The Governor Guards the Nation's Gates, the Grand Duke Dies for the State-That's the Ambition of Our Transia!

Hugheson had been secretly working with the Bonechewer clan through the Bloodscar clan as a "middleman," arranging backroom deals even before entering the Filthy Swamp. It had quietly set the plan in motion, obtaining plenty of explosives from its "allies" before stunning everyone beneath the Maginot Line.

Just how much dynamite did the Chosen have on hand?

Put it this way: it had stockpiled enough explosives to bring down Fort Crimea. The demand was so enormous that even its allies could only supply them in batches.

But after Brass Fortress collapsed, a few steps through the ruins were enough to turn up piles of this standard dwarven explosive. The Bonechewer clan didn't even need to make a special effort to collect it to meet the needs of the central front. They didn't care much about the stuff anyway. German Bonechewer had already invaded the Genoa Peninsula, which for the past several centuries had been the continent's most advanced region in engineering. It was on a completely different level from the backward regions elsewhere.

All you had to do was open an engineering warehouse, and you could find plenty of explosives.

So when the central battlefield requested help, German Bonechewer—the Bonechewer King, who had been riding high lately and spending every day enjoying the pleasures of slaughter and conquest—didn't refuse. Instead, he provided Hugheson with what it needed, as if showing off his military prowess.

The Bloodscar clan was only able to pull this off because German Bonechewer didn't know Hugheson's true identity.

If the Bonechewer King knew Hugheson was the brother he'd lost as a child—and one of the only two Bonechewer-blooded gnolls of this generation—this dangerous business would probably be off the table.

Even now, as Hugheson's army launched a fierce assault on the Maginot Line, the Bloodscar clan's