When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

The whispered murmurs of the Winghive Duke's meeting dissolved into the waters of the Nauan River in June, diluted in the clear river bend.

The river seemed to know everything, yet changed nothing.

The Thousand River Valley and the Shattered Stone Plain officially entered a state of war.

Leveraging the mobile fortresses, rapid marching, and a highly efficient military system, the Thousand River Valley's army achieved considerable success in the Shattered Stone Plain.

Following the Battle of Rust River, the Thousand River Valley's army of over twenty thousand split into two routes.

Andrei's Iron Fist Regiment advanced northeast along the Rust River, while Moirai led the Thousand River Valley Knights north along the Nauan River.

Their meeting point was Salt Flats.

Subsequently, numerous major battles erupted, featuring Moirai's straightforward inner-line breakthrough tactics and Andrei's classic outer-line encirclement strategies.

Even in mid-June, Andrei had advanced to within sixty kilometers of Salt Flats.

Unfortunately, follow-up troops did not arrive in time, missing a golden opportunity.

Entering July, due to excessive penetration, Moirai halted her advance and instead turned back to clear the original occupied territories.

Due to the intertwined battle lines, with each side holding pockets within the other, Horn could not accurately determine the actual territorial division.

Overall, the Thousand River Valley army still held the advantage.

In the Empire's public discourse, not only the Laya Kingdom, which was already opposed to Moirai, but also the Imperial Council and many Fran scholars, labeled Moirai as an aggressor.

The situation was reversed within the Thousand River Valley.

The pride brought by territorial expansion, the large-scale expansion of the wool trade, and the market prosperity brought by military orders, elevated Moirai's status higher and higher.

Major newspapers even hailed Moirai as the "Second Alexandrus the Great."

Even the 'Truth Daily' had to reluctantly admit that Moirai's military actions had indeed brought many benefits.

Without middlemen taking a cut, wool prices were nearly halved, but Moirai imposed a tariff, raising the prices to seventy or eighty percent of the original.

Horn generously used the reduced costs to flood the Laya market with ready-made clothing.

The displaced laborers on the edges of towns and villages found livelihoods.

Some Saint Path Order monks and Cheka agents dispatched by Horn specialized in smuggling cloth and white sugar with these displaced laborers.

Around these smuggling gangs, a large number of displaced laborers converted to the Saint Path Order.

Horn wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Because the rumor from Windmill Land was that when the displaced people entered the Holy Father Society, they had to swear eternal devotion to Horn's portrait.

If the two parties wanted to make any vows, they also had to swear before the Holy Grandson.

Not to mention the rebel armies of displaced people in Laya and Fran, everyone was a Holy Great-Grandson, invoking Horn at every turn.

The Laya Kingdom, apart from condemning Moirai daily and excommunicating Horn, basically had no major actions.

Horn could basically confirm that King Gigi had no intention or ability to deal with Thousand River Valley for the time being.

Then he had no reason to oppose Moirai's actions.

It was just that the Cheka recently reported some unfavorable intelligence, saying that rumors were spreading in Hotam County that Moirai was a witch.

Horn wasn't sure if Moirai was preparing to reveal her true colors in the future, or if it was simply a secret leak.

He didn't care, because with the support of war bonds and victories, these rumors didn't cause much of a stir.

Rumors like 'the two Protectors are rivals by day and husband and wife by night' needed to be dealt with, though.

"Leave it be," Horn said, sitting in his office in the Holy See Building, tossing the Cheka's intelligence aside.

Rene slowly stepped forward, tidied up the messy intelligence, and inserted it into the locked filing cabinet.

"Is the itinerary arranged?" Horn asked, stretching and leaning back in his chair after finishing the last document.

"The car and ship are ready."

"Good, then we'll leave tomorrow morning," Horn said, standing up and walking to the gear-shaped glass round window.

Since the Laya Kingdom couldn't attack in the short term, he would have to put his original plan for the North Mound County trip on the agenda.

He had two purposes for this trip.

The first was to comfort Moirai; he had to make a political gesture to show his approval of the Autocratic Duke's decision.

Otherwise, a small crack between the two Protectors would appear as an abyss to those below.

Previously, the two had been at odds over the Shattered Stone Plain war, and rumors of a split between the Autocratic Duke and the Grand Hierarch had been spreading.

So Moirai took the initiative to release goodwill, introducing Saint Path Order monks into the Shattered Stone Plain to help Moirai stabilize the rear.

The specific measure was to form a Guardian Army with shepherds and Saint Path Order monks, helping Moirai maintain the grain route and suppress bandits.

They would even help Moirai attack small monasteries and churches.

Anyway, she had basically broken with the church, so a little more sin didn't matter.

However, the castles of the local nobles who oppressed them the most could not be allowed to be disrupted by the Guardian Army.

These centrist nobles were the target Moirai wanted to win over.

Horn didn't want the political alliance between the two to be damaged at this time—at least not until after the war.

For some reason, looking at his reflection on the glass, he had a sense of swaying his body, pretending the carriage was moving.

The second purpose was to visit the mine owners of North Mound County.

Currently, the Lightning Furnace had not made progress, and he had an urgent need for orichalcum and steel.

Since the new technology had not yet been developed, continuing to refine the old technology became the only option.

Originally, wet iron smelting had reached its limit, but Horn's arrival still brought the latest breakthroughs.

That was peat and clockwork engines.

The former brought a rich source of heat, and the latter brought relatively reliable automatons.

In that case, use hydraulic forging hammers instead of manual hammering, and use conveyor belts and mixers instead of porters and mixers.

Clockwork pumps could dig deeper mines, concrete materials could support heavier tunnels, and rail mine cars could transport ore faster.

As for the spare manpower, after retraining, they could become operators, so they could continue to expand the smelting workshops and even the smelting plants.

With the process and manpower issues resolved, only the material issue remained.

Okay, so where should the raw materials be obtained?

In May, the Black Serpent Bay, with its restored normal security, sent the first batch of Black Serpent Bay-produced smelting potion.

At the same time, Kasha County and Lower River County were vigorously clearing abandoned fields, and the Holy Scythe Monastery signed contracts with farmers in many places to purchase the potion raw materials they planted.

Now the material foundation was basically complete, and the only difficulty facing Horn was the Steel Guild's unwillingness to expand.

After all, for the dwarves, once they expanded according to this model, it meant that their technology would have to be trained to a large number of operators.

With the technology made public, the original dwarven craft system would disintegrate.

Negotiations between the two sides lasted from May to July, but no agreement had been reached.

This time, Horn was going to personally cross swords with these stubborn dwarves and mine owners.