"Lord, what should I do?"
Maxwell Barnes's plea vanished like a stone into the sea.
No response came.
Cold sweat slid from Maxwell's temples and dripped onto the stone floor. He was one of the bishops of the Central Holy Church, one of the grand commanders of the Knights Templar.
The highest symbol of the Central Lands' spiritual faith within its secular armed forces.
Or rather, he had been.
But Lynn from the north had swept across the Northern Continent with unstoppable force and was now marching south in full strength.
The Northern Continent claimed to believe in God, yet its reforms steadily drew closer to Lynn's.
Maxwell Barnes knew very well that Lynn did not believe in God.
At his core, he was a heretic, showing none of the respect the gods deserved.
Lynn's Northern Alliance was an empire that worshipped nothing but steel and order.
At least, that was what Maxwell Barnes believed.
They had come to tear down the house—to dismantle the ruling system of the Central Lands.
Their slogan was to purge the heretics of the Central Lands Church and return to farming.
They were Imperial People. The Empire's orthodoxy and the Church's orthodoxy both lay in the north.
That was how they advertised themselves. Maxwell Barnes remembered Instructor Mikhail's warning.
But he had never expected the enemy to be so powerful—powerful enough to drive one into despair.
The entire nation was driven by Lynn's will.
Just when he most needed guidance, when he needed a glimmer of hope to stand against that crushing torrent of steel... all that answered him was this suffocating silence.
He did not know.
The border forces had sent an urgent call for aid. Twenty thousand elite troops had been split apart and surrounded.
His first battle that had shocked the