**Author Note**
I just want to apologise for not releasing a chapter yesterday, that means I'll be releasing two chapters today! and to tell you guys that this is the final volume of the novel...
And special thanks to everyone that supported this short novel with the power stones; ozy, JustBearmace, forcalorr, LordofTheSunRealm, lilleplutt, ivnsntos, TheRoyalEidnad, Mani555, Lonelyhero and Sempiterrnal; thanks you guys :)
**Author Note END**
Twenty Lunar soldiers forced themselves into a building, kicking down doors, entering rooms and opening fire at whoever was inside whether they were men, women, children or elderly...
'None are to spared, the rebel forces has to be cleansed of!', those were the words of their beautiful General.
The Lunar forces entered the Satellian Empire a month ago, a few days after Alexis had woken up from his Soul teleportation incident.
And now, the soldiers were patrolling the cities, searching for the cracks and clues of the rebel force...
Their weapons have been upgraded, now equipped with semi automatic rifles that looked very similar to the M1 carbine, fitted with banana magazines that held thirty bullets inside...
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
Soldiers shouted as they entered different rooms.
But one soldier walking down the corridor suddenly tripped and fell on the ground, looking back he realised that he had activated a trap and screamed.
Soldiers patrolling the area suddenly heard a loud explosion and immediately hurried over, only to find a destroyed two story building and a couple of charred bodies of their comrades...
"Goddamnit! That's the third one this week!" A Lunar officer shouted and slammed his fist on the bonnet of the steam engined car.
The soldiers recovered the two bodies and also the remains of the eighteen others that died.
The Satellian civilians gathered around, only to be stopped and inspected by the soldiers that had very stern expressions.
"Anyone of them could be a terrorist!" A Lunar soldier warned his partner as they went through the belongings of the civilians that glared at them but complied.
Their anger towards the Lunar soldiers were justified, these foreign soldiers suddenly came over from another country and started suspecting them for no reason!
"You foreigners are getting out of hand!" An old man shouted passionately but was threatened by guns and was forced to comply with the soldiers who stared at them with disdain evident on their eyes...
"Why are we sent here instead of a real battlefield? This place is literally like the slums of the Capital..." The same Lunar soldier complained with a sigh.
His friend snickered and opened his mouth to speak, everyone heard a low crackle.
"Th-" He fell down dead, a bullet has gone staright through his eye spraying all the mush and blood all over the soldier behind him.
"TAKE COVER!"
"WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!"
Immediately as he died the entire street filled with chaos, civilians running around screaming, soldiers shouting at them and more and more bullets being shot at them...
Lunar soldiers, now wearing dark grey uniforms and iron helmets that was now removed of the spike, quickly took cover behind whatever was solid enough and took quick peeks hoping to find the attacker.
"Officer! To your One'o clock! Inside the house, second floor!" A soldier informed, the Officer then ordered the soldiers that quickly went inside and opened fire on all individuals inside.
The Capital city of Satellia now resembled a war zone that was about to erupt...
Many civilians had died due to the tactics used by both rebels and soldiers alike...
By using guerilla warfare, the rebels have endangered the lives of the people living, and by being ambushed by the rebels, the soldiers have no choice but to shoot at wherever the gunfire came from...
-●-●-●-
"The deal was broken almost immediately..." Amelia smiled wryly, she couldn't really blame Alexis as she too was going to break it...
But then she sighed, her subordinates gathered around her and discussed about the plans of the war, most of it was based on Satellia, they still haven't received any answer from the other two countries.
"Our secret factories have produced these 'semi automatic' rifles that are being used by the Lunar infantry!" Exclaimed one leader in glee as she answered a phone call from what looked like a candlestick phone, albeit looking much more refined...
"Tell them to keep producing them until the war is over!" Charlotte stated and glanced at Amelia who sighed once again.
"What's wrong?" She whispered as Amelia smiled at her and shook her head.
"Nothing, continue with your work..." Amelia whispered back.
-●-●-●-
"How many operatives do you have?" Alexis asked the cloaked figure kneeling behind him.
"Around two thousand, boss..." Marcus replied immediately as Alexis hummed approvingly.
"Marcus... mobilise your agents, commence Operation Framework..." Alexis mumbled and turned to Marcus who looked a bit shocked but proceeded to nod.
"Isn't it too soon, boss?" His right hand man asked him.
"No... now is the time, we currently have the upper hand..." Alexis replied and turned to him.
"What's wrong? Are you scared?" He asked Marcus who looked away in embarrassment.
"I'm going, expect to hear of the war between the Republic and the Kingdom!" He heard Marcus whisper as he disappeared, Alexis snickered and rested on the chair with a sigh.
'The continent now has electricity... the other countries are in an Industrial revolution, mage populations are suppressed by the masses, everything is going well... I guess?' He asked himself and rested his head on the table to take a small nap.
-●-●-●-
A few days later, the continent was shocked by a rumour that has been spreading like wildfire.
The head of state, of the Republic of Namu was severely injured in an assassination attempt, the assassin has left but was injured aswell!
The Republic suspects the Kingdom which it had several conflicts with...
Then came the next big news, the blood of the assassin was found out to be of Ritzburg descent, specific to the race of blondes.
This was the first nail for war...
The second one was when there were riots in the Republic, the masses demanded revenge for their president from the Kingdom.
People of blonde hair were discriminated in the streets of Namu while some were even assaulted violently...
The Kingdom had stayed silent until news of it's people being harassed was leaked.
With both sides demanding answers and attacking civilians of the opposite sides, things became more and more complicated eventually leading to the first armed conflict at the border!
While it was between several tens of soldiers, the message of clear as day, it will be war...
They had already forgotten that the biggest threat of them all, The Grand Lunar Empire was clearly observing the war with keen interest...
-●-●-●-
"Damn it!" Amelia shouted, the rebel army had gotten news of the erupting war between the Republic and the Kingdom...
The ongoing conflict was probably the reason why they haven't replied to their message...
"Send forces to both sides and try to explain the situation at hand!" She ordered.
"We can't just do that... Amelia, relax... we will keep sending letters to the Kingdom and the Republic..." A leader spoke calmly.
"...you're right... I apologise..." She sighed tiredly and took a glance at the map of the known world.
The Lunar empire was simply too big!
It was already big enough, but the nine provinces it had taken from Satellia had simply expanded it's territory immensely...
The empire was prosperous unlike her rebel army which had no autonomous country where they could live peacefully, even her own father had turned his back on her...
That had hurt her a lot, the betrayal of one's parent is too devastating.
'Enough about that...' She thought to herself and turned to one of her subordinates.
"Gron, How many soldiers do we have?" Amelia asked the charismatic man who smiled and replied.
"We have around twenty million soldiers, groups of them all over the country, one call will mobilise them, Premier Amelia!" He chuckled.
The reason as to why the rebel army was so massive was due to the fact that many of the soldiers of the nation was dissatisfied with the Emperor and thus switched sides, and with many of the citizens being harassed by the Lunar soldiers, they were bound to join the rebel army, making it one of the biggest forces in the world...
"I see... thank you" She shook her head in amusement.
"Everyone..." She then called out the leaders who turned their attention to her.
Amelia cleared her throat and sighed, "Do you think we can win against the Empire?", she asked the group of subordinates that widened their eyes.
"What brought this question?" Gron asked her curiously as a few people next to him nodded.
"...nothing... I was just thinking about us and them..." She mumbled.
"Well... my answer to that question is... maybe, I'm not foolishly confident to believe that we can defeat well funded, highly trained, well equipped soldiers with just civilians that haven't had the same training... but! We have the manpower, we can hold them off until our engineers develop more advanced weaponry that could help us in defeating them..." Charlotte answered and looked at Amelia with a gentle smile.
"I would like to add to the fact that they have us trumped in all factors, they currently have the most advanced rifles in the continent, they are the biggest country in the world with the biggest population aswell!" Gron reminded Charlotte who sighed.
"Madam Premier! We got a reply from the Kingdom!" A rebel leader shouted as he held the speaker of the candlestick phone.
"Speak!" Amelia ordered her almost immediately as the leader nodded.
"They too have expressed their concern over the Empire, the Kingdom also says that it had been framed by an unknown entity, however... because there is no proof that the Empire is involved, they demand that the rebel army help it by attacking the Republic, if the rebel army did so, they will consider forming an alliance against the Empire!" The rebel leader reported while keeping his ear on the speaker.
Charlotte smacked the table angrily.
"How dare they! Do they think we are mercenaries?!" She growled in fury as the others frowned...
"If we side with the Kingdom, the Republic will never accept us and consider us their enemies..." Amelia sighed.
"And then, the Empire will attack the weakened continent and win the battle..." Gron continued and massaged his forehead.
"We are literally stuck inbetween a hard place and a rock..." Amelia mumbled and glanced at his subordinates.
"Can we hold a meeting with the leaders of the Republic and the Kingdom?" She asked them seriously.
"We can invite the Republican party secretly..." Gron frowned.
"That would infuriate the party from the Kingdom!" A voice argued as they sighed.
"Let's do it... that's the only option left if we want to unite against a common enemy..." Amelia answered and walked away, Charlotte following behind her silently.
-●-●-●-
"We didn't authorise the assassinations!" The female General from the Republic-Kingdom shouted angrily.
"Enough!" King Rivel shouted as the room quietened down.
"Our biggest threat is not the Republic... but this..." He spoke and pointed his finger at the Lunar Empire on the map.
"The Satellian rebel army had sent us letters, offering an olive branch to unite against them..." He sighed.
"Rebels? Your majesty, that is too risky! If the Empire hears about this, they might attack us! If we are attacked from the Republic and the Empire... then we are bound to lose!" Another General shouted in paranoia, his face pale.
"We will fight to the last man!" The female General declared and turned to the scared General with disdain in her eyes.
"We should not risk going to war with the Republic and save our forces for the Empire! Your majesty, the Empire is currently in a power struggle between the peaceful Emperor and the war mongering Crown prince... and I have some troubling information, the Crown prince has the support of most of the higher ups..." A young General sighed.
"This would mean that he has more authority than the Emperor himself!" He stated.
"They haven't done anything yet... except for attacking the Satellian Empire, if we do or say anything against it, they might take it as a stance of aggression..." An old General spoke.
"The Empire is too powerful for us to fight them, they are the ones taking an aggressive stance! Firstly, they broke the power balance by inventing rifles! Second, they attacked the Satellian Empire... I'm one hundred percent sure that they have framed us aswell!" Another old General sighed.
"We need to have diplomatic discussions with the higher ups of the Republic..." King Rivel sighed.
"But first, we need to converse with the Rebel force... keep defending against the Republic, don't attack them..." He mumbled and sat on his throne.
'Father... why aren't you stopping your grand nephew?' He asked himself.