"Count Dempsey, you're a clever man, and I'm glad."
Captain Hart's towering figure stood before Count Dempsey, who was not even one hundred seventy centimeters tall, looming over him like a mountain and radiating pressure.
"Thanks to your wise decision, the people of Mero City won't suffer any further harm in the fighting. They should thank their city lord for making such a sound decision. On behalf of the president, I also commend your good judgment. Before we departed, the president repeatedly stressed that he hoped we could accomplish our objective while minimizing casualties, especially among civilians. Now that you've chosen to open the city and surrender, everyone is satisfied. That's good."
Count Dempsey remained expressionless, but he secretly gritted his teeth as he looked at Captain Hart, wishing he could bite the man to death.
If I had any choice, who the hell would want to open the gates and surrender?
Yet the moment those people from the Xinfei Merchant Guild appeared, they did something completely beyond anyone's expectations. A furious bombardment brought down the entire stretch of wall around Mero City's western gate!
God above! As the most important city on the empire's southwestern frontier, Mero City had always received special funding from the Candel Empire's Military Department to build its walls beyond normal specifications. With several centuries of meticulous management by the Dempsey Family on top of that, those monstrous walls now stood a full thirteen meters high, nearly ten meters thick at their widest point and over five meters even at their narrowest.
Because of those walls, Mero City was even hailed as one of the ten hardest cities to conquer on the Sains Continent.
And yet those very walls, enough to leave almost any enemy despairing at the sight, had not lasted even a minute