Holy Knight Empire's camp, command center

Shortly after Emperor Renardier summoned the leaders for an urgent war meeting, the attending nobles, lords, and high commanders voiced their rage, condemning the kingdom for their dirty trick.

"We can't let the Kingdom of Black Rose get away with this, Your Imperial Majesty! We must strike back and make them feel the same pain!"

"Oh? And how do you propose we do that without incurring greater losses than the Kingdom of Black Rose, exactly? Do you have a solid plan, Lord Dehmur? Anyone?"

"This.."

Faced with Emperor Renardier's question, Lord Dehmur, and the other nobles, lords, and commanders failed to answer. Their faces soon flushed with embarrassment, realizing they had been too hot-headed.historical

Emperor Renardier didn't gather them to discuss what they should do but how they go about doing it.

"As it stands, we can no longer use the magitech cannon for the time being. We only have enough mana stones for one or two shots. It's fine if we manage to breach Fort Whitebridge's dense within these shots. But if we don't, it will be a waste of resources," Emperor Renardier stated.

"I'm considering investing our remaining mana stones into our scout fleet until more supplies arrive. If we have aerial support, at the very least, we'll be able to monitor their movements. The only problem is we don't have a concrete plan to conquer the border regions."

"You got something to say, Marquis Salsburg?" Emperor Renardier asked.

"In my humble opinion, we should just launch a full-frontal assault on all three forts simultaneously, Your Imperial Majesty. It'll be difficult for them to defend three points at once without messing up their chain of command," Marquis Salsburg stated.

"More importantly, if we don't make use of our numerical advantage to overwhelm them, we are only playing in the enemy's favor. It's clear they have a skilled strategist. Thus, if we try to rely on tactics to minimize our losses, we might end up accumulating more losses in the long run."

"Does Marquis Salazar have anything to add to that?" Emperor Renadier shifted his attention to their strategist.

"Marquis Salsburg made a valid point, but that is only under the assumption that the enemy strategist is more skilled than me," Ulrich calmly argued.

"The enemy might have caught us off guard with their one-time trick, but that is no reason for us to overestimate their abilities and put them on a high pedestal. There's no need to jump to conclusions."

"Once we initiate a full-frontal assault, there's no going back from it. The blood of our soldiers will be on our hands," Ulrich said seriously.

"However, there is some merit to a full-frontal assault; it will draw all of the enemy's attention. After all, one million and five hundred thousand soldiers isn't a force they can ignore. We can use that to our advantage and distract the enemy from our true goal."

"A diversion, huh?" Emperor Renardier muttered before saying, "Let me guess, by forcing the enemies to keep their eyes on our main army, we can send in elites through the secret passage to pass their defense and flank them from behind."

"Indeed, it's a good plan.. if only the enemy isn't aware of the secret passage, that is. Unfortunately, the Deathsworn Group had already used it once to infiltrate the kingdom, and their performance was disappointing. It's likely that the enemy already knows about that secret passage."

"Thus, there's a risk that we'll be walking right into a trap if we use that secret passage again," Emperor Renardier stated.

"Indeed, that secret passage cannot be used again. It's too close to Fort Whitebridge," Ulrich acknowledged with a nod before smiling. "However, we are in luck, Your Imperial Majesty."

"The dark organization provided us information on another six secret passages; three in Whitebridge, two in Dragontail, and one in Ironhaven," Ulrich mentioned, giving everyone a pleasant surprise.

"Another six secret passages! But why would the dark organization provide this information to us?" Emperor Renardier frowned with doubt.

"The dark organization, Assembly of Silent Night, had lost all their contacts within the Kingdom of Black Rose. Thus, they hoped that by providing this information to us, we could avenge them, Your Imperial Majesty."

"Is that so? Hahaha!" Emperor Renardier suddenly burst into laughter, rejoicing heartily, "This is the best thing I've heard all day. Finally, some useful fucking information. However, this information has been verified, yes?"

"Absolutely. The six secret passages exist, Your Imperial Majesty. I've already had my men ascertain their specific locations," Ulrich assured.

"Good!" Emperor Renardier exclaimed.

"Since at least one secret passage exists in each border region, let us decide where we should focus our attack. As long as we can take over one of these three forts, we'll be able to quickly rally troops there and sweep the rest of the land with unstoppable momentum."

Emperor Renardier stated, directing everyone's attention to Fort Whitebridge, Fort Dragontail, and Fort Ironhaven on the battle map.

No one doubted the strength of the empire's army; they all had absolute confidence that their soldiers would be able to dominate the witches in battle.

However, a long body of water existed between the two countries, and the soldiers could not fight in the water. They couldn't cross the river without suffering casualties under the witches' barrage of spells either.

As such, they needed to occupy one of the forts to secure a safe river-crossing path for their big army.

Nevertheless, the attending members of the war meeting had a hard time deciding between Fort Ironhaven and Fort Dragontail. As for Fort Whitebridge, it was immediately eliminated from the list of options.

After all, Fort Whitebridge has the highest number of battle witches guarding it. And they also found out its defense was impregnable if they didn't consider the use of their magitech cannon.

"It seems we won't be able to come to an easy decision between Fort Ironhaven and Fort Dragontail. Let us send out the scout fleet and get an update on their numbers."

Ulrich's suggestion quickly received a unanimous agreement.

Since the war had already begun, the Kingdom of Black Rose was bound to reinforce its forts with more troops.

As such, they needed updated information on their enemy's strength.

...