Chapter 620 — Iron and Fire

Standing beside that vast and awe-inspiring war machine, Holm could not help but raise his head in reverence, gazing up at its iron-grey armor and the pipes and mechanical structures sheathed within its shields. Beside him, Knight Maqi—once commander of Bedrock Fortress, now a Cecil officer—let out a soft murmur of admiration: "She's a beautiful machine, isn't she?"

Holm tilted his head slightly and glanced at this knight who had once again donned his armor and sworn fealty to the duchy.

After a full year of labor reform and ideological reshaping, then more than half a year of education in knowledge, and finally passing rigorous examinations and oath-taking procedures, this former royal noble had been granted the chance to swear loyalty to the Lord of the Southern Frontier.

He had at one point been assigned to the engineering corps of the Second Legion, taking part in construction and production across many regions of the north. He had witnessed with his own eyes and experienced firsthand the operating rules of Cecil order. In the course of this, the knight had shown a sincere and earnest attitude and outstanding personal ability; thus he was shifted about, promoted, and eventually transferred into the First Combat Corps, becoming commander of the Iron Throne.

In Cecil, "reformees" like him were hardly few. After all, talent was scarce in this age, and a portion of the intellectuals needed for early production and construction had to be selected from the old nobility. This might leave certain hidden dangers for the future, but it was still better than dying in the mire during the early stages of development.

And Knight Maqi, whose character was reliable to begin with, should count as one of the most trustworthy and promising among such "reformees."

Holm, born a serf but now one of Cecil's officials, smiled. "She is indeed a beautiful machine. Every part of her is beautiful."

There was a certain double meaning in his words, but he was also genuinely praising the war machine on the rails beside him—this enormous armored train was the most powerful mechanical device he had ever seen in his life. It was not merely a means of transport, but a weapon and a fortress. It was the outstanding creation of Marquise Rebecca and the master craftsman Nicholai, and the awe-inspiring crystallized sweat and blood of Cecil's diligent and clever workers.

At its head and tail were two "arsenal sections" apiece; mounted on the chassis were four large rail cannons in total and four of the largest ultra-heavy burners currently in existence, and between the turrets and the burner mounts were armored gun towers capable of housing combat personnel, able to fire lightning, fireballs, or searing rays to sweep the enemy depending on the battle situation, in defense of the train's cannons.

The middle of the train consisted of large carriages called "tactical sections," which, besides housing the train's command post, also mounted high-power mana obelisks and communications equipment, along with ample weapons for self-defense.

The remaining carriages were "carrier sections." Those vast carriages could hold hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers, or be swapped for open flatbeds to transport all manner of war vehicles; nearly every kind of magic-guided vehicle Cecil had produced could be placed upon those broad, sturdy carrier beds.

Now, this dreadful war machine had a total of twelve "Warhammer-I" tanks secured across four carrier beds. Those tanks were not merely "passengers" on this train—they were themselves a fearsome armed force. When secured to the beds, they effectively became small-scale rail cannons; their turrets were even more agile than the Iron Throne's own main guns. At a single order from the train commander, twelve additional tank guns could faithfully annihilate any petty wretches who dared approach the Iron Throne.

Armed to the teeth, reigning over the earth—it was so full of power that only upon seeing it with his own eyes did Holm finally understand why a train would be named the Iron Throne. That iron-grey paint and the rigid, unyielding lines of its mechanical structure made it worthy of the name "throne," and it even carried a beauty that fascinated him. In that instant, he was almost a little jealous of Knight Maqi.

"This is only the first Iron Throne," Knight Maqi said, pride on his face. "According to the plan, more Iron Throne-class armored trains will be put onto the rails to protect the lands the railway covers. So each Iron Throne actually has its own detailed name—the one before you, in full, should be called 'Iron Throne-Zero.'"

"The original Iron Throne, is it..." Holm nodded slightly in thought, then said, "These past days we've been laying railway extending northward. The situation in the Eastern Frontier is deteriorating, but correspondingly, since the local lords have sealed off their own domains and castles, vast stretches of wilderness have become completely ungoverned areas, with almost no one hindering our activities—even if a few local lords try to interfere, scattered as they are, they can't amount to much."

Maqi asked, "Where are those crystal-plague infected now?"

"They're still active in the region west of Fort Soreen. Only a few muddled wanderers have entered the Eastern Frontier, and for now they pose no threat."

Maqi nodded gently.

Clearly, the main objective of the Order of the Final Death was still Ansul's royal capital. They had sent almost their entire crystal legion to the northwestern front, and paid scant attention to the Eastern Frontier—a dish already set upon the dinner table. This was not hard to understand: on one side of the Eastern Frontier lay the Typhon Empire, and on the other the already utterly fallen eastern regions of the Holy Spirit Plain. The bulk of the military forces and capable nobles within its borders had been lost in the great contamination of the Holy Spirit Plain. To the Order of the Final Death, which already held the advantage, this land was as good as swallowed—all that remained was to digest it slowly.

But Knight Maqi knew this situation would not last long. The Order of the Final Death had merely not yet gathered its strength, had not yet "digested" the vast legions it had suddenly come to control, had not yet planted its feet firmly. But once they had completely wiped out the remaining royal forces resisting on the Holy Spirit Plain, once their army stood before the walls of Sacred Frost Perch, they would begin to "absorb" power from the Eastern Frontier, converting the population of this land endlessly into their crystal legions, to sweep across the rest of Ansul's territory.

And his task was, before all that happened, to strike from a direction the Order of the Final Death would never expect and suddenly seal off the pass into the Eastern Frontier, coordinating with Gaoyang Cecil's "blockade" operation along the Gorgon River.

Over the past few months, Baisha Mining had, under the pretext of "building more roads to facilitate ore transport," laid a great deal of railway through the interwoven region between Baisha and Gelan. The slow reactions of the local lords, combined with Baisha Mining Company's financial offensives against country knights, tax collectors, and civil officials, had let those rails creep almost beneath Silas Loren's very nose—and now, with the Eastern Frontier growing ever more chaotic, Baisha Mining's railway-laying could be done openly.

……

On the east bank of the Gorgon River, north of the Fertile Woodland, the steel-forged legion began its advance.