretching and shaping itself into a massive pillar. At its peak, the stone formed a throne, lifted high above the city.
Seated upon that throne was a woman.
She wore a brown silk dress that flowed like falling sand. Her skin was pale, staring with her black eyes to the army below.
Duchess Zemlya.
The only Rank 8 Earth Grand Mage of the Empire, Duchess of the South.
"You are noisy, little prince,"
Alexius rode his horse to the edge of the cliff.
"I have come for my city," Alexius replied calmly. "Open the walls, Duchess, and I will allow you to return to the Empire with your life."
Duchess Zemlya laughed.
"Your city?" she said, rising slowly to her feet.
"The earth belongs to those who can command it. I am the Grand Earth Mage of the Empire. I wield the power of the great earth itself."
Her black eyes fixed on him.
"I am the Duchess of the South. I serve the Emperor, and by his will, this land is mine."
She spread her arms slightly.
"Your small country and your petty tricks mean nothing. You should kneel, press your face to the ground, and worship the Emperor."
"Do not make a foolish stand. Surrender now, hand over those strange weapons, and I will ask the Emperor to spare your life."
A cruel smile formed on her lips.
"Your country, however, will burn. to the ground."
She raised a single hand.
The ground in front of the obsidian wall began to move.
The sharp stone spikes pulled together, twisting and merging together, In just a few seconds, ten colossal shapes rose up from the earth.
[WARNING: Rank 8 Advanced Earth Golems Detected]
[Threat Level: Catastrophic]
[Each unit is capable of destroying an entire city within minutes]
These were Titan Constructs.
Each one stood thirty feet tall, formed from super-dense obsidian. Their bodies glowed with thick veins of yellow mana
The ground trembled beneath their weight.
"My walls are eternal," Zemlya declared. "My soldiers are born from the mountain itself."
Her black eyes burned with pride.
"Anyone who stands in my way will be crushed by my greatest creation. For the Emperor, all enemies will be destroyed. Long Live the Empire!"
She raised her hand and pointed at the Leo Army.
"Bury them."
Panic began to spread through the Leo army.
The pressure of her aura and ten advance earth golem were crushing and terrifying. Newly joined militia members started to collapse, fainting and falling to the ground. Even the trained soldiers of the Royal Army were shaken, fear showing on their faces as they struggled to stand their ground.
The ten Obsidian Titans began to move.
Alexius's thoughts raced.
This is bad.
The Earth Shaker cannons could deal with enemies up to Rank 7—but only with the right shells. They had iron, steel, and mithril rounds.
Iron and steel were useless here.
Even mithril was unreliable. At best, only one out of three shots could break a Rank 7 shield or magic defense, mithril was painfully rare. It could only be imported from the southern nations, in small amounts, at an insane cost. A single kilogram could buy a mansion in the noble district in the capital.
Through his grandfather's connections, Alexius had secured only a handful of mithril—at the price of nearly a year worth the entire government's budget.
And this enemy was Rank 8.
For that level, only adamantite had a real chance—maybe one successful hit out of five. But adamantite was even rarer. It did not exist in this region at all. It could only be found far to the north of the continent.
They didn't have it.
No one here could stand against Zemlya.
No one could stop her Titan Golems.
I didn't expect I would have to use it so soon.
"It is time,"Alexius said into the device hidden in his pocket.
Far behind the front lines, in a small military camp, the man in the pure white robe stepped out of a magically hidden, royal-sealed carriage.
"I was hoping to enjoy my tea a little longer," he muttered.
He felt the overwhelming aura of the Duchess and her golems. He turned his gaze toward the distant battlefield.
"Still," he sighed, "I can't blame the boy. No one could face those monsters alone."
He raised the device.
"I will handle this," he said calmly. "Just keep your promise, Your Highness."
"I will," Alexius replied without hesitation.
"Royal Court Grand Mage Solon."
(Continue....)