Chapter 1255

"Your Majesty, a frontline battle report!"

"Speak!" The king lifted his spirits a little, looked expectantly at the frontline soldier, and prayed silently in his heart.

"It's good news! It's good news—Fort Colin has fallen completely, and General Simon has retreated to the city of Caldera."

"Sigh…"

The king let out a deep sigh; the wrinkles on his face deepened, and his whole withered being seemed to age several more years in an instant.

He had foreseen the outcome.

"I understand. You may go." He waved his hand, and the frontline soldier withdrew.

After the soldier left, the king suddenly vomited a mouthful of fresh blood. Staring at the blood in his hand, he slowly drifted into a daze.

"Has the fate of our Chirperi Kingdom truly run out?"

The Kingdoms of Taji and Lei Dun had attacked in turns. No matter how sturdy the fortress cities his Chirperi Kingdom built, no matter how fierce its soldiers, they could only end in utter defeat.

Fort Colin was the sturdiest fortress of the Chirperi Kingdom, but now that it had fallen, within the borders of Chirperi, the enemy could drive straight in. Even if the cities along the way resisted to the death, they could hold out for at most a month before the enemy reached the royal capital.

"Qiqiya, my son, I hope you absolutely do not come back! The enemy will never let any of us off! As long as you are still alive, our Chirperi Kingdom has not truly perished."

Two months earlier.

Faced with the Kingdom of Taji's repeated provocations and incursions across the border, the king, on the advice of Pero Qiqiya and his ministers, finally declared war on the Kingdom of Taji, and a hundred thousand troops marched to the front.

Within the kingdom, he summoned every smith in the land, all to forge the mysterious weapon on the parchment blueprint. This mysterious double-barreled weapon resembled the fire lances once used by dwarves, but was shorter than a fire lance, and the parchment blueprint was covered all over with mysterious, powerful, unknown inscriptions.

Strangely enough, any smith who looked at this mysterious parchment blueprint would be struck by dizziness and nausea, severe cases even fainting. Thus, not a single smith in the kingdom could forge the thing. Yet Pero Qiqiya, who also counted as a smith, looked at it and was perfectly fine, which made the king feel the weapon on the parchment blueprint must be a perfect fit for Pero Qiqiya. But… Pero Qiqiya couldn't forge it either. What was to be done?

Just as the king was at his wits' end, news of a crushing defeat suddenly arrived from the front. It turned out that in the clash with the Kingdom of Taji's army, the enemy had deliberately feigned defeat several times, luring the Chirperi forces deep into their camp, where the suddenly appearing army of the Kingdom of Lei Dun struck them from front and rear, leading to a crushing defeat.

At the same time, news about the parchment blueprint within the kingdom also seemed to have leaked.

Taking advantage of the chance when Pero Qiqiya and his sister went out to seek a craftsman to forge the parchment-blueprint weapon, assassins long embedded by the enemy seized the opportunity to assassinate Pero Qiqiya. The assassins had even bribed a guard in advance; the guard attacked from behind, and his sister Pero Ayana, trying to save her brother, threw herself in the way of the blade. The assassins and spies were killed afterwards, but the enemy had come prepared—the blades had all been coated with deadly poison in advance.

There was no time at all to save her, and Ayana died in Qiqiya's arms.

"Aaaah! Ayana—!"

That day, the king's hair turned white overnight. Pero Qiqiya, too, was lost in deep guilt amidst his anguish. If not for his proposal, joined with the other ministers, urging his father the king to declare war on the Kingdom of Taji, the hundred thousand royal troops would not have been routed at the border, and his sister Yasna would never have died.

It was all his fault!

To fulfill his sister's dying wish, he resolved to stop the war from continuing, even if it cost him his life!

The sky had not yet brightened.

"Ayana!!!"