Dragon Princess Will Do Her Best To Prevent The World's Destruction

Chapter 72: A New Journey

From a widely popular yet academically questionable book, an excerpt from An Attempt to Clarify Eden's History notes the following:

It was late winter, month of the ashen leaves, year 997 of the renewed era. Just three years shy from a millennia after the great collapse, the continent was confronted with a bizarre yet frightening demand. Most were caught off guard by the sudden declaration by Eden, but the educated knew it was but a natural course.

The prelude to that event was a brief but chaotic riot in the capital of the Kingdom, but the details remain mostly obscured. Whatever meager evidence seems to point towards some sort of monster rampage as well as a string of unsolved murders that happened on a single night, although the connection is uncertain. Although much of that fateful night is now lost to the Kingdom's history, it is certain that those events were connected to the Empire's movements during that month.

Despite their uneasy domestic stability, the Essenia Empire had engaged in a border conflict with the Kingdom, which it is of common agreement among historians that it was one of the contributing factors to the Empire's bloody civil war, one which contained quite a number of twists and turns that even a separate book covering the matter would not do it justice.

A war that triggered by the mysterious circumstances of the crown prince's death, the Empire was quickly thrown into chaos. When it rains, it pours, so it would seem. The crown prince's sister had disappeared around the same time, and had never resurfaced in any official capacity. The bitter power struggle from there only grew bloodier.

There is one interesting point, however. While the prince's body was ultimately buried in the imperial burial grounds, there was evidence that the prince did not die on sovereign soil. When combined with the well prepared stab in the back during the Empire's move into Kingdom territory, it could be well reasoned that the prince was betrayed by a close advisor, someone who had suggested the prince to go after the Kingdom...or at least "someone" in the Kingdom, if the uncovered letters prove to be true.

After that, however, history itself seems to fade from view. Hearsay blends with truth almost inseparably, for fiction could very well be the truth whenever Eden became involved...even to this day.

Only the result was certain. Essenia soon collapsed into civil war, despite having had angered Eden. Normally this would be of no concern, since Essenia's civil wars were common, but often difficult to take advantage of. The Essenia people have a long standing history of fighting among themselves, but the defense of their own country against other nations can be down right savage. As such, it was a common tactic to start a civil war whenever they found themselves in a losing war, in order to prevent any incursions. However, Eden was a different beast.

What followed was a brutal one sided slaughter as Eden advanced through the Empire's land...the very country that was known to be "impossible to invade in winter". Eden's forces advanced at a speed that was unheard of, even till this day. Provided we don't count other campaigns by Eden, of course.

However, much to the continent's surprise, Eden left Essenia as quickly as she invaded. They merely took useless land at the edges of the Empire, and made Essenia submit to Eden's naval dominance...which was essentially pointless considering a single Eden warship had sunk the entirety of the Empire's grand armada.

Before we continue onward to the main topic, this work would like to take a break and address several points. Many had questioned the odd conclusion of the Empire's fate despite being one of the major pushing factors for this event, and honestly...there's nothing else to be said. While it was true that they were one of the major players, their schemes amounted to nothing.

What exactly where they trying to achieve? What happened to those who were behind such schemes? What about the plot to betray the prince? Shouldn't they be clearly addressed as well? Those are indeed good questions, but they do not matter. That is correct. They do not matter one bit.