War had not broken out in the Rulson Kingdom alone.
At the very moment Count Antusol fell in battle, more than 2,400 kilometers to the north, on the border between the Drake Duchy and the Frank Kingdom, a massive army composed of soldiers from the Malo Empire and the Frank Kingdom, several times larger than the Radiant Legion, was locked in fierce combat with a much smaller force of only a few thousand men.
Yet the battle clearly favored the force of only a few thousand. The allied army assembled by the Malo Empire and the Frank Kingdom had been completely suppressed from beginning to end, putting up little resistance.
The commander of the operation, Marquis Raven, a general of the Malo Empire Military Department, watched grimly as the flashes of mana shells streaked across the sky. Listening to one violent explosion after another erupt within his own ranks, he could no longer contain his anger.
"Where is our Mana Cannon Battalion? Why hasn't it caught up yet?"
Beside him, the allied army's deputy commander, Marquis Guduoer, sighed and shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. The Mana Cannons can't keep up. They're probably still at least twenty kilometers away."
"Then why have those bastards across from us already deployed their Mana Cannons, while we can't?" Marquis Raven demanded angrily.
Marquis Guduoer smiled wryly. "Raven, those people were obviously prepared to meet us here, so of course they had their Mana Cannons deployed in advance. We had to travel several hundred kilometers from the empire. How could we possibly be as well prepared as they are? If we didn't have a complete road network now, even getting those cumbersome Mana Cannons here would be a problem."
At this, Marquis Raven's brows drew together even tighter.
"Why are our Mana