A New War Began

Looking at the Treaty of Nantes Kingdom delivered from the south, Ryan knew it would not last long.

Still, even he had never imagined that its binding force would be exposed as a joke before everyone.

He had thought that this supernatural world of kings and nobles valued the spirit of a contract. Now, it seemed that the stakes simply had not been high enough.

Half a month after the Treaty of Nantes Kingdom was signed, Elijah Hacon, King of the Iron Eagle Kingdom, was attacked by assassins. No culprit was captured, nor was any assassin's body left behind, but every lead pointed toward the Church of Dawn's Black Swan Assassins.

The King did not die immediately, but two days later, he died in his bedchamber, filled with bitter resentment.

The Iron Eagle Kingdom denounced the Church's actions, but the Church of Dawn insisted that it had done nothing against the King. It even produced the Treaty of Nantes Kingdom, declared its strict adherence to its terms, and pointed to the clause forbidding the initiation of military warfare.

The Pope even turned the accusations toward the Empire.

"The Florian Empire killed far too many nobles during the war to annex their lands. Only the Empire would assassinate nobles so treacherously."

And indeed, the Iron Eagle Kingdom became deeply wary of the Empire as well. They had clashed in various ways over the past fortnight. The Empire was too powerful, and the Iron Eagle Kingdom always found itself on the disadvantaged side.

Of course, the two sides were still in their honeymoon period. The Empire dispatched an army toward the Iron Eagle Kingdom, but it did not enter the kingdom's territory, instead placing it under the King's command.

This happened around the time the treaty arrived in the Frozen Earth Territory.