"General, th-this is impossible! The Middle Easterners... the Middle Easterners actually lost?" A Marleyan officer widened his eyes in disbelief.
Inside the cramped conference room, a large crowd of Marleyan officers had squeezed in. None of them knew why they had been urgently summoned today. Some suspected it might be time to move against the Eldians occupying the capital, but the military hadn't fully assembled yet. Wouldn't starting a war now be far too hasty?
There were nearly a million Eldians inside the Liberio Internment Zone in Marley's capital. On top of that, the Marleyan military had excessively oppressed the Eldians for years, and during the previous war against the Middle East, they had forcibly conscripted huge numbers of Eldians into the army. As a result, the Eldians could now pull together a force of seventy to eighty thousand men at any moment, all of them genuine veterans who had experienced real warfare.
An army that had gone through war was naturally far stronger and more combat-capable than one that hadn't. Because of this, the Marleyan military leadership unanimously believed that unless they possessed overwhelming numerical superiority, they should never rashly start a war.
But now, Marley had only assembled a little over a hundred thousand troops. Did they really already have the confidence to wage war against the Eldians? What exactly was Commander Magath thinking?
However, when the Marleyan officers arrived at the Ministry of Defense conference room, they received a shocking piece of news: three days ago, the capital of the Middle Eastern Allied Nations, Lebas, had fallen. Nearly the entire two-hundred-thousand-strong Middle Eastern army had been annihilated, and half of the Middle East's territory had been occupied.
The moment the Marleyan officers heard this news, they instinctively thought Commander Magath was joking. But after seeing the stern and resolute expression on Magath's face, they had no choice but to believe it.
A graying Marleyan general frowned while reading the intelligence Magath handed over, muttering to himself,
"How is this possible? The Middle Easterners lost to the Far Easterners? The Far Eastern army wasn't even as good as the guerrilla forces that once tried resisting Marley. What gives them the right to— huh?! What is this?"
The old general had originally been filled with confusion and disbelief. He had participated in the wars against the Middle East during his youth, so he knew exactly how formidable the Middle Eastern armies were. The war that had broken out not long ago had proven it once again—Marley had only achieved a pyrrhic victory over them. Yet now the Middle East had actually lost to the Far East, a nation globally famous for its weakness. What kind of absurdity was this?
But after carefully reading through the intelligence report, the old general was stunned.
Blood Titan, walking armored artillery, bizarre green poisonous gas, terrifying short-barreled firearms with overwhelming firepower, extremely fast miniature airships...
Th-this was the Far East?
And today wasn't April Fool's Day either, so why did this feel like some ridiculous joke? The things described in the report sounded more like a story than reality.
But Magath, seated at the head of the conference table, knew this wasn't a joke. This was genuine intelligence.
Marley was still immersed in the glory of the past, sluggishly failing to realize that the era had already changed.
Crossing his hands together, Magath's expression turned extremely gloomy. The Marleyan officers beneath him rapidly passed the intelligence around, followed by waves of shocked cries and declarations of impossibility.
"Everyone, now you should understand why I urgently summoned you all," Magath stood up and said seriously. "A major problem has appeared before us. The Far Easterners are now less than one hundred kilometers from our national border."
One officer voiced his thoughts.
"General, do we even need to interfere in the war between the Far East and the Middle East? Isn't it better for us if the Middle East loses? Those Middle Easterners have always been eyeing us like predators."
Quite a few people agreed with him, but others objected.
"But have you considered the declaration of war everyone previously treated as a joke? The Far East declared war on the entire world. If the Far Easterners are really as powerful as the intelligence claims, what are we supposed to do then?"
Others focused on the Blood Titan mentioned in the report, utterly dumbfounded. Hadn't using Titans in warfare always been Marley's specialty? How were the Far Easterners suddenly using Titans too? How did they even achieve that? Could there possibly be Eldians living in that frozen wasteland of the Far East?
"How could the Far Easterners possibly control Titan powers? Unless... the Beast Titan didn't disappear after being captured by the Eldians, but instead escaped to the Far East?" one officer boldly speculated.
Magath rubbed his temples. Had this idiot not seriously read the report?
The intelligence clearly stated that the Far Easterners possessed a bizarre green poisonous gas capable of turning Middle Eastern soldiers and civilians who accidentally inhaled it into Blood Titans within a short time. These Titans would then slaughter everything around them before exploding and dissipating roughly two hours later.
"Put those matters aside for now. There's something even more critical." Magath spoke heavily.
"According to the intelligence provided by the Middle Easterners, the various new weapons equipped by the Far Easterners—including the Blood Titans—are all connected to Marley. Right now, the exiled Middle Eastern government is demanding that we take responsibility for this, and they're calling for a worldwide alliance."
"Connected to us? What does that have to do with us? If we really had that kind of strength, we wouldn't have lost the previous war against the Middle East! Why should we take responsibility?" A young Marleyan officer frowned, inwardly cursing the Middle Easterners for shamelessly throwing blame around.
Magath sighed and tossed several photographs onto the table.
"These are all connected to the Louis Arms Company. That's right—the nobleman, Ebson Louis."
The photographs displayed all sorts of weapons nobody present had ever seen before. The grotesque steel monsters left the Marleyan officers completely dumbstruck.
Suddenly, one officer excitedly grabbed a photo, his face filled with disbelief as he shouted loudly:
"No! This can't be right! How could they possibly have weapons like airplanes? And they've already put them into actual combat? We at the Slatoya Fortress are still only in the research phase for this kind of weapon!"
The shocked officer came from Slatoya Fortress, Marley's airship corps base and airship research center.
The old officer had spent decades obsessed with airship development, but now he suddenly discovered that something he had researched for over ten years had already been developed by someone else and deployed on the battlefield ahead of him.
His mentality completely collapsed.
What made it even worse was that the other side's designs appeared more advanced and more perfected than his own.
Watching the various reactions of his subordinates, Magath secretly sighed once more.
It seemed impossible to obtain any useful suggestions for the moment.
Perhaps... he should go hear the opinions of others.
Thinking this, Magath announced that the emergency meeting was temporarily adjourned. All officers were ordered to immediately return and study the intelligence reports. Another meeting would be held again in the evening.
The moment the meeting dispersed, Magath wasted no time and directly ordered a guard:
"Prepare a military vehicle immediately. We're heading to the Tybur family's villa! Hurry!"
"Yes, General!"
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