Standing alone on the balcony atop the highest floor of Maximinus palace, Maxwell gazed out onto his own city.
It has only been a week since the Breetish turned on and formally declared war on the Drussians.
They literally cannot have declared a surprise war at a more inconvenient moment.
There was a significant element of the 101st Alpha Corps that accompanying the Breetish during the Panish campaign and was now effectively cut off from Drussia, leaving the Imperium with one less military Corps to consider when planning for the war.
Fortunately enough, the Shwedish declared it's neutrality among the two sides and still continued to trade with the Drussians.
Maxwell has indeed somewhat foreseen this event coming into fruition.
In fact, none of the preparations and contingency plans that accounted for this exact situation would have been followed through on if it weren't for Maxwell placing particular emphasis on said preparations and contingency plans.
The general mentality among all of the high ranking officials within the Imperium of Drussia including Maxwell's siblings was that it was 'impossible for the Unified Kingdoms of Great Breeton to betray the Imperium of Drussia' because it was an 'illogical and impractical move.'
What they didn't account on was that Michelle was a crazy bitch who did as she pleased, no matter the consequence.
If there was any existing loophole that allowed Michelle to follow through on such daring moves, then you can bet your bottom dollar that she was going to exploit said loophole to her hearts content.
The news of Michelle crowning herself as the queen regent as well as how she attained the position as the Breetish sovereign has reached Maxwell's ears shortly after he was told that the Breetish declared war on the Drussians.
Apparently, the Breetish king along with a virtually all of the Breetish nobility died simultaneously in an instant when the Royal Castle of Great Breeton was engulfed in an explosion, leaving Michelle alone to take up the mantle as the nation's sovereign.
Said explosion was blamed on the Drussians and was used to unify the entire Breetish population against the Drussians.
It was obvious that the ones who caused the explosion was none other than Michelle and her faction instead.
As Maxwell contemplated these thoughts, he couldn't help chuckling softly to himself.
He actually found the method Michelle used to crown herself as the queen regent to be quite hilarious since in essence, her method was practically the same as Maxwell's method.
It was just to simply direct the population against an 'other.'
It was a blunt and straightforward stratagem but it worked wonders.
And now, Michelle has used that strategy to turn Breeton against Drussia.
Surrounded with hostile nations on all sides and with no means to go on the offensive, all Maxwell and Drussia could do was wait.
The combined alliance of the old kingdoms while weakened were still a threat that landlocked Drussia from all sides excluding the Fench borders while the seas were ruled by the Breetish armada.
With the Panish armada effectively out of commission, there was none left to contest Breetish rule over the seas.
That means that at least for now, the Drussians would be on the ones on the defensive.
In the prior War Conferences, it was decided that since Drussians had no idea where the Breetish could attack from, they would instead concentrate all of their forces in the core regions to protect the most important national assets.
On the other hand, the majority of the Alpha Corps that were cut off from Drussia, were given orders to return home by any means necessary, thus turning them into a 'wild card' that could show up at any moment to win the day.
With this in mind, Maxwell sighed.
He sighed a sigh which held mixed feelings.
On one hand, he felt partially glad that things were quickly ramping up again.
But for some reason, he also felt that things were coming to an abrupt end as well.
* - - - *
Author's Note:
Sorry guys but I'm going to have to close off Advent of the New Age with this chapter.
At this moment, I really couldn't continue the novel anymore. I've 'lost the momentum' so to speak and have run into a brick wall when it came to writing this series.
I sincerely apologise for really cutting this story short, with vol 3 being only slightly more than half the number of chaps as the other two volumes.
For the moment, I'll leave it with this open-ended ending to leave open the possibility of me coming back to it to the future (or even do an entire re-write) while I work on other projects, both on Webnovel and others.
Thanks for the support and I hoped that you enjoyed
* - - - *
Extra Note:
Before I close off this novel for the time being however, I also placed a 'bonus extract' bellow this note.
Said extract is ambiguously canon as it was the original ending that I wrote for the novel as early as before volume 1 was even completed and I would rather not have it collecting dust in some virtual shelf.
Since I never got to 'finish' the novel and instead left it with the open ended ending, I consider this 'true deleted ending' to be both canon and non-canon at the same time.
As I mentioned before, I may comeback to this novel some time in the future and by then, perhaps I would have replaced that ending or I will keep it. I really don't know.
Anyhow, I hope that you enjoy the 'original ending' of Advent of the New Age.
* - - - *
The heavy rain continued outside as Erika sat at her desk within the silence of her private room.
Her eyes were dewy yet no tears were falling out.
Instead, she just continued to stare downwards at her desk.
Soon, her attention was drawn to one of her personal objects on the table.
It was her personal pistol that was gifted to her by Maxwell.
Her beautiful Blümelein.
After staring at the weapon for a few short moments, Erika slowly reached for Blümelein before grasping it in her hands and checking that the chamber was loaded.
Erika glanced around the empty room before she took a deep breath and aimed Blümelein at her target.
Then she pulled the trigger.