The Situation Changes

It has been a few weeks since Fiona's arrival and the tide has changed greatly. Maria was already hard for the Thorkell army to deal with but they had confidence that she could suppress her. Fiona, however, is someone so powerful that even when embued with Kortz Amror and Weapons, they still felt some fear. 

Fiona's ability and combat prowess is sharp and she doesn't necessarily need to rely on magic. Despite the advantages of having both Kortz and hard metals inside their weapons and armor, Fiona was able to target the weaknesses skillfully which is incredibly difficult to do. The campaign which many Thorkell warriors believed would stay a statement for a long time is now feeling immense pressure.

At least, that is what they would have felt if their princess wasn't here.

A sharp sound of swords clashing resounded in the air once more. 

"Look, the princess is clashing with that fierce woman again. She is the one person who can keep that woman in check"

"Don't just stand here, you want our princess to die on the battlefield? Go and help her. No matter how strong that woman is, she can't be stronger than our princess"

"Hurry! Let's fight, We have our princess and we have Kortz. We won't lose here"

The morale of the Thorkell empire begins to improve rapidly.

Fiona was panting, she studied warfare a lot with her father while growing up. Her father was also stationed in the Thorkell empire before he was dispatched to the southern empire. She is well aware of how the armies of the Thorkell empire operate and she was skilled enough to contend with even the best of them. The only miscalculation is the woman in front of her.

Fiona stares at the woman she has been fighting for the past couple of weeks. Kunai is not only powerful but her usage of Kortz is too skillful. She does far more than just use it as a shield and armor, she even uses it offensively!

No matter what spell I throw at her, she either escapes with her agility or redirects it with her Kortz.

But no matter what happens, Kortz is still limited. As long as I keep standing, she will keep wasting her Kortz. Just doing that alone is beneficial for our campaign, I can't fall here.

Kunai gives a provocative glance at Fiona. She has fought way too many mages in her life, how can a little girl who just graduated be her match? 

The Thorkell empire has captured and experimented on many mages to find just how effective Kortz can be offensively and Kunai was their main tester to see if it's feasible to use in battle.

Kunai dashed up to Fiona and threw a Kortz crystal at her while throwing another bladed weapon to explode it right on Fiona's fast.

Fiona quickly used her wind magic to blow away to residuals but the pieces of Kortz suppressed her magic and still charged toward her, injuring her once again.

Her instincts keep forcing her to make the best defensive decisions which naturally uses magic so she has been continually caught off guard by the sly tricks of this princess.

Fiona dashes towards Kunai with her sword and then swings her blade, shooting out an air slash.

Most mages can only shoot magic from their hands, doing it through objects and other body parts is incredibly difficult but Fiona has been honing herself for a long time so she can still pull these skills off when she needs it.

Kunai quickly took out her Kortz blended blade and dispelled the magic. 

Fiona jumped in the air and slammed down with incredible force.

Fiona's sword is a bit stronger than Kunai's since Kortz as a metal, is not as strong as other metals, it just suppresses magic.

But since Kunai's blade is still mixed with very hard metals, the gap between her sword and Fiona's sword isn't big enough to make her lose easily. 

Fiona kept swinging and aiming for dangerous spots but Kunai was able to parry them at the last second.

The two kept clashing over and over until a loud sound was heard above, 

"Reinforcements are here!".

This stunned the entire Kadence army, Reinforcements? Why didn't they come earlier? How could they still have more manpower?

They observed the situation and realized that not only did more soldiers come but thousands of Kortz weapons and Shields were delivered.

Seeing the shocked look on Princess Kunai's face and Commander Blade, Fiona, and Maria knew that this wasn't something that was originally planned.

"If they always had this much Kortz, why wait until now to use it? Kortz is useless in everything but suppressing magic? Is this something they got recently? But how?" Fiona couldn't think of what happened but now she knows the situation is dire.

Her main plan was to slowly drain the Kortz on the other side, no matter how long it took, she was confident that she would be the winner in the end. But with this resupply of Kortz, just what are they supposed to do?

Run away and regroup? Annoyance starts filling up Fiona's body. She feels that something is going wrong but she can't put her finger on it yet.

But just as she was about to give more orders, Another shout was heard.

"The Prince is here!"

Fiona was surprised, "What's Jason doing on the battlefield? Shouldn't he be snuggling up with that foolish girl? Fiona thought in her head.

She turns around and sees another man. With his strong build and cold demeanor, he gave off a powerful but majestic feeling. His eyes were deep as if he had been in wars for many years.

After Jason became the Arch-Duke, Lance realized that this man was actually far more capable than he originally thought. He was always confident that he would become emperor so he never gave Jason too much thought but now that he thinks about it carefully, will a man who usurped imperial power in an alternate timeline truly obey the empire?

His heart knew the answer but he was powerless to stop Jason's plans. He finally realized that becoming emperor might not be enough to get his revenge, only power reigns supreme. He spent many weeks honing his skills and clearing his mind.

While there, his emperor's eyes showed him a vision of the Thorkell empire suddenly gaining a massive amount of Kortz and using that to swing the tide of the border. Maria was killed and Fiona was injured while protecting the remaining army. As the future emperor, how could he lose such talented commanders? 

He immediately gathered his army and headed to assist.

The Thorkell empire had reinforcements but most of it was the supply of Kortz. The Kadence empire was reinforced with pure manpower. 

The soldiers of the Kadence empire saw this and immediately had their morale restored.

From despair to hope, they were prepared to continue to fight to the death.

Princess Kunai looked at the eyes of this man and felt the same level of threat as she did with Fiona.

But unlike Fiona, he seems to have eyes that say that he sees through everything and is overflowing with confidence.

Where does this confidence come from? Princess Kunai could not help but mutter.

"Princess, it seems like he is the lost prince of the Kadence empire. He also won the hunting competition. I heard he has been in wars since he was 10 years old" Commander Blade relayed the information to her princess.

Kunai's eyes widened, "He has that much war experience? No wonder," she said while muttering to herself.

But she quickly regained her clarity. No one in this world has more knowledge than me in fighting against mages, even if he's a prince, today will be the day he dies!

Kunai says as he dashes away from Fiona and chases after Lance.

Fiona clenched her fists, knowing that in Kunai's eyes, Lance is probably the bigger threat but as a commander and a daughter of a marquis, it isn't proper to try and take control with the prince present.

She looks one more time at Lance, wondering just what surprise this prince can give her, and then turns her head to face Blade.

"I hope you don't think just because your princess can hold me back, you can too," Fiona says with a cold and dark tone while unsheathing her sword.

"You foolish mages will fall under the might of our Thorkell empire", Blade says while preparing for battle.

The two clash at the same time Kunai and Lance cross blades.

Commander Maria took charge and held back the upcoming soldiers of the Thorkell empire. Further pushing the battlefield into another deadlock.

Back in the Kadence Empire

"I think it's time for me to go," Jason said to Selena who is now in his arms.

"Did something happen?" Selena asked curiously.

"Lance just went to the Thorkell empire battlefront way ahead of schedule. He might have seen something" Jason said.

"You think something special happened there?" Selena asked.

"My spies in the military faction let me know that there has been a massive influx of Kortz for the Thorkell army at the border. We have been at war with them for a very long time and I am fully aware of their finances. It should have been impossible for them to get enough money to acquire so much Kortz in such a short period of time" Jason explains.

"What makes it suspicious is that not long ago, Count Grenden left the empire on a business trip and returned not too long ago. Then a few weeks later, the Thorkell empire had enough money to increase their Kortz quantity by leaps and bounds. it doesn't take a genius to know what happened" Jason says.

Selena's face paled, Jason always told her to be wary of Count Grenden but she never knew the situation would reach the point where he was paying our enemies to kill our soldiers.

"We have to do something! He is clearly polluting evil, the empire will be in trouble!" Selena said.

"It's none of my business whether this empire falls or not, I just have to save my mother and make sure my city doesn't fall. The teleport method is ready to implement so I will stop by her palace before I leave so she can be safe. And didn't I already tell you that Lance already left for the battlefield? The situation was probably terrible and he was forced to get help. He should be fine since he doesn't use magic anyway, Kortz won't do anything to him" Jason says indifferently.

With how much effort Jason continuously puts into developing the empire and the city, she keeps mistakenly believing that he cares about this empire. But with a childhood experience that he had, would Jason really care if Count Grenden slaughters every noble in the capital? She already knew the answer in her heart.

She sighed and snuggled deeper into Jason's arms. The pain of his past won't go away easily, I will just be here to accompany him and make sure he remembers that there are people who will never give up on him no matter what. 

"Will you be going to the Voraine empire then?" Selena asked.

"Yep, The best Lance can do is bring things back to a statement, I need to pull some cards to turn this campaign into a victory," Jason says as he lightly kisses Selena's cheek and prepares to get up. 

"Please take care of the city and the mother, I'll be off to go help save your dear empire," Jason says sarcastically but with a bit of teasing in his voice.

Selena smiled, she knew at the end of the day, Jason would still choose the help people even after all they did to him. That's one of the things she likes about him the most.

She blows him a kiss and then chuckles sweetly.

Jason smiles and then heads out the door. 

His eyes immediately turned cold.

"Grenden, I have let you hop around for too long. I don't care what you do to those foolish nobles but if you dare touch my mother or my city, I'll make sure to slaughter your entire lineage" Jason says as his expression turns cold.

During the next few days, Selena has been actively putting up all kinds of defenses. During the campaign, she only had one night to work with so all she could do was manage some pitfalls and tricks. But since she has been preparing for a while, she has all kinds of different methods to stop people from entering the city once the city is in lockdown. 

Weapons and explosives have been enhanced, The terrain has been distorted, and the castle walls have been hardened. These are all things that will take a lot of time to fully implement but she has not been idle at all. The teleportation method has also been set up in a grand room in the magic tower. This requires a large amount of mana and it could only work once. Selena knew this was how Jason wanted to sneak the empress out of the Palace. She was just curious about what excuse he would use to get her out. The empress can't just leave... right?

Since coming with Jason to the New Southern City after the hunting competition, Selena has long since won the hearts of the people in the city. Even the remnants of the Southern tribe who integrated into society all hold her just as highly as they hold Jason.

She feels a bit of regret on why she wasn't this active back in the Jobaine territory but she still vows to protect these people and not let them down.

She has also been slowly recruiting mages who want to learn non-offensive magic. These mages were either fans of hers, fans of Jason, or just mages who were very scared of war.

She can only recruit the bottom-of-the-barrel mages for now because Jason said they might have a conflict with the military faction if the most talented mages come to learn non-offensive magic instead of going to war.

Time passes by and Selena is keeping herself busy and productive while worrying about what is to come.

Jason, stopped by his mother's palace and placed the teleportation method near her closet. As long as she stands on the spot and pours her mana into it, she will activate the other end of the teleport method and will allow a one-time use travel.

"Jason, I know you want me safe but I can't leave here for now," The empress said sweetly.

"This isn't for you to leave now Mother, things will get very dangerous soon and your life might be compromised if you don't have cards like this ready. Just promise me that once a battle or war starts, you will immediately teleport away and come to safety. Don't forget, there are many people who will take advantage of the chaos to kill you and my citizens want to see their archduke's mother!" Jason said in a convincing tone.

The empress smiles, "Okay my son, if you care this much, how can I not do as you say. I will stay here until my time is up and then I will follow you to live my days peacefully" the empress says.

Jason smiles, "Thank you, mother, Stay safe, I have something to do now," Jason says as he gives a light kiss on the cheek to his mother and then walks out the door.

The mother smiles lovingly at her dear son and then continues to work on the papers. 

She was aware of Jason's warning and knew something suspicious was going on. She may love the empire but she loves her son more. If push comes to shove, she will definitely escape even if it leads to the capital burning down.

Jason slowly departs and starts his Journey. Many days pass and he eventually meets a familiar figure.

"Cousin! You're here" Ivory says. 

Jason smiles, "It seems to be Ivory, how have you been these days". 

"I've been great, so are you ready to go?", She asked Jason.

"Yes, I am, It's time to head to the Voraine Empire!" He says as the two cousins head towards a large gate.