Zhitomir City, fifty li outside Galgada.
The city walls were blasted open one after another, and large forces from the Aima Republic swept into the city, which had a garrison of only ten thousand.
Floch and Adonis marched out together, personally leading more than six hundred thousand troops under Adonis's command. Taking advantage of the Marleyan army's concentration in the north, they captured more than twenty cities along the route to Brittany.
Floch climbed onto a captured platform and raised his binoculars to survey the scattered pockets of resistance inside the city. He said to Adonis beside him, "Adonis, this city is about to fall. Have your men mop up the remaining Marleyan guerrillas. I don't want heavy losses, understand? Use any means necessary to minimize casualties."
"Yes, Governor-General!" Adonis lowered his head in assent. Though he was the president of the Aima Republic, he had no choice but to bow and scrape before this governor-general.
"Once we're finished here, attack Brittany immediately. I want our men to occupy Galgada's City Hall before the Mid-East Allied Forces get there. Understood?"
"Yes!" Adonis accepted the order.
Adonis immediately went to the front and began indoctrinating his subordinates. "Great people of Marley, we belong to the great Marleyan nation! But do you know what Zhitomir, up ahead, is? It's the closest place to Brittany, our second-largest city!"
"And what kind of place is that? It's where the noble lords gather! This time, we will utterly overthrow those old nobles who lord it over the Marleyan people! We will bring true freedom to the poor people of Marley!"
Nearly ninety percent of Adonis's subordinates came from Marley's impoverished lower classes and had long harbored deep resentment toward its aristocratic political system. At Adonis's urging, they naturally vented all their hatred on the city's