Chapter Summaries

Count Wellington inspected Hansen County’s new rifle and production line, then reported their progress to King Bruno. The King praised the weapon and believed the Kingdom could overcome the Northern Duchy, while Hansen County still needed money and steel to expand production.

• Count Wellington arrived in Hansen County and warned Snow and the other officials that failures in the new rifles would bring severe punishment.
• Snow showed Count Wellington the new rifle and production line, claiming the design was reliable and production could greatly exceed Type Zero Rifle output.
• Snow requested more funding to support research, production, and stockpiles of steel and other raw materials.
• Count Wellington returned to the Royal Capital with the inspection results and a new rifle, and King Bruno tested the weapon and praised it.
• King Bruno and Count Wellington concluded that the Kingdom had caught up with the Northern Duchy and discussed using the Kingdom’s growing military strength to win the war.

The Pontiff moved the Church’s secret army toward the Royal Capital before it was fully prepared, while David, an Inquisition cleric secretly loyal to the New Church, warned Derek’s Ninth Investigation Department. The Church’s forces began slipping through the capital’s defenses, aided by Bishop Qazim and gate officer Parker.

• An Inquisition messenger told a priest that the Pontiff had ordered the operation moved up because the royal territory was preparing a new army, and the priest agreed to gather his men.
• David learned the Church was about to act and reported the news to a Ninth Investigation Department safehouse, which passed it to Derek.
• The Pontiff’s plan was already underway as Church soldiers from nearby regions marched toward the Royal Capital under cover of night.
• Bishop Qazim told Parker he needed to leave the city to perform final prayers for a believer, and Parker ordered the north gate opened.

Bishop Qazim coerced General Parker into helping the Church army enter the Royal Capital through its gates. As Church forces seized the gate area, a City Guard patrol arrived and found itself facing the armed invaders.

• Bishop Qazim warned General Parker that opening the gates would make him a traitor, and Parker surrendered his sidearm and chose to cooperate.
• Church troops entered the Royal Capital, disarmed the guards, and took control of the area around the gates.
• Bishop Qazim introduced Parker to the Black-Robed Priests as a supporter who could help them, while Parker accepted that he could no longer undo his decision.
• After gunshots drew a City Guard patrol toward the gates, the patrol encountered Church troops marching out of the darkness and found rifles aimed at them.

The Church's army launched a surprise attack on the Royal Capital and reached the palace, forcing King Bruno and the Imperial Guard to prepare for a siege. The Imperial Guard initially dismissed the attackers as an undisciplined rabble, but Church soldiers carrying explosives began breaching the walls.

• The Black-Robed Priest disarmed a City Guard patrol and ordered his army to shoot anyone carrying a gun as it advanced through the city.
• John confirmed that the Church's army was attacking, and King Bruno ordered the palace defended while concealing his fear by having the chamberlain killed.
• Church priests urged their soldiers forward as cannons bombarded the palace walls and the Imperial Guard cut down the first charge.
• Church soldiers strapped explosives to themselves and blew craters in the palace walls, convincing the Imperial Guard that the attackers' fearlessness made them dangerous.

The church army seized the Royal Capital after King Bruno and Commander John fled, while the church took control of the city and conscripted General Parker’s troops. Derek reached the frontline command headquarters with news of the uprising and concluded that the plan had succeeded.

• Commander John warned King Bruno that the palace could not be held, and the King escaped through a secret passage with some relatives.
• The church army breached the palace, and soldiers killed several princes and princesses who had not escaped.
• A priest ordered General Parker and his surrendered City Guard to remain under church authority until a bishop arrived.
• Parker disguised himself, slipped away, and secretly delivered a coded note to a spy before seeking Bishop Qazim.
• Derek traveled to the frontline command headquarters after learning of the uprising and told Man Niu and the others that the Holy Cross Kingdom had fallen for their plan.

Derek delayed a full offensive while mobilizing the Northern Duchy’s forces, and Fernandez responded to the church rebellion by reorganizing the Holy Cross Kingdom’s defenses. The chapter ended with Fernandez monitoring the Northern Duchy’s rapid deployment as he prepared for the crisis to deepen.

• Derek ordered limited attacks across the front, nationwide reservist mobilization, and the creation of five divisions while keeping his larger plans secret.
• Fernandez learned that the church had rebelled, ordered the defensive line to contract, and led the disarming of the church troops.
• At Boke Town, two Holy Cross Kingdom infantry regiments braced for a retreat and repelled two Northern Duchy charges during the night.
• The Northern Duchy deployed more than six divisions across nearly the entire front, astonishing Fernandez’s adjutant with its speed.
• Fernandez asked after his royal brother and ordered constant reports on Northern Duchy troop movements and supplies.

Duke Fernandes inspected the Northern Duchy’s assault at Boke Town and reinforced the Holy Cross front. After stabilizing the defenses, he prepared to build up his forces and attack the church while keeping the Connor Family in mind.

• King Bruno returned to Hansen County and warned Duke Fernandes to watch the Northern Duchy and seek a chance to strike the church.
• Duke Fernandes received intelligence that the Northern Duchy was conscripting troops and forming a Guard Division, then led the Dragon Rider Regiment to Boke Town.
• The Dragon Rider Regiment broke through the Northern Duchy’s outer line, relieved Boke Town, and forced the attackers to sound a retreat.
• Duke Fernandes inspected the battlefield and questioned frontline soldiers before promising reinforcements and a later rotation for the defenders.
• Duke Fernandes began conscripting troops and incorporating screened church soldiers into his regiments, planning to attack the church once the front was secure.

Earl Connor rejected Corison's proposal to switch sides and instead surrendered command of the family's private infantry to Duke Fernandes while remaining committed to the Northern Duchy. As Fernandes returned to the front with a seventy-thousand-man army, Derek launched his long-planned operation and rapidly deployed the newly formed Guard Division.

• Corison urged Earl Connor to repair relations with the royal family, but Earl Connor explained that the royal family had weakened and the Connor Family was too deeply committed to the Northern Duchy to change sides.
• Earl Connor met Duke Fernandes outside his territory and offered the Connor Family's private infantry regiment to serve the king, naming Corison to lead it.
• The next day, Corison handed over the regiment, and Fernandes gathered more than twenty thousand additional soldiers from nearby nobles, forming an army of seventy thousand.
• After confirming the front was stable, Fernandes led his army back, and Derek ordered his operation to begin once Fernandes's army clashed with the Church's forces.
• The Guard Division filled its ranks with recruits and reservists, then traveled by train from Pulan City to Digen Port and onward toward the front, equipped from warehouses there.

The Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division was rapidly equipped and sent to the front as the royal army’s long-planned mobilization proceeded. Duke Fernandes’s forces captured a city and destroyed the Church’s remaining stronghold there, leaving the church in flames.

• The Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division arrived at Digen Port Station, formed ranks, and received its weapons and equipment from the Ministry of Army.
• After resting for two days, the division set off for the front as other divisions were also transported and equipped in a matter of weeks.
• Duke Fernandes redeployed seven divisions while his army gained the advantage over the Church’s forces near Hansen County and the Royal Capital.
• Duke Fernandes ordered an officer to lead an assault on the church where Church soldiers had retreated, threatening to shoot him if he refused.
• The battle consumed the church in flames, and Duke Fernandes declared that the royal family would build a new church while his soldiers eliminated the rebels.

Viscount Barin led a secretly assembled force to massacre Wil Village while making the killings appear to be Duke Fernandes’s work. As similar massacres spread, a rural priest gathered armed villagers into a self-defense force, and tensions across the region escalated.

• Earl Connor ordered Knight Kane and his men to follow Barin, who gathered scattered forces into five battalions and waited until Duke Fernandes’s army had moved on.
• Barin ordered Kane’s soldiers to raid Wil Village under the royal banner, loot the homes, kill the villagers, and burn the settlement.
• Barin’s force left deliberately spared survivors to blame the massacre on Duke Fernandes’s army, and similar slaughters followed in nearby areas.
• A rural priest claimed to have ten Church rifles and recruited farmers into a village self-defense force.
• Royal officials sent patrols and stationed troops in tense communities, which had become powder kegs.

The royal army sent a small unit to garrison Pumpkin Village, where the villagers mistook its arrival for a threat and prepared to resist. A militia member accidentally shot one of the soldiers, triggering a chaotic exchange of gunfire that left the confrontation unresolved.

• After the Wil Village massacre, the royal family dispatched troops to garrison nearby settlements and restore order.
• The villagers of Pumpkin Village spotted a royal army unit approaching, and the priest organized the militia to defend the village.
• The soldiers joked about exploiting the villagers as they marched toward Pumpkin Village, expecting an easy posting.
• At the village entrance, a soldier kicked the barricade and demanded that the villagers let the army in.
• A militia member accidentally shot the soldier dead, and both sides began firing wildly.

A militia repelled a royalist squad during the spreading peasant uprising, while Duke Fernandes continued his brutal campaign against the church near the Royal Capital. The Pontiff’s army retreated into the city, where he resolved to deny Fernandes victory and turn the church’s remaining influence over to the Northern Duke.

• The squad leader fled after a frightened soldier was shot, and the militia emerged to find four dead attackers and usable rifles.
• Local officials faced widespread armed resistance as villages formed alliances and church personnel, believers, and royalist forces were hunted down.
• Duke Fernandes slaughtered church forces near the Royal Capital, and the royal army from Hansen County joined his campaign despite the King’s appeals for restraint.
• The church army retreated into the Royal Capital, where the Pontiff rejected the priests’ calls to keep fighting and condemned Fernandes as a demon.
• The Pontiff vowed not to let Fernandes take the Royal Capital without paying a terrible price and decided to entrust the church’s remaining influence to the Northern Duke.

As the Church fled the burning Royal Capital with evidence of the Bruno Royal Family’s crimes, the newly arrived Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division prepared to strike the Holy Cross Kingdom at Boke Town. The Third Regiment began its first assault under cover of heavy artillery.

• Fernandez attacked the Royal Capital, while escaping priests carried film rolls of the Bruno Royal Family’s crimes to deliver to Archbishop John Hadley.
• General Charlie reported the Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division’s arrival to Derek, who assigned it a mission to exploit the Bruno Royal Family and Church’s conflict.
• Charlie ordered the division to march at dawn, and the Third Regiment volunteered to lead its first battle.
• The Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division reached Boke Town, where the Provisional Brigade’s soldiers doubted the inexperienced troops could survive an assault.
• The Third Regiment began mobilizing as its 280mm Heavy Artillery bombarded the enemy, and its commander tied on a red ribbon before leading the charge.

The Fourth Imperial Guard Infantry Division broke through the Holy Cross Kingdom’s defenses at Boke Town and joined forces with Viscount Barin’s collaborators to cut enemy supply routes. As the Northern Duchy’s advance neared Connor territory, Earl Connor armed his household and took Corison with him, while Corison wrongly assumed they were going to fight for the Kingdom.

• The Third Regiment charged into the bombardment zone, seized the enemy trenches, and opened a gap that let the Fourth Division surge into Holy Cross Kingdom territory.
• Viscount Barin withdrew his troops and reassured Knight Kane that the Northern Duchy would break through, just before news arrived that its army had reached their camp.
• Divisional Commander Charlie met Viscount Barin, who pledged support from fifteen noble families, and asked him to help cut off the enemy’s supply routes.
• Earl Connor sealed his castle and armed his guards after learning that Northern Duchy troops were less than ten li from his lands.
• Corison excitedly expected to fight for the Kingdom, but Earl Connor ordered him equipped and brought along as the household departed.

Earl Connor’s forces attacked a royal supply convoy and openly committed to the Northern Duchy. As cavalry bearing the duke’s personal banner arrived, Earl Connor realized the Northern Duke had come to the front lines.

• Earl Connor rebuked Corison and ordered his men to help the Northern Duchy.
• Earl Connor led his forces into an ambush on a royal supply convoy near his territory.
• The convoy officer recognized the Connor Family’s banner and realized Earl Connor had rebelled.
• Corison accepted his father’s decision, helped gather spoils, and pursued deserters.
• Earl Connor’s men heard approaching cavalry and saw the Northern Duchy’s Two-Headed Dragon Banner.
• Earl Connor recognized the duke’s personal banner and wondered why the Northern Duke had come to the front lines.

Derek offered Earl Connor command of a Northern Duchy division as his forces advanced toward the Holy Cross Royal Capital. The capital’s royal forces learned that the Northern Duchy had breached the front lines, but Duke Fernandez struggled to find troops capable of returning to defend their territory.

• Earl Connor submitted to Derek, who offered him an army command and plans to march on the Holy Cross Royal Capital.
• Earl Connor warned Derek that the capital’s church loyalists would be difficult to defeat, but Derek said four divisions would arrive within a week and ten more could be formed within three months.
• An attendant told Earl Connor that Fernandez was being blamed for massacring the faithful, and Connor realized the Northern Duchy was manipulating events behind the scenes.
• Duke Fernandes surveyed the devastated Royal Capital and worried that his guess about impending trouble might be right.
• Fernandez’s adjutant reported that the Northern Duchy had breached the front lines with at least five divisions, and Fernandez ordered the army to return.
• The adjutant warned that the exhausted, depleted troops might not survive the withdrawal, so Fernandez resolved to pull out as many men as possible.

Derek’s forces crushed the Holy Cross army in a decisive battle, leaving Corison to help clear and burn the battlefield’s enormous number of corpses. The chapter ended with Corison overwhelmed by the stench as the corpse pit caught fire.

• Fernandez sent ten thousand troops toward the front and asked his royal brother to recruit reinforcements.
• Derek’s Imperial Guard divisions and allied forces broke through the Holy Cross defenses, and Man Niu launched a decisive battle with more than a hundred thousand infantrymen.
• The Northern Duchy’s forces wiped out or captured the encircled Holy Cross troops, cowing Earl Connor, Viscount Barin, and the other nobles who witnessed the battle.
• Earl Connor assigned Corison to lead the family’s soldiers in clearing the battlefield.
• Corison and his men gathered the corpses and threw them into a firewood-filled pit, where soldiers added gunpowder and set it alight.
• Corison finally retched as the burning bodies gave off a nauseating smell.

The Northern Duchy continued its conquest of the Holy Cross Kingdom as the 6th Guards Infantry Division routed Duke Fernandes's forces and occupied territory supplied recruits and resources. Barin received a personal appointment from Derek to form and command the 102nd Infantry Division.

• Earl Connor appointed Corison battalion commander in the 101st Infantry Division and assigned the division to maintain order and suppress remaining resistance.
• Derek's forces seized the three eastern provinces while Fernandez gathered routed soldiers and marched to confront them with a poorly equipped army of just over twenty thousand.
• The 6th Guards Infantry Division attacked Duke Fernandes's army and broke its leading regiment before driving the larger force back in a meeting engagement.
• Duke Fernandes escaped and resolved to build successive defensive lines, hoping to wear down the Northern Duchy's forces with the kingdom's population and industrial supplies.
• The Northern Duchy expanded wartime production and railway construction, while newly occupied lands began training recruits to reinforce the 101st Infantry Division.
• Barin handed his regiment to Earl Connor, reported to a recruit camp, and accepted Derek's appointment as commander tasked with forming the 102nd Infantry Division.

Viscount Barin formed the 102nd Infantry Division and led it to assist the 101st Division in an assault against the Holy Cross Kingdom. He learned that his father’s division had suffered heavy losses against fierce resistance, while the Northern Duchy had changed its surrender policy.

• Viscount Barin accepted command of the 102nd Infantry Division as it was filled with trained officers and recruits.
• The 102nd Infantry Division completed intensive training and received orders to assist the 101st Division in an assault.
• Viscount Barin led his division fifteen days to the designated location and found the 101st Division understrength with low morale.
• Former subordinates told Viscount Barin that Fernandez’s resistance had caused heavy losses and that the duchy no longer accepted surrenders from nobles who kept their titles.
• Viscount Barin recognized the shift in the duchy’s political strategy and went to meet his father.

Earl Connor reassured Viscount Barin that his reassignment was routine, then watched the 102nd Division demonstrate its superior combat effectiveness in battle. As Northern Duchy reinforcements broke through the front, Fernandez returned to Hansen County, where King Bruno asked whether any hope remained.

• Earl Connor told Viscount Barin not to worry about the 101st Division's reassignment and urged him to follow orders.
• The 102nd Division took over the offensive against an exhausted enemy, and Viscount Barin saw its staff and troops coordinate attacks effectively.
• The 102nd Division launched five attacks in one day and seized part of the enemy positions, prompting Viscount Barin to predict victory within five days.
• Fresh Northern Duchy divisions arrived and drove a breakthrough across the defensive line, while Fernandez gave up the struggle and returned to Hansen County with the Dragon Rider Corps.
• King Bruno asked Fernandez whether there was any hope left.