Chapter 685 — Intelligence in the Mist

But the moment the words left his mouth, the nightingale suddenly twisted and shuddered. Then it was swiftly swallowed by a halo of light, becoming motes of faint radiance that drifted away on the wind, vanishing completely from Luo Yan's sight within seconds.

Luo Yan watched this scene quietly. Only when the nightingale's residual magical reaction had faded completely did he murmur to himself with a trace of thoughtfulness: "So-called 'twins'... just one person, after all... That is rather interesting."

A somewhat disordered sound of footsteps came from the corridor, and the study door was pushed open from outside. Several palace guards and a court mage clad in robes of purple stars appeared before Luo Yan. These late-arriving guards took in the wreckage in the study, and their expressions turned quite remarkable. The leading court mage hesitated for a moment, then composed his words and summoned the courage to ask: "Your Majesty, this place..."

"A visitor came late at night. Unfortunately, she did not wish to stay a moment longer," Luo Yan waved his hand, signaling the guards not to be alarmed. "Clean it up. It is all a small matter."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Luo Yan Augustus nodded slightly, then let his gaze sweep over the nearby bookshelves and walls, coming to rest on a map not far away.

He gazed at the border between Typhon and the "Kingdom of Ansu."

The royal authority of Ansu had ended. This map, too, should be replaced.

...

At the Typhon border, inside Winterwolf Keep, Anluwendel was just drawing his gaze back from the battle map.

Longwind Fortress and Winterwolf Keep faced each other across a plain, with only that stretch of open ground between them. The two nations' "peace accord" was still in force, and its mithril copy still reposed within the Treaty Keep at the plain's center. Yet a tense atmosphere was steadily brewing along that standoff line.

Longwind was reinforcing, and so was Winterwolf. Within a single month the border forces of both sides had nearly doubled. Their scout units wove back and forth between the controlled zones and the buffer, and all manner of intelligence agents labored to infiltrate the towns and villages near the border. No one had torn away the veil, yet everyone was quietly doing the same thing. An ironic sort of "tacit understanding" had taken root between the two confronting powers—and more ironic still than this "wartime understanding" was that cross-border trade was still proceeding as usual, and had even expanded in scale of late.

An Luo was a military officer, but not a reckless one. From the trade orders circulating through the passes under her control she could read a great deal. The expansion of those orders and the briskness of the merchants meant two things: first, Ansor's vitality had not been gravely damaged in the previous war—they still had the capacity to buy and absorb vast quantities of goods; second, the Cecil family had completed its control of the Eastern Region, which was why merchants bearing the Cecil emblem were appearing in such numbers in the pass zones between the East and Tifeng.

The young wolf general could not help kneading the bridge of her nose to ease the pressure building in her head, and just then a knock at the door sounded, interrupting her thoughts.

"Enter."

The door swung open and a young knight stepped into the room.

"General, new intelligence," the young knight said, coming before An Luo and, after a salute, reporting crisply, "Another force of some two thousand has entered Longwind Fortress from the northwest. The unit flies the Mountain Corps emblem, but the commanding officer is unknown—not anyone familiar to us."

"Another two thousand..." An Luo frowned. "...Wasn't their Mountain Corps badly mauled? Where did they find so many replacement troops..."

The knight aide had served An Luo for years and was himself a fairly seasoned officer, so he now voiced his own conjecture: "Perhaps they are merely Northern private soldiers flying the Mountain Corps colors. The Ansor are putting on a show of strength."

"Dressing low-grade private troops as an elite corps... it's possible, but it doesn't matter. Even if they drag every one of those private soldiers up to fill out the ranks, their numbers are ultimately finite. They shouldn't be able to find more replacements than this," An Luo shook her head. "Only His Majesty's order is that we are not to attack until the true situation is clear, lest we fall into a trap. We must still wait until we understand Longwind Fortress's actual strength before we move."

The knight aide looked at his superior, hesitated a moment, and could not help saying, "General, tell me—are we actually going to fight this year or not?"

An Luo glanced at the young man. "Do you want to fight?"

"Of course," the young knight lifted his head at once. "To contend for honor on the battlefield is a knight's duty—all the more so for those of us in the Winterwolf Legion."

Looking at this fervent subordinate, An Luo could not help but feel a stir of emotion.

As His Majesty's new policies deepened, a great many minor nobles of the Empire had been affected; the traditional noble life of living off tribute drawn from the land had become untenable, and these lesser houses had fixed their eyes on military merit. Winning achievements on the battlefield was the best way, under the Empire's present policies, to preserve a house and reap wealth—and so great numbers of low-born minor nobles like the young knight before her had thrown themselves into the army.

Of course, magitech industry was now rising in the Empire, and that too was a path by which minor and middling nobles might regain their former glory. Only, investing in an emerging industry required not merely courage and foresight but baseline capital and connections—that road did not suit everyone.

"So do I," An Luo reined in her thoughts and let out a soft breath, yet her father's face flashed unbidden through her mind. "Rest easy—this war will break out in the end."