Chapter Thirty-Six: Elegy for the Morris Empire (VI)

After the great battle, Paris had no idea how many of the Holy Knights perished, nor did he care to investigate their losses. What delighted him most was that he had ascended overnight from the humble rank of divisional commander to the status of a warlord commanding an army of over thirty thousand!

Indeed, by both birth and temperament, Paris had no intention of paying heed to those military grandees in the capital of the Moris Empire. In the wake of his victory, he swiftly reorganized the thirty-thousand-strong force, sidelining the surviving officers from the first and second lines, installing his own trusted men in positions of power, and through bribery and the promise of gain, he gathered around him a cohort of officers loyal to himself. In just a week, Paris had complete control of the army. After all, it was already a closely-knit system, and the officers were well acquainted with one another; resistance to his consolidation of power was minimal. Had Emperor Moris still been alive, Paris might not have dared, nor been able, to act so boldly. Now, however, he found the role of a warlord rather more to his liking.

A week later, having secured command of his restructured force, Paris marched directly into the lands of the Holy Light Kingdom. With a shrewd political mind, he was well aware that even though the Holy Knights had suffered grievous losses, the armies of the Elven Empire would soon sweep west and crush the Moris Empire. What could his thirty thousand veterans and the fifty or sixty thousand raw recruits of Moris stand against such a force?

Having once fought against the Elven Empire, Paris shook his head, muttered a private prayer for the military leaders and the young emperor in the capital, and resolutely turned his attention to carving out his own domain.

Wisely, Paris did not head straight for the heart of the Holy Light Kingdom. Instead, after pillaging the Moris Empire and dragging along the families of his soldiers, he crossed into the Holy Light Kingdom’s territory and moved towards the border of the Madrid Empire. It seemed Paris intended to make something of himself after all.

The nobles of the Holy Light Kingdom, both great and small, fled at the mere rumor of Paris’s advancing army. The entire Church of Light was thrown into shock by the defeat of the Holy Knights—in fact, the whole human world was astounded by Paris’s military exploits. Especially the Duchess Victoria of the Anglia Empire: she knew full well the terrifying might of the Holy Knights under the command of the Defender of the Faith. Though she acknowledged that the Moris Empire’s fifty thousand elite troops were far superior to Anglia’s standing conscripts, she could hardly believe the entire force of the Holy Knights could be wiped out along with their commander! Paris, with this victory, had become one of the most renowned generals on the continent of Europa.

While the Anglia and Franconian Empires were reeling in shock, the Holy Light Kingdom raged, and the Emperor of Madrid nearly lost control of his bowels—Paris was marching toward the Madrid border, after all! The Elven Empire remained unruffled, and as for the Dwarven Empire, life went on as usual; the continent-wide atmosphere of war seemed not to have disturbed their happy, harmonious existence in the slightest.

Once the Elven Empire confirmed that General Paris had reorganized his army and was advancing deeper into the Holy Light Kingdom, they decisively dispatched their long-prepared force of one hundred thousand. Fifty thousand centaur cavalry and fifty thousand elven musket infantry swiftly charged into Moris territory, catching the newly assembled fifty thousand Moris regulars head-on.

Astonishingly, the elven army needed less than half a day to utterly annihilate the so-called Moris regulars, who, despite their defensive positions with chevaux-de-frise and earthworks, collapsed entirely under the elven assault. Fleeing on two legs against the four-legged centaurs was hopeless; almost none escaped with their lives.

The capital of the Moris Empire was thrown into turmoil, the citizens organizing militias in a desperate attempt to defend the city. If the capital fell, the already shallow-rooted Moris Empire would be finished. The military leaders who had followed Emperor Moris remained loyal, determined to make a final, bloody stand for their fading empire.

Originally, the fifty thousand strong army that had faced the Holy Knights was supposed to return and defend the capital, but the ferocity of the Defender of the Faith had shattered the empire’s elite. If not for the unexpected rise of the obscure Fifth Division’s Paris, who crushed the Holy Knights, the Moris Empire would have been attacked from two fronts!

Yet the leaders of Moris had clearly underestimated both the Elven Empire and the might of the Holy Light. Now, the situation was little different from a two-front war.

The Elven hundred-thousand-strong force swept aside the fifty thousand regulars painstakingly assembled over two years by Emperor Moris as if they were dry leaves.

Hadn’t Emperor Moris always triumphed against greater numbers with fewer men? Truly, with the loss of a genius, the world had grown more “fair.”

Left with no other recourse, the ministers of Moris, stripping the nation to its bones, gathered all military resources and, with heavy rewards as incentive, barely managed to arm a militia of one hundred thousand. While these men could only fire from a distance and were useless in close combat, they were still valuable for defending the city.

One month after the initial battle, the eyes of the continent once again focused on the capital of the Moris Empire. With its moat and ten-meter-high walls, and a force of over a hundred thousand—albeit mostly militiamen—surely the city could put up a fight.

As the rulers of various nations speculated how long the siege would last and what cost it would inflict on the Elven Empire, the elves stormed into the capital in just three days!

It turned out that traitors within the city opened the gates to the elves under cover of darkness. The elven army spent little effort breaching the defenses and poured into the very heart of Moris power.

Ironically, while it took the elves less than three days to breach the capital, it took them a full week to completely occupy the bustling metropolis.

Though the elves’ generous rewards lured many Moris traitors, even more were ardent patriots. Most of the capital’s civilians had lived through the years of elven oppression and harbored a deep grudge; surrender was out of the question.

From soldiers and militiamen to the common people, many took up whatever arms they could find to resist the invaders. The capital became a bloody grinder—humans dying beneath centaur hooves or the crack of elven muskets, elven soldiers falling prey to countless hidden traps and ambushes.

The capital’s defenders, two hundred thousand strong, inflicted grievous losses on the elven army. In their desperation, the Moris leaders burned every factory, every valuable building and machine to ashes. Of the one hundred thousand elven troops that finally subdued the city, fewer than sixty thousand survived, and all they gained was a smoldering wasteland.

It should be noted that the original fifty thousand Moris regulars had barely managed to kill a thousand elves! For the first time, the rulers of Europa’s great powers witnessed the might of the people and fell into deep thought.

Yet perhaps this would remain a singular case. In their wrath, the elves massacred the entire capital for three days and nights, sparing only those who had betrayed their own. The once-glorious city of hundreds of thousands became a ghost town. In their fury, the elves tore down every wall and fortification, destroyed every symbol of Moris—erasing the city from existence. Thus, with the last mournful song, the people of Moris faded into history, and the Moris Empire was utterly no more.