Ch.316316. Asia (4)

Thus, the Yamato-Seorabeol Alliance began demanding surrender on humanitarian grounds before the decisive battle.

At first, they used an earnest tone, then gradually became colder, and finally, Takashima Shiro himself, the leader of the Yamato Alliance, issued a stern warning as sharp as a cold blade.

These surrender recommendations, coldly stating reality, proved quite effective, primarily because people saw no reason to fight and risk their lives unnecessarily.

Above all, the reason this coalition fractured so easily was that the Anti-Yamato Alliance itself was merely a collection of warlords, pirates, and remnants of Japanese noble families.

It was a loose coalition bound only by opposition to the Yamato Alliance, with no shared ideals, no vision for the post-apocalyptic world, and no common cause.

They merely claimed that everything would be resolved if old Japan could be restored.

“The Yamato Alliance promised a new nation. Haven’t they actually established a new country like Seorabeol by overthrowing the stifling imperial system?”

“Exactly! The Yamato Alliance has eliminated all the contradictions of past Japan and pursues reforms suitable for this apocalyptic era, just like Seorabeol pursues enlightenment. Why should we reject the Yamato Alliance? Shouldn’t we instead embrace it and join of our own free will?”

Moreover, even intellectuals in the Anti-Yamato camp who weren’t participating in the war were already strongly opposing this conflict.

They argued there was no reason to fight, and that the Yamato Alliance had actually resolved Japan’s contradictions and created a nation fit for the apocalypse. They persuaded the public that joining the Yamato Alliance was the path to survival.

As even the intellectuals turned their backs along with ordinary soldiers, the Anti-Yamato Alliance began to crumble.

Unable to believe that the powerless masses would suddenly rebel against their rule, the Anti-Yamato Alliance chose a hardline approach rather than calming the situation or comforting the people. They suppressed intellectuals and ordered summary executions for deserting soldiers.

To put it bluntly, they still believed the powerless masses would remain powerless, and they trusted in the power of the Awakened.

“…Summary execution?”

“Me? Execute my own subordinates? Are you insane?”

“I’m not a murderer!”

When the execution orders came down, some of the Awakened on the ground began to waver.

True, those who were originally plunderers happily slaughtered anyone who resisted when the orders came, but there couldn’t be a complete absence of sane soldiers.

Field officers who were unfortunate enough or had circumstances forcing them to belong to the Anti-Yamato Alliance either immediately disobeyed the bloody orders or, in extreme cases, conspired with their troops to surrender.

The plan to control through fear collapsed from the very first step, and despite these bloody policies, the number of soldiers surrendering to the Yamato Alliance never decreased.

This scene itself could be seen as an irresistible tide, evidence that the mandate of heaven was with the Yamato Alliance. The sight of entire units raising white flags of surrender was met with cheers of joy from the Yamato-Seorabeol Alliance and only silence from the Anti-Yamato forces.

“Where have all those troops gone?!”

On the day of the decisive battle, the Anti-Yamato leadership could hardly believe their eyes.

Despite all their extreme measures to prevent desertion, what they saw was that nearly half of the great army they had painstakingly gathered over months had vanished.

Half of those remaining were combat ineffective, having failed to properly recover from previous engagements, and with surrenders and desertions still occurring, the actual forces the Anti-Yamato Alliance could deploy amounted to only 20,000.

One might ask if 20,000 troops wasn’t still a considerable force, but the total strength of the Seorabeol-Yamato Alliance had reached 100,000.

“We don’t even need to proceed with the next operation. This is already a complete victory.”

Not only were they outnumbered, but the quality of the forces was worlds apart.

Under the banner of the Dragon God Bahamut waited Baek Seol-hwa, the Dragon Priestess, and nearby, the Hwarang, her personal guard, had deployed in dragon armor.

Nearby, the Yamato Magic Battalion from the Seorabeol Mage Association was preparing spells, and at the vanguard was the proud figure of Shiro, leader of the Yamato Alliance, wearing full-body armor and carrying weapons while mounted on a motorcycle.

Not only were they outnumbered, but the quality difference was overwhelming, leading Baek Seol-hwa to declare victory before the battle even began.

War had many variables, but those variables required conditions to manifest, and in Baek Seol-hwa’s view, the Anti-Yamato Alliance lacked even the conditions to create such variables.

“After this long wait, our final ultimatum ends here. Hear me, Anti-Yamato Alliance! The mercy we can offer you ends now!”

Takashima Shiro, leader of the Yamato Alliance, boldly declared that this was their final ultimatum to the Anti-Yamato Alliance.

The pleading expression he had shown when demanding surrender was gone, and only a warrior’s face confronting the enemy remained.

The Anti-Yamato forces who had not yet surrendered sensed something was wrong, but…

“All forces. Let us eliminate these traitors and bring peace to the Japanese archipelago!”

“Long live the Yamato-Seorabeol Alliance! Long live Takashima Shiro, leader of the Yamato Alliance! Long live Baek Seol-hwa, the Dragon Priestess!”

They were no longer given any choice, and with Shiro’s command, the Yamato-Seorabeol Alliance immediately launched a full-scale attack.

At dawn, the sky turned red, not from the morning glow but from the light of bombardments and magical explosions unleashed by hundreds of drones and mages prepared by the Yamato Alliance.

The magic raining down from the sky struck the Anti-Yamato forces directly, and faced with this overwhelming power, they stood dazed as the Yamato Alliance charged toward them.

“Now. Let’s go!”

Shiro took the lead, and behind him on his motorcycle followed numerous Awakened from the Yamato Alliance.

Beginning with Shiro at the front decapitating an Anti-Yamato officer, the Yamato forces and Anti-Yamato forces collided, and the ground began to fill with the flesh of Anti-Yamato soldiers.

It wasn’t a spectacular battle between Awakened, but rather a massacre where one side completely trampled the other.

The victims of this massacre were the Anti-Yamato forces, who were truly helpless to do anything.

“Target only their leaders! If we take out the heads, we don’t need to worry about the rest of the soldiers!”

Above all, the Anti-Yamato Alliance was a group that combined all the worst aspects of an alliance, lacking a unified command structure, reliable logistics, or trustworthy rear support.

If there was any advantage, it was that cutting off one head wouldn’t cause other units to collapse, but even that meant they would abandon the war and desert immediately if things got serious—hardly a benefit for the Anti-Yamato Alliance.

Thus, Takashima Shiro and the Yamato Alliance Awakened at the vanguard broke through all opposing units and succeeded in penetrating the enemy trench line in just nine minutes.

“It’s the Hwarang! The Hwarang have appeared!”

While the Yamato Alliance excelled at the vanguard, it was the Hwarang’s role to block the enemy’s retreat.

With the Hwarang handling even the warlords attempting to flee, escape routes were cut off, and the battle line formed by the Anti-Yamato forces began to collapse.

They fled, were abandoned, or belatedly declared surrender.

Even the Anti-Yamato warlord commanders who had been executing surrendering soldiers threw down their banners, replaced them with white flags, and silently knelt before the Alliance forces.

“Spare me! Please spare me! I’ll work like a dog!”

It was truly pathetic, but with their surrender, the east-west civil war in Japan could finally be brought to a conclusion.

The Yamato-Seorabeol Alliance literally trampled the Anti-Yamato forces and could achieve the unification of the Japanese archipelago without major losses.

With this, the Yamato Alliance could become the unified state of the Japanese archipelago, and Seorabeol could carve its name as a decisive ally in that unification.

Considering their relationship before the apocalypse, such cooperation seemed impossible, but both Seorabeol and the Yamato Alliance knew that good neighbors were necessary to survive this harsh apocalypse.

Above all…

“We’ve defeated the Anti-Yamato Alliance. But there’s no country besides us that will permit unification.”

No one besides Seorabeol wanted the Yamato Alliance to unify Japan.

America was silent due to its own political issues. As for China, while not all Chinese states opposed Japanese unification, apart from the states of Chu, Wu, and Yue, the rest showed no interest and made no diplomatic statements regarding this war.

And the pirate kingdoms in the South China Sea would absolutely not tolerate the emergence of a maritime nation called the Yamato Alliance, so they would do everything possible to obstruct the unification process. Despite the victory over the Anti-Yamato Alliance, the remaining warlords who hadn’t participated in this war could form a second Anti-Yamato Alliance, so they couldn’t let their guard down.

“This war has ended, but the Yamato Alliance has not yet completed the task of unifying the archipelago.”

In reality, the victory in the east-west civil war was considered a victory for the Yamato Alliance which controlled eastern Japan, but no one truly believed that unification would be achieved with this one battle.

From now on, the Yamato Alliance would face tests against those who opposed unification.

“Is this enough to clear our debt?”

From Seorabeol’s perspective, this was an opportunity to clear all debts owed to the Yamato Alliance, and they considered the situation not bad at all.

Though it might be regrettable for the Yamato Alliance, if they continued to struggle, Seorabeol could clear the debt accumulated by the Yamato Alliance and even impose debt on them instead, which wasn’t bad at all.

Rather, by maintaining moderate victory and support, they could pursue national interests.

‘The ideal is lofty. But reality is fleeting.’

Shiro knew this fact as well, but didn’t say anything about it.

He simply recognized once again that reality was cruel, unlike the ideal he had dreamed of.