The Martial Unity

“Hehehe.” The Hugging Hegemon grinned at his question. “He has ground the rust off of them extremely well. They almost died many times along the way, of course. However, thanks to the Divine Doctor, none of them remained that way.”

“Good.” Rael calmly nodded. “I look forward to their performance against the incoming strike force. I will deploy the seven of them in addition to three more Martial Sages.”

The Hugging Hegemon’s eyes lit up as she raised her arms. “Me. ME. Send me. I will teach those Sekigaharan bastards not to mess with the Kandrian Empire.”

“Very well.” Emperor Rael nodded. “I hereby call for emergency protocol A65-KND. We will commence the signing of the war contract as soon as this council meeting is concluded. In addition to you, I shall naturally deploy Sage Farana and Sage Dashian of the Martial Artillery division of the Royal Army to serve as a stabilizer to ensure that none of the battles go south.”

Sage Farana did not acknowledge the words of the emperor during her role as his bodyguard in this meeting, while the Grand General nodded with a fiery expression.

Emperor Rael’s gaze returned to the intelligence report before him. “Considering they sent only nine Martial Sages, it can be inferred that they are not aware of the spike in Martial Sages we have recently gained.”

His eyes sharpened. “This can be used against them. I will deploy some more of the Martial Sages of the Martial Union to circle around and box them in, leading to a numeric and position advantage against the enemy. With a total of fourteen Martial Sages surrounding them, they will be at a heavy disadvantage, and we will be able to wipe out as many Martial Sages as possible. In addition…”

His gaze returned to Grand General Aramoeous.

“I grant you the full authority to deploy, at your discretion, the heavy artillery esoteric siege technology at the disposal of the Royal Army at the border in conjugation with the Kandrian Border Patrol Force to resist the incoming enemies with Apocalypse-Class siege weapons.” Emperor Rael’s expression grew more serious. “The more hurt and damaged the incoming force is, the greater the probability of a clean sweep of a victory.”

His proposals earned a lot of approval from the members of the Kandrian War Council.

Grand General Aramoeous saluted Emperor Rael stiffly as his eyes blazed with determination. “I shall see to it that it is executed to perfection.”

BZZZT!

Director Shelmin narrowed his eyes gravely. “Less than twenty-four hours, Your Majesty. Those savages have deployed massive deep-strike, multi-terrain armored war carriages to carry their potent Martial forces to the Kandrian Empire. They will arrive at Kandria within a day!”

Many members of the war council stiffened as their expressions grew grave.

The air grew heavier.

It tingled.

It tingled with peril.

It couldn’t be helped. The Kandrian Empire had been at a state of peace for a long time.

Most of the people in the room had been born during this age of peace. The concept of being the target of a potent military assault strike was alien to most of them intuitively.

Even during the height of the Kandrian Throne War many years ago, civil war had never actually broken out, even if it had come close many times.

Of course, none of them were afraid as much as they were unaccustomed to the very notion of the Kandrian Empire being attacked. One did not simply pick a fight with Kandria; this was a truth that many of them had long grown used to.

Yet, it appeared that the Sekigahara Confederate had no respect for this truth whatsoever.

However, deep down, that wasn’t very surprising to anybody present, for the Sekigahara Confederate had always been the most martial and maniacal out of all the four powerhouses of East Panama.

“Even then…” Grand General Aramoeous gritted his teeth. “…How dare they so brazenly attack the Kandrian Empire? Do they have no respect for the powerhouse that Kandria is?!”

“It’s because they respect Kandria’s martial prowess that they have gone as far as to deploy a strike force of nine Martial Sage and more than a hundred Martial Masters.” Rui narrowed his eyes as he calmly analyzed the circumstances. “It’s rather interesting that the number of Masters they sent is more than a hundred times the Martial Sages they sent.”

Director Shelmin’s eyes widened, catching on to the subtext of Rui’s observations. “You mean…?”

Emperor Rael smiled. “Very astute of you, my son.”

“It’s obvious when you look at the demographics that compose the strike force of the Sekigahara Confederate,” Rui calmly continued as he extrapolated the goals of their enemy based on what the most likely outcome of this assault was from the perspective of his enemy with the information that they had at the time. “Assuming that there was some degree of thought put into this attack and the fact that they don’t know about our extra seven Martial Sages, then they have deployed just enough Martial Sages to stall out our known Martial Sages. Nine is not enough to overcome ten Martial Sages, but it is enough to keep them in place.”

“…That means that the true strike force are the Martial Masters?!” Realization dawned on Grand General Aramoeous. “This…”

“It is much harder for the Martial Masters of the Kandrian Empire to keep a hundred and ten Martial Masters in check,” Rui’s eyes grew more severe, “than it is for the Martial Sages of the Kandrian Empire to keep the enemy Martial Sages in check. If a portion of the enemy Martial Force manages to get into the nation…”

His voice trailed off.

He didn’t need to even finish that statement.

Even if the Masters of the Sekigahara Confederate respected the norms of the Panamic Martial Federation when it came to genocide, there were no rules against crippling a nation’s systems.

Things like energy and communication, food, manufacturing, and Martial infrastructure could be annihilated with no legal liability from the Panamic Martial Federation by design.

The stakes were higher than they had ever been.

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