249. The Emperor’s Eyes (8)
Even without the screams, the mountain engulfed in flames was chaotic enough. The noise of ancient trees burning, the sound of wet leaves and moss charring, and the death throes of wild animals driven mad by the heat of the flames.
“Kyaaaah!!”
“Don’t stop!! If you stop, you die!”
The deputies shouted, foaming at the mouth. Being in a deep forest without a path meant that every visible space was filled with kindling. Soldiers struggled forward, hacking down trees that fell in the flames.
The soldiers were exhausted. For troops worn out by days of marching and the tension of battle, walking through a burning forest all night was no different from a death sentence.
The choking smoke and dwindling oxygen made their heads spin. The intense heat, the blinding light of the fire, and the suffocating moments of running back and forth amidst the chaos of their comrades.
The boundary between life and death. That dizzying moment. The Duke’s soldiers were now no different from beasts. Driven by the madness born of fear and chaos intertwined with survival instincts, the soldiers ran and collapsed like animals.
“Wait!! Don’t go that way!”
The heavy cavalry had to walk alongside the soldiers because their horses had fled in fear earlier. Their situation was worse than the regular soldiers. Metal heats up quickly, and the flesh beneath it burns in an instant. The knights trembled as they tore off their armor, gasping for breath.
The cavalry fell. The knights, who had been leading the charge with a sense of duty, collapsed, leaving only chaos behind.
“Don’t scatter!!”
No soldier listened to the deputy’s last words before death. The soldiers, soaked in fear and madness, sprinted in all directions.
-Kyaaaah!!
The sound of burning wood splitting. The screams of soldiers spitting out their last breaths in the flames. The loud friction of collapsing armor. To summarize the sounds coming from this mountain more objectively—
It was the sound of 15,320 soldiers of the Principality of Bülrang falling. Among them, 1,574 cavalry, including 300 semi-nobles and high-ranking officers. Eleven noble lords. And one Elector Duke.
* * *
Fernandez thought the burning mountain looked like a torch. Beside him, the Cavalry Captain, pale-faced, stammered.
“That fire… did you start it?”
“Yes.”
“How? Fire attacks aren’t supposed to be this easy…”
One couldn’t help but worry about fire attacks in the mountains. But a fire attack isn’t just about setting a big fire.
Fire is a weapon that’s incredibly difficult to control. Setting a fire doesn’t guarantee it will burn in a way favorable to your troops, and in a mountain this large, starting a massive fire without alerting the enemy requires meticulous preparation.
Yet Fernandez had entered the mountain just a day before the enemy forces, and the Cavalry Captain beside him had never seen any preparations for a fire attack.
Fernandez smirked at the Cavalry Captain.
“Knowing might hurt you.”
“Then I won’t ask. But it’s brutal. Hell must be unfolding in there.”
Fifteen thousand soldiers are trapped in that mountain. Even if they break through the flames, they’ll suffer immense casualties, and the survivors will no longer be recognizable as ‘soldiers.’
-Huuu…
Then, a group of people staggered out toward the edge of the forest. Their hair singed, faces blackened, and bodies covered in burns. They had abandoned all their weapons and ran with empty hands and bare bodies.
One by one, about a hundred soldiers trembled and stumbled out. When they realized there were no more flames around them, they collapsed.
“…Damn it. Do we really have to do this?”
“Is there any nobility in the death of war?”
“What?”
“Is there a difference between a meaningless death and a noble one? If they fall on the battlefield, taking a spear or blade, is that an honorable death? And if they fall miserably and helplessly, is that a meaningless death?”
“Of course. This isn’t a battle or a hunt. It’s slaughter!”
“Right. It’s slaughter. And at the end of battle, the end of the hunt, the end of slaughter. Everyone dies equally on the other side of the blade.”
Fernandez clicked his tongue and snatched the longsword from the Cavalry Captain’s hand. The cold, sliding sound made the Cavalry Captain flinch as if his own head was about to fall.
“Honor is the most beautifully crafted nonsense by those who have no business in war. Death is neither noble nor meaningless. It’s just natural. And I have the duty to keep you alive, to win this battle, and to crush those who will inevitably become enemies of the Beastmen and King Carvelier.”
Fernandez urged his horse forward. The soldiers of the Principality of Bülrang, collapsed from burns and exhaustion, were still trapped in the trauma of the flames, trembling uncontrollably.
Fernandez’s shadow loomed over their heads. With the burning mountain at his back, Fernandez looked at the Cavalry Captain with icy eyes.
“Honor and pride are merely privileges. Victory and survival are my duties. If you oppose me, raise your sword and fight. If you would forsake victory for honor, I’ll give you one last chance to argue.”
-Kiiing.
Fernandez pointed his sword straight at the Cavalry Captain. The Cavalry Captain stared back with a stiff face. Under that piercing gaze, he could say nothing more.
For the soldiers, justice is victory. There is no such thing as an honorable defeat. All that remains for the defeated is their own death, the bleak future of their families, and their burning homeland.
For the Beastman Nobility, defeat in tribal warfare meant the entire tribe would be enslaved. For them, war was more than just survival. Having lived among such people, the Cavalry Captain couldn’t dare refute Fernandez’s words.
-Kwa.
The sword fell, and the soldier’s spine snapped. It was no more or less than the sound of dry firewood breaking.
And no more or less than handling dry firewood. Such monotonous actions were happening all over the Beastmen’s perimeter network centered around this mountain.
Of Duke Bülrang’s forces, less than half survived. And of those survivors, less than half successfully returned to their territories.
It was the day one of the pillars of the Empire, the land of the eight Elector Counts, crumbled.
* * *
Levre fell into the hands of the Beastmen. The forces of the Great Wilderness, led by Kirhas, entered all the territories of the Bülrang region without any resistance.
Countless farmlands and vast pastures came under the control of the Beastmen. The Beastmen bandits who had been pillaging all of Levre fled at the appearance of Kirhas, and her legion reorganized the garrison forces under the pretext of maintaining order in the Levre region.
The only resisting city was the capital of the territory, ‘Bülrang City.’
“Listen, Prince Sephor! Your resistance is futile, and we only wish to maintain peace. We have not come to invade!”
The Beastmen’s army surrounded Bülrang City. Jean Le Mans de Sephor, the only heir of Antoine, was still just a young boy, and he could not command the same authority as his father.
The few remaining soldiers and the administrative nobles trembled in anxiety. It had already been a week since contact with the main force was lost, and the Beastmen’s forces had arrived five days ago.
In just five days, all the vast territories of the Levre region had surrendered. Even if they had spent all five days running, such speed was irrational.
If there had been cool-headed military commanders, they could have deduced the enemy’s strategy from this information. There were no remaining forces in the Levre region, and the cities, ravaged by pillaging, opened their gates and surrendered at the sight of the Beastmen’s banners.
Kirhas’s forces were now scattered in all directions. It was a desperate attempt to swallow up all the castles and eliminate any seeds of rebellion. If there had been an experienced commander, they might have found a way out through the gaps.
But all such commanders had gone to the frontlines with Antoine, and only administrative nobles and a young boy remained to face the Beastmen’s forces.
“We must surrender!”
“What nonsense are you talking about! Surrendering is the end! We must hold out until the other Elector Counts intervene!”
“Those beasts have taken the protection of the territory as their pretext! Do you think they would dare to kill us directly?”
“If not? We will only fall into slavery and be exploited! We will lose all rights as lords and the trust of the nobles, and we can’t expect any support from the Empire!”
“Is anyone helping us now anyway!”
Shouts echoed in the nobles’ conference room. We must surrender. The Duke’s army will arrive in a few days. Can we hold out for those few days? The outer walls of Bülrang City are an impregnable fortress.
Amidst such exchanges, there was one emotion they all shared. A sticky sense of despair. From the pillaging by Beastmen bandits to the rejection of their requests for aid from neighboring lords, who would save this territory now?
“Father… will return.”
“Prince, it’s late at night. Please go and rest.”
“No. When Father is absent, I am the lord of this territory. Father taught me that. I will stay.”
Jean Le Mans de Sephor was a young boy, but he was not a foolish noble scion. He was a capable boy, and even with his pale, frightened face, he did not flee from the midst of the old and cunning administrative nobles.
At that moment, the door to the conference room burst open, and a servant rushed in.
-Bang!!
“What is this disgrace! This is an audience hall meeting!”
“Disaster, disaster, disaster has struck!!”
“What happened?!”
The servant stammered, then fell to his knees, sobbing. With a look of desperation, the servant cried out.
“His Majesty the King… His Majesty’s coffin… They… They are requesting to open the city gates to bring in His Majesty’s coffin…”
“…What?”
“They say… that His Majesty fell in battle against bandits, and they wish to enter the city to mourn and hold a funeral.”
“Nonsense!!”
One of the administrative nobles shouted with a pale face.
“An army of over fifteen thousand fell to mere bandits, and His Majesty died in the process? Does that make any sense?!”
“But… I… Sob. I… saw it. I saw it with my own eyes. Your Majesty.”
Jean Le Mans spoke urgently before the servant could finish.
“Did they really say that? That Father… died in battle against bandits?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Prince, it’s a lie! They ambushed His Majesty and are making up this story!”
“How…? King Carvelier’s forces are stationed in the Imperial Capital, and the Beastmen’s forces have only just advanced from the west five days ago. Father’s forces were coming from the east… How could they have annihilated fifteen thousand troops and killed Father?”
The boy spoke with a trembling voice. At his words, the administrative nobles fell silent. Indeed. It’s impossible. Physically impossible.
If an army of fifteen thousand had engaged in battle, there’s no way we wouldn’t have heard of it. Especially since their forces arrived just five days ago.
The boy stammered on.
“If they officially… say that Father’s death… the death of fifteen thousand troops… was indeed due to bandits. Then…”
And if those bandits surrendered and scattered at the same time as the Beastmen Chieftain’s advance.
“Our family will go down in history as the first Elector Count to fall to mere bandits.”
“…Prince…”
“Our family… the pride of the House of Sephor… our great reputation… has fallen in just five days… to the hands of mere bandits.”
As he spoke, the boy collapsed. Overcome by shock and despair, he fainted. The nobles and servants who tried to help him could say nothing more.
They only shared a sticky sense of despair.
At dawn, the gates of Bülrang City opened.
The House of Sephor officially entrusted the defense of the territory and the management of the military to Chieftain Kirhas Hearttaker.
Kirhas declared that she would protect the House of Sephor with honor and faith, and Jean Le Mans de Sephor, acting on behalf of King Sephor, appointed her as the family’s foremost knight.
It was the first time in the Empire’s thousand-year history that an Elector Count had fallen to a puppet government of another nation.
And in the Imperial political circles, a rumor spread.
That among Kirhas’s subordinates was a ghost-like field commander who had defeated fifteen thousand with just three hundred.
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