Chapter 290: Public Opinion and “Jormungandr”

Three days after the end of the Battle of Paris.

Through newspapers, press conferences, and various other propaganda channels, the Saxon Empire announced the general situation of the Battle of Paris to the nations of Europa.

“The Saxon Empire’s First Army Group Conquers Paris, Undead Scourge Erupts in Gallic Capital!”

“Tragedy of Civilization: Gallic Mages Unleash Forbidden Necromancy Spells in Capital, Summon Million Undead!”

“Heroic Saxon Soldiers Defend Humanity from Undead Army at the Gates of Paris!”

Headlines like these appeared on the front pages of newspapers in almost every country on the Europa continent within a single day.

At first, the initial reaction of the high-ranking officials and the public in various countries was: Have the people of the Saxon Empire gone crazy from fighting and started talking nonsense?

After all, the idea of the Gauls unleashing an Undead Scourge in their own capital, Paris, was simply too abstract and bizarre, sounding like a fantasy tale.

It was even more unbelievable than hearing that the Gauls had surrendered to the Saxons.

However, when the Saxon Empire released a large number of photos taken at great risk by armored airships and war correspondents, the whole world fell silent.

In the photos, the world-famous Eiffel Tower looked like a giant electric torture rack, constantly releasing terrifying lightning outward.

On the streets of Paris, with the Louvre as a backdrop, densely packed skeletons and ghouls stretching as far as the eye could see surged like a black tide.

Tragic scenes of Saxon soldiers relying on simple positions to withstand the impact of the undead with their flesh and blood.

Scenes of soldiers and clergy covering the evacuation of Gallic citizens from the city.

And finally, the shocking image of the Eiffel Tower being pierced by some kind of weapon and collapsing with a loud crash.

Every photo was full of visual impact, clearly showing the world everything that happened inside Paris.

Countries realized that the Saxons were not joking.

The Gauls seemed to have really gone mad.

Just as newspaper offices, reporters, and the public in various countries were still digesting this sudden shocking news, another even heavier piece of news from the Apennine Peninsula smashed ruthlessly into everyone’s hearts.

The Papal States, an ancient nation that had maintained absolute neutrality since the outbreak of the war and even repeatedly called for peace, issued a public statement through its official mouthpiece, L’Osservatore Romano.

In the severest terms, they denounced the Gallic Republic government’s “anti-human” behavior of “indulging evil, blaspheming the dead, and abandoning ethics.”

The Pope himself, in a public morning prayer, characterized the events in Paris as a “double betrayal of the Lord and the human world.”

When this news came out, the stimulation it caused to the officials of various Europa countries was far greater than the Undead Scourge itself.

Because starting from that fireball assassination in Sarajevo to the full outbreak of the great war…

No matter how bad the situation was, no matter how tragic the fighting, the Papal States always maintained a neutral stance.

The Pope himself spoke on public occasions many times, hoping that countries could resolve disputes through peaceful means and stop this senseless bloodshed.

But this time, the attitude of the Papal States and the Pope took an unprecedented 180-degree turn.

This forced high-ranking officials of various countries to start speculating whether the always neutral Papal States would choose a side because of this matter.

Would this great war, which had already affected almost all major countries on the Europa continent, attract even more unpredictable variables due to the stance of the Papal States?

As the center of this storm of public opinion, the provisional government of the Gallic Republic, which had moved to Bordeaux, seemed somewhat “slow to react.”

They only learned that their capital seemed to be suffering from an Undead Scourge after newspapers and magazines in various countries overwhelmingly reported the matter.

When the secretary placed the translated Saxon newspapers and the statement from the Papal States on the desks of the Premier and cabinet ministers…

The entire Gallic government high command, along with the person in charge of the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps who stayed behind, were dumbfounded.

“What? Paris… how did it become a dead land?”

“The Pope… the Pope denounced us as anti-human?”

For a time, the entire provisional government building was filled with shock and anger.

For them, the capital becoming a dead land unsuitable for living people due to the Undead Scourge… this consequence was much more serious than Paris being occupied by the Saxons.

If occupied, there was still a chance to fight back later.

But if it became a paradise for the undead, then this land would be permanently erased from the map of Gaul!

This was the capital, for crying out loud…

And the reaction of the Papal States caused their sense of crisis to skyrocket instantly.

After all, if the Papal States really leaned towards the Saxon Empire because of this, the Gallic Republic would have to face the desperate situation of fighting on two fronts, north and south, or even three fronts!

After a “arduous” internal investigation, the Gallic government finally figured out the ins and outs of the matter from the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps.

It was indeed a “problem mage” of the Mage Corps, Chardonnet, who took advantage of the chaos to sneak back to Paris and then caused this earth-shattering event.

“Chardonnet? That lunatic who studies necromancy? Shouldn’t he have retreated to the south with us? How did he run to Paris?”

But no one could answer this question anymore.

After figuring out the “culprit,” the Gallic government quickly issued an emergency statement through all public channels.

The content of the statement was long, with flowery language, full of “sympathy” for the victims of the Undead Scourge and “anger” towards the initiator.

But in summary, it was actually one sentence: “This is the personal extreme behavior of Mage Chardonnet and has nothing to do with the Gallic Republic government and the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps. Please do not elevate it to the national level.”

However, this pale and powerless blame-shifting defense seemed to have little effect in the face of “iron facts” and the offensive of public opinion jointly promoted by the Saxon Empire and the Papal States.

Meanwhile, at the frontline headquarters of the Gallic Southern Theater.

Commander-in-Chief Joffre, who was personally supervising the battle here, and a group of military high-ranking officials almost collectively blacked out and fainted on the spot after seeing the relevant intelligence about the Battle of Paris sent from the rear.

No one expected that the capital Paris, which had been “strategically abandoned,” would make such big news.

And right now, the entire Southern Operations Group, which concentrated the absolute main force of the Gallic Army and was placed with high hopes, was actually in a predicament.

The news about the Battle of Paris was undoubtedly adding insult to injury for them, whose morale was already low.

At the beginning of the war, the Gallic Army strictly followed the long-brewing “Plan XVII,” concentrating its main forces in the south and launching a full-scale offensive against the Saxon Empire.

Initially, the progress of the plan was smooth.

While the Gallic northern defense line was pierced at light speed, the Creil defense line had just fallen, and the Saxon spearhead was approaching Paris…

The Southern Group of the Gallic Army had actually successfully recaptured the southern Mediterranean outlet, completely expelling the Saxon Empire’s forces in the south.

At the same time, several main army groups also attacked into the territory of the Saxon Empire from directions such as the Ardennes Forest and Alsace-Lorraine.

And in the initial battles, they once broke through the defense line of the Saxon army!

The “Sentinel” units scattered on various fronts, as well as the main force of the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps, indeed greatly enhanced the army’s offensive capabilities.

In multiple large-scale attacks, they beat the Saxon Empire’s defensive troops here into retreat, losing large areas of territory.

In the view of Joffre and other military high-ranking officials, even if the war situation in the north was unfavorable, as long as the south could achieve sufficiently large results and attack into the Saxon hinterland…

Then they could at least conduct a round of “equal exchange” with the Saxon Empire strategically.

However, they soon discovered that after attacking about thirty kilometers into the Saxon Empire’s territory, their troops could no longer advance…

Just as Joffre and a group of Gallic generals were arguing fiercely around the map, discussing the next battle plan because of the bad news from Paris and the stagnation of the southern war situation.

A crow preening its feathers on a big tree near the headquarters camp was startled by their noise and flew into the sky again.

The crow flapped its wings and flew straight towards the direction of the Saxon Empire.

Its flight altitude was not high, just enough to pass over the dense forest canopy below.

Soon, it flew over a huge Gallic Army camp.

Looking down from the air, countless tents were like white spots scattered in the clearings of the forest.

Soldiers shuttled back and forth in the assembly areas on the periphery. Teams of fully armed infantry were marching towards the front positions under the scolding of officers, preparing to go to the attack launch positions further ahead.

And on an open ground to the side and rear, around the massive 75mm magic cannon positions, piled up like small mountains were brass shell casings that had not yet been transported away.

Under the sunlight, those shell casings reflected blinding light.

Artillerymen, shirtless and shouting chants, were constantly unloading boxes of heavy ammunition from trucks.

Then they pried them open with crowbars and carefully placed the magic shells next to “Mademoiselle 75,” within easy reach.

The crow continued to fly forward.

In its memory, there should have been a dense forest ahead.

But now, that forest had completely disappeared under the saturated artillery coverage that had not stopped since the start of the war between the two sides.

Replacing it was a bare, scorched gentle slope covered with shell craters.

Many Gallic soldiers were curled up in simple communication trenches, digging new fortifications forward with difficulty along the gentle slope, establishing a forward position that could slightly withstand artillery fire for the next round of charge of the main force.

Behind these fortifications, several “Sentinels” in blue uniforms were gathered with several mages from the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps, discussing something fiercely over a map.

The expressions on their faces were full of anxiety and fatigue.

The crow ignored these humans on the ground. It raised its altitude and flew lightly to the top of that scorched gentle slope.

What came into its view was a scene that would make any attacker feel despair.

The Saxons, at some point, had utilized the terrain here to build a suffocatingly huge reinforced concrete fortress cluster within their own borders.

Huge bunkers half-buried underground, like silent giant beasts, entrenched on this land, watching the front indifferently with countless dark firing ports.

Although the outer walls of these fortresses were scarred and covered with countless bullet marks, and the cement outer walls in some places were even blasted open by large-caliber shells, exposing the twisted steel bars inside.

But these huge fortress clusters still stood tenaciously here, forming an insurmountable barrier.

Between the fortresses were deeper and more complex permanent fortifications and tunnel networks.

Densely packed Saxon soldiers, like ant colonies, were constantly moving in these passages.

Transporting ammunition, food, and water to the front line, while carrying the wounded and the bodies of the fallen to the rear.

They were making final preparations to defend against the next round of Gallic attacks.

In some special, reinforced sortie shelters, several Armored Knights painted with the Teutonic Knights’ emblem were parked quietly.

Their pilots—those knights of the Teutonic Knights—were gathered with their squires, conducting pre-war prayers under the leadership of a knight.

The rolling black smoke rising from the position forced the crow to raise its flight altitude again, flying to a higher position.

And looking into the distance from this height, it was an even more shocking scene.

On the vast plain further behind the fortress cluster, the tracks laid by the Saxons were like huge black giant snakes.

They extended from the end of the crow’s vision and then intertwined into a dense network here.

Two armored trains had completed combat deployment along these tracks.

The huge naval guns mounted on them, which should have belonged to naval warships, were raised high, and the firing data had been adjusted.

Countless engineers and magitech technicians, like diligent worker ants, were busy around these steel behemoths, conducting final debugging and ammunition resupply.

Suddenly, an immensely loud whistle came from the distance.

The sound was so loud that the crow flying high in the sky seemed to be frightened.

It flapped its wings violently in the air, changed direction, and quickly drilled into a nearby forest that had not yet been affected by the flames of war.

And in the direction from which the whistle came, a giant beast with a size beyond imagination was gradually decelerating on the tracks.

It looked like some kind of armored train.

However, its exaggeratively huge body required two parallel tracks to barely support its movement.

On the body of this giant beast, two huge twin-mounted 305mm naval gun turrets were “transplanted” directly from a Helgoland-class battleship of the Saxon Empire Navy.

Those hideous muzzles emitted heart-palpitating cold light.

And the 150mm naval guns, regarded as conventional output weapons on the “Odin,” were merely secondary guns densely arranged on both sides of the body on this giant beast.

In the middle of this behemoth train, on a platform protected by heavy armor, as the outer armor plates slowly unfolded to both sides, the truly terrifying weapon inside was revealed.

Those were three twelve-stage acceleration magic cannons identical to the “Gungnir” that had just destroyed the Eiffel Tower in Paris!

This experimental super-heavy armored train named “Jormungandr” slowly stopped after arriving at the position.

In its middlemost command carriage, the train’s magitech technician chief breathed a slight sigh of relief after carefully confirming that all operational data of the train and the status of the weapon system were normal.

He straightened his uniform and quickly walked to another person in the carriage.

This person was wearing a well-tailored black mage robe, but the robe was not completely closed, revealing the white uniform of the Saxon Empire Royal Magitech Research Institute underneath.

He was lowering his head, earnestly flipping through a stack of reports in his hand, looking focused.

On the cuffs of his exposed uniform, a set of complex and unique crests embroidered with gold thread could be seen—that represented his supreme status as the Dean of the Saxon Empire Royal Magitech Research Institute.

Looking at the other party’s focused appearance, the magitech technician chief hesitated for a moment, but still lowered his voice and reported respectfully: “Dean Planck, we have entered the designated position.”

“The ‘Jormungandr‘ can proceed with its first combat test.”