She stood on the edge of the tower, overlooking the brightly lit steel city beneath her feet and the continuous military camps in the distance, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
"Quite spectacular, isn't it?" Wu Liang walked to her side and stood shoulder to shoulder with her.
"It's nothing more than a nest where a bunch of barbarians gather," Sylvia said stubbornly.
"Barbarian?" Wu Liang smiled.
"If being able to feed and clothe tens of thousands, create unprecedented tools, and build a new civilization with steel and order is considered barbaric, then I am willing to remain a barbarian forever."
He was no longer aggressive, instead speaking about his ideals in an unprecedentedly peaceful tone.
He talked about how to completely eliminate hunger in the Western Territory through industry and agriculture.
He talked about how to establish a unified, powerful, new order led by him through trade and war.
Under this order, there would no longer be oppression of commoners by nobles, nor endless conquests between nations.
Although, this peace was built upon his iron-blooded methods and absolute military force.
Sylvia listened quietly.
She discovered that this man was not the tyrant she had imagined, who only knew slaughter and plunder.
In him, she saw a vigorous ambition and a grand vision for transforming the world.
At that moment, she looked at Wu Liang's profile, which appeared so focused and full of charm under the moonlight.
She actually felt a bit... dazed.
Just then, a warm, large hand suddenly grasped her small, cold hand.
Sylvia's body stiffened abruptly, like an electric shock, and she wanted to pull back.
But Wu Liang held on tightly.
"Don't move," his voice was low and overbearing, "just for a moment."
Sylvia's heart instantly fell into chaos.
This was the first time in hundreds of years that she had been in such intimate contact with a member of the opposite sex.
Her heart beat rapidly, and her cheeks burned intensely.
She struggled for a moment, but finding she couldn't break free, she somehow... as if possessed, stopped moving.
Atop the tower, beneath the moonlight.
The hands of the two were quietly held together just like that.
Just as Wu Liang was enjoying the rising romantic tension with the Elf Queen, a sudden piece of news broke the silence.
The Roland Empire had finally made a move.
Although the vanguard sent previously to reclaim Tiee Fortress had been completely wiped out, the empire's dignity could not be provoked.
Upon learning that the Western Territory had completely fallen into Wu Liang's hands and that even the Elf Tribe had suffered a great loss, the Roland Emperor was finally enraged.
He ordered the assembly of three main legions from the empire's Western Province, totaling fifty thousand troops, dubbed the Punitive Army, led personally by the famous imperial general, Marshal Grom, aggressively pressing toward Tiee Fortress.
Their goal was clear: to wipe out this "rebel" nest that dared to challenge the empire's majesty in one fell swoop and hang Wu Liang's head on the gates of the capital.
With the military situation urgent, the entire Tiee Fortress entered a state of combat readiness.
After learning the news, Sylvia immediately found Wu Liang.
"The Roland Empire has deployed fifty thousand troops. How do you plan to respond?"
She looked at Wu Liang, who was deploying troops in front of a map, her expression complicated.
On one hand, she wished to see Wu Liang crushed by the imperial army so she could escape.
But on the other hand, after these few days of ideological education, deep in her heart, she was actually faintly worried about him.
"They're just here to deliver heads and equipment."
Wu Liang said without looking up, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather.
"Don't be too arrogant!" Sylvia couldn't help but remind him.
"That's fifty thousand troops, including the empire's most elite Lionheart Knights! And the commander, Marshal Grom, is a veteran general of a hundred battles, not like the fools you've encountered before!"
"How about this,"
she hesitated for a moment before speaking,
"I can order my elven troops to harass them from the flanks and share some of the pressure for you. Consider it... returning the favor for taking us in these past few days."
Hearing this, Wu Liang finally looked up.
He walked up to Sylvia, looked into her golden eyes filled with worry, and suddenly smiled.
He reached out, gently caressing her cheek, and said in an extremely overbearing tone:
"Remember, my woman only needs to stand quietly behind me and watch how I crush all enemies."
"You..."
Sylvia's face turned red in an instant.
"Who... who is your woman!" She swatted Wu Liang's hand away in embarrassment and annoyance.
But that phrase "my woman" was like a magic spell, stirring up massive waves in the lake of her heart and making her heart race uncontrollably.
This feeling of being strongly protected was something she, as a queen, had never experienced.
The war arrived as scheduled.
The fifty thousand troops of the Roland Empire advanced toward Tiee Fortress in a dense mass, their military appearance grand and their killing intent soaring.
Thousands of Lionheart Knights in heavy plate armor, riding tall warhorses, lined up at the front, their lances reflecting a cold, grim light; that aura alone was enough to strike fear into any enemy.
Sylvia, Lina, and Irene stood at the highest point of the city wall, nervously watching this lopsided battle.
"Sister, can he... can he really win?" Irene asked in a low voice, looking at the endless enemy army below.
"I don't know." Sylvia shook her head, her palms sweating.
"All troops, charge! Flatten that castle!"
With Marshal Grom's command, the imperial horns sounded.
"Rumble..."
The ground began to tremble, and the "Lionheart Knights" were the first to launch a charge!
The scene of thousands of heavy cavalry charging simultaneously was like a torrent of steel, unstoppable!
However, on the city wall, Wu Liang didn't even bat an eyelid.
"Fire."
The order was given.
On the positions three hundred meters in front of the wall, camouflage nets were pulled back, revealing over a hundred maxim heavy machine guns and dozens of mortars.
"Da da da da da da—!"
"Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
The symphony of death played once again!
The metal storm and the flames of explosions instantly swept through the entire charging cavalry formation.
The heavy plate armor the empire took pride in was no different from paper in the face of machine gun bullets and mortar fragments.
Warhorses neighed, and knights screamed.
The Lionheart Knights at the very front didn't even touch the edge of the city wall before falling in heaps in this death zone, trampled into meat paste by the following infantry.
Marshal Grom watched from the rear, dumbfounded.
"What on earth is that?! Magic?! Send in the Mage Corps! Suppress their firepower!"
The imperial Mage Corps began to step forward and chant spells.
But they didn't even have time to release their first fireball.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
On the city wall, the snipers led by Akomann had already begun picking them off one by one.
Lethal [magic-modified high-explosive armor-piercing round] accurately bored into the heads of those noble mages, turning them into headless corpses.
In less than ten minutes.
What everyone thought would be an arduous siege turned into a one-sided, inhumane massacre.
The fifty thousand troops of the Roland Empire completely collapsed after suffering more than fifty percent casualties.
Soldiers cried out as they dropped their weapons and fled in all directions.
Marshal Grom looked at the hellish scene before him, his face ashen, and was carried away from the battlefield in a sorry state by his personal guards.
On the city wall, the three elven beauties—Sylvia, Lina, and Irene—were completely stunned.
Their mouths hung open, their minds a total blank.
A crushing defeat.
This was a complete, dimension-reducing strike of a crushing defeat.
Sylvia looked at the man standing on the city wall, calm and unruffled from beginning to end, and the last shred of luck and resistance in her heart completely vanished.
She finally understood.
To be an enemy of this man meant only one path: death.
And standing behind him... perhaps was the safest and wisest choice.
That night, a grand victory banquet was held in Tiee Fortress.
The whole city rejoiced; soldiers ate meat and drank wine in large gulps, shouting "Long live Leader Wu Liang."
Wu Liang, as the greatest hero, was naturally toasted with a lot of wine.
With a hint of drunkenness, he returned to his room in the Main Keep.
Just as he pushed open the door, he smelled a faint, refreshing fragrance.
In the room, Sylvia was sitting there quietly; she had changed back into her moon-white queen's robe, her long golden hair shimmering under the candlelight, beautiful enough to take one's breath away.
"Why are you here?"
Wu Liang was somewhat surprised.