King Brunhild of Suluka raised her head from her desk and saw Vice Admiral Ostana Bal standing at the office door.
Ever since the Battle of the Ring of Miracles, the core members under King Brunhild had all been rewarded with promotions and pay raises. The chief of staff was naturally no exception. She had even been granted the title of Baroness of Mingylen, officially transforming from a small-town scholar born to an ordinary citizen family into a hereditary noblewoman with a fief. It was nothing short of a leap in social class.
However, the jubilation that had enveloped Brunhild's entire fleet vanished in less than two weeks.
On the last day of September, when the main fleet led by Brunhild was only forty-eight hours from Unity Fortress, they finally received the devastating news.
The fall of a Grand Elector, the destruction of a Titan, and the deaths of nearly five hundred thousand Imperial soldiers had all occurred within half a single day. Perhaps only the meat grinder known as the Third Galactic War, fought before the Common Galactic Calendar, had ever produced such appalling losses.
Even so, Brunhild could only rush to the scene as quickly as possible and do everything in her power to rescue whatever survivors might still exist.
She sincerely hoped she could save King Sorein. It was not merely because that royal uncle had been the first to personally state that he would fully support her in the election of the emperor, but also because he had served as half her teacher in military strategy.
Before Brunhild formally entered the advanced division of the Royal Military Academy at thirteen, all her military knowledge had come from either the family tutor corps led by Marshal Xiu Lai or the military summer camps King Sorein had organized