Part 2

In that extreme shock, Freire didn't have time to look at Dion's cold expression. Freire immediately ran out of the prison area. With ragged breaths up the steep stairs and up to the top.

"COMMANDER, THIS IS TERRIBLE!!"

-0-

At night, the weather is colder than during the day. The wind was blowing quite strong, and clusters of stars filled the clear sky above.

The people patrolling around the outside of the Citadel exchanged jokes several times, in order to kill time and disrupt the tense atmosphere.

They send a safe signal with a simple smoke from the burning hay with every turn. And if something happened, the smoke signal they sent would be replaced with a special firecracker that made a loud noise. This signal should be sent long before the enemy troops arrive, to make it easier for the troops inside the Citadel to make preparations. In this case, the outside guard team must be extra careful, especially for those who stick their ears to the ground all night. Listening to whether there will be galloping horses coming from a distance.

The information chain comes from the front element, namely the reconnaissance team.

From one reconnaissance team, there will be two people in charge of being 'eyes'. They will use a special colored cloth as a team identity. It is usually tied in conspicuous places, such as the arms and forehead.

The 'eyes' are usually at high altitudes, or they can also send eagles to fly in the sky and gather information from it. When the 'eyes' get information, they will convey it to the 'ears', which each person's hearing is very sharp.

The 'ears' will alternately stick their hearing instruments to the ground within a certain period of time. After validating the enemy's arrival, they would guess the enemy's arrival distance in a matter of time, then the message would be relayed to the troops patrolling outside the Citadel. The patrol squad would then blame the smoke signal. Tells the people inside the Citadel to prepare.

Tonight, nothing special happened. Everything went quiet. Each division carries out its duties well. Even unemployed people, earnestly drank their wine until they lost their minds.

Tonight, everything was under control as usual. Their enemy, Elysian, was indeed very strong, but the soldiers from there were mostly wearing heavy armor that was impossible to wear through the desert for more than 6 days, if they didn't want to be roasted to death, or even die of dehydration. Therefore, all this time, only Galahad's soldiers had come and knocked on Elysian's door. Not the other way around.

So, it was almost impossible to receive guests in the middle of a windy night like this.

But as it turned out, they were wrong.

The 'eyes' catch light signals from a distance. When they passed this information on to the 'ears', there was not the slightest sign of the enemy's arrival, as no footsteps or even the hooves of horses could be heard. So, the information chain is still stuck.

While they were still trying to validate the situation, they were already too late because the infinite number of the group was already within close sight, with no sound of footsteps or even the hooves of horses at all.

There's only one possibility.

"No way… They… They've been here for a long time?!"

-0-

Year 748, 19th Year of Arcana's Reign, Elysian.

On the 16th of the 10th month, an expedition to deliver rations from Drakon's granary was interrupted by a convoy of merchant trains passing through Engel's bridle line. While the remaining rations available in the Armored Cavalry's barn, can only be used to last for less than 5 days.

A state of martial law was declared along the border between Livia and the Alexis desert. For three whole days, the soldiers of the Livia Armored Cavalry fought the ambush of the enemy, the Galahad, on empty stomachs.

A total of 200 thousand soldiers from the Livia Armored Cavalry, more than half of them, i.e. 100 thousand soldiers, were assigned to carry out a military convoy along the border from Livia to Nirari which took more than two and a half months, only to leave and return in one round. This has become their annual agenda. Convoys needed to be made to ensure the situation along the border garrison was safe ahead of winter.

The other half, numbering less than 100,000 soldiers, were dealing with the emergency situation in Livia, which almost every year faced attacks from the brutal Galahad Soldiers.

Due to hunger and the lack of harmony between superiors and subordinates, the troops living in Livia were split into several camps.

After their Great Commander's defeat, the situation became even more chaotic. Whether it was news of their defeat, or the news of their stagnating supply of rations, neither of the two was able to get to the Capital quickly, due to the long-distance travel to only transmit news. It took about a month to deliver the news, and another month to receive a reply.

The use of birds as a means of information is restricted to the Valdis control tower before it can enter the Capital, to reduce information piracy. Therefore, they could not expect any help from outside.

On the 23rd of the 10th month, after the Great Commander's defeat, the command center of the remaining Livia Armored Cavalry was taken over by a 15-year-old teenager. With 2000 soldiers remaining, they deserted and left the 2 front camps empty, Alpha and Beta camps, then walked for the next 8 days towards the border town of Galahad without enough food. During that time, the troops who were known for their armor, had to give up these famous attributes due to the intolerable heat of the desert weather.

At a distance of 521 miles before reaching the border town of Galahad, the troops were intercepted by the core army from the Galahad border garrison. Their new commander, who was only 15-years-old, was pulled from his pitch-black Morgan horse and taken as a prisoner into the Galahad Frontier Fort. The 2000 remaining troops he carried, were scattered like flies that had lost their heads.

The Galahad Army, however, preferred to pursue the two camps on the Livia border with an additional 500 miles of travel, rather than having to gather the scattered Armored Cavalry troops one by one, so half of their initial team, decided to head towards the Livia border, and the remaining half, escorting the Commander back into the Citadel with their one prisoner of war.

On the 30th of the 10th month, the core troops guarding the Garrison Commander of the Galahad border, had arrived inside the Fort.

At the same time, even a few moments faster than them, a number of soldiers from Livia's armored cavalry who had taken off their armor, who had run for 500 miles without enough water and food, had arrived at the barren forest around the outside of the Galahad Frontier Fort. They were a troop playing a charade, acting like they didn't agree with each other, only to keep the enemy's eyes off them.

They tore off their clothes and tied them to a piece of dry wood. The large amount of kerosene they got from infiltrating Galahad Fort passed through the sewers that connected the entire city like a spider's web. They waited for the rest of the scattered soldiers to arrive and gather here.

On the following night, each of the soldiers plunged several of their impromptu torches into the ground. When the time came, they would fire them up one by one from the back to the front, as if they were a large army advancing on them. While they themselves were already so close to the city fort.

A number of these hungry troops, then managed to attract all the enemy troops who were unresponsive in the Fort to scatter out of the way, just by using a small trick like that. When almost none of Galahad's troops stood guard around the inner camp,

Dion and the new 15-year-old Commander, along with one more volunteer, lit a fire from inside the Fort. The fire was lit by a woman whose selling rice cakes, right at the center of where the Galahad border garrison laid their kerosene vats.

The troops on the Galahad border, however, had prepared themselves for their defeat. Two years ago when this garrison on the outskirts of Galahad was led by one of the princes from the capital, at that time, they were capable enough to match the pace of the armored cavalry led by the great General Zehra, and although they never won, neither did they lost.

And when Great General Zehra was finally pulled back to the Elysian Capital, namely Hilaria, it gave the Galahad frontier garrison a little time to breathe, so their military pulled the Prince back to the Capital, and installed Zigid, an armchair general, in his place.

Zigid, who had grown up and lived in luxury and glory in the capital, would no matter what, wouldn't be able to understand the rigors of the battle even if the leader of his enemy army wasn't someone as highly capable as Great General Zehra. Therefore, in the two years of his leadership, the troops of the Galahad border garrison are getting more and more slumped, and defeat after defeat was imprinted on their armor.

Thus, in a battle that put everything at stake in welcoming this winter, Zigid's army had an ace to hold on to.

They knew they were going to lose, so they set up a trap like a bunch of crabs in a bucket. If they were mired in defeat, they would also attract others to fall together.

The plan was, when their army was defeated as before, if they couldn't even defend this border town, they would burn it down.

So, when their defeat came and the troops from Elysian came to occupy the city, they had asked the citizens to prepare to burn themselves and the houses throughout the city. It was an inhuman gesture of desperation.

The message was conveyed by Dion, a mixed-blood spy planted and under the direct supervision of the Great General Zehra in the Galahad Frontier two years ago, in his secret message, which was sent via merchant cart from a neighboring country.

The entire city moat had been filled with dry hay and kerosene, all of which were connected to one place, namely, the ration storage shed near the underground jail door, where they stored a large amount of kerosene.

Who knew, that then, it would turn out that they would win?

No one would have thought that the most powerful army on the plains of this continent, the Armored Cavalry, would lose out of starvation.

Who would have thought, that the traps they set for the enemy, would instead be used by the enemy against themselves?

The fire was first started in a dungeon, by a middle-aged woman named Marty, who was willing to sacrifice her life and all the people living in the border town, in order to save a 2-year-old baby boy who was still so small and fragile. The baby is guaranteed life by Dion and the new Commander, as long as she helps them light the fire.

The signal Dion used to alert Marty was the sound of warning beacons being fired hastily by the frontline troops. By that time, both Dion and the new Commander, who was holding the 2-year-old baby, had arrived at a safe place.

A huge explosion was triggered from the dungeon, spreading throughout the city, which was scorched overnight. A suffocating stench of roasted meat permeated the air, rendering anyone who smelled it, without an appetite for the next week. The big flames barked high up, cloudy smoke billowed high, and the rest of the Armored Cavalry troops who had finally reclaimed their victory, began to walk home to return to Livia.

Just as half of the initial team of the Galahad army, previously left by Zigid in pursuit of the remaining 2000 scattered troops, attacked the two front camps left by the Livia Armored Cavalry, namely the Alpha and Beta camps, several areas in the vicinity were receiving an unusual signal from the ground. Immediately sent their troops. Reinforcements came all the way from Nirari to Walherich, saving at least a quarter of Livia's looted town.

After that, the new Commander of the Livia Armored Cavalry, in addition to receiving a number of prizes and honors, was also sentenced to house arrest for some time, for deserting and leaving the two front camps in emptiness, so that the civilians in the nearby town almost suffered mass murder.

The new commander, in fact, could have avoided punishment by clearly stating that the original source of their troop's downfall, was a delay in the supply of rations being blocked by the merchant caravans along their supply chain. What was clear to everyone in the empire was that when a border area was under attack, all the surrounding bridle lines would be closed to the public.

However, strangely enough, the new Commander tried 'her' best to hide the news. She ordered her troop of ration guards to burn the entire merchant caravan, even burn the tradesman at once, so as not to leave any evidence when the surveillance team from the empire arrived to conduct an inspection.

In the 20th year of Arcana's reign, the baby who was the guarantee for Marty to set the city on fire, is kidnapped by a white-robed stranger. The search was carried out, but as if vanished in the dust, the baby disappeared.