Emperor of Steel

Chapter 754: Pursuit and Counterattack 1

“Oh my god...!”

Luke and his party who arrived in Zaragoza were startled after seeing the scene around them.

The entire capital, including the throne palace, where the teleport gate was installed was looking like a sea of fire, and the corpses that were burnt or slashed were scattered all around the place.

It was hard to find even a living bird or animal, let alone a person. All Luke could hear was the noise of buildings burning and collapsing.

Every living being seemed to have been destroyed.

Not just Luke, even Gregory and Belik, who had the bravest hearts on the battlefield, were shocked at the terrible landscape in front of their eyes.

“This is, not even children are...”

“How the hell did all this happen!?”

The three men were angry while looking at the horrors in front of them and rushed to the Royal palace of Castia.

However, the Royal Palace didn’t seem to be any better.

The Royal Palace, which seemed to have been taken down by a wide area magic, had more than half of its walls destroyed, and the bodies of nobles and knights, even the maids of the palace were scattered everywhere.

“The bodies still feel warm. It seems like this happened just a while back.”

At Belik’s words, Luke nodded.

“There is also some magi traces left here.”

“Magi? So, this is the work of warlocks?”

“No doubt about it. There is only one person who can cause such a tragedy.”

It had to be Arsene.

Although there were traces of Magi being erased in the city, Luke’s black magic was of higher level, so he managed to detect it.

And there was another reason why Luke was convinced after sensing the Magi.

The energy of the Dragonian, Shaikan, could be felt, Luke’s face went hard when he thought about it.

‘It seems that Arsene didn’t just steal Shaikan’s body. He even stole the power of the Dragonian he possesses.’

With that in mind, he could guess how the Royal Palace and the nation could be destroyed in no time.

Probably, before the attack, Arsene had blocked the communication tools and made it impossible to contact the other areas.

And he must have made some Undead.

Here, with the power of Dragonian, he might have used a wide area magic and destroyed everything.

‘But, why attack Castia? Is this a retaliation for the Undead army’s end? But I was the one who stopped the Undead, so why Castia?’

The Castia Kingdom had annihilated 2 million Undead.

However, it was Luke who purged them in the Navarre Duchy and the Volga Republic along with his own Symphonia Kingdom.

He was the one who gave the other nations the large magic circle and relay tower and treated the Undead.

“Your Majesty, over here.”

Luke, who was deep in his thought, moved at the words of Arch Duke Gregory.

Arch Duke Gregory was near a half collapsed building, and when Luke went close, he pointed to one side.

There seemed to be a man with his open arms stuck to the wall of the building.

The man, whose mouth was wide open in shock, had all his intestines taken out. He was King James II of the Castia Kingdom.

His face distorted after death with all of his blood on the wall and floor.

The fear and pain he felt during his death seemed to be excruciating.

‘To kill a king of a nation like this!’

Even if one was being driven by emotional goals, his opponent was a king.

Luke didn’t like what was done to King James II.

“Your Majesty, it would be better to take down his body and bury it somewhere.”

“I know. It shouldn’t be burnt with the city or turn into food for animals...”

The three of them recovered the body of James II and buried it near the temple grounds.

If they could, they would have buried all the people in Zaragoza.

However, with just the three of them, it was impossible to bury all of the people.

Luke unfolded magic and called for rain to extinguish the fire in the city. He also contacted the other Lords of Castia in the other estates to fix the capital.

“I know that James II had no children, but is there anyone else who would be the King of Castia?”

Arch Duke Gregory, who contemplated Luke’s question, came up with an answer.

“The closest to the Royal family will be Arch Duke Wallace, the Lord of the East. He is the third son of King Alfred, the grandfather of James II.”

“Duke Wallace won’t do, the man is too old.”

Belik was the one who opposed Gregory’s words.

“But if you put up the wrong man as the king, the people would turn suspicious about the pope or His Majesty. They might think that we are trying to devour the Castia Kingdom by placing our man.”

“Surely, that might come up... But, Arch Duke Wallace is not king material, senior. I used to be a mercenary under that man in the past, and he was very lazy and didn’t care about politics.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, instead of the Arch Duke, I would rather expect his eldest son to take over. Instead of the Arch Duke, he leads his retainers and their government affairs.”

Belik was from a different nation, and his age was quite similar to Gregory, so he talked without holding back.

It was because, after the marriage between Luke and Reina, they would often meet in the Holy Palace, and the two men got close.

So, they were calling each other senior and junior.

“Rather, where did the ones who destroyed this place go to?”

“Well, they should have moved to their next target, right?”

At Gregory’s answer, Belik grunted.

“Of course they are out looking for their next target. The question is, where is the next target? While we are here, another city might be on fire.”

What could the next target of the monsters who destroyed Cartago and Zaragoza be?

Was there another city in the Castia Kingdom or was it another Kingdom of the alliance, or was Symphonia Kingdom next?

“Where do you think is their next target?”

At Belik’s question, Gregory gave it a good thought and answered, “I think it is Gulem, another city to the North of Castia Kingdom.”

“Why do you think they would go there?”

“They first attack Cartago in the south. Then, Zaragoza of the center north.”

“They might be moving north?”

“Yes, Cartago, Zaragoza, and Gulem are all connected by the central road lines. Gulem is a commercial city that trades with the Holy Empire and has both military and administrative center of the northern estates.”

If Gulem was to be taken down, then Castia would never rise again.

Even to Gregory, Belik’s words seemed right.

If the enemy’s intention was to make the alliance collapse, then the possibility of attacking the large cities like Gulem would destroy the nations.

Gregory frowned upon thinking about it.

That was when Luke spoke, “I don’t think that could be.”

“Why?”

Belik asked right away.

“Although Gulem is a huge city, it wouldn’t bring many benefits to the monsters by attacking it. It would be better to cross the border and attack either the Holy Empire or the Symphonia.”

The Castia Kingdom, which had its Royal Palace and the capital destroyed, including James II, meant there was no place for it in the Continental Alliance.

It was because the nation would be in a mess trying to figure out the next king and fixing the damages.

If Luke was Arsene, he would choose a nation other than Castia.

“Oh, Your Majesty. Can’t you trace their tracks? Did you read their Magi a while back?”

At Arch Duke Gregory’s question, Luke shook his head with a heavy sigh.

“I tried to do it a while back, trace their Magi path, but after some point, the trail gets cut off.”

In addition to tracing the black magic, he even tried to trace the Dragonian energy wave, but everything got cut off after 10 kilometers to the north.

“Tch, the strongest Rune Knight couldn’t even use his tracking magic properly...”

Belik groaned by criticizing Luke.

It was almost as if he still had a bone to pick against Luke.

“Ugh! Stop, Belik! Be polite to His Majesty!”

At Gregory’s words, belik shot back.

“Senior, I am Luke’s stepfather. Can’t a father curse his own son?”

There was a time when Luke pretended to be Belik’s son to disguise his identity.

Thanks to that, everyone got deceived, but Belik, who was supposed to be dead, appeared and turned into Luke’s stepfather.

“Nobody knows that. However, aren’t we in a situation where our own allies are being attacked? I don’t think it is time to criticize or complain about our allies just because of our personal opinion.”

“Yeah, fine. I am shutting my mouth.”

Gregory silenced Belik and bowed to Luke as an apology.

It was because it was Gregory who called Belik along with them.

“It is fine. Rather, as Belik said, we need to find out where they are. And we need to be prepared for a possible next attack.”

Luke sent a magic communication to the Symphonia Kingdom and ordered all the intelligence agents to focus on finding Arsene and the Undead Legion.

In addition, he instructed the entire army to be prepared for a possible attack on them and to regularly be in contact with other units.

Arch Duke Gregory too contacted the Holy Empire and asked for the same orders to be followed.

“We need to communicate this to our other allies.”

“Of course.”

At Gregory’s words, Luke’s first call was to Volga Republic.

After hearing about the annihilation of Cartago, President Vladimir was shocked, and the incident of Zaragoza turned him stiff.

No one ever thought that the Cartago could be attacked like that.

But even Zaragoza, the capital of the kingdom, which had great military power, collapsed overnight!

-Who do you think is doing this, Your Majesty? You don’t think that it is the same person who created the Undead from the Libiya Kingdom, right?

“I think it was the same person.”

-Then, let’s attack the Libiya Kingdom. The troops dispatched in Baroque will be enough to capture that place.

Vladimir wasn’t trying to attack the Libiya Kingdom because of the estates or any resentment because of the Undead.

It was because he judged that if a main camp got attacked, the enemy wouldn’t be able to attack them any longer.

-Currently, the Libiya Kingdom is no different than being empty. Many of the people turned Undead and are currently staying as refugees in our nations, and the military force there might be poor due to financial deterioration.

“I know that too.”

The weakening of the Libiya army was guided by Luke, so he knew about it.

But...

‘Will Arsene come back to protect the main camp with only his vessel left?’

A skeptical thought passed his mind.

Still, even if it had a 1 percent chance, Luke wanted to try.

The Undead army was cleared, so they decided to invade the Libiya Kingdom.

“I will order Marquis Rogers who is in Baroque.”

-Okay. We will bring in troops to the south too.

After ending the magic communication with the Volga Republic, Luke contacted the Navarre Duchy and the Irea Kingdom, informed the danger, and request small support near the Libiya Kingdom.

After talking to them, Luke went back to Bless along with his party.

Rather than staying in Castia, it seemed better to stay in Bless while gathering information and contacting people.

“Dad, you came back!”

Although they were contacted by Gregory, Reina and Karen could understand how worse the situation was from just Luke’s face.

“Was there no survivor?”

“Unfortunately...”

“How horrible!”

Reina, who was shocked, began to prey for the victims.

Luke was looking at her while she was praying when the crystal ball in his hand began to vibrate.

‘No!’

Luke pulled out the crystal ball.

The place where the communication was coming from was Brandon, the capital of Symphonia.

Prime Minister Hans seemed to be tense while he was speaking.

“What is it? Did the enemy reach there?”

-No, that isn’t it... It was said that reinforcements from the Song and Yemaek have just arrived at Lamer.

“Is that it? Make sure we’re hospitable toward them.”

A sigh reputed from Luke’s mouth.

It wasn’t the worst situation he had imagined in which Brandon and other cities of Symphonia got destroyed.

After a few more words, Luke asked Hans who was still looking at him.

“Prime Minister, is there anything else to report?”

-... None. Please look after yourself.

Finally, the call was cut.

Luke immediately noticed what Hans was trying to ask.

‘The situation is turning serious, so he must have wanted to ask me to come back home.’

Luke was the King of Symphonia.

However, because of an emergency, he had to go to Bless instead of his palace.

Luke went to Bless and Brandon because his family lived in Bless, but he wasn’t qualified when it came to being a king.

Yet, Hans never said anything. He always wished for Luke to be safe.

‘Maybe I am the wrong person when it comes to taking responsibility for being a king...’

Luke was feeling bitter.

He continued to contact his retainers and monitor the situation of Symphonia.

One day had passed, and soon, the next day came.

On the third day, a significant piece of information came in.

“Your Majesty, I got a call from a priest who works in the central of Irea and said a suspicious group of people crossed the sky and headed for the Angara.”

“It must be them! Let’s hurry to Angara!”

At Gregory’s words, Luke led the Saint Guards and the Holy Imperial army to Irea Kingdom’s capital.