Summoning the Great Union: A new front

Chapter 17- Overthrone: Beginning of the end

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Parpaldia Empire, imperial capital Esthirant

Supreme Commander Arde was baffled. Knowing that Mu sent an observer to The Union and finding out that their analysis showed The Union would emerge victorious, he came up with feasible countermeasures for dealing with a larger military force. He thought, without actually seeing the results of Mu's analysis, that, if anything, what he would've misread was their method of attack. However, based on the report during the meeting, he was completely baffled over the amount of pure strength they had. Losing almost everything they sent to the Kingdom of Fenn wasn't a big deal where ground forces were concerned, but it was equivalent to a third of their naval power.

The implications of this information were causing confusion in Arde's mind. If instead it were some country inside the civilized areas that had brought a few thousand ships-of-the-line, he imagined that the forces they dispatched would have taken some damage and their overall strategy would have been delayed a bit, but there was no possible way they would ever get wiped out.

He had calculated The Union's war potential using the report on the naval battle with the Kingdom of Lauria, but maybe some of the information in it was inaccurate.

"I need to look at all of our information on The Union again and check the sourcing!!! Mu... what kind of information did they stumble onto?! ...Wait, could it be...?"

Arde imagined the worst possible situation. Could Mu have possibly... started exporting their machine science weapons? By moving their technology from the Second Civilization to the farthest reaches of the world, they wouldn't encounter much risk to themselves, and they could attack the empire by proxy. If by some miracle The Union was able to wipe out the Third Civilization, it would fall to the First Civilization, mainly the Holy Mirishial Empire, to keep them in check. The level of advancement outside the civilized areas was too low for them to reproduce the weapons, too. And for Mu, they would be able to measure how effective their weapons were against other superpowers, profit from the exports, and also keep the Parpaldia Empire in check; it wasn't just two birds, but three birds with one stone.

"If that's what's happening... this is bad! This is really bad!!!"

Supreme Commander Arde ordered his men to reinvestigate The Union in much more detail.
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First Civilization, superpower Holy Mirishial Empire, port town Cartalpas, a certain bar

At a certain bar, drunken patrons were watching a flat crystalline lens. In the top superpower, the Holy Mirishial Empire, news could be magically recorded then transmitted and displayed elsewhere, in color, using a flat crystalline lens receiver. The exact method differed, but this magic news program was available in both Mirishial and the Second Civilization superpower Mu, though only Mirishial, the world's strongest country, could watch it in color. Once a week, news from around the world was projected via these crystalline lenses. For traders, this news was invaluable.

"It's starting!"

Music began to play, signaling the start of the news broadcast.

"Greetings, it is now time for the world news. We have some truly unbelievable news for our viewers today. And now, for our first story.

"The nation that dominates its neighbors, the perennially aggressive Third Civilization superpower Parpaldia Empire, failed in its invasion of the Kingdom of Fenn, and they even lost almost all of their forces in combat. Among the forces lost include one third of their total naval strength.