Three days later, when word spread throughout the Central Province that the "culprit" behind the Meng River levee breach was his own teacher, Valient lost his temper before his subordinates for the first time. He drew his Knight Sword and hacked madly at his gold office desk.
After venting his fury, he prepared to issue an order dispelling the rumors and restoring his teacher's reputation. However, many veterans of the Black Thorn Dynasty's Third Knight Order stopped him, even threatening him with their lives, and made him abandon the idea.
Two months later, Valient fulfilled his original promise and ceded sixty thousand square kilometers of land along the Black Thorn Dynasty's southwestern border to the Golden Lion Duchy.
The day after the handover was completed, news that the Golden Lion Duchy had launched an unannounced war and occupied Black Thorn Dynasty territory spread throughout the dynasty, provoking the anger of many nobles.
Having discovered that Valient had stabbed them in the back, the Golden Lion Duchy had no choice but to deploy a large number of troops in the newly occupied region to prevent a sudden attack by the Black Thorn Dynasty's army.
Yet for the next half year, the Black Thorn Dynasty remained indifferent, as though it had forgotten the matter entirely.
Over those six months, the Golden Lion Duchy began suffering internal unrest as it struggled to cover the military expenses of the massive army stationed in its new territory. In the end, it was forced to gradually withdraw its troops, leaving only a normal-sized garrison to guard against the Black Thorn Dynasty.
In early March of New Calendar 388, twenty-four-year-old Valient, ruler of the Black Thorn Dynasty, suddenly declared war on the northern neighboring Lokas Duchy and ordered nobles across the realm to raise armies and gather