Chapter 50: The Army Presses on the Border
Su Xiao prepared to rendezvous with Esdeath. Continuing to slack off would arouse suspicion.
But before he had taken more than a few steps, a red signal flare burst open in the sky.
“A retreat signal?”
Su Xiao was puzzled. The Night Raid forces were on the verge of defeat, so why retreat? The signal flare was personally carried by Esdeath.
“Could it be...”
A possibility occurred to Su Xiao. If that was the case, he really did need to withdraw quickly.
Moving swiftly through the forest, Su Xiao retreated toward the pre-agreed direction.
As he burst out of the forest, he saw Esdeath and Wave already waiting outside.
“Where is Koro?”
Esdeath looked at Su Xiao.
“Not sure. I encountered a powerful enemy. Their Imperial Arm could use three types of elemental power. I just finished dealing with them.”
Esdeath nodded. She had also seen the massive water sphere in the forest earlier.
“Why haven’t Koro and Mr. Bolus arrived yet?”
Wave had barely finished speaking when a deafening explosion rang out in the distance. A mushroom cloud rose from within the forest.
“Hell’s Invocation: Rubicante’s self-destruction, huh.”
Esdeath seemed to have guessed what happened.
“Self-destruction? Could it be Mr. Bolus...”
“Bolus won’t be coming back.”
Esdeath’s tone was calm. Wave clenched his fists.
“Damn it.”
The three stood outside the forest. Su Xiao didn’t ask why they were retreating; the skyward shouts and clash of battle within the forest said it all.
After waiting five minutes, Koro still hadn’t reached the rendezvous point.
“Koro isn’t coming.”
Esdeath held a damaged spool in her hand, wrapped with countless ultra-fine metal threads.
Those weren’t actually metal threads, but the body hairs of a super-dangerous creature.
The item in Esdeath’s hand was the damaged Cross Tail. The Cross Tail was an Imperial Arm worn on the person. Now that it was destroyed to this extent, the fate of its owner, Rabac, was easy to imagine.
Rabac, Tatsumi, and Mine had fought Esdeath for so long; not being completely wiped out was already a stroke of luck.
“General, is this Imperial Arm damaged?”
Su Xiao studied the Imperial Arm in Esdeath’s hand with interest.
“Yes. This Imperial Arm had a high degree of synchronization with its current user, unleashing one hundred percent of its power before finally breaking. Interested?”
Su Xiao nodded.
“It’s yours.”
Esdeath tossed the Cross Tail to Su Xiao. He hadn’t expected her to be so generous.
“Thank you... General.”
Su Xiao sighed inwardly. The feeling of being trusted after infiltrating the enemy camp wasn’t pleasant.
“It’s nothing. You’ve been through life and death with me. You’ve worked hard these past few days.”
Su Xiao said nothing. He somewhat understood how Reiner felt in the world of the giants. He and Esdeath were destined to meet on the battlefield one day, and that day wouldn’t be far off.
“General Esdeath.”
An officer in the standard imperial military uniform burst out of the forest. The officer’s clothes were stained with blood, a wide-bladed saber in his hand had shreds of flesh hanging from it, and the blade edge had chips. It was clear he had just been through a fierce fight.
“How much longer can we hold out?”
Esdeath’s question was direct.
“At most an hour. We only deployed forty thousand troops this time. The enemy’s numbers are at least in the hundreds of thousands, and that’s a conservative estimate.”
The officer’s face was ashen.
“The forces in the forest are already showing signs of being encircled. I fought my way out.”
The officer didn’t continue.
“So the Revolutionary Army has finally declared all-out war on us, huh.”
Esdeath smiled broadly, as if the deaths of those forty thousand soldiers didn’t matter.
“General Esdeath, these troops...”
“We retreat. We need to establish a defense line on the capital’s city walls as quickly as possible, or we won’t be able to stop the Revolutionary Army.”
Including the officer, the group of four withdrew.
They had come with over forty thousand; they left with only four.
That wasn’t the most absurd part. The most absurd part was that the Revolutionary Army had launched this sudden attack, yet the Empire had no intelligence at all.
If Su Xiao and the others hadn’t happened to be on the Revolutionary Army’s inevitable path, the Revolutionary Army would have marched straight to the outskirts of the capital. By then, the capital might have been surrounded layer by layer before anyone even noticed.
Reducing border military strength and having a large number of officials turned by the Revolutionary Army had accelerated the Empire’s downfall.
Now, the Revolutionary Army only needed one decisive battle to completely crush the Empire, and a new nation would emerge.
The new nation might bring peace and prosperity, but before that, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, would die in the war—or perhaps even more.
During the retreat, Su Xiao was in a good mood. The Revolutionary Army had finally arrived, sooner than expected. He no longer had to pretend to be a member of the Dark Division.
Su Xiao and his group rushed back to the capital at full speed. Esdeath headed straight for the military camp to mobilize troops for a war involving over a million soldiers.
Esdeath’s expression along the way was one of excitement, as if war was a wonderful thing.
Su Xiao, on the other hand, was left on standby within the capital. As a member of the Jaegers, he wouldn’t be deployed at the start of a large-scale war. He would only become busy in the mid-to-late stages, mainly responsible for assassinating enemy leaders.
The hundreds of thousands of troops stationed outside the capital were quickly mobilized. Waves of soldiers rushed onto the walls surrounding the capital. In less than half an hour, the entire capital had become an ‘iron bucket.’
Soldiers were everywhere in sight. The impending storm caused panic among the capital’s residents.
The situation in the capital was grim. Even if they could hold out for a while, it wouldn’t mean much.
The capital’s food reserves weren’t very large. With the Revolutionary Army completely surrounding the capital, a famine would break out within the city in less than half a month. Not only did the army need food, but the civilians in the capital would also consume a great deal.
This was the desperate resistance of those in power. The vast Revolutionary Army forces surrounding the capital made any breakout attempt futile.
Su Xiao also knew he needed to act quickly. If the Revolutionary Army breached the city, he, as a member of the Dark Division, wouldn’t fare well either.
His top priority was to complete the main mission. Based on past experience, the return mission would appear after completing the main mission.
Now was clearly not a good time to infiltrate the imperial palace. It was best to wait about a day. Once the war was in full swing, the waters in the capital would be thoroughly muddied.
Walking through the streets of the capital, Su Xiao casually scanned his surroundings, looking for a suitable hiding spot.
The cooldown for the Flame of Luck had ended. With the decisive battle imminent, opening treasure chests to boost combat power was the most appropriate move.
He quickly found a dilapidated residence. The house had been uninhabited for a long time, and the plaster on the walls was peeling off.
After fiddling with lockpicking tools for a while, Su Xiao couldn’t open the door lock.
It wasn’t that the lock was unbreakable; it was simply rusted shut.
With a hard yank on the door handle, the lock shattered. Entering the residence, Su Xiao firmly secured the door to prevent anyone from coming in.
He went to the living room. The room was relatively tidy, and with the doors and windows sealed, there wasn’t much dust.
Su Xiao sat on an old sofa and took out all his treasure chests: two blue chests and one purple chest.
The two blue chests were dropped by Brand and Najeshitan, and the purple chest was dropped by Akame.
There was also a scarlet card from Carl, but opening a scarlet card took a long time, and the Flame of Luck only lasted for over ten seconds, which wasn’t enough.
Su Xiao took a deep breath. The happy moment of opening chests had arrived.