“Your Holiness, we’ve received a message from the Kingdom of Kailas. They are requesting assistance, reporting that Ulranor’s army has crossed their borders.”
“So, they’ve finally started to move? Sooner than I expected.”
When troubling news first arrived from a neighboring country, the Holy Kingdom and the Holy Father simply dismissed it, treating it as an inevitable occurrence.
“What’s their strength?”
“We’re unsure of the exact numbers, but it doesn’t appear to be very large.”
“Then tell them to hold out as long as they can on their own. We’ll prepare reinforcements and send them later.”
This might seem like complacency, but there was a reason for their relaxed response.
The Holy Kingdom was still deeply preoccupied with recovering from the aftermath of the recent great disaster.
Clearing the debris of a structure larger than the Colosseum and investigating its interior was a monumental task that demanded an immense amount of manpower and resources.
Had it been a commercial district or an entertainment facility that collapsed, they could have simply offered some token mourning and abandoned its restoration.
Unfortunately, the structure in question was none other than the government complex and the heart of the Goddess Church.
Abandoning the core of the church and the administrative center was out of the question.
Everything had to be thoroughly restored and organized.
Failure to do so would undermine the authority of the Holy Father as the High Priest of the Goddess.
“How could we justify military expenses when we’re struggling to collect taxes for this year? The regions we’ve supported all this time should earn their keep now.”
“You’re absolutely right, Your Holiness.”
“Send them an encouraging letter with some flowery language. Let them gladly sacrifice themselves on our behalf.”
The situation was exacerbated by the deaths of many cardinals, leaving a vacuum in the middle-management roles responsible for local governance.
Taxes, tithes, and donations collected from the regions were no longer making their way to the central government.
The lack of funds meant they couldn’t maintain a proper army or provide sufficient supplies.
Sending an expeditionary force under such circumstances was simply unfeasible.
“Even if the Kingdom of Kailas is weaker in national power, defending their territory should allow them to hold out for a few months. By then, we’ll be able to shift our attention outward again.”
“If we deploy our elite Holy Knights, we’ll stand a chance against the Kingdom of Ulranor, even if they’re the opponent!”
“Their army may be strong, but surely not stronger than ours, don’t you think?”
Wars between nations consume astronomical amounts of time and resources.
By the time the Holy Kingdom recovered its footing, Ulranor’s forces would also be significantly weakened from the blood they’d shed.
After all, Ulranor was a nation that had already strained its resources to the limit during its decade-long total war with the Empire.
With so many fronts to manage, it was impossible for them to continue deploying a large, elite army to this region indefinitely.
The plan was simple: let them exhaust themselves, then strike with full force.
If all went well, not only could they secure victory, but they might even counterattack into Ulranor’s territory.
That was the judgment of the Holy Father and the remaining leadership of the Holy Kingdom.
“Re-reporting!! The Kailas army is suffering continuous defeats!!”
“What?!?”
Unfortunately, reality was far removed from their optimistic expectations.
The Kingdom of Ulranor had long since established a temporary truce with the Federated Empire, allowing them to pull many of their elite troops back to the rear.
This brought much-needed relief to their previously overburdened supply system.
And more importantly, the Kingdom of Kailas was simply not strong enough to hinder Ulranor.
“Regional fortress strongholds are falling one after another! They say the enemy is using some kind of flying weapon we’ve never seen before, setting everything ablaze!!”
“We can’t hold them in the field! Every encounter ends in devastating losses for us!!”
“For every 500 Ulranor soldiers killed, over 10,000 Kailas troops are being wiped out!!”
“The royal family of Kailas has requested asylum! It seems they can no longer defend the capital!”
Defeat after defeat. An unending series of crushing losses.
Fortresses, strategic points, and open battlefields—none of it mattered.
In every type of engagement, the Ulranor forces displayed overwhelming superiority, relentlessly driving their enemies back.
Each day brought grim reports of losses and defeats to the Holy Kingdom.
Overwhelmed by the sudden deluge of information, the Holy Kingdom’s leadership scrambled to analyze the situation, only to realize it was too late.
Before the Holy Father could even receive the final report, the Kingdom of Kailas had ceased to exist on the map.
“The presence of a neighboring country… has vanished?”
“W-what should we do?! Surely we’re their next target!!”
“What if the enemy has already crossed our borders while we’re sitting here panicking…?”
“Calm yourselves!! Acting like frightened children will solve nothing!!”
Shocked by the sudden disaster, the leadership of the Holy Kingdom descended into chaos.
The Holy Father hastily convened an emergency meeting with the remaining high-ranking officials, but no solutions emerged.
Instead of devising a viable countermeasure, they spent the entire meeting expressing their fears, accomplishing nothing.
“We must prepare for war, Your Holiness. We must mobilize every means and resource at our disposal.”
“…Yes. It seems there’s no other choice.”
At the very least, they now had a clear understanding of the situation.
They had lost their puppet state, which had served as a buffer, and were now forced to face the monstrous army that had conquered an entire nation with only 20,000 troops.
Failure—highly likely though it was—meant not only the collapse of their authority but the loss of their very lives.
“Who was the cardinal in charge of the Grand Cathedral of Amass?”
“Do you mean under the jurisdiction of Messina?”
“Yes. Inform him that we’re sending troops and that he’s to handle rear support. Since the central administration can’t manage supplies, they’ll have to be sourced locally.”
An emergency response force was immediately formed.
Knights from the remaining orders, the regular army, and freshly conscripted auxiliary troops were all scraped together without discrimination.
They poured the last of their funds into this endeavor, squeezing every ounce of strength from their crumbling nation to create an army capable of holding off the invaders.
While the infrastructure and administrative systems were utterly paralyzed, the Holy Kingdom was still a mid-sized nation with a history spanning centuries.
It had enough strength left for one final desperate stand—never mind the disastrous aftermath that would inevitably follow.
“Let us pray that our generals fight well.”
The Holy Father didn’t dare hope for victory or even a counterattack.
He simply wished for the defenders to hold out for as long as possible.
“Hasten the cleanup of the Holy See’s ruins. Mobilize more manpower if necessary and finish it as quickly as possible.”
“Understood, Your Holiness.”
“No matter what, the passage to the underground must be opened. If we can restore access to that place, we may yet find a way out of this crisis.”
If they could reach the buried basement of the Holy See, and if they could reclaim and reactivate the “object” stored deep within its innermost chamber, hope would still remain.
At least, that’s what the Holy Father believed.
Meanwhile, as the Holy Kingdom clung to its increasingly fragile hopes, the Ulranor army, having fully occupied the Kingdom of Kailas and secured its surrender, resumed their march.
The force now numbered approximately 38,000, with 5,000 troops left behind to maintain order and control in the occupied territories.
“E-enemy troops sighted!!”
“Everyone, run! The unbelievers are coming to capture us!!”
“The townsfolk are fleeing everywhere. What should we do?”
“What do you mean, what should we do? Leave them be. If they abandon their homes, it just makes it easier for us to requisition them. We should be grateful.”
It’s common sense not to station troops in border regions unless war is imminent (though there are exceptions, like a certain peninsula in the 21st century).
Caught off guard, the Holy Kingdom had no time to prepare, and as a result, they helplessly lost large swathes of their borderlands.
This included over a dozen cities with populations exceeding 10,000 and countless villages.
At least hundreds of thousands of people and vast tracts of farmland fell into Ulranor’s hands in the blink of an eye.
“Whoa, why is there so much money in these vaults?”
“Lord Royten said the clergy were embezzling like crazy, but I didn’t think it was to this extent…”
“Judging by the records, they collected taxes but never transported the funds. It seems the administrative system came to a halt because no one was left to approve anything.”
“Load it all up and send it back to the homeland. The Treasury Department has been whining about budget shortages—they’ll love this.”
As a bonus, Ulranor also plundered the wealth that the Holy Kingdom had painstakingly accumulated.
A nation that had enjoyed decades of peace without war had grown prosperous, but all that prosperity ended up being devoured by their enemies.
“That’s far enough, you thieving scum!!”
“Attack! Destroy the heretics who defy the words of His Holiness!!”
The Holy Kingdom’s army finally arrived in haste, trying to halt the invaders’ steady advance.
But by then, it was too late.
The hastily constructed defensive lines, manned by poorly trained soldiers, stood no chance against the organized assault of Ulranor’s elite troops.
–Tat-tat-tat-tat!!
“Fire three volleys and advance! Is the artillery setup not finished yet?”
“They’re almost done! The rocket artillery battery is on standby!”
“Have them advance to the flank, fire, and then retreat. All we need is to disrupt their formation.”
The Holy Kingdom’s army had superior numbers.
Their forces totaled nearly 80,000, almost double the size of the Ulranor army.
Their morale was sky-high, fueled by the belief that they were defending their homeland.
However, in every other respect, they were at a severe disadvantage:
The number of muskets they possessed.
The precision and range of their cannons.
The sophistication of their tactics and technology.
The result was inevitable.
Even the uniformity and quality of the supplied weapons and equipment were leagues apart.
Every factor that determined the practical combat strength of an army was incomparably different.
“H-how are we supposed to stop this?”
“The 3rd Knight Division is on the verge of total annihilation after just a few days! Please, give us some kind of solution, Your Holiness!”
“Do you think I have a magical solution?! Stop whining at me and figure something out! Just make sure they don’t pass this point!”
The Holy Kingdom’s army fought desperately, spilling endless amounts of blood to try and halt the invaders.
They piled up corpses to block the path, wailing in despair at the miserable reality of their situation.
Even so, they tried to comfort themselves with the thought that their sacrifices might have some meaning, that their struggle might not be in vain.
But their suffering was far from over.
“It seems the Kingdom’s forces are causing quite a commotion. Shall we get moving as well?”
Seizing the opportunity, the Empire struck the Holy Kingdom from the rear once they confirmed that its main forces had been drawn away.
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