Chapter 697 — The Enemy

A cold wind blew into the Obsidian Palace. Duke Pei Yi Wendell, tall and broad, strode down the long corridor with the speed of a gale. The attendants withdrew respectfully to either side, bowing and watching the Empire's chief minister make his way toward the emperor's study, privately speculating as to why the "Wolf Duke" had been summoned to court in such urgency.

Pei Yi wasted not a single moment along the way, going straight to the room where the emperor was waiting. When the attendant opened the door, he saw the ruler of the Empire already seated behind his desk, waiting for him.

"Your Majesty," Pei Yi said, stepping into the study and bowing before the desk. "I am here."

"This is an urgent message from An Luo," said Luo Yan Augustus, his face as calm as carved stone, his deep eyes betraying no ripple of emotion. He nudged a report—transcribed by the signal officer—across the desk, his tone utterly flat. "We have misstepped."

Relayed through the Empire's signal towers, word from Winterwolf Keep had reached the Obsidian Palace in the very first moments.

Pei Yi had a faint sense of what the intelligence contained. He stepped forward, picked up the report, and read it through from beginning to end, his expression darkening inch by inch as his eyes moved down the page.

A few minutes later, the Wolf Duke looked up, his brows tightly knit. "Your Majesty..."

"The Cecil people are cunning, and they have placed a very troublesome, very capable commander in charge of Longwind Fortress. Their scheme fooled everyone—including me. We have already missed our chance. According to An Luo's report, a powerful mobile fortress driven by arcanotechnical technology has arrived in the Palemel region, supporting Longwind Fortress and supported by it in turn, and a great many troops arrived at the border alongside that fortress," Luo Yan Pingxi said. "In this first contest, the Cecil people have shown strength beyond our expectations."

"I must bear some of the responsibility," Duke Pei Yi said gravely. "I misjudged the situation..."

"You only did your duty, and you are not the only one who misjudged the situation," Luo Yan cut him off. "Now is not the time to assign blame. We should be thinking about what comes next."

"...The Cecil people also missed a chance to deal us a heavy blow in this affair, and on the other hand, they surely do not want a war right now," Pei Yi said, thinking aloud. "After a civil war and a natural disaster, on top of a new imperial house and state system only just established, what they need most urgently now is peace and recovery."

Luo Yan nodded slightly, acknowledging Pei Yi's judgment, but then his brow furrowed and he said sternly, "Leaving them to recover their strength is also a danger."

"Indeed," Pei Yi said, his tone deep. "The Cecil people... they have already demonstrated a formidable capacity for development—their army, their economy, their society. The new order that Gao Yang Cecil has built shows an especially terrifying potential. If they truly gain the chance to recover and rebuild, the Cecil Empire will soon become a beast beyond anyone's control..."

There was a note of lament in the old duke's voice. He had studied Ansú for more than half his life, and in the end had watched Ansú fall apart under internal and external strife and the erosion of layer upon layer of intrigue. Yet no one had expected that from Ansú's ruins a Cecil would rise again—a newborn empire more intractable and more dangerous than the rotten kingdom that had come before. The fire meant to burn that kingdom to ash had, in the end, seemed to become a rite of rebirth, a trial by flame from which a giant emerged renewed. And yet at precisely this critical juncture, Typhon had lost its only chance to strangle this newborn nation in its cradle.

But neither Luo Yan nor Pei Yi felt anything more than lament at this—no great vexation, no recrimination.

When an age is being transformed, any amount of complaining about what has already happened is merely a waste of time. The Cecil Empire was indeed developing, but Typhon... was not standing still either.

Having missed the opportune moment for war, it was better to make oneself move faster than to hope the opponent would halt—so as to be ready for the next confrontation to come.

"If my estimate is right, Gao Yang Cecil will soon send us signals through his 'commercial diplomacy.' There is a strong likelihood he will choose peace, and I can only accept it—and am glad to accept it," Luo Yan said, breaking the silence several minutes later. "We must make ready to meet a new state of confrontation."

One side needed to recover and rebuild; the other was in a critical period of transformation. The two empires had circled the edge of the cliff and then—whether by fate or by deliberate design—both happened to enter a phase that required "peace." For a long time to come, as far as anyone could foresee, Cecil and Typhon would find it very hard to go to war again, and a "confrontation" different from war would likely become the normal state of affairs between the two nations.

Luo Yan had already foreseen the rough shape of that confrontation and meant to make certain preparations for the future.

After a brief moment of thought, he looked at Pei Yi: "Duke Severn's economic policy can now be rolled out in full. Let capital flow more freely; let the minor nobles and merchants drive the factories. Our arcanotechnical industry is already a step behind the Cecil people—we cannot afford to fall further behind.

"The Empire's Artificers' Guild must be expanded further. As for technical talent, we must recruit and support them by every possible means. I intend to create the rank of 'Special-Class Lord' and several classes of medals. Those scholars and craftsmen of exceptional ability—even if they are of common birth—shall have the chance to be ennobled and decorated.

"The Council has been squabbling for months over whether commoners may read the same textbooks as the children of nobles. These disputes must stop at once...

"Our commercial activities with the southern continent... we have discussed them long enough; it is time to push them forward. Following the trade model we have now established with the Cecil people, let us open business with the Highland Kingdom and with the elves. Put Earl Holmark in charge of this—he understands the situation in the south."

Pei Yi raised his eyebrows. "Trade with the southern continent... was that not shelved earlier?"

"The elves are most displeased with our logging in the southern continent, and that has affected our relations with the Highland Kingdom as well. But now... we must open the southern trade routes," Luo Yan said in a tone that brooked no argument. "The growth of arcanotechnical industry is easing the pressure created by the earlier reforms, but what the factories produce must be sold before it becomes profit—otherwise the nobles and merchants who invested in those factories will inevitably grow restless again. Beyond the trade routes with the Cecil Empire, we must find more markets."

"I understand," Pei Yi nodded. "Then how great a concession do you wish Earl Holmark to make?"

"Typhon can halt all logging operations in the disputed forest regions of the southern continent. It can halt the push of settlement into the Bluerock Hills..." Luo Yan had clearly been thinking about this well before today. "We may even recognize the 'Earl of Bluerock' as ennobled by the Highland Kingdom. But all of this is conditional on their opening their treaty ports—on opening the three great roads from the Bluerock region to the Ancestral Wood."

When Pei Yi heard the concessions Luo Yan proposed, a flash of astonishment crossed his face, but after only two or three seconds of deliberation the old duke lowered his head. "I understand."