Chapter 1480: Dual Country War Instance: Rigorous Winter Is Coming! Raging Sea Storm! (Part 4)

The other three powers split into three routes and steamed at full speed toward the North Sea.

One route was from the closest Netherland Kingdom, personally commanded by the Kingdom’s Guardian, [Protector of the Realm] Cromwell;

Another route was the strongest, the Pyrenees Empire’s Invincible Fleet, under the command of the Imperial Consort, King Fernando II of Aragon;

The last route was the Royal Navy of The Holy Silver Empire, led by Frederick III’s younger brother—once Archduke Ferdinand, now the [King of Solitude].

This one was an old acquaintance.

Back then it was Frederick III’s appointment of this blood brother to succeed as King of one of the Seven Electors, the Palatinate Electorate, that set off the religious war.

Ferdinand was a fanatical Traditional Faction believer; the moment he took office he launched mass persecution of the Protestants in the Palatinate Electorate. The current blood-soaked grand spectacle—they’ve already staged it once before.

After that, the Defenestration became the fuse for the entire “Religious War.”

Although he was later driven out by the Protestant Princes, now that every state has taken heavy losses, finding another Kingly Title to slot in is of course no hard task.

As for why he’s the [King of Solitude]?

They say that one day he half-jokingly asked his personal manservants: “Tell me, do you think there exists a man in this world with two pairs of balls? That would be tremendously amusing.”

Uh…

And then, thanks to one colleague with more mouth than sense dragging them down, those manservants all ended up with no “afterwards” at all.

The authorities even issued an official clarification that the [King of Solitude] has no connection whatsoever with “ball-related sorrow.”

In any case, connection or not, many people say that men born with this condition in history always fight like mad beasts, and Ferdinand is no exception.

What’s unclear is whether Frederick III had that in mind when he sent this brother out again.

Also, although The Holy Silver Empire’s land borders the Eternal Night Peninsula, it hasn’t dispatched many ground troops.

It only sent out multiple elite Scout units centered on Transcendents, launching raids in the enemy rear to keep the Bayfolk forces too busy to breathe.

Apart from the Protestant Princes entrenched in the north, who are still locked in a pitched battle against them, the key point is that by late October the Eternal Night Peninsula is already under falling snow, entering frozen mode.

If large formations marched in, they would ram headlong into the [Rigorous Winter Is Coming] instance; before those packs of Berserkers and Frost Wolf Knights even got around to killing them, they themselves would have frozen into ice sculptures.

After receiving the Pope’s command, the Joint Fleet’s objective was razor sharp: the grand fleet would strike directly at the core of the North Sea Empire—the Strait Islands’ imperial capital, Kingston!

Two lines of operation, one overt and one covert, with the Strait of Dover as the main theater, fully committed to winning the naval instance [Tempest of the Raging Sea].

As long as they could wipe out all the Navy of a sea power, that state would no longer have any capacity to resist and become a turtle in a jar.

However, Byron, upon receiving the intelligence, was not alarmed but delighted.

“Mr. Charles did well.”

The whole series of reactions from the Orthodox Alliance was exactly what he’d been aiming for when he preemptively published “Evolution,” to enrage those war laymen in the Council of the Divine Presence’s upper ranks.

Nothing is more dangerous than laymen leading professionals.

Byron never underestimates those famed Kings and Generals.

If the Pope handed this war entirely over to them, then with their numerical superiority at least they wouldn’t fight so atrociously.

Ten Dreadnoughts alone can’t be everywhere at once against dispersed enemies; for their first appearance, naturally the more enemies they face, the better.

But once the civil servants in the rear start showing off operations—bestowing formation maps upon the Generals before the war even begins—

And sighing, “All the front-line soldiers need do is throw themselves body and soul into the battlefield and kill the enemy; we in the rear have so many things to think about.”—

Byron can just about put half his heart back into his chest.

All he needs to worry about is deploying the Dreadnought Fleet at the most opportune moment…then shutting the door and beating the dog!