Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence Chapter 875 - 470: The Empire’s Fall

The collapse of the Empire began to spread from the moment the report of Kaelin’s death arrived.

At first, this piece of news only circulated in low voices among the senior officers, all of them somewhat unable to believe it.

Soon a second message followed. Duke Remont had defected to the Jade Federation.

This time, the order within the barracks disintegrated within a few breaths, and the front line that had barely been held together lost its framework as if its bones had been pulled out.

Kaelin still had an heir, but to continue holding out seemed to have lost all meaning.

By the night of the third day, the first fully formed unit abandoned its position without orders and defected toward the Jade Federation.

That was like a signal, and what followed was rout turning into a flood.

The Knights no longer marched in formation, but scattered in twos and threes, running back along any road they could remember, or simply turning toward the Southeast.

They no longer cared about the borders of the Empire, only about where there might still be a way to live.

The Empire became a stretch of land without an owner; cities once controlled in a radial web by the Central Administrative District fell silent one after another.

And the Jade Federation did not waste this opportunity.

The instructions from the board of directors were simple: ignore cost, consider only efficiency.

The Federation’s siege columns advanced along the Old Empire’s official roads.

It was not the marching formation of a legion, but a disposal unit intermixed from Alchemists, accounting officers, and Knights.

Heavy alchemy wagons moved slowly along the center of the road, their carriages reinforced with riveted steel plates, the marks of various Guilds engraved on their sides.

When they reached the first town that refused to surrender, there was no encirclement, and no attempt at persuasion.

The Alchemists opened the sealed valves on the carriages and released the prepared alchemy poison gas, letting it spread with the wind from higher ground.

The toxic fog slowly diffused along the streets, flowing close to the bases of the walls, seeping into window cracks and drainage ditches.

A Knight on garrison had just rung the alarm bell; the bell tolled only twice before his body went limp and collapsed inside the tower.

On the street, a merchant was pushing a half‑loaded cart, trying to flee, but he tripped at the corner and never got up again.

In barely a quarter of an hour, the entire town was left with nothing but alchemical gases slowly settling in the air.

The buildings remained intact, the warehouse doors stood open, and not a single item was missing from the shelves.

Next into the city came the takeover team.

Wearing filter masks, they counted assets, sealed land deeds, and directly entered the still‑intact city into the Federation’s ledgers.

If they encountered a fortress that refused to surrender, the Federation’s method was even more straightforward.

Tens of thousands of refugees were driven to the base of the walls.

These people had been pre‑filled with unstable Alchemy Potions, their minds dulled, their steps stiff.

A young refugee stopped at the foot of the wall, seemed to briefly regain clarity, raised his head to look at the ramparts, his lips parting slightly, yet no sound managed to come out.

The next moment, a whip cracked behind him; he was shoved forward and pressed together with the others against the base of the wall.

When the first body struck the wall, the explosions began.

Flesh and stone flew together, and a breach was torn open by force in an extremely short span of time.

The fortress’s defenses were not broken through; they were spent away.

And behind all of this, Mammon began to move forward.

Its body sprawled across the plain, and the tremors of its movement made the surface of the earth feel as though it were being rolled over again and again.

As it neared the first fortress, the garrison was still trying to shut the iron gate.

The next instant, a shrill grinding tore through the air.

The heavy gate warped on its own within the intense magnetic field; steel beams twisted and snapped, forcibly stripped from their original structure and hurled toward the interior of the city like runaway projectiles.

The metal fittings on the towers were torn down and smashed into the plaza.

The cannons began to lose control in the calibration phase: some barrels were forcibly bent off‑axis, some exploded on the spot, fragments flying backward and blowing away whole sections of the wall.

The first to fall were not those standing atop the ramparts.

They were the Knights encased in armor.

Within that zone, metal no longer obeyed human will.

The armor rapidly contracted under the pull of the field, joints were locked rigid, and bones cracked with the sound of a burden they could not bear.

Some had not even drawn their swords before their own protection crushed them to the ground.

Longswords flew from their hands, changed direction mid‑air, and drove back through their wielders’ chests.

Raymond’s banner remained at the very front of the column.

He led the Federation Army through the provinces he had once ruled, deftly pointing out routes, supply points, and which cities were best suited for direct takeover and which could be treated as expendable.

Mammon advanced slowly behind.

Wherever it passed, no troops needed to be sent to mop up.

This army led by Mammon, guided by Raymond, and scoured clean with alchemy poison gas cut through the Empire’s heartland at a speed that bordered on the unreasonable.

The outline of the Imperial Capital had already appeared at the far edge of the horizon.

And in that city, there was no longer anyone capable of issuing a single truly effective order.

......

In Crystal Rock City, the council chamber of the Supreme Board hovered in the sky.

Clement, chairman of the Bihui Guild, lifted his wine glass, his fingertip giving it a light swirl, and cast his gaze at the image projected at the center of the round table.

In the picture, Mammon’s massive body was slowly moving across the plain.

"Better than the figures on paper." Clement’s tone was casual. "I originally thought it would take a month to digest Kaelin’s legion; now it seems that a single day already counts as dragging down efficiency."

When he spoke, it sounded as if he were merely commenting on a return on investment that had exceeded expectations.

Isabella, chairwoman of the Silver Plate Guild, did not look up. She was using a silver table knife to cut off a small piece of foie gras, her movements impeccably elegant.