"This is impossible!"
When she had just heard a knight report that Wendigos had appeared within the Grand Knight Territory, Ioletta Russell—the Grand Knight Commander—had wanted to respond exactly like that.
After all, as the command hub of the Campaign Knights, the Grand Knight Territory's defenses were as solid as an iron wall. No matter how powerful the Wendigo Legion under Empress Talulah might be, it should have been impossible for them to break in here without causing the slightest disturbance.
But now, the several Wendigos that had smashed through the wall with brute force completely shattered every last shred of wishful thinking she had.
Facing the enemies that appeared before her eyes, she instinctively tried to draw her weapon to fight back—only to be struck first and sent flying in an instant.
The Campaign Knight who had rushed in to report the situation didn't fare any better. Like the Grand Knight Commander, he was slapped away, crashing through the wall and flying outside.
"Cough, cough… what on earth… is going on?!"
Forcing herself to her feet, already blasted out of the building, the Grand Knight Commander turned to look around her.
What entered her vision made her pupils quake violently.
Wendigos—Wendigos everywhere throughout the Grand Knight Territory. A rough estimate put their number at several hundred.
Although the knights were resisting with all their might, ordinary Campaign Knights were as helpless as infants before the Wendigos, easily killed in seconds. A small number of Silverlance Pegasi, relying on tightly formed battle formations, could barely hold their own against a single Wendigo—but the problem was that there were simply far too many Wendigos inside the territory!
Several hundred Wendigos. Even the Silverlance Pegasi fighting in formation were powerless against such numbers. The Grand Knight Territory, the very nerve center of the Campaign Knights, was already on the brink of total collapse in just a short span of time.
So the question returned to the beginning—
How did these Wendigos appear here in the first place?!
With that unanswered doubt in her mind, the Grand Knight Commander was surrounded by several Wendigos. After only a few attacks, she completely lost the ability to resist.
And in the shadows, unnoticed by anyone, several pairs of crimson eyes observed the entire scene, transmitting the images back to An Xora, who was watching the battle from afar.
The Wendigos' ability to directly strike the enemy command center was, of course, An Xora's handiwork.
After spending several days using the Shadow Troops' unparalleled reconnaissance capabilities to pinpoint the locations of enemy commanders and high-ranking personnel, he then made use of the Shadow Kingdom's teleportation ability to directly airdrop the Wendigo army straight onto the enemy command center's doorstep.
Several hundred Wendigos, each with the strength of an Imperial Guard, smashing directly into the enemy's command hub—
Did the outcome even need to be explained?
In just a few minutes, Kazimierz's frontline command center was completely overrun. All knights instantly found themselves leaderless, thrown into chaos.
The four Ursus army groups that had been waiting for this moment immediately sounded the horns of attack. In an instant, artillery thundered across the entire border, followed by waves of soldiers from the army groups tearing open the defensive lines. The Kazimierz forces, already plunged into disorder, were utterly unable to organize any effective resistance.
And that still wasn't the end of it.
On an open stretch of land deliberately left clear by the army groups, a full three thousand five hundred Wendigos threw back their heads and roared. Crimson energy gathered and surged forth like a flood, spreading across the entire battlefield.
Every Kazimierz soldier enveloped by this crimson energy felt their bodies grow heavy, as if their life force and strength were being gnawed away by some invisible, ravenous maw, rapidly plunging them into a weakened state. Correspondingly, the aura of the Wendigo Legion radiating that crimson energy grew increasingly powerful.
This was a form of Originium Arts commonly possessed by the Wendigo race—an ability to remotely devour an enemy's vitality over a vast area. On the battlefield, it was an unimaginably terrifying super-weapon.
Realizing what was happening, the remaining Silverlance Pegasi who still retained some fighting strength gathered together into a formation, attempting to rely on their combined power to punch through the Wendigo Legion before them, thus interrupting the Originium Arts.
But such an action was nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot—floating weeds shaking a great tree.
After all, the total number of Silverlance Pegasi on the entire frontline likely didn't even reach a hundred. The number that could be gathered on short notice was even smaller—roughly only around forty.
A formation of forty Silverlance Pegasi charging into a legion of three thousand five hundred Wendigos.
Would they win?
No one could give an answer—because the Pegasi had already launched their charge with unstoppable momentum.
How should one describe that scene?
It was like medieval cavalry slamming headfirst into a modern army of tanks. Power that had once been a source of pride suddenly became a joke.
At the very moment of impact, the Silverlance Pegasi's formation silently shattered.
Kazimierz's greatest pride—the Silverlance Pegasi who, in ancient times, had destroyed countless city walls and struck terror into innumerable enemies—fell.
They fell before the Wendigo Legion, which utterly crushed them in both numbers and quality.
With the strongest resistance wiped out, the Wendigo Legion began to rampage across the battlefield without restraint. Facing such an onslaught, the Kazimierz forces finally collapsed completely.
...
Kazimierz had fallen.
After the border defenses were utterly destroyed, the four Ursus army groups surged forward without resistance, taking over every city and village within Kazimierz's territory.
Countless civilians hid inside their homes, afraid to come out. Fortunately, the army groups merely took control of the cities and showed no intention of looting.
And at this point, only half a month had passed since Ursus and Kazimierz officially went to war.
Half a month—to conquer and take over an entire nation.
After the new Empress's ascension and its subsequent transformation, the Ursus war machine revealed its fangs for the first time. The results alone sent chills through countless nations, and Talulah's fearsome reputation spread rapidly across the land.
As for this outcome, neither Talulah—whom countless nations and factions regarded as the instigator of the war—nor An Xora, the true culprit behind it all, cared very much.
Strictly speaking, conquering Kazimierz was merely a preparatory step.
Victoria was the real target.
As a Draco bearing the bloodline of the Red Dragon, Talulah naturally possessed a legitimate claim to the Victorian throne. One could say that as long as she successfully reached Victoria's capital, Londinium, she would be able to smoothly inherit the long-vacant throne without anyone having the right to object.
Of course, the remaining Victorian dukes would definitely be unwilling to accept this. If Talulah truly showed intent to go to Londinium and claim the throne, those dukes would spare no effort to stop her. Moreover, Victoria's capital was currently controlled by a group of Sarkaz led by Theresis and the Blood Demon Lord. Combined, those two forces would be enough to cause serious trouble in a direct confrontation.
Naturally, that was only in a scenario where An Xora and Jibril didn't intervene.
If they were included—no, even counting Jibril alone—it would be enough to quite literally flatten all of Victoria.
That was precisely why An Xora and the others weren't worried at all about alerting Victoria after taking Kazimierz.
If anything, the more alert Victoria became, the better.
It would be best if they gathered all their troops together and fought them to the death—so he could let little Jibril give these Terra natives a small taste of Flügel shock.
…
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