"Wait... isn't the coronation supposed to be the day after tomorrow? Please, let me see General Gulyon... Did you get the date wrong?"
Inside the solemn courtroom of the West Sail Port Courthouse, around a hundred people stood scattered about.
Looking at the guests hauled into the jury box at the last minute just to fill the seats, Akbar was initially at a total loss. Then, turning to the Wilante standing beside him, he voiced his discontent.
Under the original plan, he was supposed to be crowned before his late father's veteran ministers, becoming the undisputed new emperor of Bolo Province.
Yet now, the only witnesses to this historic moment were a handful of counts and viscounts.
Worse still, some people in the jury box weren't even nobles. They stared at him with gormless, ecstatic expressions, the words "uncultured bumpkin" practically written across their faces.
Those fellows were clearly mud-legged commoners.
How could rabble like this be allowed to gawk at such a monumental occasion?
It was absurd!
Pete didn't even bother to humor the little emperor's complaints. He merely replied with blatant impatience:
"General Gulyon is busy with important matters; he has no time to see you. It's going to rain the day after tomorrow, so we moved it up."
Rain...?
What kind of excuse was that?!
Akbar was dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open, unable to utter a word. He could only stare blankly at the Wilante before him.
The people in the jury box couldn't hear their exchange.
Aside from the distinguished nobles and worldly elders, those in the jury box wore the eager expressions of onlookers watching a sideshow, gossiping excitedly among themselves.
"This young emperor looks truly regal! What a dashing lad."
"Fit for royalty indeed. What a handsome boy!"
"Xilan is saved!"
"Hurry it up! Why hasn't it started yet?"
Standing in the center of the courtroom, Pete checked the time. Growing tired of waiting, he glanced at the stunned boy.
"Are you taking the throne or not? If you don't want it, we'll find someone else."
Jolted by the threat—and unsure whether he was joking—Akbar stammered in a panic:
"I am! I'll take it... Wait, the throne belongs to me in the first place!"
"Then get on with it."
As if uttering another word would be a waste of breath, Pete looked toward the judge standing not far away.
A look of indignation clouded the judge's face, but in the end, he held his tongue.
Gulyon was doing this on purpose.
Staging this farcical monkey show inside his courtroom was nothing less than a deliberate humiliation.
One had to admit that Gulyon was remarkably petty, with standards scarcely higher than those of the monkeys filling the court.
"The coronation ceremony begins."
As though declaring court in session, the judge delivered the pronouncement in a solemn tone before turning and marching out.
Pete didn't even look at him. He simply gave a nod to an elderly Boloan standing nearby.
The Lion Clan elder was a courthouse sweeper. They had slapped a count's title onto him on a whim and instructed him on what to do.
Holding the gold-forged crown with both hands, the old man crept forward meekly.
Fervent gazes lit up around him, yet he kept his head bowed low, not daring to meet the crown prince's eyes.
"Your Majesty... please accept your crown." His voice trembled slightly as he knelt slowly before him.
Akbar didn't recognize this count, but he could find no fault with such reverent deference.
"Mm."
Giving an imperial grunt of approval, Akbar reached out, lifted the gold crown, and placed it solemnly atop his own head.
Except for the Wilante present, everyone in the courtroom sank to both knees simultaneously, pressing their foreheads to the floor.
Commoners and nobles alike.
In unison, they shouted:
"Congratulations on your coronation, Your Majesty!"
"Long live the Emperor!"
"Long live Xilan!"
The chorus of voices echoed through the solemn courtroom, like a symphony missing its conductor's baton.
Yet the corners of Akbar's mouth curled upward. The sullen gloom that had shrouded his face melted into an uncontrollable smile.
*So this is what Imperial Father bore.* A surging tide of emotion filled his chest.
This feeling was...
positively intoxicating!
Akbar extended his hands and raised them slightly in a display of benevolent grace.
"Rise, my loyal subjects!"
After practicing in front of a mirror countless times, he finally had the chance to perform it before an audience!
***
"Hit the dirt!!!"
Along the border between West Sail Port and Bull State, roaring flames consumed the scorched earth etched with trenches.
Crawling on the ground, a centurion bellowed at the top of his lungs, screaming for the comrades behind him to get down.
Thirty seconds ago, a deafening blast had erupted from the direction of West Sail Port.
By the time anyone realized what was happening, blinding white light and erupting fire had already engulfed the border positions of the Bolo State Army.
Before a 902 mm heavy artillery piece, the trenches dug by the Bolo infantry were like toothpicks, hurled skyward along with the earth around them.
No sooner had the first thunderous boom faded than rows of 100 mm cannons joined in the roar.
Explosive fire boiled across the positions, and shrieking shrapnel showered down like rain, blanketing the entire depth of the defensive line.
The bombardment lasted a full ten minutes before subsiding.
The once-solid defenses had been blasted into a cratered wasteland. More than half the soldiers huddled in the trenches were dead or wounded, their shell-shocked faces pale with terror.
They didn't even understand what had happened before the Legion's shells suddenly rained down on them.
Inside a bomb shelter, Ishel gritted his teeth as he fished an overturned telephone from a heap of scattered debris.
The wire linking to the frontline radio was severed; communication with the forward centuria was cut off. Fortunately, the line running to the rear was still intact.
Without hesitation, he dispatched messengers to the front to assess the situation while immediately dialing rear headquarters to report the border crisis.
"This is the 111th Millennium on the northwest defensive line! We are under artillery fire from West Sail Port! Repeat, we are under artillery fire from West Sail Port!"
After a brief burst of static, the operator at headquarters replied:
"What's the situation?! Have you spotted Legion troops?!"
Panic laced the operator's voice. Clearly inexperienced, rear command had been caught completely off guard.
Ishel cursed under his breath and kept roaring into the receiver:
"The lines were cut! I can't reach my frontline units! The big-noses are using heavy artillery—this isn't just an intimidation tactic!"
A chair scraped loudly on the other end as the operator stammered:
"Understood... I will report your situation immediately."
Ishel shouted:
"This is war! I'm not joking around! I need reinforcements sent immediately! Right now! Damn it, any later and you'll just be collecting our corpses!"
Meanwhile, on the forward-most line of the northwestern defenses.
Of the centuria's full complement of 120 men, no one knew how many were left alive.
Centurion Dumt finally dragged his reeling consciousness back together and scooped up his rifle from the ground.
The smoldering soil was scalding hot.
Yet he didn't dare risk standing up. Gritting his teeth, he endured the blistering heat that could fry an egg.
"...Damn it, where's our radio?! Report what happened here to the rear, now!"
Though he figured anyone not deaf could have heard the commotion, he still yelled back toward his radioman.
The radioman had survived, crouched in the trench frantically fiddling with the set.
Seeing the sweat pouring down the man's face, Dumt's heart sank.
Just as he feared, the radioman looked up in utter despair.
"The radio's wrecked!"
"Damn it!"
Dumt slammed his fist into the earth, glaring in the direction of West Sail Port as he cursed.
Fortunately, the impact zone was still some distance from him.
Even so, he felt as if his internal organs had been shaken out of place.
Ignoring the agony in his belly, Dumt looked back at the mangled trench line and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Everyone, prepare for battle! We won't let those big-noses steal another inch of our land!"
Ever since the Wilante arrived on this soil, his countrymen had bled without end.
Every time he read the reports in the *Survivor Daily* and learned of the murdered family members, a fire of fury burned in his chest.
And now the Wilante wanted to push deeper, letting that man-eating hell spread into the heart of Bolo Province...
No matter how much Absaik appeased them, he would not yield a single step!
"Ooooh!!"
"Fight the big-noses to the death!"
"Fuck them up!!"
Roars echoed across the shattered position; he was clearly not the only one who felt that way.
Hearing their spirited response, a faint smile crossed Dumt's face.
Good.
It seemed plenty of brothers were still breathing.
His expression hardened as he yelled rearward:
"All squads, sound off!"
Shouts rolled in one after another from behind:
"One!"
"Two!"
"..."
"Report! Squad One, five survivors!"
"Squad Two, seven survivors!"
"Squad Three! Two left!"
"..."
Dumt tallied the numbers in his head. Out of the entire centuria, fifty-seven men remained.
If it came to a fight, holding out for five minutes to buy time for the rear should be doable.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a figure emerged from the edge of a distant farmland.
Dumt raised his rifle and drew a bead on him, only to discover the man wasn't a Wilante.
He was a Boloan.
"Listen up ahead!!"
The man stopped at the edge of the fields and yelled at the positions at the top of his voice:
"General Gulyon's troops are marching to Dog State to battle rebels! If you don't want to die, clear out immediately and make way for the Legion!"
"That previous bombardment was just a warning! If you insist on having your own way, don't blame the shells for having no eyes—"
Before he could finish, a sharp gunshot interrupted him.
The bullet struck near his feet, kicking up a plume of dust.
Terror seized the man. Stumbling to the ground, he scrambled up and ran back, not daring to cast a single glance behind him.
Glaring with burning hatred at the traitorous lapdog, Dumt roared:
"You sons of bitches! You're the ones who should get lost!"
Disgraceful filth!
He ground his teeth hard enough to crack them, yet in the end, he didn't shoot at the retreating back.
His people had bled enough already.
Perhaps that fellow had been coerced too...
Dark clouds had crept across the sky unnoticed, blotting out the sunlight, and a low, muffled rumble echoed from the overcast belly of the heavens.
The wind grew fiercer; rain seemed imminent.
Dumt remained unmoved, staring fixedly at the fields in the distance with his rifle leveled.
He harbored no illusion of surviving this battle.
Even if it cost him his life, he was determined to take one of them with him!
Just then, the dull rumble from the clouds drew nearer.
It didn't sound like thunder.
It was something else.
Through the wind, Dumt heard gasps of shock from behind. He looked up at the sky.
In that instant, his burning gaze froze in place.
It was a flying leviathan—a winged behemoth with rows of colossal propellers mounted along its flanks.
The roaring drone poured from those spinning propellers, whose massive blades ripped through the clouds.
Even more horrifying were the heavy gun barrels bristling across its towering steel armor.
It had more gun barrels... than their entire unit had rifles.
"Fuck me..." Dumt groaned in despair.
What in the bloody hell was that?!
There was no time to think. Flashes of tracer fire erupted from the floating fortress, fracturing in midair into a storm of tens of thousands of projectiles.
This barrage was far fiercer than the previous one, the explosions completely drowning out Dumt's roar.
In the blink of an eye,
he and his centuria—along with their trenches—were erased from the face of the earth.
The long-brewing "thunder" finally rolled in from the sky, reaching Ishel, who stood with his mouth agape in shock.
In an instant, three of his centurias were obliterated, communication lost entirely.
His hand trembled around the receiver. His mind spun furiously, but he couldn't conjure a single solution.
This was nothing like West Sail Port. He was no longer dealing with indecisive fence-sitters, but a pack of bloodthirsty monsters.
The disparity in power was far too vast; tactics and schemes were meaningless...
Continuing to fight was hopeless—it was nothing more than throwing lives away!
Ishel was not afraid of death.
If he were a coward, he would never have stepped forward that night to rescue those innocents.
Yet even if he was ready to embrace a hero's death, he had to consider the comrades huddled in the trenches.
They shouldn't die here.
They needed to live, to preserve their fighting strength, to carry what they had witnessed back to the rear, and to work with others to find a way to defeat this monstrosity.
Even if they had to die,
their deaths ought to mean something!
"Damn it..."
He cursed through clenched teeth, switched to the channel connecting to the forward units, and roared into the phone:
"All units, hear my command! Abandon your positions immediately! Fall back to the southeast!"
As the order to withdraw was given, the Bolo State soldiers abandoned their trenches one by one, using gaps in the bombardment to execute an orderly retreat.
Humiliation was written across every face, yet they all understood that holding their ground was nothing more than suicide.
Their Rat Clan commander had made the hardest, yet most correct decision.
Before a monstrosity like that, positional warfare was completely futile.
Perhaps mobile warfare was the only viable path...
***
The same thunder reached Ross's ears.
Standing on the border of West Sail Port, he gazed expressionlessly toward the northwest.
An officer approached his side and reported in a low voice:
"The Bolo State's 111th Millennium has retreated."
Ross narrowed his eyes slightly, the corner of his tightly set mouth curling with subtle amusement.
He seemed to see a rat.
A cunning rat, at that.
Yet before absolute power, cunning alone was never enough. One had to sharpen their claws and fangs as well.
Looking at the smoke-choked battlefield in the distance, Ross issued his order impassively:
"First Armored Centuria and Second Infantry Centuria, advance!"
The officer snapped to attention, executing a fervent salute.
"Sir!"
The moment had finally arrived!
He and his men had waited far too long for this day!
They would shatter the final shackle binding the Wilante people—that "humiliating treaty" signed under the watchful eyes of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee's lingering remnants.
From this day forth, no one could halt their march forward.
The border of the Wilante belonged at the edge of the Solar System—nay, the rim of the Milky Way!
And this moment was the prologue to that glorious epic.
Future generations would remember this moment forever and offer their heartfelt gratitude for all eternity!
The moment the order dropped, ten tanks parked at the edge of the farmland ignited their engines simultaneously.
Exhaust pipes belched dense black smoke. Under the watchful eye of the giant airship, their grim hulls rumbled forward toward the shattered defenses.
Behind each tank, squads of ten men in full battle gear trailed closely.
Rolling across the battlefield tilled by high explosives, they meticulously checked every trench, crater, and corpse, putting coup-de-grâce shots into anyone who appeared to still be breathing.
Watching the steel torrent drive straight in and the deep tread marks pressed into the crops, the man cowering at the edge of the field flushed with excitement.
His name was Chetri.
Like Chiliarch Ishel, he was a member of the Rat Clan, though clearly a rat of a very different breed.
Earlier, he had gone forward out of good intentions to urge them to surrender, only to have his goodwill treated like dog dirt and repaid with treachery.
Good thing the fellow was a lousy shot and he was quick on his feet, or that bastard would have done him in.
Looking at the pulverized defensive line, he felt nothing but sheer delight, eager to cheer for the big-noses.
Instant karma!
"...Worthless cowards. The Wilante only wanted to borrow a path across your land; they weren't even coming to fight you! But no, you had to rush headlong to your deaths. Wouldn't trading surrender for peace have been sweet? Tsk tsk, serves you right!"
Finally letting out the indignation pent up in his chest, Chetri spat on the ground, ground it underfoot, and scuttled away from the dangerous spot.
Along the distant front, tank after tank breached the Bolo State Army's line unobstructed, charging toward Dog State—one of the three northern states—like a storm sweeping the savannah.
During this time, the Bolo State organized several counterattacks, but without exception, they were shattered by combined horizontal and vertical salvos before they could even lay eyes on the enemy.
The Legion's forces barely spared them a glance as they crushed their way through the mud soaked with blood and severed limbs.
The main spearhead of the offensive was the 17th Myriad led by Myriarch Olette.
Their mission was to carve off the northwestern corner of Lion State, establishing a strategic corridor along the northwest of Bolo Province from West Sail Port to the three northern states.
Leading the tip of the advance was the 171st Mechanized Millennium under Ross, supported by the airship *Clarion*.
The frontline advanced by the minute as the Bolo State Army was routed and stripped of all defense.
Inside the command post, Myriarch Olette looked down at the map with a broad smile.
"A fight without suspense... I thought the natives here would be a little smarter than the muties in the Great Desert. Turns out I gave them too much credit. They're worse than those savages who fight with iron pipes."
Equipment was only one factor influencing victory, not the sole determinant.
The sheer stupidity of these fools lay in their delusion that they could defeat the Legion through trench warfare.
Before the Southern Legion's *Clarion* and 902 mm heavy artillery, trenches dug with simple shovels were an utter joke; remaining stationary in one spot only invited slaughter.
Standing beside him, MacLaren smiled faintly.
"My thoughts are much the same as yours; the natives here are indeed unimpressive. But it's a bit early to declare victory."
Olette looked at him with intrigue.
"You think they still have a chance to turn the tables?"
MacLaren remarked mildly:
"The Alliance's envoy is right in Tiandu. I don't believe they will simply look the other way."
"Heh, the Alliance... Let them come, then," Olette sneered with disgust. "I'll teach them the price of sticking their noses where they don't belong."
"Mm," MacLaren nodded gently. "That price is inevitable."
After all, the price of *not* meddling would be far higher.
On that score, every survivor in the River Valley Province had learned the lesson by heart...
And as for what was to come next, he had learned that bitter lesson firsthand as well.
Just as Olette's forces raced northward at full throttle, the drone of propellers drew near over the skies of West Sail Port from the east.
It was the W-2 attack aircraft!
Over a hundred of them!
Some Wilante soldiers stationed at West Sail Port looked up involuntarily toward the sky, astonishment written across their faces.
What shocked them wasn't the planes themselves.
It was the fact that Bolo State—founded less than three months ago—actually had pilots?!
Where did these bumpkins find the time to train?!
Upon detecting the incoming hostile aircraft, the airship *Clarion* immediately halted its frontline fire support, swung its heading around, and trained its cannons toward the skies above West Sail Port.
Not only that, but air units stationed in West Sail Port scrambled into the air as well. Nearly a hundred "Dagger" propeller fighter planes surged toward the Bolo State air force.
Yet those W-2s didn't plunge toward West Sail Port itself. After making a feint, they veered sharply toward the railway station and tracks north of the harbor.
Watching the planes' maneuvers, General Gulyon narrowed his eyes inside the command post, having evidently caught wind of their real objective.
Meanwhile, inside the lead "Mosquito" fighter, an excited, ringing shout erupted:
"Loot run, boys!"
"Disengage safeties, prepare for battle!!"
The comms channel crackled with deafening chatter, as lively as New Year's.
Like the warlike Wilante, they had waited far too long for this moment.
And as players, their reason for fighting was far purer than that of the Wilante—
They could finally have a good, unrestrained brawl!
"Awoooo!!!"
Chapter 850