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Chapter 490: Bardi and the Undead

The Bardi Empire was indeed one of the few mega-empires on the continent. Their powerful dragon knight squadrons were one of their best weapons, and their nation had a wide area filled with abundant resources. Their mining, alchemy, equipment crafting and such industries were all at the forefront of the world. Plus, they had a long history, giving them ancient inheritances and great patriotism. They also had plenty of excellently-trained generals and warriors due to long periods of war, as well as a sufficient amount of cannon fodder. The Bardi Empire was incredibly solid in its foundation as a mega empire, and possessed limitless combat potential.

But sometimes, being overly large would paint a large target on one’s back. Bardi’s rich lands caused other rising factions to view them as a juicy piece of meat. And, Bardi had many internal conflicting factions and ambitious domain lords, which was a hidden unstable element.

In the “game’s history”, Bardi had been the empire at the very top that had also been the fastest to collapse. It had collapsed at an inconceivable speed. Just how had such a large empire been destroyed so instantly?

Yet, while a large war elephant could be a vicious weapon in battle, an overly fat hog would be nothing more than a delicious meal in the eyes of the hunter.

Dimensional Doors leading to the Undead Planes were opened up right in the heart of Bardi. Countless dangerous nails were hidden within and without the country, about to be stepped on. The Bardi citizens had even been secretly poisoned over a long period of time. Even Emperor Orloss had been under Aso’s control. The dragons had their own motives with their support. And, the Bardi capital was also under threat by the Titans. If things developed just as the game’s history did, then no matter what, it absolutely would have been total annihilation for the country of Bardi.

“…In the sixteenth year of the newest Holy War, Emperor Orloss the Thirteenth of Bardi didn’t act as proactive and decisive as he always did. Instead, he kept choosing incredibly passive defensive strategies. Although he strengthened the military and defensive preparations, he ignored war in the surrounding countries and watched things sink into a stalemate.

“But in that year, the unescapable fires of war reached him as well. The undead arrived. On the third month that the Bardi capital had been enveloped in a mysterious darkness, the undead finally arrived. On that night, countless Dimensional Doors to the Undead Planes opened up. The largest Dimensional Door of all opened up right in the Bardi capital. On that same day, Undead Emperor Aso of the Desecration Plane personally descended and activated a forbidden spell Undead Calamity in the capital. Ninety percent of the population was transformed into undead, and the Bardi Empire perished.”

This was the game’s history’s record of the Bardi Empire. But evidently, the game’s history was no longer relevant with regards to Bardi at all. But sometimes, so-called fate wasn’t so inescapable at all. Sometimes, butterfly effects would be even more powerful than divine decrees.

Coincidentally, Bardi managed to obtain the chance to escape their destructive end. That was all because of one person, Roland… er, Amelia Milan.

That’s right, Amelia, not Roland.

Due to some certain factors, Amelia who should have been conducting personal research at the Mage Country was instead present at the undead’s first chosen Dimensional Descent location. Thus, due to numerous coincidental factors impossible to replicate, the wood spirits species were born.

And then, due to the wood spirits’ existence, this took up a part of the undead’s attention. Even Roland himself got involved, and finally, the undead’s scheme failed, and Aso himself perished.

Aso. This Undead Emperor was a sly and cunning individual who had used centuries to plan this invasion. He had personally plotted every part of the undead invasion. He was the one who controlled the Bardi capital and Orloss. It could be said that Aso had his hand on Bardi’s throat. Aso was the critical character who forced Bardi to allow the undead’s scheme to come to fruition. And, Aso’s unexpected death, while bringing the undead invasion earlier than planned, also managed to awaken all of Bardi and stop the internal conflicts that had been about to explode. The domain lords instead focused on the battle between the living and the undead.

Ever since this point, fate began taking a different path.

After the threat of Aso was removed, Orloss, who had patiently waited for an entire lifetime, finally had the opportunity to start taking revenge. This elderly emperor who had experienced so much shone with his most brilliant glory right before his end.

He unified all of Bardi and created new laws. He forced all the domain lords to send their eldest sons as hostages and limited their personal armies. He suppressed all the domain lords and constantly obtained victories in wars against other countries. In fact, he even managed to expand Barid’s territory to the largest it had ever been in history. Although these were all feats that would leave a chapter in the history books, none of these things were comparable at all to what he did in the final year of his life.

“In the ancient capital of Bardi, the pure Holy Light started rising like the dawn’s morning sun. From now on, the false God who stole the glory of the Holy Light shall forever tremble in fear – The Southern Sect, the Church of Pure Holy Light, has now chosen their first Pope – Pope Amoya the First.”

The Southern Sect had a complete break from the Holy Church. This seed that Roland previously planted was carefully raised by Orloss and the Bardi emperors before him. Pope Amoya the First decided to have the Church of Pure Holy Light’s headquarters be stationed right in Bardi.

From then onwards, the world’s belief in the Holy Light split into the two major factions of Pure Holy Light and the traditional Holy Light. The God of Holy Light was no longer the only representation of the Holy Light. The Holy Light religion which had more than seventy percent of humanity’s belief finally had a new path to choose. The Holy Knights no longer needed to absolutely obey the Holy Church’s commands. There were now more and more freelance Holy Knights that fought only for their own beliefs. Too many small changes in the details were becoming more and more obvious in this Holy War. This war of belief was likely destined to affect every person.

And, Orloss’s second grand accomplishment was that he cut off all relations to Dragon World and completely turned on the dragons and the Order Gods.

Yep, that was how it was written in the history books for a relatively long time to come –”The prideful and arrogant Orloss cut off Bardi from Dragon World in order to be free of the Titans’ threat. This caused all of Dragon World to be unreachable for several years, resulting in the deaths of countless lives…”

Yep, even though Hell’s establishment had been completed, Orloss still took all the blame. It would be rather difficult to clear his reputation until the Holy War finally ended.

Was this difficult to understand? Perhaps I should rephrase things. Once the Order Gods finally lost their powers over the mortal plane, and when the Hell Gods’ influence, power, and many other factors were equal to the Order Gods, that was when Orloss would finally have his reputation cleared.

But right now, everyone still needed the dead Orloss to take all the blame. That was because the Order Faction and the Hell Faction didn’t want to have a direct all-out war yet!

“Everything was all because of Orloss’s personal selfish actions. He has now received his divine retribution. The Bardi Empire didn’t actually betray the Order Gods and dragons… Although everyone knows that’s a big fat lie, since both of us have mutual benefits to be had and need this alliance relationship, it’s fine as long as there’s a scapegoat to take all the blame.”

The dragons had suffered serious losses, but it wouldn’t affect their foundations. It was still possible for the dragons of Dragon World to return. The Bardi Empire had truly antagonized the Order Gods, rather than the dragons!

The new Hell Gods were obviously destined to challenge the Order Gods’ authority. And, the new Hell had been constructed out of Dragon World, which was intimately connected to Bardi. It was quite obvious that the Bardi Empire would thus be intimately connected to Hell. But for the Order Faction, if they listed the entire Bardi Empire as an enemy in this cruel Holy War, that would be such an obvious foolish choice to make.

“And so, Orloss took all the blame, and paid the price with his life. Thus, the Order Gods can simply pretend that they didn’t see Bardi’s betrayal. They’ll also pretend to see nothing about Hell’s establishment… Although this was all so idiotic, the famous scorpion Orloss had already mentally prepared himself to be cursed at for the next several centuries all for the sake of this fragile alliance.”

Of course, if we had lost the battle of Hell’s establishment, the Bardi Empire would have been instantly eliminated without any Gods to back them up. The Southern Sect would have likely been eradicated as well. But when news from Hell finally reached the mortal plane, the result was that the Hell Gods had achieved the final victory. In that case, the Order Gods would no longer have any reckoning with their new “ally”.

“Everyone will of course be so angry and want to kill that person when a new party appears to split the treasure with everyone. But when the new party is strong enough to resist against the old members, everyone will smile and welcome him in, as if they were best friends all along.”

This was simply politics. It was dirty and unjust. Benefits were all that mattered. There was no glory to it whatsoever. The most pitiful part was that I and Orloss had successfully obtained people’s hearts with our scheme. Everything developed exactly as expected.

Now, Emperor Orloss’s foolishness was something that every citizen of Bardi knew about. However, this actually helped everyone to see just how outstanding his successor, Halent, was. After all, Emperor Halent had hurriedly ascended the throne after “the foolish Emperor Orloss died because of his own ridiculously foolish actions which created so much chaos and danger.” Halent’s outstanding political maneuvers and swift actions helped to “clean up the mess that the previous emperor made.”

Halent miraculously obtained friendship with the dragons again (from the citizens’ viewpoint. Naturally, this was because of Halent himself being a half-dragon). He also signed a new contract with the dragons, so now the Bardi dragon knights’ squadrons were more than triple their original size. And Halent even acted as the mediator between the Southern Sect and the Holy Church, so that the two parties agreed to a temporary ceasefire. Halent even obtained the holy “San” title from the Holy Church, representing that he was a wise and outstanding ruler.

Unlike Orloss’s tactics of constantly expanding Bardi through warfare, Halent soon reached a peace agreement with the Mage Country after he took the throne. As for internally, Halent voluntarily released all the domain lords’ hostages and improved relationships with many domain lords, which secured his own position as well.

This was all only the beginning. After taking the throne, he also allied with the wood spirits and the Mage Country, forcibly stopping the undead invasion at a few main locations. The threat of the Undead Calamity was unable to come to fruition, despite the fact that Bardi now faced two Undead Emperors and countless undead!

Dragon Knight Archduke Halent Milan… well, I supposed that he should be called the Dragon Knight Emperor now. Halent was now viewed as one of the pillars of humanity, a true hero of humankind. He was now one of the brightest stars of the Holy War, the prince on a white horse that countless young women dreamed about. But if I had to assess him…

“He simply had a good father.”

This type of strategy where the previous emperor received everyone’s grudges so that his son the new emperor would have an easier time wasn’t rare at all. Yet, it was quite a useful strategy. The political tools that Orloss had left behind for Halent would be enough for the rest of Halent’s life.

“How would Halent possibly have defended Nightrain City from the undead without Orloss’s new weapons and armies, Orloss’s secret agreements with the Northlands, Mage Country, and wood spirits, or Orloss’s Southern Sect? Everyone only sees how amazing the new ruler is, but they always forgot how the previous ruler worked so hard through the long nights to accumulate so much. Without such a strong foundation, how would Halent have possibly achieved anything?”

Old Orloss had long since known that his greatest enemy was the undead. Countless research projects within Bardi were all focused on anti-undead weaponry. In fact, that was also the main reason he had started supporting the Southern Sect. And now that the Bardi Empire was now facing the Undead Calamity for the sake of all humanity, his previous preparations had become tremendously useful.

“It can’t be denied that over these years, the Bardi Empire has indeed successfully blocked the Undead Calamity and Undead Emperors. With the fortress of Nightrain City as the main representative fortress, that place has become a meat grinder between the dead and the living. But if you look at overall losses, the undead have lost far more than the living.”

Did you think that the Death Council was stirring up so much of a ruckus? If the undead had been successful in their main battles, why would they need to start a new battle elsewhere and attempt at opening another Dimensional Door to the Undead Planes in another country? Obviously, simply conquering everything through military might would have been far more efficient, had it been possible.

With all of this as background information, the dark cultists under Undead Lords’ control were constantly active, trying to find new locations for a possible Dimensional Door. Although there was still constant news about the undead armies’ actions, this actually meant that the Undead Emperors had already lost confidence in being able to break through at the main battle of Nightrain City. They had been forced to try and find another point to breakthrough elsewhere.

It wouldn’t be that easy to establish a new Dimensional Door that was sufficient to bring an Undead Calamity. The Dimensional Doors in Bardi had been activated only after several centuries of scheming together with Aso sacrificing his very soul. It was quite difficult for the dark cultists “who had joined the undead recently” to get anything done within Bardi. Although they were able to summon some undead troops through soul sacrifices, the troops were merely on the level of an Undead Lord’s personal squadron. Although the undead caused some damage, they were soon eradicated by the human armies. They were unable to achieve their main goal – the objective of breaking through Bardi from elsewhere.

Indeed, some countries were ambushed by Undead Calamities. Everyone knew that Undead Calamities would only have a snowball effect and get more and more out of hand if allowed to grow. Nowadays, all the major strong countries had mobile units that were specialized in anti-undead combat. The Gods’ Churches were also quite active in combating the undead. Even in some of the smaller countries, if some undead suddenly appeared and destroyed a small city, the human armies would always arrive in a timely manner. The undead were unable to get anything done.

And right now, I was in the Sala Dukedom, which was a country that was separated from the Bardi Empire by another country. The direct distance from here to Bardi was more than ten thousand kilometers. Even if the Undead Calamity arrived, it wouldn’t affect much… Well, the Sala Dukedom would likely be destroyed, but it wouldn’t affect the human world all that much.

This time, I would have been too lazy to care if it was only some Undead Lords stirring up trouble. However…

“…Since this is now involving an Undead Emperor, this will be no small matter. I refuse to believe that an Undead Emperor will waste time doing such foolish things. There must still be something I don’t know, such as some incredible secret behind those ruins. Although it’s possible that the undead want to start a second battle site here, this place is still too close to Bardi. When the undead come, if it’s not just a squadron, but a real Undead Calamity, that means this place has major strategic importance.”

“It’s quite possible. The Elemental Tide’s constant increase has been weakening the dimensional laws. And, the Haletdam generation’s inventions are really ridiculous. It’s impossible to guarantee what might happen. If the spatial dimensional laws at those ruins are sufficiently weak enough, it might even be possible for an Undead Emperor to directly descend with such a small amount of soul sacrifices.”

“And if an Undead Emperor really descends here, this place will become a second front of battle. If the undead can start a pincer attack, that will be really fun for all of us.”

Since my magical expert silly cat was agreeing with my assessment, I became all the more determined.

“It would seem that we need another expert… If I recall correctly, Timlad should be in Bardi, not far away from us, right? Yep. The Father of Iron, Divine Hand, Miracle Creator Timlad. His nicknames are becoming more and more ridiculous. I hope that he’s truly grown to be deserving of those nicknames of his.”