A Treacherous Courtier Manages the Empire Well

106 – Base Looting

“Are we ready?”

“Everything is set.”

The young World Tree replied, inhaling the scent of gunpowder. She frowned.

“Indeed, it’s not a pleasant smell. Removing cartridge casings is quite a task.”

Rasheed Sultan gazed at the chaos these culprits had created.

The execution squad’s sorcerers had flown away due to Amir’s rebellion, but to say that there were no sorcerers in Karamba would be inaccurate. The best sorcerers, carefully selected from various tribes, had gathered here.

The sorcerers of Karamba and the waterfolk of Ailam were gathered in one place, undergoing World Tree infiltration training repeatedly.

“I’ve perfectly replicated the physical structure of the Mother Tree within my body. I’ve undergone infiltration training hundreds of times, and as we are all bound by a covenant, I can share the Mother Tree’s vision. When the actual operation begins, I’ll be able to start knowing the exact locations of the enemy elves.”

“The probability of success?”

“If it were just sorcerers and waterfolk, we would never have won. But with them added, the story will change significantly.”

Suddenly, people descended from the sky. They were the elementalists led by Tamir Khan from the Limnakal Plains.

“Let’s try it again! It seems we need to eliminate the stumbling at the second corner.”

“Agreed. Let’s try again.”

Elementalists. Sorcerers. And waterfolk.

They formed a special forces unit comprised of Karamba and Ailam’s elite.

The waterfolk began shooting, the elementalists sent out their elementals, the sorcerers cast protective spells on the waterfolk, turning them into formidable tanks.

“Randor’s death was truly remarkable.”

By pressuring each tribal chief, they were able to bring forth the most powerful sorcerers they possessed. Upon hearing that their benefactor Randor had died, the waterfolk dedicated themselves to training with a sense of impending doom.

The elementalists led by Tamir Khan were no different.

Considering the tremendous influence Randor had wielded across the continent, it was not surprising to see such reactions.

“It’s an excessively convenient element. It serves as a justification, boosts morale, can pacify all complaints, and can also be excellently used to pressure the lazy and timid dragons.”

“Fortunately, it seems no one has noticed yet.”

“It won’t be a long-lasting matter. Understand?”

“Yes.”

After finishing his conversation with the young World Tree, Rasheed Sultan teleported back to Dagamba from the Limnakal Plains.

Normally bustling with noise and all sorts of goods being traded, Dagamba was eerily quiet today.

The reason being that the forces of all tribes from various regions had gathered in front of Dagamba’s plains.

A massive army of 70,000 troops, even more than the 500,000-strong army once led by Sultan Saladin during its prime, had assembled near Dagamba.

Elephants and horses numbered in the thousands, and the fierce aura exuded by well-trained soldiers was pressing down on the entire area of Dagamba with an intimidating atmosphere.

“Sultan, your command.”

The chieftains of the Western Great Plains, the Barren Plains, and the Southern Great Plains each approached him, kneeling and waiting for the departure order.

Rasheed gazed across to the vast land of Fantasia on the other side of the sea.

Then, drawing his elegantly curved Karamba traditional sword, Shamshir, he pointed it forward.

“Randor. I command vengeance for the death of our brother. March forth.”

As those words fell, a deafeningly immense sound of horns reverberated.

Thousands of elephants and horses.

Tens of thousands of troops began to move.

What they were moving towards were the huge portals created on one side of Dagamba with the help of Ailam’s magicians.

Powered by massive high-purity magic stones, these colossal portals transported numerous elephants and troops, making them disappear.

Rasheed Sultan, along with the tribal chiefs, crossed the portal last.

Upon crossing the portal, they were greeted by the cold wind and the vast northern sea.

As they beheld the endless expanse of the sea, people murmured in awe.

“Sultan. Isn’t it the sea? How do you plan to cross it?”

“Collecting all available and unavailable forces amounts to a figure of 700,000. It seems there are no ships to carry them all?”

In response to the chieftains’ question, Rashid raised his hand and pointed to the sky.

On one side of the sky, a majestic Blue Dragon floated gracefully, flapping its wings.

In reality, he was a lazy deity who enjoyed snacking and reading comics in his corner, but as he floated in the air in the form of a dragon, he exuded a remarkably dignified presence.

“[Solidify].”

And the dragon, gathered by the seashore, cast a powerful verbal spell in a booming voice so that all 700,000 troops could hear.

Amused, Rashid chuckled and stepped forward.

With boldness, he began walking towards the seashore.

“Sultan! Stop! The seawater is cold!”

The soldiers tried to stop him, but the Sultan ignored all resistance and continued walking towards the seashore. The chilly water splashed against his feet.

He pressed on.

As the soldiers and generals watched him, their expressions shifted from concern to astonishment.

“Wait, is he…?”

“He’s walking on the water!!!”

The Sultan did not sink beneath the water. He stood firm on its surface.

Advancing about 30 meters, he stood confidently on the seawater, facing his troops and shouted.

“Behold!! Warriors of the plains!!!!”

With the timely amplification magic from the Blue Dragon, the Sultan’s voice reached all the assembled troops on the seashore.

“Now, this is no longer the sea!! It’s just another plain!!!!!!”

At his words, the soldiers’ expressions changed.

It was no false claim.

The moment they could walk on water. The sea transformed into a battlefield familiar to them.

An expansive, vast field.

A battlefield where they rode horses, wielded bows and rode elephants, a battlefield they were all too accustomed to.

“The seven great dragons and thousands of wyverns will aid us!! Everything we consume, eat, and drink will be provided by the wyverns descending from the sky, and the sea has become our new plain!! Charge!! For the vengeance of Brother Randor!!!!!!”

“For Brother Randor!!!!!!”

Elephants, humans, and horses set foot in the seawater.

They did not sink beneath the water.

The dragon’s powerful incantation magic made incredible miracles possible.

Thus, the 700,000 Karamba army began to run the sea like a plain. Casting a spell of fleetness on elephants, humans, and horses, they raced across the sea at a terrifying speed, enough to dismay their adversaries.

As the Karamba army raced across the sea.

“The enemies killed the messengers!!! They killed our envoy! The envoy of Randor! This is an unforgivable trespass and an unbearable insult!! Blood will be repaid with blood! Forward! Soldiers of the Empire!!”

The 300,000 Imperial troops were also preparing for battle.

The soldiers clad in magical armor each held a firearm in their hands.

Only a few vanguard units held close-range melee weapons, while most carried firearms powered by gunpowder.

And there they were, not alone.

300 artillery cannons raced across the sea, and the steel battleships developed by the Empire began to move.

If the Karamba forces were comprised of humans and beasts, the Aylam army seemed like a legion of machines made of steel.

Alongside these legions.

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“Charge! We will prevail!!!”

Karina’s cry, wielding the holy sword atop the warm-class guardian dragon, resounds.

Six dragons and one warm-class guardian dragon.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and countless war weapons made of steel began to move across the sea towards the land of Fantasia.

It was two days before the armies of Karamba and Aylam gathered at the frontlines of Fantasia.

And of course.

“Commander-in-chief!!! Commander-in-chief!!!!”

“Oh, human forces on the front sea!!”

“Seven dragons are hovering in the air!! There’s also one warm-class dragon!!”

“The number of wyverns covers the sky!!! Estimated to be at least thousands!!!”

Altogether, a million human forces.

Hundreds of self-propelled artillery.

Dozens of steel battleships.

Thousands of wyverns and eight dragons.

Thousands of horses and elephants walking on the sea as if on land, landing on the land of Fantasia, was nothing short of a cosmic horror in itself.

The sea, the sky, and the land were all enemy forces.

The commander-in-chief and the high elf council had no choice but to panic.

“This was not part of the plan!!! Why on earth are the dragons moving!”

“We must not lose our nerve and act recklessly, right?”

“What in the world is the number of those human forces!! Where did they amass such a huge number!………”

“There are plenty of weapons we’ve never seen before! We have no experience dealing with that!”

The commander-in-chief bangs the table to quiet down the elders. Despite trying to maintain a composed expression, the commander-in-chief, too, was sweating profusely in the face of the enormous army that had gathered in the blink of an eye.

“What matters now is not that! What matters now is driving them out!”

“How do we drive them out! How!!!”

“Even if we had only seven dragons, we would need all elven warriors to barely contain them! Yet there are human forces and wyverns in abundance! How do we win this!!!”

“Send out all high elf forces with the power of the treaty. Deploy all wood elves and dark elves!! A well-trained elven warrior can defeat a thousand human soldiers! Dragons are cowards!! We all know this fact well, don’t we? Injure the dragons and make them flee, then leisurely deal with the remaining human forces!”

All the elders fall silent.

The plan seemed plausible, but dragons and humans are not fools.

They had no idea how to fight against the thousands of wyverns guarding the dragons in the air, and how to deal with the large artillery and steel battleships.

Elves had never fought a war that risked the fate of their tribe for over thousands of years.

They didn’t know they shouldn’t kill messengers, and humans were blinded by arrogance, thinking they were nothing even if they raged.

They were only afraid of dragons, and expected that these cowardly fellows, who fear getting hurt, would not advance, and even if they did, they would retreat in fear after inflicting only wounds.

But everything changed.

They could fight.

With the power of the treaty commanding hundreds of top-tier spirits, and even without the power of the treaty, there were tens of thousands of elves who had honed spirit magic for centuries.

They had the strength to fight against a million human forces and eight dragons with thousands of wyverns.

But the possibility of fighting and the prospect of victory were not the same.

“For now, gather all forces where they are! If they approach the Mother Tree, it will be a disaster! We must stop them at all costs!”

“Understood.”

With that, the frightened elves deployed all their warriors to the location where the humans had gathered.

Of course, the morale of the Elven army was hitting rock bottom.

When the insults about being a lowly race started to pile up, it was just a matter of time before it got under their skin.

“Brothers. Is what we’re seeing now true?”

“It is the truth. Brothers. It is.”

“The sea and the land… covered with humans.”

With a heavily armed force of a million soldiers and a dragon unit covering the sky, it was the perfect psychological pressure on the Elves.

And so, around fifty thousand Elven troops suddenly faced off against the human forces.

However, contrary to what was expected of an imminent war.

“Do not slack on guard.”

“Never strike first!”

The humans did not launch an attack.

While Elves remained puzzled by the passive enemy forces, they maintained a high alert state, unprecedented in Elven history, as they faced off against the human troops.

The human forces, on the other hand, showed no signs of easing tension, casually receiving supplies via dragon delivery and even showing leisure in having their dinner.

And so, the peculiar standoff between humans and Elves continued late into the night.

And.

“Lord Chertu.”

“Speak.”

“Those Elven fellows. Looks like they’ve never been in a war before, huh?”

“Agreed. While their individual combat prowess is remarkable, tactically, they are a complete failure.”

“Leaving their main base so empty like this. Truly.”

As the Elven main force tensely faced off against the human troops.

A special unit comprised of Giants, Elementalists, and Shamans was quietly ascending the trunk of the Mother World Tree under the cover of night.