Chapter 32: The Immortal Fortress

May 15th, 1064.

Ferdinand II, Emperor of the Holy Federated Empire, granted Princess Cinderella Latiga von Dortmund the position of Imperial Inspector.

This was the reason Ning Luo had to assume Cinderella’s identity.

Entering the Holy Federation under his own name would have been nearly impossible for Ning Luo.

Of course.

Ning Luo and Cinderella had arrived at the Immortal Fortress on the frontlines of the war.

It was called the Immortal Fortress precisely because, even after more than thirty years of war, the Empire of Scandinavia had never once breached this stronghold. The Holy Federation had named it such to honor that unbroken defense.

However—

The fact that the frontlines had reached the Immortal Fortress meant that the war situation itself was far from optimistic.

…

In truth, Ning Luo had not wanted to bring Cinderella to the frontlines.

Even the Brittany Fortress was a better option—at least its logistics could barely keep up. The Immortal Fortress, however, had no logistics to speak of. There were no longer words in this world that could describe such a hell.

It was normal for Priscilla and Isabella to come to the front.

Priscilla was a soldier herself, and Isabella had been desensitized to political malice since birth. Otherwise, as a princess, it would have been impossible for her to live alone in Brittany and stay by Ning Luo’s side. No one had ever had any control over Isabella.

Cinderella was different.

She had been sent to Brittany from birth, raised as an ordinary girl, and had never experienced the horrors of war or the poison of politics.

The only thing she had ever known was the loneliness of being uncared for.

She symbolized the ordinary people in times of war, people who had nothing to do with the original sins tied to the upper echelons of the state.

But war spared no one.

The moment Ning Luo dragged Cinderella into the war, it meant he was becoming one of those monsters ever closer to the heart of the empire—willing to sacrifice everything for war and interest.

Ning Luo had to carry guilt toward Cinderella.

That was his last proof of humanity; without it, he would never be able to escape the war.

However—

There was no longer time for Ning Luo to think about such things.

Holy Federation.

Duchy of Hohenstein.

Immortal Fortress.

Army  Conference Room.

When Ning Luo and Cinderella met with General Carlwitz, the general waved his hand, signaling everyone else to leave the conference room.

That too was a kind of logic of power. At the Brittany Fortress, the reason Ning Luo had been able to command the military boiled down to one thing: Marshal Asfled had imposed no restrictions on Ning Luo’s authority. General Cavaillé, who was the Military Dispatch Division’s director in name only, had been treated as if he didn’t exist. In the end, Ning Luo had gained control over the entire army.

But it was different in the Holy Federation. Cinderella’s very presence served as a self-imposed limit on Ning Luo’s power.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sub-Lieutenant Ning Luo of Albion."

General Carlwitz was, of course, fully aware of Ning Luo’s identity.

In fact, he was quite pleased with Ning Luo’s arrival. It signaled a certain degree of understanding between Albion and the Holy Federation—at least better than it had been in the past. General Carlwitz and Marshal Asfled shared the same view:

The war needed to end.

Ning Luo placed a document in front of General Carlwitz.

General Carlwitz took the document.

Its contents were simple.

It was a pledge from Emperor Ferdinand II himself—sworn upon the Holy Scripture—that he would never harm General Carlwitz.

But to General Carlwitz, this was an immense pain.

He, too, could swear upon the Scripture.

He would never betray Emperor Ferdinand II.

But how had things come to this? He had watched Ferdinand II grow up. Now, he was the Chief of Staff of the Imperial Army, and the other was the Emperor of the Empire. And yet, their relationship had come to rely on a vow made upon the Scripture just to hold together.

As Carlwitz’s fingers tightened slightly—

The oath burned to ash in his hand. He chose to discard the Emperor’s guarantee on his own accord.

General Carlwitz stood up.

He was the first to walk to the sand table, lifting his gaze to look at Ning Luo.

“No need for any more unnecessary words. If you really are the genius the rumors say you are—what do you need me to do?”

Ning Luo stepped up to the sand table as well.

He picked up a command baton and drew a line across the board.

“I want one hundred thousand troops transferred to Eisenwald. I will force the Duchy of Eisenwald to surrender.”

“We don’t have a hundred thousand troops!”

General Carlwitz stressed the point.

Forget giving Ning Luo a hundred thousand—he couldn’t even produce ten thousand.

The war had reached a point where even his troop calculations were done in hundreds.

“Then transfer soldiers from Schwarzthal and here!”

“Transferring the troops from Schwarzthal will collapse the eastern front!”

“We don’t need to hold the eastern front!”

“And what about the Immortal Fortress? Are you saying we don’t need to hold that either?!”

“I will hold it!”

“You want me to gamble the fate of the Holy Federation entirely on you?!”

“The fate of the Albion Empire is already on my shoulders!”

…

Neither yielded an inch.

That was just the way of things. Spend enough time in the army, and tempers grew short. It took less than thirty seconds for General Carlwitz and Ning Luo to be yelling at each other.

Yet Ning Luo’s reasoning was straightforward.

The current frontlines were spread out—mainly across the Duchies of Eisenwald, Hohenstein, Schwarzthal, and Waldenburg. Ning Luo’s plan was to concentrate forces and force a surrender from the Duchy of Eisenwald.

But General Carlwitz had no troops to spare. If he were to redeploy forces to Eisenwald, it would be a textbook case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The entire army might collapse under such a move.

However—

Just like in the Brittany Campaign, when things were at their bleakest, they had no choice but to stake everything on Ning Luo.

Was the Immortal Fortress any better off now? Perhaps marginally. But in the end, all of them were slaves to fate. Everything would only grow worse; there was no such thing as a turnaround.

In the end—

General Carlwitz chose to compromise.

He had no choice.

“You must provide me with a detailed battle plan. Only then can I decide.”

“I need access to sufficient information. You must trust me.”

“Fine. I’ll give it to you.”

…

Ning Luo left, taking Cinderella with him.

There was no time—not a single breath—left for Ning Luo to catch.

Now, Ning Luo carried not just the fate of two empires on his shoulders. No—not merely Albion and the Holy Federation. What rested upon him now was the fate of every nation on this land.

When the next great war arrived—

It would not be about a single person, a single house, a single faction, or even a single country. It would be history itself—the history of this land—that would be rewritten.

And General Carlwitz, too, would come to understand—

What it meant to see a war plan so utterly mad, so consumed by madness, that one had to become madness itself just to survive.