Goddess Kaleidoscope

After Thomas finished speaking, he looked at Lude with a calm and composed expression, as if he were a righteous and upright gentleman, a guardian of morality who was not afraid of any threat in order to defend ethics and social norms.

Moreover, from his last seemingly sophistical statement, Ludwig gleaned another layer of meaning: he had been prepared all along and had probably already released a smokescreen, sending people to spread similar rumors before clarifying them himself, creating a "crying wolf" effect. In the future, if anyone mentioned that the emperor had a mixed-race illegitimate child, the general public's first reaction would inevitably be to think it was a rumor and they would not believe it at all.

Looking at the Imperial Chancellor, Lud was momentarily stunned before he couldn't help but chuckle. He had to admit that such extreme racist views hadn't even been completely swept into the dustbin of history on Earth, let alone in this magical medieval otherworld.

It really proves the saying true: the fault lies not with any one person, but with the whole world!

Faced with a staunch defender of feudalism with his own complete set of logical loops, Lu De knew that it was pointless to reason with such a person, because they couldn't even align their values.

You say "front gate tower," he hears it as "hip bone shaft," and the two of you have almost completely opposite understandings of "morality."

The simplest way to deal with this kind of person is naturally to physically destroy him. This is not difficult for Lu De now. With just one palm strike of lightning, he can be instantly reduced to ashes, leaving not even a trace.

But the key issue is that such people are not isolated cases. Thomas Goethe represents a group, a class, and there are countless such racists throughout the Canary Islands and even the world.

Ironically, those who support this theory of bloodline are not only the high-ranking nobles, but also the oppressed who live miserable lives. They believe this is a "universal truth" and that their misery is due to their inferior bloodline.

Lu De initially only wanted to avenge his apprentice, but now he has changed his mind, because killing is easy, but destroying the heart is difficult!

At this moment, a red magic missile suddenly rose from the south of the city, signaling that the expeditionary force had successfully entered the city. Lud's mission of containing the enemy was complete. Now, even if the palace guards launched a counterattack, they would not be able to retake the south gate from them. But this was only the first phase of the operation.

Lude turned his head and looked at the prime minister sitting opposite him, a half-smile on his face that made the other man feel uneasy.

"Be thankful! I won't kill you today. That would be too easy on you. You shouldn't, and don't deserve to, die as a hero."

Whether I am a hero or not is not for you to decide. If outsiders call me a demon, I will take it as a compliment.

Thomas responded to Ludger head-on, showing no fear despite the vast difference in their strength. Ludger thought to himself, regardless of the old wall lamp's character and morality, he certainly had an extraordinary amount of courage.

Lude was too lazy to continue arguing with the other party. Thomas had served as the imperial chancellor for most of his life and had served two emperors. His verbal skills were naturally extraordinary. Sophistry was the basic skill that such people relied on for survival.

After getting up and dusting himself off, Lude, under Thomas's bewildered gaze, grabbed the tray of snacks and walked towards the dragon behind him.

Seeing that the other party was about to leave, Thomas secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but couldn't help feeling a little doubtful. He had really prepared himself to "die for his country" when he was facing the opponent alone earlier.

According to the information currently available to the Empire, Lud's strength is unfathomable, far exceeding the level that ordinary people can reach. Five top experts from the Empire have been defeated by him, including Shadow Guard Byrne, who has always been considered the strongest living person in the Empire.

So when this person suddenly appeared in the capital, riding a dragon directly to the palace gate, the palace guards were completely stunned. The few "elite guards" left behind originally wanted to bite the bullet and go up to defend, but the prime minister stopped them with a look in time.

Of the five masters who were defeated earlier, only Byrne remains missing; the other four have "high-profilely betrayed" and gone to Duke Steiner's side.

The prime minister naturally understood that this was definitely a treacherous scheme by the Durans, but unfortunately, public opinion in the country had already been stirred up by those with ulterior motives, and someone had secretly kidnapped the families of these four masters and sent them all to the east, completely cutting off any possibility that these masters would change their minds.

Therefore, Thomas dared not let any of the other top players play, lest he embarrass himself again and again.

With a light leap, Kanna boarded the dragon's back and carried Lud to the south of the city to join the main force of the expeditionary army. As soon as Lud landed, Duke Crude's personal guards came to greet him. Lud handed the snacks he had taken to Kanna, who had returned to human form, as her "appearance fee" for this trip, and then followed the guards to the command post.

The command post, formerly the barracks of the city's guards, has now been requisitioned by Duke Kruder. The expeditionary force is using the southern barracks as a temporary base and is fighting against the city guards, who have recovered and are attempting a counterattack.

Upon arriving at the command post, Lud saw Duke Krud examining a trophy with great interest. It was a battle flag embroidered with the imperial military emblem, made of exquisite materials. The duke looked it over a few times, then casually tossed it to a personal guard beside him, pointing at the flag and saying...

"From now on, I'll use this thing to wipe my combat boots!"

After giving instructions to his personal guards, Duke Kruder turned to look at Lud, his face beaming with excitement.

After all, before this, Duran's side had always been at a disadvantage in the confrontation with the Empire. Duke Kruder had guarded the border for so many years, and he had never imagined that one day he could lead his army to the capital of the Empire. This feeling of overwhelming the enemy made the nearly fifty-year-old duke feel like he was dreaming.

“Master, we really did it! Those arrogant imperialists were caught completely off guard. You weren’t here just now, and when I was interrogating those prisoners, the expressions on their faces when they heard we were Durans were priceless. It’s such a shame you didn’t see it.”

"That's normal, but this state of panic shouldn't last long. On my way back, I saw from the air that the enemy had organized a fairly large-scale counterattack. What's the situation with our troops?"

"The situation is alright. Following your advice, I didn't let our troops advance recklessly. Instead, we used the barbican as a stronghold to block the enemy's counterattack. The artillery is carrying the cannons we brought onto the city walls. Once deployed, a good portion of the city will be within our firepower. Oh, by the way, our dwarven engineers also said that there are some Imperial heavy ballistae and catapults in the barbican, which can also be used."

After listening to the Duke's report, Lud nodded. Everything was progressing smoothly according to his plan. However, their objective in this operation was not to capture the capital or destroy the city, but to disrupt the empire's rear and force their invading army to withdraw.

So, in addition to this surprise force of eight thousand men, Lud also personally visited the noble faction in the eastern part of the empire and the barbarians in the southern wilderness, successfully persuading them to join in the trouble. The beacon fires lit in the capital were the signal.

In addition to these military actions, Lud also had a sudden idea to give the Empire another "big job".

This idea came to him after meeting Chancellor Goethe. If it could really succeed, it would probably bring about some earth-shattering and significant changes not only within the empire but throughout the entire world.

King Canary III, who was on the front lines, was in a bad mood. The fortress in front of him had been difficult to capture for a long time, and bad news from the rear kept coming.

First, their own capital was attacked by an army of tens of thousands from Duran, who managed to reach the city gates without anyone noticing.

Although Chancellor Goethe repeatedly emphasized in his letter that the enemy had only occupied a small part of the city and had not been able to break into the center, and that the palace was still under the control of the imperial army, the enemy eventually broke through the city walls and entered the so-called invincible capital.

So no matter how much the Empire emphasizes that it only went in an inch or two and didn't stuff it all in, in the eyes of those hostile forces outside, your Empire was just a bunch of Duran brutes and violent scholars!

The attack on the capital city also directly led to two other pieces of bad news.

The day after the attack on the capital, the eastern counties, which had been secretly opposing the central government, suddenly announced their support for the capital. Duke Steiner, the leader of the noble faction, led an army of 200,000 men to the capital under the pretext of "serving the king".

Regardless of how much exaggeration there is in the claim of "200,000 troops," anyone who knows a little about the history of the empire knows what kind of relationship Steiner, known as "The Turtle Duke," had with the royal family.

This man led his army to the capital; who knows who he'll meet up with!

Another major threat came from the southern part of the empire, from the barbarian tribal alliance on the vast wilderness. These nomadic peoples were sworn enemies of the empire, having fought for thousands of years. Although the tribes lost more often than they won, they had never submitted to the empire and would fight whenever they had the chance.

Judging from the swift reactions of these two families, Canary III knew very well that the all-powerful Saint Rudd must have given them prior notice, and that these three families had come prepared!

Seeing the dire situation at his rear, Canary III couldn't help but consider retreating. But the problem was that even if he were to retreat, he couldn't leave empty-handed.

In the original invasion plan of the Imperial Headquarters, this conquest of the Kingdom of Duran was divided into three phases: upper, middle, and lower objectives.

Ideally, the entire territory of Duran would be conquered in one fell swoop, bringing this land completely under the Empire's control. From then on, the Empire would have no powerful enemies to the north, and the vast Void Forest, rich in countless rare treasures, would become the Empire's backyard.

The medium objective is to capture the plains in the south of the kingdom. The rugged mountains in the center of the kingdom divide the land in two, and the Yordle Fortress is located at the only pass, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack, and it cannot be easily besieged. The Imperial Legion has already experienced firsthand how difficult the fortress is to attack.

As for the lowest-level objective, it is simply to take down Yanmu City.

This is actually not much different from the middle target, because the vast plain between Flamewood City and Yordle Fortress is almost indefensible, essentially meat under the Empire's nose, which they can eat whenever they want. It's just that this might make King Duran look better after his defeat and make it easier for him to sign the armistice agreement.

But as it turned out, the staff officers at headquarters had oversimplified many things; they severely underestimated the Durans' will to resist.

There were indeed spineless surrenderists among the nobility, but most of them were insignificant figures. The common people, who initially didn't care who the ruler was, were gradually angered by the inhuman discipline of the Imperial Army soldiers and rose up in rebellion, physically joining forces with the invaders.

As for King Duran, according to the intelligence held by the empire, this man, who was about the same age as Canary III, was a mediocre monarch, neither good nor bad, and his reputation among the people was not as great as that of his beautiful and outstanding queen.

But after the war began, facing the unstoppable imperial army, this mediocre king was as stubborn as a rock in a latrine. In addition to personally going to the city walls every few days to fight the imperial soldiers who were attacking the city, he also insisted on writing a personal letter to Canary III every day, using elegant and gentle civilized words to greet his ancestors for eighteen generations. One day he was too busy and forgot, so he even wrote a new letter the next day!

A resolute king, fighting nobles and commoners—if the Kingdom of Duran were only like this, it would only be a slightly troublesome matter for the empire.

While the Yordle Fortress is indeed easy to defend and difficult to attack, the Empire has the proud Wyvern Knights. The one-sided attack from the air will make those Duran soldiers on the ground, melted into pools of blood by the toxic acid, understand what true despair is.

However, the Imperials, who thought they had a great advantage, didn't have time to be smug for long before Lud suddenly jumped out and slapped them so hard they lost their bearings.

The subsequent developments in the war made the Canary Islands, which had been wantonly invading other countries for many years, experience for the first time what it meant to be passive. The Durandians, who had been retreating steadily, not only stabilized their position but were even able to send two surprise forces into the empire, catching the country off guard.

This war of aggression has dragged on for so long that even though none of the empire's generals are willing to admit it, the cruel reality is right in front of them: they have been dragged into a quagmire by the Durans and are now in a dilemma.

Even more critically, with the instability in the rear, the main force at the front also began to experience shortages of supplies. The supply depots near the border had been destroyed by Rodriguez and his men, and the supplies from further back could not be transported for the time being. Meanwhile, the locals implemented a scorched-earth policy, and many villagers fled into the mountains with their food to hide. The Duran nobles who had surrendered to them were wiped out by the so-called "anti-traitor squads."

In addition, it is currently the end of winter, and there are not even two bare green shoots to be found in the fields, which makes it impossible for the Imperial Legion to "supplement the war with war".

With tens of thousands of people eating, drinking, and relieving themselves every day, and the food and fodder stored in the camp dwindling, Canary III understood that withdrawal was probably inevitable, but they could not simply turn around and leave in disgrace.

It's impossible to force King Duran to sign a humiliating treaty. This man writes "letters of condolence" to me every day, clearly showing that he's a ruthless character who doesn't intend to leave himself a way out. It's probably difficult to force him to cede territory and pay reparations. The only option is to directly take it and create a fait accompli.

King Duran then summoned his generals and explained his concerns and plans. Just as everyone was gathered around the map, discussing which area to take, a guard at the door suddenly reported that the special envoy from the Church of War requested an audience with His Majesty.

Upon hearing that it was a special envoy requesting an audience, Canary III frowned, recalling the "strange sight" he had witnessed a few days earlier.

Six supposedly chosen powerhouses blessed by the God of War were beaten so badly they were unrecognizable that the Pantheon had to carry them back on stretchers. The envoy's expression at that moment was simply indescribable.

After that, the guy became withdrawn for several days. King Canary III was happy to not have to listen to his loud voice making noise next to him, but he recovered so quickly.

After thinking it over, Canary III realized that the Cult of War was an important ally of the Empire at this stage, and it would be inappropriate to avoid meeting the envoy. So he nodded to the guards and agreed to let the person in.

Soon, the special envoy hurriedly entered the military tent, and upon entering, he spoke loudly to everyone present in an excited tone.

"Your Majesty, I have a way to help your army capture the fortress!"

Despite suffering heavy casualties, the Kingdom's army defending Yodl Fortress remained firmly in the hands of the Durans after several days of bloody fighting, preventing the invaders from advancing any further.

As reinforcements and supplies arrived from the rear, and as the Imperial Army on the other side gradually showed signs of decline after repeated setbacks in its attacks, the original pessimism, while not completely swept away, at least gave many officers and soldiers hope for victory, thus ensuring their morale.

Inside the central hall of the fortress, King Duran, who had just finished his inspection tour of the fortress, sat on his throne, eyes closed, resting. Around him, a group of ministers reported on their work. King Duran listened silently, nodding occasionally and asking a question or two now and then.

Upon learning that Rodriguez's troops, who had been operating deep behind enemy lines, had successfully broken through the enemy's encirclement and were on their way back home, the king's lips curled into a slight smile, and he opened his eyes and said with a smile.

"It seems my queen can rest assured now."

Rodriguez was the eldest son of Duke Gamelin, while King Durand's queen was the duke's eldest daughter. The two were siblings from the same parents and had a very close relationship. King Durand also admired his brother-in-law, who was outstanding in both ability and character.

In this war of national defense, the nobles of the North contributed greatly, and at the most critical moment for the country, they almost played a crucial role in turning the tide.

Rodriguez was the supreme commander of this allied army. His heroic deeds of personally leading two thousand cavalrymen to break into enemy territory had spread throughout Durand with the joint propaganda of the royal family and various forces. As a result, Rodriguez was hailed as a "national hero".

However, King Durand knew that Rodriguez was only the nominal supreme commander of the Northern Alliance, and the real leader of the alliance was someone else, a religious figure with the title of "Saint".

In the past, King Durand would certainly have been suspicious of this man, because the late king had often said three things to him.

One saying is "Speak less and listen more, leave things to smart people," and another is "Don't trust those charlatans who spout nonsense."

And the phrase that was said even more often than the two phrases mentioned above combined is "You stubborn, stupid donkey."

To be honest, King Durand isn't actually stupid; he's just rather straightforward, which makes him seem simple-minded. Occasionally, when his stubbornness kicks in, he can be as unyielding as a mule, and only the Queen can barely tame him.

So when he learned that the entire Northern Alliance and even several powerful noble families were under the command of a single priest, he had his doubts. But as he learned more and more, even the simple-minded King Duran gradually realized that this Master Ludd was not the kind of priest he usually encountered.

The priest was not currently in the country; instead, he had led an expeditionary force of eight thousand men to launch a surprise attack on the Canary capital. When King Duran received this news, he was completely stunned. If it hadn't been a dragon that delivered the message, he would hardly have believed it was true.

It was because of the expeditionary force's heroic deeds that King Duran was determined to never compromise with the imperialists and never cede an inch of land to the invaders!

Just as King Durand was pondering which female relative of Canary III should be mentioned in his "letter of condolence" to be written today, the Queen, also dressed in military attire, entered from outside.

King Duran, with his rather rugged appearance, was deeply in love with his queen, who was as beautiful as an angel and as valiant as any man. Just as he was about to call her "darling," he saw a beautiful figure clinging to his wife. King Duran's expression immediately became as conflicted as if he were having a stomach ulcer attack.

The beautiful woman clinging to the Queen was none other than Duchess Anfie Charles, the younger sister of King Durand.

"Charles" is the surname of the brother and sister's mother's family. According to the rules of the Durand royal family, if the current king's sisters are unmarried, they will be promoted from princesses to honorary duchesses after the king ascends the throne.

Duran Wang fulfilled all the duties of a good older brother to his only sister.

It's important to know that honorary dukes are different from hereditary dukes; normally, they don't have fiefs. However, King Durand, in order to pamper his beloved younger sister, specially allocated a piece of land from the royal domain to Anfi as her fief.

As for his sister's marriage, Duran King fully respected her personal wishes and never considered using her as a bargaining chip for political alliances.

It's no exaggeration to say that, except for one "thing", Duran King was willing to give his sister Anfei everything she owned!

Seemingly noticing King Durand's subtle expression, Anfi, who had been holding the Queen's arm, slightly pulled away. The Queen, in turn, greeted her husband with a flawless knightly salute.