Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

When Colonel Cornelius, the Dean of the Military Academy, confronted Colonel Pal, the supreme commander of Narcissus Fort, Captain Fritz, the chief Centurion of the United Provinces Republic's Second "Firm" National Corps, was leading his men in a swift march toward The State Palace.

The journey from the suburban garrison to Martyrs' Square was less than five kilometers, a flat and spacious route wide enough for four carriages to travel side by side.

Captain Fritz had lost count of how many times he had walked this road, but never had it felt so interminable as it did today.

"Do they know they are taking part in a rebellion?" Captain Fritz wondered calmly.

"They" referred to the fully armed and fiercely determined soldiers and comrades closely following behind Fritz's warhorse at this very moment.

Perhaps some were merely blindly following orders, perhaps some naively believed they were saving the nation, and perhaps some preferred to believe that today's actions were all in the name of Justice…

But Fritz did not belong to any of these categories. The young captain, born into a poor family of self-sustaining farmers from Jost, knew full well that he was igniting a mutiny, an armed rebellion, a storm poised to overthrow the entire nation.

There was no doubt about it—this was treason. And Captain Fritz had no intention of making excuses.

It was precisely for this reason that Fritz's resolve was firm and unwavering.

At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, Fritz led the First Battalion of the Second National Corps in their departure from the garrison.

For reasons beyond the captain's rank to be privy to, the coup was set to launch in broad daylight rather than under the cover of night, which was more suited for surprise attacks.

The route Fritz and his troops took to enter the city was also Guidao City's main thoroughfare, which was at its busiest during midday.

Pedestrians and coachmen on the road stared in bewilderment at the troops advancing rapidly toward the city center. Many citizens initially assumed this was just a routine troop rotation.

But then they saw the clenched jaws and bulging veins on the soldiers' foreheads. Then they noticed the spear tips, stripped of their cloth coverings, gleaming coldly in the sunlight. Then they realized that this force was marching toward The State Palace with an unyielding and aggressive posture.

The sharp-sensed citizens of Guidao City quickly moved aside, fled into alleyways, or rushed back to their homes.

A coup—this nightmare that had haunted Guidao City for over a decade, this blade hanging over the United Provinces Republic's government for so long—had finally crossed the line of mere political struggle, pierced the boundary, and become a harsh reality.

"Halt!" A trembling voice shouted from the roadblock ahead. City guards leveled their spears. "Show your redeployment orders!"

Guidao City no longer had walls. The United Provinces government, disregarding the military's objections, had forcibly passed a law to demolish the walls and fill in the city's moats, citing the barriers as obstacles to internal and external transit—an act widely regarded within the Provincial Army as irrefutable proof of the government's incompetence.

Ironically, the government's law to tear down the city walls turned out to be a great boon for the coup forces.

Without walls and moats for its defense, Guidao City resembled a shell-less egg. Although Antoine-Laurent had personally designed a star-shaped Fortress as a shield, it was powerless against an internal assault.

At this moment, the only things blocking the coup forces' entry into the urban area were a toll checkpoint meant for collecting transit fees and inspecting smuggling, and a few panicked, overweight guards.

The distinction between Guidao City's "urban center" and "suburban area" had long become blurred, but an invisible line did indeed exist there.

Crossing that line meant no turning back—utterly and irrevocably.

The smoldering embers became a heavy stillness. Officers and soldiers of the Second National Corps' First Battalion… all halted and instinctively turned to their chief Centurion.

Ignoring the guards' warnings and commands, Captain Fritz kept his eyes fixed ahead. He didn't even touch the reins as he resolutely passed the checkpoint and the guards.

The guards exchanged uneasy glances. The leading guard gritted his teeth and reached for the bridle of the captain's warhorse.

But before Captain Fritz even needed to give an order, another accompanying officer strode forward and felled the lead guard with a strike of his rifle butt.

The rifle's butt strike was like opening the floodgates. The other soldiers surged forward, leaving the guards beaten, bruised, and bewildered as they lay there as prisoners.

Fritz of Jost analyzed the situation with cold precision. He had once thought that line was insurmountable. But now that he had crossed that invisible boundary—like Caesar crossing the Rubicon—he suddenly realized that crossing the line wasn't such a big deal after all.

"Target!" Fritz drew his saber and pointed it toward the far end of the long street. "The State Palace!"

The smoldering embers roared back to life, flames licking upwards to consume the eaves, while human shouts pierced the sky.

The officers and soldiers of the Second "Firm" National Corps' First Battalion roared as they moved into battle formation, charging toward The State Palace, which gleamed golden in the sunlight.

…

Meanwhile, at the Army Department.

Brigadier General William Barenchi, the nominal supreme commander of the Provincial Army and current Minister of the Army, was pacing his office anxiously, beads of sweat on his forehead like ants on a hot pan.

Barenchi had only been promoted to Brigadier General last year, and it was only last year that he had been catapulted from the cold, unimportant post of Director of the Army Department's External Liaison Division to his current position as Army Minister.

Rumors had it that Lionel, the State Secretary, had appointed William Barenchi as Army Minister precisely because Barenchi, having spent years in the Army Department, was always at odds with the ironclad system of the General Staff Office.

To outsiders, Barenchi seemed like he had struck gold. But only Brigadier General Barenchi himself understood just how impossible it was to occupy the position of Army Minister at a time when a coup was on the brink of erupting—that chair engraved with the ministerial rank was no chair but rather a bed of scorching hot iron.