novelraw Chapter 42.1 : End of Volume1
Chapter 42.1 : End of Volume1
End of Volume1: The Tyrant
It no longer rained in Brittany.
Next spring, Brittany should be able to bloom with beautiful flowers.
When Ning Luo returned to Brittany—
The soldiers of Brittany were already waiting for him.
They were not invincible elites, merely soldiers who had clung to life through the war—survivors of a long, hopeless thirty-four-year conflict.
A massive dragon circled in the sky, then descended.
Lieutenant Colonel Stewart dismounted from the red dragon and walked up to Ning Luo.
At first, Ning Luo’s absence from Brittany could still be concealed.
But at most, the illusion could last two months.
Lieutenant Colonel Stewart could only stand in for Ning Luo, promising all the soldiers of Brittany that Ning Luo would return with victory.
Now—
Ning Luo had returned to Brittany.
He sat on horseback, his gaze sweeping across all the soldiers present. Then, he raised the document in his hand.
"I have returned!!!"
Lieutenant Colonel Stewart placed his right hand over his chest, then knelt on one knee before Ning Luo in a knight’s salute.
This ancient act of knighthood had already fallen out of use before the war began. With the rise of firearms and the constant evolution of infantry tactics, the traditional space of the knight class had been crowded out.
The feudal bonds of loyalty had shifted as well.
The knight’s salute once signified allegiance to a lord. Now, under ongoing war and increasing centralization of power, such gestures had taken on new meaning.
Lieutenant Colonel Stewart’s kneeling was more akin to a religious rite.
And following Stewart’s example, all the soldiers present knelt on one knee.
Then—
They raised their voices in a triple shout, calling out for Ning Luo.
“Hosanna!”
“Hosanna!!”
“Hosanna!!!”
It was said that when the Son of the Covenant arrived in Zion, the people of Zion welcomed him with three cries of "Hosanna."
To the soldiers of Brittany—
Ning Luo was both a ruthless tyrant and the savior who had come to deliver them.
But none of that mattered anymore.
The war was over.
At the very least, things might slowly begin to improve.
---
Albion Empire.
Brittany.
Brittany Fortress.
Imperial Army Headquarters.
Having returned from the Holy Federation, and now holding the rank of Second Lieutenant, Ning Luo naturally had to report to Marshal Asfled first.
Today, Marshal Asfled seemed far more at ease.
He took the initiative to pour a cup of wine for Ning Luo—though it was only cheap rice wine. In a place like this, any wine at all was already considered a luxury.
"Care for a drink?"
"No, I can’t drink."
Ning Luo shook his head.
Everyone had to pay a price for the war, and Ning Luo was no exception.
The bullet lodged permanently in his body was a small but lasting cost left to him by the war.
Marshal Asfled didn’t dwell on that matter.
"If nothing unexpected happens, by June next year, the front-line soldiers can all rotate home."
"And you? What are your plans after the war?"
"Once the war ends, I plan to retire. But I don't really have anything to do… Maybe buy a house in my hometown, and try to live like a normal person."
Marshal Asfled had, in the truest sense, been a soldier for thirty-four years.
He’d been fighting ever since graduating from the military academy.
Outside of war, he honestly didn’t know what else he could do.
In fact, Marshal Asfled didn’t want to leave the military.
But he had to—because his status was too high.
Just as people had warned before the war: the Army had become uncontrollable, and the Empire—
The Empire would never allow the Army to spiral out of control.
Ning Luo, however, was an entirely different matter.
Princess Isabella was the Empire’s only heir, and Ning Luo was her fiancé—which meant Ning Luo was the future master of the Empire.
Otherwise, just the sight of so many soldiers offering a knight’s salute to Ning Luo would have been enough to cause an uproar.
One could even say—
Lieutenant Colonel Stewart had deliberately guided the army into performing the knight’s salute for Ning Luo. He was Ning Luo’s most fervent supporter.
Marshal Asfled looked at Ning Luo.
"Enough about me. Let’s talk about you young people. Do you plan to get married after the war?"
"Originally, our plan was to marry after graduating from university, but the war delayed that. Now that the war’s over, we still probably won’t be able to marry anytime soon. There’s just too much I need to handle in the aftermath."
In this era, university graduation occurred around the age of twenty-one.
Ning Luo hadn’t even turned twenty yet, so marriage at this stage would indeed be considered early. More importantly—he simply didn’t have the time.
It wasn’t as though everything would suddenly improve just because the war had ended.
The real trials were only beginning. The thirty-four-year-long war hadn’t merely destroyed the Empire’s economy—it had also shattered its demographic structure. Ning Luo now had to reconstruct a postwar system that could actually function.
Marshal Asfled sat back down in his position as Chief of General Staff.
"The Princess is probably waiting for you. No need to waste time with an old man like me."
"May our souls never know peace."
Marshal Asfled truly envied Ning Luo.
To become the Empire’s hero in its darkest hour, and to have the most beautiful little princess as a fiancée. But all of that was what Ning Luo had rightfully earned.
In becoming a hero and receiving the Empire’s highest responsibilities, Ning Luo had also taken the Empire’s entire fate upon his shoulders.
And now—
The war was over.
Ning Luo could go see his princess.
---
Albion Empire.
Brittany.
Café.
Second Floor.
One could see Isabella wearing a close-fitting, off-shoulder knit sweater at home, sorting through the clothes in her wardrobe.
Many of them were men’s clothing—more accurately, Ning Luo’s clothing.
If speaking purely of beauty, then Princess Cinderella was the most beautiful. Her beauty had a surreal, almost otherworldly quality.
However—
Isabella was real to Ning Luo.
Ning Luo gently hugged Isabella from behind: snow-white skin, a slender and supple waist, and a faint, familiar fragrance on her body.
It was only when he embraced Isabella again that Ning Luo truly felt he had returned to being a person.
The Empire, the war, the soldiers—none of those truly belonged to Ning Luo.
Only Isabella belonged entirely to him.
"I'm back."
Isabella gently pushed Ning Luo away.
Then sat down on the bed, her slender fingers patting her thighs, inviting Ning Luo to lay his head on her lap. She pulled the blanket over him.
Her delicate fingers softly brushed across his cheek and chest.
"I'm right here."
Isabella was here.
The thirty-four-year war was over.
Ning Luo and Isabella were still together.
To Ning Luo, it had only been two short years of war.
But even that had been enough to turn him into the ruthless Tyrant of Brittany.
Some things, once set into motion, could never be undone—just like Ning Luo’s inability to—
(to be continued…)
[Conclusion – End of Volume: The Tyrant]
No matter what he did, there was no way Ning Luo could return to the life of an ordinary person.
Power was like a densely woven net, entangling everyone within it.
But no matter what—
Isabella was here.
Ning Luo was exhausted—truly exhausted.
The war had never allowed him even a moment to rest.
The moment people began to follow you, you ceased to be an individual; you became a leader—and a leader could never again just be a person.
Isabella gently stroked Ning Luo’s chest.
“Don’t want to sleep?”
“During the war, there were so many times when I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. And now that it’s over, there’s still so much I have to deal with.”
The pain of war had become a habit.
Now that peace had finally, after so long, returned—Ning Luo couldn’t sleep.
There was a mountain of postwar matters still waiting to be addressed.
War, by its very nature, was colossal—so immense that it overshadowed all other contradictions. But once the war ended, all the suppressed tensions would resurface.
The entire imperial power structure would have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
For instance:
The Universal Church faction that supported the new Empress, Princess Maria;
The Orthodox Church faction representing the rising bourgeoisie and new aristocracy;
The landed traditional nobility, deeply conservative;
And the military faction, representing absolute force.
Previously, Ning Luo had represented the army’s absolute violence—and it was with that violence that he had forcibly resolved the faction of traditional nobles.
But—
After the war, everything changed.
Ning Luo could not belong to any faction.
Everything was being orchestrated so that Ning Luo could become the Empire’s sovereign—and a sovereign could not afford to have a faction.
Isabella, however, had something else on her mind.
“I thought you were thinking about the Princess of Dortmund.”
“So you figured it out after all.”
“Practically everyone knows about it.”
Indeed, this wasn’t some secret.
The Princess of Dortmund and Baron Scharnhorst had ended the war between the Holy Federation and the Scandinavian Empire.
There were even rumors that the so-called Baron Scharnhorst was, in fact, the Tyrant of Brittany in disguise.
Ning Luo spoke frankly.
“I am worried about her. I used her—dragged her into the war against her will. What happened in Dortmund… she can’t bear it.”
Because he understood what happened in Dortmund—
Ning Luo had insisted that Cinderella come back to Brittany with him.
Dortmund was a complete tragedy.
Not only because of the devastating destruction the war had inflicted on the region, but because of something far deeper—far heavier.
In Dortmund, the Scandinavian Empire and the Holy Federation hadn’t just plundered and massacred.
They conscripted soldiers.
They would conscript Dortmunders—Scandinavia’s Dortmunders—to fight against the Holy Federation’s Dortmunders.
That was a weight Cinderella could never bear.
No—
Not just Cinderella.
No one could bear that weight.
Not Cinderella. Not Ning Luo.
“What do you plan to do?”
“I’ll make Dortmund the strongest ally of Albion.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Cinderella was indeed beautiful.
So beautiful that even Ning Luo couldn’t claim he had remained untouched—especially in those moments during the war, when she held his hand.
Ning Luo shifted slightly, turning to face Isabella’s belly.
“I was thinking of something greedy.”
“Seems like my dear Mr. Ning Luo is becoming more and more like a tyrant. He wants everything.”
“Isabella will give it to me.”
Isabella smiled softly. She leaned down, bringing her lips close to Ning Luo’s ear.
“Yes.
As long as it’s something Ning Luo wants—Mama will give it to you.”
[Postscript – After the Tyrant: 1065 and the End of War]
……
The year 1065 in Europe was a year of both suffering—and not quite so much suffering.
The war that had lasted thirty-four years had finally come to an end.
The decline of the Empire of Castilia had become an irreversible reality.
In the tide of history, even a colossus like Castilia was powerless.
Just as the Sahariists once managed to invade Castilia—because, at the time, they possessed more advanced agricultural techniques. But with the advent of the firearms era, the stagnation of Sahariist agriculture, and the improvements made by the Universal Church in the field of agriculture, Sahariism eventually faded into decline.
What had once been the forward-thinking Universal Church, too, had gradually lost pace with the times under the relentless march of history.
As for the Castilian Empire of today—
It was barely clinging to life, relying solely on its unparalleled size.
The war had dealt a devastating blow to the Kingdom of Fontaine.
It had completely dismantled Fontaine’s old institutions and social structure. Internally, the country was in total chaos; externally, it faced pressure from three enemies: the Albion Empire, the Castilian Empire, and the Holy Federation.
Yet not everything brought by the war was negative.
The war had obliterated the old order, making it easier for the Kingdom of Fontaine to swiftly complete its centralization of power.
…
The Scandinavian Empire’s financial system had collapsed.
More importantly—they had lost the war.
Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that the Scandinavian Empire had not won.
They still held some northern territories that ought to have belonged to the Holy Federation.
But beyond internal fiscal and political crises, they now faced the predatory gaze of two powers that had not participated in the war: the Kingdom of Polia and the Empire of Russia.
These two strong states would not let the Scandinavian Empire off easily.
The Holy Federation, it could be said, had suffered the greatest losses.
Even though, on the surface, the Holy Federation had won the war—
Its population had been reduced significantly, and its entire northern region was now a wasteland.
Moreover, the Austrian authority within the Holy Federation had suffered a confirmed weakening of influence over its vassal states, making centralization impossible in the way other nations could pursue.
If the Holy Federation had anything that could be called good news—
It was perhaps the temporary easing of external threats.
The Scandinavian Empire, Kingdom of Polia, and Empire of Russia were caught in a standoff.
Meanwhile, the Albion Empire, Castilian Empire, and Kingdom of Fontaine were locked in another.
This gave the Holy Federation a chance to recover.
---
May 5, 1065
General Albrecht Wenzel von Carlwitz, Chief of Staff of the Holy Federation Army, was conferred the title of Imperial Army Grand Marshal.
Unlike other marshal ranks, this was a singular honor, awarded only to Marshal Carlwitz—a military rank above all others.
May 6, 1065
Marshal Albrecht Wenzel von Carlwitz retired from military service.
May 7, 1065
On his journey home, Marshal Carlwitz was assassinated.
The death of Marshal Carlwitz—
Marked the true and final end of the thirty-four-year war.
……
When he collapsed on the soil of Austria—
Marshal Carlwitz looked up at the blue sky.
The rains had finally ceased over this land.
But alas—this was not his homeland.
Yet for such an ending, Marshal Carlwitz felt no sorrow.
The Holy Federation’s greatest astronomer, Johannes Kepler, had once told him:
> "You will die when the war ends."
Even so, Marshal Carlwitz could still recall that afternoon—
The one when he first met Ferdinand II.
The young emperor was only twenty at the time, his eyes shining like stars.
And he made a solemn vow to Marshal Carlwitz:
> "I will end this war.
> I will bring peace and prosperity to the Empire!"