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Chapter 715: San Antonio

San Antonio was an ancient and powerful human mega empire that would be a candidate for the most powerful country in Eich.

San Antonio’s territory was incredibly vast, and included the golden plains that was the beastmen’s homeland, the wide mountain ranges to the south, and even a coastal wetlands region. It could be said that San Antonio had abundant resources and tremendous population.

Compared to other human mega empires, San Antonio treated other species more moderately. Perhaps this was because its territory was simply too vast. There were many gathering grounds for other species on the border of where humans lived, such as dwarven or gnome gathering grounds. San Antonio had astonishing combat potential.

San Antonio’s rulers in history had also been quite intelligent. They were quite good at strategy. Unlike Bardi, Auland, Suolo Federation, Xiluo, and other such powerful countries that liked to use forceful means, San Antonio preferred to use strategy to resolve their problems.

And compared to the elves who always managed to shoot themselves in the foot, San Antonio’s diplomatic strategy was far slyer.

For instance, in the Northlands, San Antonio supported the Kasolan Kingdom (Dukedom). The archduke of Kasolan also held the status of being a noble of San Antonio. Basically, this helped San Antonio to establish a wall of defense against the beastmen in the north, as well as placing a spy inside the Northlands.

When San Antonio noticed that it would be impossible for them to prevent the Northlands countries from allying together to form the Mist Alliance, and with the pressure from other major countries, San Antonio simply abandoned Kasolan, and even summoned back its general and San Antonio nobility in the Northlands.

Strategically speaking, this would doubtlessly be the best course of action. Retracting one’s defense lines before the Holy War should be a good thing. There was also no more need to be on guard against the Northlands beastmen. Being able to unhesitatingly abandon useless “limbs” was evidence of San Antonio’s strategical wisdom.

Right before the Holy War, San Antonio even started several wars and conquered several small countries, but when San Antonio confirmed the danger of the Holy War, they unhesitatingly returned the land to those small countries.

San Antonio had the #1 population of all countries, was the #1 producer of food, was #1 in industrial potential, and had the #1 economy. In all areas, San Antonio led the world.

However, a certain matter had been greatly weakening San Antonio’s strength over the past several years.

Internal warfare. What apart from this would swiftly cause a decline in national strength?

San Antonio’s ruler, Emperor Hant the Second, suddenly died unexpectedly. His brother Winston, who held quite some power, started a war against Princess Maria. The war lasted for three and a half years, with no victor in the end.

The ever worsening situation of the Holy War caused the two factions to decide that they should make peace with each other. If I recalled correctly, San Antonio was now split up into two large territories across the golden plains and golden channel. The northern portion belonged to Prince Winston, while the southern portion belonged to Empress Maria.

In name, Empress Maria was the rightful heir. However, her rule was only effective across 40% of San Antonio’s land, ruling over 35% of San Antonio’s population. Prince Winston had been the prime minister of the San Antonio Empire, and in his territory, everyone treated him like an emperor.

It should also be mentioned that Prince Winston was also simultaneously the leader of the empire’s royal knight order. More than 70% of royal knights were loyal to him. Meanwhile, Empress Maria was the strongest demon warlock in the world. Her mage groups and army of familiars were the largest mage army in the entire land.

Originally, the citizens of San Antonio had loathed Empress Maria for being a demon warlock. However, she proved to everyone by slaying countless demons in bloody battle that she wasn’t allied with the Chaos Abyss. It was quite effective for her to use the Chaos Abyss’s power against itself.

What I found the most inconceivable was that Maria was also Ayer’s Divine Envoy. This meant that Death God Ayer favored her tremendously. In fact, she was even capable of borrowing Ayer’s power, which I found rather incomprehensible.

I tried to ask Ayer about this as he was now the Death God of Hell. However, he wouldn’t reply to me. It seemed that Ayer had no intention of bringing Maria to the Hell Faction. He would only smile mysteriously whenever he was asked about her.

Since Maria was still capable of borrowing power from Ayer even now, it was as if she was his daughter... In fact, there really were boring rumors about her being Ayer’s illegitimate daughter, but nobody treated those rumors seriously.

Getting back on topic, all of San Antonio was under attack by an allied invasion of ogres and demons.

In Empress Maria’s territory, the main enemies she had to deal with were Inferno Demons and Flame Ogres that had walked out of the Saffey Mountains. The volcanic mountain district there had already been transformed into an abyssal sea of fire. Countless Corruptors and Burning Demons were born there, and since Empress Maria herself was a demon warlock who “needed to be cleansed”, she had an incredibly bad relationship with the Holy Church, and received zero help from them.

Meanwhile, Prince Winston’s territory contained the Amu Mountains, which was now the largest meat grinder battlefield in all of Eich. The ogres’ main army was located there. The ogre tribe leader Muljin had also been spotted there. The Holy Church established a defense line there, but the angel squadrons had already been eradicated completely three times so far. They’d even lost their fortress.

With such a setting, countless knights and mercenaries were heading there to realize their dreams every day. Countless corpses and permanently crippled warriors were also removed from the battlefield on a daily basis. I appeared to be an ordinary human Holy Knight when I arrived here, so nobody paid me any attention.

“War? That’s so far off. That’s just a minor problem in the border area. San Antonio will definitely be victorious in the end.”

“Have you heard? Her Majesty Maria and Prince Winston made an agreement that whoever achieved greater things between them in the Holy War would become the only ruler of San Antonio after the Holy War.”

When I entered Kestan, the original capital of San Antonio, I saw no panic about the ongoing war. The entire capital had just finished with its new year celebrations. Everything inside the city appeared to be peaceful and flourishing.

In fact, many San Antonio citizens were quite happy that the demons and ogres had arrived, because this meant that San Antonio’s damned civil war had finally come to an end.

Of course, their confidence and casual attitude had a basis. Obviously, they knew that San Antonio was one of the strongest countries in the land. Also, the war had only been limited to the remote mountainous districts of San Antonio so far. The major nobles and domain lords had yet to start participating in battle. That all gave them confidence.

My first thing to do upon arriving in the capital of Kestan was to gather all sorts of information.

This wasn’t because I was itching to spread even more rumors of myself as a golden-armored demon hunter. It was just that the map I had obtained from Sun God Aloyo was far too ancient. His map’s coordinates and markings were outdated by several tens of thousands of years. The current cartographical condition of the land was immensely different. I needed to find additional maps from modern to ancient times, and compare the historical data in order to figure out the specific location of the magic mirror I was looking for.

When talking about having the best and most historical information, of course the royal palace would be the right place to look.

Thus, I simply went directly to visit the royal palace of San Antonio. I figured I might as well meet Prince Winston and see what type of person he was.

But, I’d never expected that I would first meet someone I hadn’t thought I would see here.

“You’re...”

I met an old man who had a kindly appearance. However, the abundant Holy Light around his head made it difficult to see his face.

Although I had never personally met him before, his portraits were plastered everywhere in the land. I highly doubted that I would mistake him for someone else.

“Aren’t you the Pope of the Holy Church? Pope Caloma the First?”