This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

While Dick's Northern Alliance was preparing to march north to the wasteland to eliminate the orcs and prevent future troubles, the turmoil in the capital did not subside with the deaths of both King Hessian VII and Grand Duke Best. Instead, the fighting intensified because neither side had a key leader.

Ultimately, this internal strife was essentially a concentrated eruption of the accumulated contradictions between various forces and classes within the Hessen Empire over the past decades or even centuries.

The reason everyone was able to live in peace before was because the fragile balance was still intact, and the cabinet had also tried to shift the blame to external parties, which led to the brazen attack on the Southern Maple Dew Kingdom.

Unfortunately, the cabinet ministers' wishful thinking failed. Not only did attacking Fenglu fail to transfer the internal conflicts, it also disrupted the original internal balance, leaving almost everyone harboring resentment.

Therefore, once this resentment is ignited, it cannot be extinguished until it has burned everything away!

"Hit! Hit! Smash everything to pieces! Hahahaha..."

At this moment, in the southern suburbs of the capital, the Third Prince Bailey, who had just escaped from the city, was screaming like a madman at the burning palace.

Beside him were a group of disheveled cabinet officials and imperial guards who had escaped the chaotic capital through an ancient royal secret passage. They planned to head south to seek refuge with the third prince's uncle, Marquis Leodor, and then rally the "royalists" to form a loyalist army in hopes of retaking the capital.

The cabinet officials advised the Third Prince in this way, but they knew very well that given the current plummeting prestige of the Black Forest royal family, how many royalists were there in the local areas? And whether they were truly royalists was an unknown.

If what Duke Best said in the palace hall was true, then Hesse VII's actions were not only a betrayal of the entire empire, but also placed him in opposition to all the nobles of the empire.

In fact, the crux of the issue wasn't about being cuckolded. The aristocracy was notoriously decadent in their private lives, and even if their wives had affairs with the emperor and fathered illegitimate children, it wasn't considered a big deal by them. Some nobles even took pride in it, viewing it as a symbol of the close relationship between their family and the royal family.

But Hesse VII clearly went too far. Not only did he usurp the throne, but he also used a curse to render these nobles infertile, directly aiming to sever their family bloodlines.

Nobles did indeed hope that their families could incorporate royal bloodlines and become related to the royal family that ruled the empire, but this should be achieved through marriage, a fusion of two bloodlines rather than replacement.

Since you, Hessian VII, have crossed the line, don't blame others for wanting to flip the table!

However, even though the bureaucrats were full of complaints and secretly cursed the old bastard Hessian VII for his sins, the old man was already dead, and the bloodthirsty rebels had no intention of stopping while they were ahead.

Clearly, many of the nobles who participated in the rebellion had much grander ambitions; they wanted more than just revenge!

Looking at the burning capital in the distance and the Third Prince acting like a madman, the civil officials, led by the Prime Minister, felt that the future was fraught with difficulties, but they had no other choice at the moment.

"We shouldn't stay here any longer, let's go!"

…………

……

"No! I can't leave!"

Meanwhile, in the western suburbs of the capital, Reinhardt, who had escaped alive from the palace under the protection of the Saint-ranked Archmage Quinn, was currently with his former subordinates from the Eastern Second Legion.

This group of over eight thousand former troops consisted of veterans of the Imperial Guard who had retreated from the south with Reinhardt and had been stationed in the barracks here since returning to the capital. After escaping the palace, Quinn felt that these old comrades were the only ones he could trust, so he came to join them.

Because it was far from the city center, this area was not affected by the rebels after the rebellion broke out.

When Reinhardt awoke, Quinn immediately urged him to leave the capital, as it was now a place of utter chaos. Since the Duke had launched a rebellion and publicly declared Reinhardt to be the son of Hesse VII, the Best family's forces would most likely no longer recognize him as their former young master.

As for the Third Prince, Quinn gets angry whenever he mentions that jealous and incompetent villain!

Upon waking, Reinhardt learned that both the Duke and Hesse VII were dead, and he was momentarily disoriented. He gazed at the burning imperial city in the distance, pondered for a long time, and finally made a decision: he would stay and stop the tragedy unfolding.

"No matter whose son I am, I am first and foremost a Hessian, a knight, and I will not stand idly by while this tragedy unfolds before my eyes!"

As Reinhardt said these words, the image of his fifth brother, Dick, flashed through his mind, because Dick had said something similar to him when he rushed to the aid of the Second Army Corps in the East.

Seeing this, Quinn and the officers of the former East Second Army Corps exchanged silent glances. One of the most senior officers stepped forward and solemnly and respectfully asked Reinhardt for instructions.

"Commander, since you're not leaving, please give the order!"

As old comrades who had fought side by side in the south, the former members of the Second Eastern Army Corps had considerable faith in Reinhard. If the Third Prince were here, he might not be able to command these men.

As for who Reinhardt's father was, they didn't really care.

Soon, more than 8,000 former soldiers of the Second Army Corps of the East completed their assembly. After all, they had not been back from the south for long, and many of them still retained the fierce spirit of those who had fought on the front lines. Therefore, they quickly got into action as soon as they heard the assembly call.

Reinhardt knew that while this group of veterans was indeed elite, there were only a mere eight thousand of them.

On the rebel side, in addition to the noble troops who secretly entered the capital from other places, there was also a considerable number of old guards. They even controlled two city defense fortresses equipped with heavy magic cannons, and turned the cannons to bombard the imperial palace and noble district of the capital.

The thought of the Duke's mansion being located in the noble district, and his mother still at home, filled Reinhardt with anxiety. He had to reclaim the two fortresses from the rebels and stop their bombardment.

Thus, Reinhardt led eight thousand men and resolutely plunged into the chaotic battlefield of the capital, while the civil officials, along with the eccentric but "claimed" Third Prince, took advantage of the chaos to escape.

The terrifying flames of war ignited in the heart of the empire, and the fire spread rapidly to the surrounding areas as if out of control, prompting various forces to take action, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Meanwhile, in the northern district of the capital, on the campus where the National Academy of Magic and the Magic School are located, Dick's mentor, Grandor, together with Behemoth and another old magician with completely white hair, are setting up a huge defensive barrier to resist attacks from multiple directions.

While pouring his immense magical power into the barrier, Grandor continued to shout and curse.

"This internal strife has attracted all sorts of monsters and demons, these opportunistic bastards!"

"We can't just hold on like this; we have to find a way to break through."

"where to?"

"Head north! To the north!"

Chapter 322: Preparing for Battle

The flames of war are raging rapidly south of the Central Mountains, with various warlords raising their armies. Among them are some wicked individuals who, while lacking the courage to come to the emperor's aid, not only have the audacity to use the pretext of aiding the emperor to plunder and pillage during the chaos!

Thanks to these "righteous armies," unrest began to emerge in some places far from the capital.

At this time, the northern border, which had been despised by the majority of Hessians as a "bitter and cold land," had become one of the few remaining havens in the entire empire that had not yet descended into chaos.

Because in the current northern region, the influence of the Northern Alliance has permeated every aspect of life, and the conservative forces against the Northern Alliance have been almost completely suppressed. The reason they can still exist is that Dick needs the existence of opposing forces at this stage, not because they can actually withstand it.

Hongyu Zhitong estimates that if the turmoil in the capital continues to escalate and will not end in the short term, by mid-February of next year, a wave of refugees fleeing the war will begin to flood into the north.

They took these people in; they were readily available labor and soldiers.

But if we can't handle it, it could become a huge hidden danger that wreaks havoc on the entire north!

The good news is that they have been continuously expanding agricultural production, and the bumper harvests in recent years have accumulated a considerable fortune. The assets brought by Nora, the second sister, from the Best family have made up for Lagug's biggest weakness: cash reserves.

Dick's previous top supporter was Prince Heinz, whose investment from the Dragon Valley family gave him a huge boost!

Dick was puzzled at the time because he didn't know what Heinz was up to until he read the Duke's will and finally learned the truth.

So Prince Heinz was Dick's real half-brother!

It is important to know that Prince Heinz's birth mother is the current matriarch of the Dragon Valley family. This powerful noblewoman also has a very illustrious identity: the Grand Empress Dowager of the Hessian Empire, the wife of Hessian VI, and the biological mother of the recently deceased Hessian VII.

As a result, twenty years ago, the old duke took advantage of a visit to the Dragonsleeping Valley family to secretly take the matriarch by surprise, and she even gave birth to Heinz.

Incidentally, members of the Dragon Sleep Valley family have dragon blood, so their lifespan is much longer than that of ordinary humans.

In the Duke's suicide note, this lecherous old man smugly described to Dick in detail how he had won over the still-attractive matriarch and a scandal involving the royal family.

When Hesse VI died, Hesse VII succeeded him to the throne and became the new emperor, but he was always worried that his younger brother Heinz would threaten his throne.

Heinz was the posthumous son of King Hesse VI. Due to the awakening of his ancestral dragon blood, he was not born as a human infant, but as a black dragon egg. King Hesse VI was overjoyed and named the child "Heinz".

Unfortunately, the hatching of the dragon egg was a very long process, so Hessian VI never got to see the child before he died, and could only close his eyes with regret.

According to the alliance between the Dragonsleeping Valley family and the Black Forest royal family, Heinz, whose bloodline had awakened, should have been sent back to Dragonsleeping Valley to be trained as the next family patriarch. Therefore, theoretically, even if Heinz had broken out of his shell, he would not have threatened the throne of Black Forest VII.

However, because Heinz was the late-life son of Hesse VI, and his bloodline awakening was comparable to getting a special limited-time character with no pity system in a gacha game, Hesse VII, who was then the crown prince, felt threatened by this and thus hardened his heart and took drastic measures against his younger brother.

The Duke did not say in his letter what Hesse VII had done. The Empress Dowager later learned the truth, but for some reason, she did not expose Hesse VII, who had already ascended the throne. She simply took Heinz, who could never hatch, back to Dragonsleeping Valley and never came to the capital again. She never had any contact with Hesse VII, who was also her son, until their deaths.

Then, twenty years ago, Rune Best, who had just been freed from the curse, secretly visited Dragonsleeping Valley under the guidance of the demon god. He met the widowed Empress Dowager and they quickly fell in love and had a child.

This child is the current Prince Heinz. He was born in the form of an infant, but he was born with vertical pupils and dragon scales on his body. So the old duke came up with a plan to have him impersonate the name "Heinz" and have the Dragonsleeping Valley family spread the word that the posthumous child of King Hesse VI had finally hatched.

So Heinz is actually only nineteen years old this year, and he is Dick's younger brother.

In short, the Duke demonstrated what it means to "work from 8 a.m." through his actions!

The chaotic battle in the capital is still raging. Dick is in the north and Heinz is in the south. Both sides are holding back for the time being and are not in a hurry to intervene.

Similar to Dick, who was preparing to attack the orcs first, Heinz also seemed to be in contact with the southern countries, needing to secure their rear before taking any action.

At the bridgehead on the north shore of the fjord, the Northern Alliance army is delivering supplies and personnel in batches according to plan. Engineers and earth mages are working together to build a large military fortress here that can accommodate 100,000 people for a long-term garrison.

Dick's elite cavalrymen had to go out every day to have passionate interactions with the orcs who were sneaking around in the vicinity. Since the generals leading the Northern Alliance were all heroic spirits, the orcs could hardly get any advantage. They were always killed so badly that their mothers wouldn't recognize them when they met them!

Each time the cavalry returned from a "hunt," they would use wooden sticks to plant the severed orc heads on the open ground outside the camp. This was actually something the orcs often did; the cavalry were simply giving them a taste of their own medicine. The number of these orc heads quickly exceeded a thousand, creating a spectacular and vast display.

Dick thought to himself that it was a good thing it was winter, otherwise it would have been absolutely disgusting!

"Isn't this a bit too barbaric?"

On the fortress walls still under construction, Joan of Arc (in white), accompanying Dick on his inspection tour, frowned as she looked at the vast expanse of orc heads outside.

She could understand the hatred humans felt for orcs in this world, but according to her moral values, there was no need to desecrate corpses after killing an enemy, even if they were non-human enemies.

Dick knew that Joan of Arc had arrived late and had only participated in the war in the south. She had not personally experienced the orc invasion of that year, so she only knew that the northerners hated the orcs, but she was not very clear about the fear the northerners had of these cannibals.

So, in order to allow the engineers and laborers involved in building the fortress to work in peace, and also to deter the restless orcs, Dick tacitly approved this act, which was comparable to building a "mound of skulls".

They're just some orcs, nothing to be afraid of.

Chapter 323: The Only Chance

With more and more troops and weapons being transferred to the front lines, the defenses of the main city of Lagug seem to have become somewhat weak.

Three of the four garrison camps in the main city's east, west, south, and north are completely empty. The number of guards responsible for daily patrols on the city walls has also decreased significantly, and some poorly equipped militia have been used to fill the gaps.

All these overt changes were naturally observed by the spies from various factions lurking within the city.

"Gentlemen! This may be our only chance! Rather than sitting and waiting for that little bastard from the Best family to turn around and wipe us all out, we should take the initiative now, take advantage of the fact that Lagug's rear is undefended, and take down his stronghold!"

Inside the Marquis Richard's manor, the Marquis is lobbying his allies to gather all their strength and have a showdown with that bastard Dick Best!

The Marquis's advisors had calculated that the dozen or so conservative lords theoretically had the ability to muster about 40,000 troops. Although this was far less than the Northern Alliance, the Northern Alliance's elite forces were currently heading north, with most of them having already crossed the sea to the wasteland, leaving their rear quite vulnerable.

Several advisors then urged Marquis Richard to seize this golden opportunity. With the country in chaos and the capital unable to attend to the north, they should wait until the main force of the Northern Alliance had crossed the fjord before joining forces with all the northern conservatives to launch a surprise attack and directly occupy Lagug.

If the main force of the Northern Alliance is trapped on the north shore of the fjord, it will certainly not be able to return to the rescue in time. Once the supply line in the rear is cut off, the morale of the army will inevitably be in chaos, and it will collapse without a fight!

Several advisors took turns presenting a complete battle plan, even citing a classic surprise attack from Earth called "Crossing the River in White" as evidence. This successfully persuaded Marquis Richard. Subsequently, the Marquis summoned a group of conservative allies, attempting to convince them to join this high-stakes gamble.

The conservative lords were initially hesitant, feeling that the plan was too risky. Even if they concentrated all their forces, they would find it difficult to confront the 100,000-strong army of the Northern Alliance head-on. So, Marquis Richard showed them two secret letters that he had recently received.

One letter was from Erwin, the commander of the Border Legion. In it, Erwin listed the many crimes Dick had committed over the years, and denounced Dick for using his position as commander to commit atrocities in the North and even attempt to seize control of the Border Legion. Erwin had long been annoyed with his nephew.

Another secret letter came from the pass fortress in the Central Mountains. The garrison commander said that he had made contact with His Highness the Third Prince, the most legitimate heir to the throne, and hoped that a nobleman of noble birth and true loyalty to the emperor, such as Marquis Richard, could step forward to stabilize the situation in the North and fight against the Northern Alliance rebels led by Dick Best. A powerful reinforcement from the capital was on its way to the North.

The plan presented by his advisors and the two secret letters greatly boosted the confidence of Marquis Richard, who had been harboring resentment for years, and he decided to rise up!

Soon, the conservative lords began a secret mobilization. Marquis Richard's advisors devised a battle plan called "Feint to the South, Attack in the North," pretending to gather troops to march south to defend the king, and then secretly taking a large detour, advancing eastward along the foot of the Central Mountain Range, and bypassing to the rear of Lagug.

For this battle, the Marquis's private army deployed its best troops, and they received intelligence about Lagug from the elves of the Dead Tree Party.

As the saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my ally," and the two sides had actually been in cahoots for a long time.

During this period, the spies of the Dead Tree Party kept providing them with intelligence, including the movements of the main force of the Northern Alliance, the defense map of the main city of Lagug, the guard shift schedule, and even two secret passages dug by smugglers that could lead directly to the inner city.

In addition, there was a group of "righteous people" in the main city who were dissatisfied with Dick's perverse actions and were willing to act as inside agents when the attack was launched, opening the gates to welcome Marquis Richard's "punitive army" into the city.

Most of these people were former bureaucrats from the time of Governor David. After Dick came to power, some of them were purged and dismissed, while others, though retained, were demoted and had their salaries reduced. If they still wanted to use their power to make some extra money for themselves, they had to consider whether they had a strong enough neck to stand on.

Therefore, in Richard's view, these people did indeed have every reason to harbor resentment towards Dick.

The Marquis felt as if he were divinely aided, as if everyone was helping him achieve his great cause.

Thus, after several days of covert marching, the main force of the conservative coalition, numbering 35,000, had successfully moved to the hilly area in the southern part of the Lagug County, with the vanguard less than 20 miles from the main city.

According to intelligence provided by the Dead Tree Party, most of the Northern Alliance's main force has crossed the fjord and is currently confronting approximately 30,000 orcs. On the main city side of Ragug, the remaining garrison is less than 4,000, and more than half of them are temporarily recruited militia, whose combat strength is negligible.

The difference in troop strength between the attacking and defending sides was nearly tenfold, and Marquis Richard had also spent a lot of money to hire three Saint-level experts to help him, preparing to quickly capture the main city of Lagug with overwhelming force.

Just imagining the shock and panic that Dick might show on his face when he found out his hideout had been raided, Marquis Richard couldn't help but smugly hummed in satisfaction!

Under Richard's orders, two elite squads were sent into the city through a secret passage. They would work with spies inside the city to take out the guards at the southwest gates of the main city and open the gates for the main army.

Meanwhile, the main force of more than 30,000 men, under the cover of night, secretly approached from the woods south of the main city and lay in ambush less than two kilometers from the city gate.

The army waited quietly for a long time in the cold January night, until Marquis Richard was getting impatient. Finally, a light flashed on the distant city wall, which was the signal that the city gate had been captured.

"Haha, great! All troops, charge!"

Upon capturing the city gate, Marquis Richard immediately ordered an advance. The distance of two kilometers could be covered in just three minutes by fully armed heavy cavalry charging at full speed, and in ten minutes by infantry.

Once these 30,000-plus people enter the city, the city's garrison and the 200,000 inhabitants will be easy prey for them to slaughter.

Fueled by his resentment towards Dick, Richard had no intention of restraining his men after entering the city. He had already promised his soldiers at the previous rally that, aside from the prohibition of arson, they would be allowed to do whatever they pleased!

"Charge! Charge! Everything you want is in that city!"

Amidst the surging army charging forward, Marquis Richard laughed wildly. This long-lost sense of frenzy excited him immensely, making him feel as if he had suddenly regained all his strength, both physically and mentally.