Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 467 Shocking News

Louis sat behind a long table, reviewing a document labeled "Site Selection for the Alchemy Industrial Park".

The sound of shackles dragging across the carpet broke the silence.

Will led the man to the center of the study and stopped him by pressing on his shoulder.

The silk dress that once symbolized royal authority is now tattered and the edges are blackened by seawater and mud.

His boots were torn, and only half of the gold thread decoration remained.

The only thing he held tightly in his arms was a gold-inlaid mahogany box.

Even so, he still tried his best to straighten his back, slightly raise his chin, and look up slightly—a posture that had been repeatedly trained.

“Louis Calvin,” Lampard began, his voice hoarse as he deliberately suppressed his authority, “In the name of the Emperor, I demand treatment befitting my status.”

Louis turned a page of the document without looking at him: "You have two minutes. I have another meeting after that."

Lampard's Adam's apple bobbed.

This statement was more devastating than any insult, as if he were merely passing the time before a meeting, which was indeed the case.

So he stopped beating around the bush and quickly placed the mahogany box on the table and opened it.

Inside was a well-preserved roll of parchment and a heavy royal seal.

“The decree of transfer of imperial power.” Lampard’s voice quickened. “Once I sign it, you will possess the legal legitimacy of the empire. Those old nobles, the old legions, and the local councils only recognize this.”

He stared at Louis's face, trying to find a hint of wavering in those calm eyes: "Without it, you'll always just be a rebel who rose to power by force."

Louis still didn't look at the scroll.

He simply made a mark on the edge of the document in front of him with his pen, as if confirming the location of a certain factory area.

The silence made Lampard's breathing quicken; he knew this card was no longer effective.

“And this,” he said through gritted teeth, “this is what your father owes me.”

Louis's pen paused for a moment.

Lampard immediately seized on this point, his voice becoming urgent:

"Duke Calvin made a sacred pact with me in exchange for my political support. I helped destabilize the empire. Without you, it would have been impossible to take over the Papacy so quickly..."

He promised to grant me a subsidiary island in the Avalonian archipelago as my permanent fiefdom.

He took a deep breath, almost pleading, almost threatening:
“I don’t want the throne anymore. I’ll fulfill your father’s promise. Give me that island, and I’ll take my servants and treasures with me and disappear from your world completely.”

Upon hearing this, Louis finally put down his pen.

The pen tapped lightly against the edge of the folder, making a crisp "snap" sound.

He closed the document "Site Selection for the Alchemy Industrial Park," pressed his temples, as if he had just listened to a long and absurd report.

“Your Highness Lampard, your thinking is still stuck in the last century.”

Lampard instinctively wanted to retort, but before he could speak, Louis raised his hand to interrupt him.

Louis stood up, straightened his cuffs, and finally, for the first time, his gaze truly fell on the regent, with a hint of mockery.

“You seem to have misunderstood the source of power.” Louis walked slowly to one side of the study and stopped in front of the map of the empire on the wall.

"My power is not granted by that parchment, but by my knights, my cannons, and my fleet."

He turned around, as if stating a matter of common sense, "When my army marches into the palace, who will dare to question its legitimacy?"

Lampard's lips trembled, and his face visibly paled.

“As for that contract you mentioned…” Louis walked up to him, looking down at him condescendingly, “you asked me to fulfill a dead man’s promise.”

And that dead man was someone you personally pushed onto the altar; you colluded with the Vatican to plant a curse into his body.

Louis tilted his head slightly, as if he were really thinking about the question: "Okay, go down and ask my father if he's willing to give you the island."

At that moment, all the pretense on Lampard's face shattered completely.

"No...don't do this..." His voice completely lost its tone, filled with sobs, as he staggered to his knees, his knees scraping against the carpet, as he crawled forward in a disheveled state.

“I didn’t kill Duke Calvin…I also have royal blood…I can do things for you…I still have money, I still have connections…”

He tried to grab Louis's boots, as if grasping at a last straw.

Louis took a step back, glanced down at Lampard, and then turned to Will, who had been standing to the side: "Get rid of him."

His tone was so calm, as if he were instructing someone on a routine cleaning task.

Welch stood at attention and replied briefly, "Yes, sir."

Lampard's screams echoed in the study, only to be quickly dragged away and become muffled.

The door closed, and the study returned to silence.

"I thought there would be some fun stuff, but it turns out there was nothing prepared at all."

Louis walked back to his desk, sat down, picked up the cup of coffee that had gone cold, and took a sip.

He reopened the site selection document for the gold refining industrial park: "Building the fertilizer plant downwind is a good idea."

…………

Months ago, while the Holy Eastern Empire was still bleeding from internal strife and purges, the Emerald Federation's gold coins had already been dumped on the border.

Large numbers of mercenaries, mercenary groups, and armed forces masquerading as merchant guilds crossed the boundary marker, like a venomous snake fed on money, attempting to seize a piece of the fat flesh while the empire was weak.

Their plan was clear: the empire was decaying, and they would take advantage of Louis's southward march to the Eastern Empire to seize Karen's territory.

However, they miscalculated one thing: Emperor Karen's war strength.

In the first few weeks, the Imperial Army was forced to defend.

The Federation's mercenaries, relying on their mobility and numerical superiority, continued to probe and even cut off several supply lines at one point.

Just as the border nobles were preparing to compromise again, trading land for time, Karen took over command.

Instead of rushing to retaliate, he first compressed the battle lines, using the Imperial Legion's almost stubborn organization to force each army to stay in its proper place.

No matter how the Federation's mercenaries infiltrated and harassed them, the Legion soldiers, clad in old-fashioned plate armor, never retreated.

Then, in Sunset Canyon, Karen completed his first perfect counterattack.

He deliberately feigned weakness to lure the main federal forces deep into the narrow terrain, then cut off their retreat in the darkness.

By the time the soldiers hired with gold coins realized something was wrong, the canyon exit had already been sealed off by Imperial heavy infantry.

From that moment on, the balance of power shifted.

The Imperial Knights began their advance. Step by step, like an old sword that had been reforged, slow but unstoppable.

The border was breached, the supply lines were laid in reverse, and the battle line was deeply embedded in the heart of the Emerald Federation, the Gem Corridor.

The Federation began to panic, so a large number of alchemical creatures were deployed to the battlefield.

Stitched beasts, forcibly stitched together from the limbs of various monsters, were pushed to the front lines as flesh and blood war chariots.

Slaves injected with unstable drugs are transformed into self-destructing puppets that only charge forward.

The battlefield became dirty and chaotic, like a plague tainted by gold coins.

But these things failed to stop the Imperial Army.

Just the day before, the Emerald Federation finally played its still-unmature trump card.

The Federation released three "prototype alchemical dragons" at once.

They are not real dragons, but monsters pieced together from various materials.

The first one's torso came from a mountain monitor lizard, and its chest cavity was forcibly stuffed into a restless alchemical furnace.

The second one retained the skull of a wyvern, but was sewn with a composite wing membrane of bat and flying lizard, which covered half the sky when spread out.

The third one was the most deformed, with its four hind limbs coming from different magical beasts. Its gait was chaotic, but it maintained its ferocious charging instinct thanks to the forcibly injected potion.

Their scales had clearly visible suture lines, and green preservative liquid dripped down their bone seams, emitting a pungent alchemical stench in the air.

The roars were not uniform; they were more like the wails of several different creatures roughly mixed together, sending chills down one's spine.

The battlefield went completely mad at that moment, and many knights realized for the first time that the Federation had gone insane.

Karen did not retreat. He spurred his horse forward, drew his sword, and the blade drew a cold light in the torchlight.

“That’s not a dragon.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it steadily drowned out the monster’s roar. “Follow me to kill these blasphemous beasts.”

The order was issued extremely quickly.

The royal guard cavalry split into several groups and launched a feint attack from the front, luring the dragon to swoop down.

The crossbowmen and the rope throwers attacked simultaneously, their thick hooks and iron spikes embedding themselves into the wing roots and shoulder blades.

The first dragon lost its balance in mid-air, the alchemy furnace shook erratically, and the flames it spewed out burned through its own wing membranes.

Kalein personally led the charge, splashing alchemical oil and hurling torches. Flames exploded between the scales and the potion; the dragon's instinct for fire overwhelmed its alchemical control, causing its movements to noticeably slow.

"Now!"

The spear was aimed at the joint, and the sound of bones breaking was clearly audible.

The second dragon broke its hind leg upon landing and rolled wildly. The third dragon tried to take off again, but was approached by Karen on horseback and had a spear pierce the nerve bundle on the side of its neck.

What followed was no longer a battlefield, but a slaughterhouse.

The knights surrounded them, using axes, swords, and fire to dismantle the struggling chimeras bit by bit.

The muffled thuds of the alchemical furnaces exploding echoed through the night, green flames shooting into the sky only to quickly extinguish.

When it was all over, only three enormous, still twitching wrecks remained on the battlefield.

Kaleon dismounted, stepped on one of the pseudo-dragon skulls, and forcefully pulled out his longsword, green slime dripping down the blade.

The surrounding imperial knights fell silent for a moment, then erupted in almost wild cheers.

He pointed the tip of his sword toward the distant Emerald City: "A monster built with money has no soul."

The victory brought euphoria.

The Imperial Army captured a wealthy mining town and held a victory celebration that very evening.

Torches illuminated the square, and drinks and spoils of war were continuously brought out. Young officers surrounded Karen, their eyes burning with desire.

In a corner of the banquet, Duke Raymond sat alone.

He held a glass of fine red wine from the Federation in his hand, but he never drank it.

He knew very well that some things had changed.

In the past, all military orders had to be signed by him, including logistics, provisions, and bounties. The lifeblood of the Imperial Army was firmly in his hands.

Now, Karen has begun to issue orders directly to the legion commander.

The young generals had no objection to this. They preferred to follow the prince who could lead them to victory rather than a duke who only existed in ledgers and gold coins.

Raymond could clearly feel his wallet being emptied little by little.

Looking at the triumphant Karen, a sense of unease crept into his heart like a venomous snake.

“The wolf cub has grown up. Once he has completely devoured the wealth of the Emerald Federation, the first one he will bite through the throat of…” Raymond gripped his wine glass tightly, “is probably me, his benefactor.”

Just then, the tent flap was suddenly flung open.

A cold wind blew in, causing the flames in the brazier to shake violently.

A knight of the highest rank in the empire rushed in.

He didn't even bow; he seemed to be chased by something, staggering two steps before kneeling down.

"What's wrong?" Karen looked up, his brows furrowed slightly. "What new monsters has the Federation sent this time? Even if it's two alchemical dragons, I can kill them."

The knight's throat bobbed, as if forcing himself to speak.

He knelt on the ground, his voice hoarse: "Your Highness... is not the Federation."

The tent fell silent instantly.

“It’s southeast.” The knight looked up, his eyes filled with pure fear.

"It's Louis Calvin."

The moment that name was uttered, it was as if something silently shattered in the military tent.

"Breaking news." His voice began to tremble, but he still gritted his teeth and finished speaking.

"Louis has simultaneously conquered the Avalonian Islands and the Holy Eastern Empire's mainland. The Golden Feather Flower Papacy... has been completely wiped out, and the Eastern Empire's imperial system has been completely taken over."

Everyone instinctively gasped.

The knight lowered his voice, as if stating a fact that should not exist in reality.

"He killed that so-called god... and burned the entire island to ashes. Now it's a dead land."

This shocking news caused a brief silence; no one knew what to say.

Clang.

Karen's prized sword slipped from his fingers and crashed to the ground with a jarring sound that echoed through the tent.

He had just been standing on the corpse of the alchemical pseudo-dragon, listening to the soldiers' cheers, feeling that he had reached the pinnacle of this era.

And now, someone told him...

Louis has already killed the "god" of the Papacy in a short time.

They also conveniently destroyed two countries.

This precipitous drop in combat power gave Karen an extremely cruel realization in that instant.

I felt like a child waving a wooden sword in front of adults.

He spoke in a low voice, as if asking someone else, or perhaps himself: "Is he... really human?"

No one answered, because no one knew the answer.

On the other side of the tent, Duke Raymond reacted faster than anyone else.

The wine glass in his hand lost its force when he uttered the words "annihilation of the Papacy," the wine spilled out, the glass slipped, and shattered on the ground.

The crisp sound drew the attention of many people.

Raymond didn't look; his mind was already racing.

If Louis is strong enough to do this...

So regardless of whether the Empire or the Emerald Federation wins this war, there will only be one final outcome.

Everyone standing on the chessboard will be cleared out.

For the first time, Raymond felt real fear.

It's not the fear of failure, but the fear of being directly erased from history.

His original plan was to hedge his bets between the Empire and the Federation, using logistics, gold coins, and connections to secure a safe distance that would allow him to survive regardless of which side won.

But now, there's an entity outside the chessboard that doesn't follow the rules at all.

An entity that is currently absorbing the southeastern provinces in the east.

Suddenly, there wasn't enough time.

Kalen bent down to pick up his sword; the blade was cold, but it steadied his hand again.

Fear did not crush him; instead, it forced him to make a clearer judgment.

"Continue the push." ​​He raised his head, his gaze sweeping over all the generals, his tone colder than ever before. "The Emerald Federation must end as soon as possible."

I want their money, mines, ports, alchemists, and useful people.

If Louis has already gone that far...

My only option is to swallow the entire Emerald Federation before they turn around completely.

It wasn't for glory, but for survival, to fight for even a single negotiation opportunity in the future.

At the same time, Raymond's gaze also fell on the battle line on the map that stretched deep into the heart of the Federation.

His expression gradually returned to calm, even revealing a hint of almost indifferent composure, but that was merely a facade after his emotions were forcibly suppressed.

Beneath this brief calm lies a long-simmering hatred.

He remembered clearly that when Louis went south to Limestone, he left the Raymond family no way out.

The manor was taken over, the fiefdom was reclaimed, and the family crest was burned.

Those collateral branches and in-laws who had once depended on him and relied on him for their livelihood were also completely wiped out.

That wasn't a political failure; it was being uprooted.

And what about Kalen?
This prince, whom he had personally nurtured on the battlefield and fed with gold coins and logistics, began to bypass him in issuing orders, deploying troops, and even distributing spoils of war amidst the cheers of victory.

The wolf cubs have already learned to bite.

And the first thing it wanted to bite was the hand holding the rope.

Raymond knew very well that once Carlene truly swallowed up the Emerald Federation and took control of the Federation's wealth, mineral veins, and alchemy system, the next one to be purged would definitely be him, the kingmaker.

So he was left with only one choice...

Raymond picked up another glass of wine, the blood-red attack line on the map reflected in it.

(End of this chapter)