Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire-Chapter 413 - 408 -

By the end of the first couple weeks, the itself seemed to unleash the breath it was holding onto.

The frantic energy of post-war return had mellowed into a rhythm: Ministers rotating through their duties, senators flooding the archives with drafted reforms, and Serena weaving herself seamlessly into the machinery of the state as she started handing over duties to Julius who should have been the one to do them all this time.

Even Yuri—still fragile but steadily recovering—had begun walking the palace halls again rather than hiding from them.

Though not being active in the government as much as she had done previously when a princess of the Roserun Kingdom, still fearing at the chaos and harm her ’otherself’ might bring if she came out at the wrong time.

Yet my peace did not last long.

Because tomorrow was the day I once again had to stop thinking like a ruler of Romanus...

...and start thinking like a predator among nations.

The Root Council was convening.

The true inner circle of intelligence.

The eyes, ears, shadows—and fangs—of the empire.

Agents forming a spiderweb of cells and connections, already spread out and encompassing a good portion of the continent, feeding information about both foreign and domestic issues and events back to the Imperial nerve center.

~

The Root Council chamber was deep beneath the captial—far from the publics prying eyes and even lower down than the sewage systems now running underneath the Eternal city.

Air was circulated down from the surface using manual pumps, providing agents in training with a means to acquire physical fitness while fufilling a purpose.

The root itself was a collection of the highest level operatives within the empire, three of which actually involved my inner court themselves.

One of the twelve was of course myself, while Serena served as another acting as the hidden director of Domestic Intelligence, meanwhile the new mother Miri served as her Co-director.

As for the other members Julius had held nationwide tests, looking for highly intelligent people, all while also requiring high loyalty figures from them.

Filling out the Allied Nation Intelligence, and Foreign Intelligence divisions.

Twelve members total.

These meetings were no nonesense and free of the traditional pomp and circumstance expected of the court.

Instead once all twelve were seated the discussion started straight away.

The only structure being that each department reported everything it had that was new or developments on previously reported information before we moved on to the next.

~

While it had only been a few weeks since i had returned to the empire this was the first Root meeting i’d attended in close to a year.

But even still the initial reports being stated were nothing new to me.

Assassination attempt of a govenor.

Corruption discovered in the port cities.

Unrest growing in the border regions of Parthia.

These were thing Julius had learned about weeks ago just by pulling up his system interface and getting an overview of his territory through the map.

But the meeting still held a purpose and that purpose was making sure the other department heads knew what was going on within the country itself.

~

Next up after domestic intelligence came to Allied Intelligence head.

The director quickly handed out copies of her overall reports, before highlighting key incidents within allied territories.

Specifically the rising civil unrest within Germania as a number of tribal chiefs are opposed to the Grand Chiefs decision to slowly bend the knee and eventually integrate with Romanus, becoming a new province rather than a free and independent nation.

With the way things are going its likely a civil war will break out between the pro-romanus and pro-independance factions within a few years.

Next there was Athenia, that troublesome country managed to get away licking its wounds from the Greecian war due to Julius’s attentions having been stolen away by Yuri’s capture and thanks to some of their powerbase managing to survive the war, they had begun manuevering already to rebuild the nation and interfere with the vassal states of Greecia attempting to fan the flames of war and secure Greecian independance from the Empire.

Lastly was reports on the newly conquered Francia, most of the population even a month after the conclusion of the war was still reeling, though only minor bandits were coming out with the military having fully been defeated and surrendering to the Romanus Legions.

Even the surviving Royalists has little to stand on as the line of kings was broken and the only surviving royals were the queen, and the princesses all of who were taken from Francian lands and resettled witin Romanus, joining the company of the other captured royals, growing the number of royals living in exile within Romanus once again.

This concluded the report from the Allied intelligence divsion

~

Next came the final and perhaps largest division, at least for now. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

And that was the Foreign Nation Intelligence unit.

Seeing as how Julius only effectively controlled 1/3 of the continent that meant this unit was responsible for reporting on the other 2/3’s.

"Your Majesty... the Visigoth Empire has begun to falter."

A statement no one on the continent would have dared imagine five years ago.

the director continued:

"Three months ago, the Visigoths launched a full invasion of the Aegyptus Divine Kingdom. Progress was swift at first—nearly a tenth of the kingdom fell in weeks."

"Then?" I pressed.

"Then everything changed."

She tapped a cluster of banners to the far east.

"The eastern nations—scattered, feuding, historically incapable of cooperation—have formed a unified coalition."

Seven banners.

Seven nations.

All different cultures, races, and histories.

United.

"Seven?" Serena murmured, astonished. "But those kingdoms have despised one another for centuries."

"They despise Visigoth more," I said grimly "And would rather stand shoulder to shoulder for a while, than remain as they are and fall to Visigoth one by one."

The director continued:

"The Coalition launched simultaneous offensives across every border province of the Visigoths. Their attacks liberated territory the Visigoths stole from the Honor Kingdom a few years ago."

Serena stiffened. "So they are attacking the empire on two fronts?"

"Three," She corrected

She gestured toward the north.

"Aegyptus, despite losing ground, has rallied. Their generals have mobilized their aura users and are putting up a more than stiff resistance even pushing back the Visigoth Army in areas. Their counteroffensive is slowing the Visigoths dramatically while causing supply issues in their harsh land of theirs."

"How much territory have the Visigoths taken?" I asked.

Lysandra did not hesitate.

"One quarter of the Divine Kingdom... and no more."

Months of war.

tens of thousands dead.

For just a fraction of a prize.

"And the Coalition?" I asked.

"They have smashed six Visigoth garrisons and are threatening to encircle more as they’ve recaptured a third of the conquored Honor kingdoms lands."

That made me pause.

To reclaim that amount of territory from the Empire... truly surprising.

"And the Emperor of Visigoth?" Serena asked.

"Diverting reinforcements," Lysandra said. "Away from the Aegyptus front. Toward the southeast. They fear losing the newly conquered Honor territories. While the warlords are for sure going to be dispatched to ’put down’ the resistance that has risen against them."

A fatal mistake in most cases but for Visigoth with 10+ warlord class aura users even if the empire only sends half to the various front they can ensure the wars tide does not turn against them.

And if the Wolf is leading one of those fronts her opponents will fall like wheat to a scythe with minimal resistance.

The world was shifting, and while Visigoth was distracted heavily in the east, my own empire could further seek to expand its own borders though perhaps not through war, but through nessessity.

Just as Germania was beginning to open to the idea of integrating with Romanus rather than being swallowed up by Visigoth.

The same could be said for Itar, Antiochia, and The Ancient State, three of the eastern nations who passed on the coalition forming against Visigoth but surely could see the diplomatic state of the continent and the fact that within the coming years one nation and one nation only would surely rule supreme be it the tyrannical Visigoth Emperor, or our very own Benevolent Romanus Emperor.