On the eastern plains of the Western Continent, the once picturesque great grasslands were now blanketed in the smoke of war.
The Lulin Duchy was a small nation in the heart of the eastern plains, built primarily on animal husbandry. The duchy's cheese was renowned throughout the Western Continent, especially several varieties of premium cheese fermented and mold-aged through secret arts—indispensable delicacies at aristocratic feasts.
But today, the Lulin Duchy had been overrun by refugees and defeated soldiers.
Crude tents and ramshackle thatched huts stood everywhere. Outside the Lulin Duchy's capital, as far as the eye could see lay sprawling refugee camps in utter disarray. Some routed soldiers from several small eastern nations were relying on brute force to run wild through the camps, wantonly plundering wealth—and, incidentally, stripping several pretty girls naked to give them their first lessons in life.
The soldiers' behavior alerted the Lulin Duchy's law-enforcement corps, and several dozen enforcement soldiers hurried over.
But the Lulin Duchy's military was appallingly poor. Its standing army numbered fewer than thirty thousand, and the individual fighting strength of those thirty thousand men was absurdly low. Rather than soldiers, they were more like militiamen; their combat strength was even inferior to the local defense squads at Dunkirk Port.
As for those soldiers who had managed to escape the battlefield, they were veterans who had at least crossed blades with nomad cavalry. The moment the Lulin Duchy enforcement soldiers surrounded them, the rogue troops brandished their weapons and launched an attack. After a chaotic brawl, the duchy's enforcement corps was beaten bloody and sent scurrying away like rats clutching their heads. The rogue soldiers only grew more rampant, continuing their ravages through the refugee camps.
Madeleine Lulin, the current Grand Duchess of Lulin, stood blankly atop the city wall, at a