General Delilah stepped down from the carriage.
Though her face remained as pale as the walls of Whitestone City, she pushed away the maidservant who moved to support her.
Her spine was ramrod straight, those hawk-sharp eyes sweeping across the city now being methodically swept clean by Mason's soldiers.
She had only been asleep for a few short days — and yet, under Her Majesty's fingertips, this world had already become this foreign to her?
Delilah watched the soldiers who could locate supplies with precision even amid rubble, listened to the rising and falling calls of work-point tallies carried on the air, and felt a powerful surge of crisis grip her chest.
She had missed too much.
She had missed the moment when that proud Third Princess Victoria surrendered herself completely.
She had missed the Covenant of Nations — that document capable of tearing away the fig leaf of royal legitimacy across the entire continent.
And she had missed the shift in Her Majesty's thinking, from defending Mason to cleansing the world.
For a general who treated loyalty as her lifeblood, this gap in information stung worse than any poisoned arrow the Olanese could fire.
"Delilah, do you really not need to rest a little longer?"
Willow crouched on the ground, sorting through the wreckage of scattered rosewood furniture for usable planks, her tone gentle but carrying an undeniable note of calm certainty.
"Building the work-point registration station is work I can handle with the soldiers. Leave it to me."
"There's no need."
Delilah rolled up her sleeve — still stained with blood and the faint scent of medicinal herbs — and bent down to pick up a heavy door plank. The motion was slightly sluggish from weakness, but the decisiveness carved into her bones hadn't dimmed in the slightest.
"Her Majesty has said: under Mason's banner, diligence is the only bloodline that matters.
While I was away, Mason's war machine ran fast. If I can't even carry a few planks, what right do I have to keep riding in the passenger seat of that machine?"
Delilah worked alongside Willow to search for materials to build the shelter, all while her mind raced to catch up and absorb everything she had missed.
Her Majesty's will was no longer simply about war.
She was thinking further ahead now, carrying greater pressure and responsibility than before.
This work-point system was using the most fundamental logic of self-interest to replace those stale, rotten oaths of fealty.
If even a princess as proud as Victoria could be bent by that logic, I can't afford to fall behind.
I was once an Olanese. But now, I am Her Majesty's. I am only Her Majesty's.
Her Majesty is having me take part in building this grassroots Order. She must be testing whether I can make the transition from a pure instrument of killing to an executor of the new Order.
Before nightfall, I must make the common people of Whitestone City feel the terrifying pull of earning more by doing more.
Willow watched Delilah's back — still working to clear the rubble despite her unsteady breathing — and allowed a deep, quiet smile to touch the corner of her lips.
Sure enough. The hand Her Majesty extended seized not just the general's life, but that restless, undying heart of loyalty within her.
General Delilah's terror of being left behind — that reaction, too, was surely accounted for in Her Majesty's calculations.
Her Majesty had deliberately let her witness Victoria's transformation, precisely to stoke the fierce competitive pride buried in her bones.
In the new Order of Mason, there is no place for a brute who only knows how to charge. What is needed is this — the kind of zealot who, even with a broken body, will drive herself mad trying to keep pace with Her Majesty's thinking.
Every move General Delilah made right now was running along the self-reforging template Her Majesty had set for her.
This process of taking a hero of the old era and remaking them, while fully alive, into a cornerstone of the new — it was more fascinating than the most intricate Alchemy.
Thwack!
Delilah dropped that heavy plank squarely across two toppled stone blocks and wiped the cold sweat from her brow.
The wind across the square still carried the lingering warmth of the fire, sweeping up scraps of charred paper.
Thanks to that sudden and utterly unpredicted Divine Miracle of fire, Whitestone City's entire defensive system had collapsed within two hours.
The once-clamorous fortress had fallen into a dead, terrified silence.
Civilians who could flee had already poured out through the north gate into the wilderness. Far more had locked themselves inside dark attics and cellars, peering through door cracks with trembling eyes at this bizarre army — clad entirely in black, occasionally bursting into laughter and shouting about work points.
Mason's soldiers had not done what any other army of this era would have done after breaching a city — there was no looting, no burning.
Following Bardess's near-pathologically exacting orders, they moved in groups of three, like precise, fine-toothed combs, sweeping Whitestone City's streets inch by inch.
The remnants of Yurilland's soldiers were dragged from alleyways, stripped of their armor, and herded toward improvised prisoner-of-war pens.
The main force's vanguard, meanwhile, was already aimed squarely at the City Lord's manor — the seat of power.
In just two hours, this frontier stronghold — once said to be able to hold off a siege for a full month — had changed hands completely, crushed under the combined dimensional suppression strike of legal authority and firepower.
Just then, the luxurious carriage surrounded by soldiers came to a slow stop at the center of the square.
The carriage curtain shifted. Supported by Willow, Sophia stepped down from the footboard with steady, unhurried steps.
Sunlight fell at an angle across her long silver hair — as pure as moonlight — and against the backdrop of her fitted black everyday dress, Sophia's delicate, utterly impassive face was as beautiful as a divine statue that had stepped out of the far northern glaciers.
The efficiency had been somewhat higher than expected.
Sophia's pale-gold pupils swept across the square, ravaged and scarred as it was — a few fire bottles still burned here and there.
Her gaze finally came to rest on Delilah, who was hauling planks despite her weakened body.
Victoria had descended from the carriage as well by now. She drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders and looked at Sophia's upright silhouette, the shock in the depths of her eyes still not fully settled.
Gods. Two hours.
In the military logic of Olan — or of any other nation — taking a city typically implied months of siege, brutal close-quarters combat, and endless post-battle chaos.
But in Sophia's hands, this had resembled nothing so much as a precise, premeditated plan.
First she used that scroll to invalidate the enemy's bloodline-based legal claim. Then she used Irene's fire bottles to incinerate the defenses. Finally she used work points as the lure to instantly destabilize the popular will of the common people.
When Sophia stepped off the carriage, her expression held not even a flicker of a conqueror's elation — only the absolute matter-of-fact certainty of a plan proceeding as intended.
Sophia was no longer fighting a war. She was rewriting the underlying logic of the world.
Victoria felt, with certainty, that she had not made the wrong choice.
Following her, what I witness is not the expansion of a kingdom, but an entirely new civilization taking root and growing at a visible pace upon the ruins of the old world.
The moment she saw Sophia step down from the carriage, Delilah immediately stopped what she was doing.
Her previously wavering body seemed, in the instant that silver-haired figure appeared, to have had a vitalizing current poured back into it.
She dropped to one knee. Her face was still pale, but her voice rang out with unusual force:
"Your Majesty!
The Whitestone City Lord's manor has been surrounded. The enemy remnants are in the process of laying down their arms.
This subject... failed to charge with the army. I await Your Majesty's punishment!"
Sophia walked at an unhurried pace to stand before Delilah, taking in the sight of this general who, even at the absolute limit of her strength, was determined to build Order in the rubble.
"You have done well."
Sophia raised her hand. Her fingertips rested lightly on Delilah's shoulder, drenched as it was in cold sweat. Her tone was cool and measured, yet it carried a weight to it — enough to drive away the cold.
"Rather than exhausting yourself in a charge, I far prefer to see you here, raising new shelter over Mason's territory with your own hands."
Sophia glanced over at Willow, her eyes carrying that characteristic expression of highly efficient administrative arrangement.
"Willow, have Bardess bring those Yurilland prisoners over.
Those who comply are not to be killed, nor humiliated.
Tell them: from this moment on, they are no longer anyone's subjects.
They are the labor force of Mason's new Order.
Those who want to eat, who want to earn work points — pick up a brick, go sweep the ash clean from the city gate.
By now, those prisoners should already have had Daphne's magic seal applied to them under Bardess's supervision.
Sophia turned to look at those tightly shut windows, her voice unhurried, yet carrying an authority that brooked no argument.
"Let those who are hiding listen well.
Mason does not want their lives.
What we want is their diligence.
The registration station will open on schedule. Work hard enough, and you will receive a Mason identity card — and from that day forward, you will hold the same right as any of Mason's subjects to earn work points.
The first person to step forward — this Queen will reward them with a portion of bread. Bread that does not require begging the gods for."
At this moment, Irene, who had been fiddling with an improvised catapult not far away, let out an excited whistle. Bardess, meanwhile, began directing soldiers to line the prisoners up on the square with her characteristic obsessive precision.
Whitestone City — the crown jewel of Yurilland — had been wrenched clean off the map of the old era the very second Sophia set foot on its soil.
The Yurilland prisoners shifted uneasily, sensing something new that had appeared on their bodies.
It was a magic seal bearing the dark watermark pattern of Mason's Black Rose.
This was not merely a brand of identification — it was the binding of an Order covenant.
Should any rebellious intent stir within Mason's territory, the Holy Light's backlash would instantly paralyze the body, and Daphne would sense it immediately.
These prisoners, whose faces had been etched with terror, found — when they discovered the seal had not taken their lives but instead brought with it a faint, clean sense of serenity — that their expressions had shifted into the hollow bewilderment of those who had just survived a disaster.
Sophia withdrew her gaze from the prisoners. She stepped back up onto the carriage's footboard, and her pale-gold pupils fixed on the direction of Yurilland's royal capital. Her tone remained as cool and clear as ever:
"Bardess, count out three unit loads of supplies and leave a company of a hundred behind to support the Captain in managing Whitestone City.
The rest — break camp in a quarter of an hour. Full march."
The moment those words fell, the air around her seemed to seize for half a breath.
Whitestone City was only a forward outpost.
Sophia rapidly mobilized the map in her mind.
From here to Yurilland's royal capital, there were only two unfortified villages and towns in between.
Every extra hour I linger here gives their capital's defenses one more notch of preparation.
The logically efficient move is to cut off their breathing before the news fully spreads.
Victoria stood to one side, and rather than feeling fatigued by the grueling pace of the march, those pale-gold eyes of hers were flickering with something close to frenzied shrewdness.
Sophia, you are absolutely mad — but mad in such an utterly captivating way.
She had expected Sophia to rest and regroup here, to announce her sovereignty to the surrounding region.
But she had been wrong. Sophia's ambitions lay nowhere near this small city.
She realized: Sophia intended to execute a decapitation strike on Yurilland before sundown — before the wider world even had time to process what was happening.
Those two villages didn't even warrant wasting a single fire-starter. The moment the main army swept through, their lords would be scared out of their wits.
"Your Majesty."
Victoria stepped forward and delivered the perfect assist.
"I suggest those two villages don't even need soldiers stationed in them. Simply dispatch a troop of mounted outriders to ride through on the main road under Mason's banner.
There is only one real target: Yurilland's royal house."
"Heh heh, straight to the attack — I love it!"
Irene neatly folded up the improvised catapult and stuffed it into the war wagon, those sapphire eyes of hers blazing with a dangerous brightness.
"I still have some fire bottles left over anyway!"
And Bardess had already entered some state of absolute, transcendent frenzy.
Holy spirits above... taking one city, two towns, and a royal capital all in a single day!
This kind of perfectly synchronized marching pace — this is honestly the most romantic military order I've heard in my entire life!
Her Majesty didn't even bother turning the carriage around — she's just going to roll straight over the next logical obstacle.
The feeling of treating warfare like a machine with precision-calibrated tolerances — gods, it is so satisfying!
Since Her Majesty wants speed, I'll go make sure those little bastards don't even loosen their belts — and anyone who dares drag their feet on this one-day conquest of a nation can look forward to being strung up on the royal capital's walls and getting their backsides thrashed!
Charge! For Her Majesty's Order! For the honor of straightening out Yurilland's crooked flagpole!
Delilah, still working at building the shade shelter, faltered in her movements. She looked toward the carriage about to move again, and the blood in her chest began to churn with fierce heat.
Your Majesty — is this the justice you are giving me?
She knew perfectly well that Yurilland, as Olan's vassal, would have Olan's military supervisors garrisoned within its royal capital.
Her Majesty's urgency was not only for tactical surprise — it was also to sweep away, in the shortest possible time, those who had once bullied and betrayed her, and cast them aside like garbage.
"Your Majesty... this subject swears not to fail your trust. I will hold Whitestone to the last!"
"Move out."
Sophia settled back into the carriage. Her cool, clear voice echoed across the square.
Mason's soldiers — driven by their absolute, consuming hunger for work points, not even pausing to wipe the sweat from their brows — fell back into formation under Bardess's ruler-precise commands and surged once more out through the north gate like a black iron tide.
The ruins of Whitestone City receded through the rear window, growing smaller and smaller. On the horizon ahead, the two small towns of Yurilland — peaceful, almost innocent-looking — were now receiving, entirely unprepared, a ruinous gift from the new era that they could never have imagined.
Yurilland Royal Capital.
A heavy golden-nanmu long table was slammed hard by a fat, jewel-ringed hand, sending the exquisite porcelain on top rattling with a jarring clatter.
The King of Yurilland — a man with a protruding belly and a face full of fleshy jowls — was staring through eyes clouded by alcohol and arrogance, bellowing at the herald standing below.
"What did you say?
Those savages from Mason have broken into Whitestone City?
In just two hours?!"
The king's breathing grew rapid, the flab on his face shuddering with violent fury.
"Impossible!
Whitestone City has a full three thousand elite troops garrisoned there — plus the spell-breaking arrows Olan supplied!
Is that Sophia, who hasn't even finished teething, supposed to have flown over there on the gods' own thunder?!"
On both sides of the great hall, the ministers — who had just moments ago been debating the menu for the afternoon banquet — fell into a single instant of dead silence, then erupted in a burst of mocking laughter.
In the eyes of these nobles, accustomed to living under Olan's shadow and savoring the brief peace that came from ceding land and seeking compromise, Mason's counterattack was nothing more than the final convulsions of a dying beast.
"Your Majesty, it seems the silver-haired little orphan was so frightened by the ruins of Jasu that she's started biting at anything that moves," sneered one aged minister, straightening the lace collar on his chest.
"I hear she brought a handful of little girls who do nothing but giggle and carry on.
I'd wager Whitestone City was tricked into opening its gates with some cheap trinkets by that pack of madwomen."
The king gave a cold snort and settled back into his jade-inlaid throne, his tone dripping with high-handed contempt:
"That little girl who still smells of milk — does she think putting on a crown turns her into a dragon?
In my estimation, she's nothing more than a wild cat that's learned how to screech."
"A piddling little patch of land like Mason — the most it's good for is as a pasture for Yurilland's horses. And she actually dares to march that ragtag mob of hers here to die?"
"Send word to the border garrison commander — tell him to take his men and intercept them.
I don't want prisoners. Bring me Sophia's head. I'll make it into an ink-brush holder for my study."
"She ought to be in the nursery playing with her ribbons and dolls, not trying to play at swords and guns like a grown-up."
"Is that little beast out of her mind?
Or does she find Yurilland's dungeons too comfortable and fancy trying a noose instead?"
"Tell Olan's military supervisor he needn't worry.
Yurilland's lions will personally tear Mason's banners apart and lock that little queen outside the city gates like a dog on display.
"This childish little game of pretend ends here.
I'll make her understand that bloodlines and legal authority are not things that can be shaken by a few Alchemy bottles!"
"Draft a letter immediately — dispatch it to Olan!"
The king waved his hand, impatient as a man shooing flies.
"Tell the Olan royal house that Mason is in open rebellion, and Yurilland is charitably cleaning house.
Ask that Olan's Majesty not trouble himself — the secret regarding Jasu, I will personally deliver to his hands."
In his logic, as long as Olan's military supervisors remained in the city, as long as that colossal power stood at his back, Mason's iron tide was nothing more than a joke.
He had already begun to compose in his mind, once Sophia was captured, how he would strip her of that meaningless Mason crown in front of everyone.
Meanwhile, inside the rapidly moving black carriage, Victoria was reviewing a military report in her hands.
She couldn't hear the filthy words being spat inside the jade palace, but those pale-gold pupils of hers gleamed with an expression of extreme contempt for someone she recognized all too well.
I can almost picture the face of the man on that throne right now.
He must be raging, spewing insults, using the self-righteous logic of a so-called adult to size up Sophia.
He thinks high city walls and Olan's backing make him invincible — but he doesn't realize that in front of this monster called Sophia, any defense built on the foundations of the old era is completely transparent.
Those voices hurling abuse at Sophia would very soon become the most wretched wailing on this entire stretch of wilderness.
The reason Sophia offers no explanations and wastes no words is because she has no intention of conversing with dead men.
Watch. When Irene's fire rises again, when the truth of the Covenant of Nations comes crashing down on their faces, this king will discover that everything he was so proud of isn't even worth a single work point's worth of meat on the bone.
This kind of collapse brought on by arrogance... I could watch it a thousand times and never tire of it.
Yurilland's garrison force.
Sophia marked the first interception point in her mind.
At the current pace, they would likely encounter Yurilland's soldiers in about half an hour, and clash with them directly.
No persuasion needed. No negotiation. Just saturating the field with firepower and clearing the path.
"Irene."
Sophia closed her eyes. Her voice was cool and still as water with no ripple.
"Distribute those new toys.
Before sunset, this Queen intends to be standing on Yurilland's royal capital balcony, watching every lie on this land burn to ash."
"Yes, Your Majesty!
I'll make sure they don't even have the strength left to curse us!"
Irene yanked open the powder crate, revealing a brilliantly dangerous smile.
On the horizon, the silhouette of Yurilland's royal capital had become faintly visible — and the garrison force the King of Yurilland had placed all his faith in was marching out with banners raised high, charging straight toward an abyss it couldn't begin to comprehend.
On the wilderness outside Yurilland's royal capital, waves of grass rippled in the cold, damp breeze.
Two armies of starkly contrasting colors faced each other across the plain.
On one side: the Mason iron tide, its formation as straight as a ruled black line. On the other: Yurilland's border garrison, banners snapping in the wind, their commanding general mounted on a tall armored warhorse, his tower-like frame casting a massive shadow in the sunlight.
Yurilland's commanding general was named Cassel. His rough, boulder-like face was written all over with the arrogant certainty of a man who believed victory was already his.
He tilted his long lance down toward the Mason vanguard before him, his voice booming out like a cracked bell being struck:
"Damned if I know how those useless bastards at Whitestone City let you mongrels slip through, but this is as far as you go!"
Cassel let out a laugh like a wild beast's roar, his contemptuous gaze sweeping over the black muskets in the Mason soldiers' hands before settling on Bardess, mounted directly ahead of him:
"Look at this — has Mason really run out of people?
Sending a little woman who can't even manage to brush her own hair to lead the charge?"
"Where's that little queen of yours who's hiding in the carriage too scared to show her face?
Did she wet herself changing her skirts, or is she sucking on her milk bottle and crying her eyes out?"
"These limp-wristed soldiers look like mud that's been rained on into mush — are you planning to use those fire-pokers to scratch the itch off my armor?"
"Said your prayers yet, Mason mutts?!
I'll rip your banners apart and use them to line my horse stalls — that's the only place they belong!"
Faced with Cassel's imposing bulk and stream of insults, Bardess simply lounged on her horse with an air of utter boredom, even finding a moment to flick with her fingernail at a rivet on her saddle that had shifted very slightly off center.
When she heard the insults directed at Sophia, those eyes of Bardess's — already exceptionally sharp thanks to her obsessive streak — narrowed slightly, and the corner of her mouth twisted into an expression of supreme disdain.
"Finished?
You overstuffed idiot who can't even keep the rolls of fat on your belly lined up straight."
Bardess cleared her throat. Her voice was smaller than his, but it carried a precision that cut right through — and every word made the fleshy jowls on Cassel's face twitch:
"I've seen plenty of people with their brains installed sideways, but I've never seen anyone who went ahead and replaced their brain entirely with a pig's large intestine.
Take a look at that armor of yours — your left pauldron sits a full two inches lower than the right. Were you raised on manure?
Can't even manage the basic achievement of growing a head on straight, and you have the nerve to bark in front of Mason's Order?"
"Yurilland's got a ball of lard on the throne and a walking dung-bucket leading the troops below it.
That throat of yours is only good for rattling your own mother out of her grave — it's utterly useless for anything else.
You're nothing more than a pig that rolls in the mud and can't even sort out its own tail!"
"And another thing — don't talk to me about prayers.
In Her Majesty's calculus, you lot don't even qualify to have your names recorded on the dead man's ledger. You're at best a pile of garbage to be incinerated.
As for that head of yours..."
Bardess clicked her tongue.
"Even if it were tossed into Irene's powder barrel to use as a stopper, I'd be worried the lopsided mess of your face would scatter ash that dirties Her Majesty's line of sight!"
Inside the carriage, Irene was hanging out the window, listening to Bardess's rapid-fire precision shelling, laughing so hard she couldn't straighten her back.
That mouth of Bardess's hits harder than my black muskets!
Listen to that — a walking dung-bucket — she's just grinding Yurilland's dignity against the friction coefficient of pure logic and going absolutely wild!
Back in my world, we'd call that spell damage plus a true critical hit!
Her Majesty's usual cold, unshakeable sense of Order, paired with Bardess's brand of verbal assault where she drags out your ancestors eighteen generations back and lectures them all individually — they really are the perfect combination.
Look at that general's face — it's already gone purple like a rotting eggplant.
Bardess is brilliant — every single line lands precisely on a pressure point. This is an art form!
Victoria sat nearby, elegantly fanning herself with her ivory fan, watching Cassel outside as he flew into a foaming fury. The look in her eyes was pure, uncut pity.
What a sorry sight — he actually thinks this is a normal pre-battle shouting match.
He has no idea that from the moment he opened his mouth to insult Sophia, Bardess had already sentenced him to death in her mind — the kind where the ashes must be scattered in a latrine.
The reason Sophia sent Bardess out to respond is because Her Majesty couldn't even be bothered to waste a single syllable on this scum.
This verbal humiliation is nothing more than a warm-up before Her Majesty formally clears the field.
When the enemy's fury peaks and they charge forward having lost all reason, what awaits them will be Irene's fire — terrible and utterly without logic.
This method of erasing the enemy on both the mental and physical level simultaneously... Sophia, you are truly a person who makes others tremble.
"You... you wretched woman!
I'll tear you apart with my bare hands!"
Cassel, driven out of his mind by the insults exactly as predicted, swung his lance wildly and bellowed the order to charge.
"All forces, advance! Crush every last one of these Mason loudmouths!"
And inside the carriage, Sophia slowly opened her eyes.
"Bardess, that's enough of the chatter."
Sophia's voice passed through the curtain — cool and carrying with it the killing finality of something that ends all things.
"Since they have no interest in logic, then use fire. Burn them into ash that conforms to logic.
Irene, begin clearing the field."
"By your command, Your Majesty!"
Irene wrenched open the carriage's side panel, revealing the custom launchers inside — already loaded, already breathing death.
Yurilland's garrison charged forward with hearts full of rage, straight toward their own abyss — and the first blossoms of fire had already ignited, wild and ravenous, across this land built on lies.
The low thuds of things tearing through the air came dense and sudden.
Hundreds of crystal-clear glass bottles traced beautiful arcs across the sky, their crimson fuses dancing in the wind — like a flock of flame-red birds diving at their prey — and in an instant, blotted out the sun above the heads of Yurilland's cavalry.
"Shields up! Everyone raise your shields!"
General Cassel looked up at the hail of glass bottles falling from above, and though a flicker of unease stirred in his heart, he shouted on the force of traditional military instinct.
In his mind, this was merely some variant of a catapult.
As long as the shield wall was thick enough, how could these fragile glass things possibly penetrate a defense line of forged iron?
Thud! Crash-shatter!
The first wave of glass bottles burst open against the shield wall.
The impact Cassel had anticipated never came — but what followed was a nightmare that made his very soul shudder.
The pale blue viscous liquid spread with manic speed through every gap and crack. The moment it made contact with air, the ignition mechanism transformed it instantly into a mass of deep red hellfire.
This was no ordinary flame. It clung like a festering rot to every seam of shield, battle-robe, and armor, and no matter how desperately the soldiers swung at it or smothered it with sand, it would not go out.
"Ahh! My hand! The fire won't die!
"Water! Quick, bring water — no!
Water is making it burn hotter!"
Agonized screaming erupted across the wilderness.
Yurilland's vanguard cavalry — moments ago imposing and fearsome — shattered completely the instant they made contact with this Alchemy fire.
What horrified Cassel most was that these flames could conduct through the metal itself, searing the skin beneath the armor from the inside.
To survive, those Yurilland soldiers — who on any other day prided themselves so fiercely on their military bearing — had no choice but to tear at their own belts in a frenzy, roll in the dirt, and scramble desperately to rip off their scalding armor and battle-robes.
In the blink of an eye, what had just been a surging tide of steel became a pack of bedraggled strays on the open plain — disheveled, stripped of their armor, scattering in every direction.
General Cassel reined in his panicking warhorse and stared blankly at the churning sea of fire ahead and his subordinates going mad trying to save themselves.
His mind was a jumbled mess, like a pot of lumpy paste.
What was this?
Witchcraft? Sorcery?
Was what was in those bottles the blood of demons?
That Sophia, sitting in her carriage — where in the world had she recruited a monster like this?
Our shields couldn't stop it. Our courage meant nothing in front of that fire.
What am I even fighting against?
This isn't a war. This is a one-sided... cleansing!
Inside the carriage, Victoria watched those Yurilland soldiers outside — forced to strip themselves down to bare skin like plucked chickens just to escape the flames — and something deeply, profoundly awed flickered across her gaze.
Sophia, you won't even spare the enemy their last shred of dignity, will you?
I thought at first you simply wanted to kill them.
But now I understand — you are using more than fire. You are using logic to deny the very existence of a warrior.
Making them tear off their armor in front of everyone, reducing them to ordinary men rolling in the dirt.
From this moment on, they have lost not only their fighting capability — they have lost every last shred of honor and legal standing they had as soldiers of Yurilland.
What will the people watching from the city walls see?
They will only see how Yurilland's legitimate army became as ridiculous as clowns in the face of Mason's will.
This dual stripping — of the mind and of the body...
Sophia, you have already elevated the art of rule to the realm of the divine.
In your script, every act of resistance only makes the one resisting more pathetic.
Bardess looked at the Yurilland soldiers descending into chaos as they frantically tore off their armor, and let out a cheerful, off-key little hum.
Serves you right for all that filth you were spewing. Pack of garbage.
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