The ink on the Sovereign Charter of Valum was barely dry when Duke Enoch mounted his carriage, the journey back to the Imperial Capital feeling less like a military retreat and more like the transport of a contagious disease. He had left Duke Alexander behind to manage the immediate diplomatic fallout, a necessity since Alexander, as Max's father, was the only one who could maintain a pretense of familial engagement. Enoch knew the truth: his military defeat at the hands of a single town had to be spun as a brilliant strategic containment. He was not bringing home a charter of surrender, but a document of quarantine.
The news of the charter arrived days before Enoch did, spreading like wildfire through the noble houses of the Imperial Capital. They heard only two facts: Lord Scorpia was now exempt from Imperial tax and law, and Duke Enoch, commander of the Western Garrison, had agreed to it. The impact was immediate and destructive to Imperial prestige. The wealthy noble houses who had been eyeing tax exemptions or demanding greater autonomy for generations saw the charter as a map to independence. The political climate immediately devolved into whispers of secession and blatant disregard for Imperial decrees.
Valum was now exempt from tariffs on its booming alcohol trade and its secret industrial exports. This threatened to siphon tax revenue and wealth away from the established Imperial manufacturing guilds, causing sudden panic among financiers and major merchants who funded the Imperial treasury. The most profound effect, however, was the destruction of the myth of Imperial military supremacy. The entire noble class understood that if their elite Mythril-armored soldiers—clad in armor considered the standard for Imperial front-line defense, second only to the rare Adamantine—could be disabled by a mere police slug, then their magical dominance was an illusion. Fear replaced arrogance, leading to a frantic, covert rush to buy new, unproven magical shields or hire foreign mercenaries. The very foundation of the feudal contract—protection in exchange for obedience—had been undermined by a single technological advancement. If a small police force could disable an elite, Mythril-clad Knight, what good were the legions? The terrifying question now echoing through the court was: If this force defeats Mythril, can it defeat Adamantine? Can it defeat the protection afforded by the Black Meteorite ore?
The commanders of the other three Great Imperial Garrisons—those stationed in the East, North, and South—reacted with a mixture of professional fury and deep personal offense. These men were military equals to Enoch, commanding forces of similar size, and they had trained their entire lives to believe their legions were invincible. They viewed Enoch's compromise not as a strategic maneuver, but as a cowardly surrender of Imperial dignity.
Marshal Darius (The East), whose primary threat was organized foreign kingdoms and hostile territories, saw the charter as a massive geopolitical blunder. He viewed the "strategic deterrent" as a dangerous new weapon that should have been seized, not contracted. His professional analysis suggested that if Valum's technology could neutralize a frontal assault by 100,000 men, the entire military balance of power with neighboring kingdoms had shifted overnight. Darius's rage was pragmatic: he immediately ordered his intelligence network—which relied heavily on traditional spies and magical scrying—to begin monitoring the flow of goods into and out of Valum, seeking any clue to the nature of Max's technology. He cared less about the politics of tax and more about securing the Empire's external borders, which he felt Enoch had dangerously exposed.
General Lysander (The North), focused on internal discipline, publicly scoffed at Enoch's defeat, calling it "a failure of will, not technology." Lysander, a staunch traditionalist, believed that superior magical training and discipline could overcome any mere mechanical trickery. He felt that Enoch simply hadn't committed enough magical power to breach Valum. Privately, however, he doubled the discipline in his own garrison, paranoid that the 'contagion of independence' would infect his own men, many of whom were drawn from independent-minded regional houses. He saw any technological loss as a sign of weakness in magical training and began punishing any soldier who showed too much curiosity about Valum's weapons, seeking to suppress the very idea of Max's innovations through fear and regimentation. He scoffed, claiming his Adamantine-plated command mages would easily deflect the "primitive slugs."
Commander Vera (The South), dealing with naval threats and unstable volcanic territories, was the most enraged. She saw the charter as a personal insult to the military structure she had spent decades perfecting. Vera was an innovator in her own right, specializing in covert action and high-risk infiltration. She immediately dispatched covert teams of the Empire's best thieves and non-magical infiltrators towards Valum. Her goal was not to fight, but to steal Max's blueprints—the guns, the engine schematics, anything that could replicate the power that humbled Enoch. She viewed Max not as a sovereign, but as a rogue inventor holding stolen Imperial secrets hostage. Her mission was clear: reclaim the technology by any means necessary before the contagion spread to her own southern lords, knowing that even their limited use of the rare Black Meteorite ore would not be sufficient if Max's deterrent was truly unanswerable.
Duke Enoch finally stood before his elder brother, Emperor Alaric, a man whose wisdom and patience were as vast as the Empire he ruled. Alaric was elderly, his hair silver, but his eyes held the keen, cold light of a man who understood the fundamental mechanics of power.
Enoch laid out the official narrative, his voice carefully controlled to sound like a man who had narrowly averted disaster: "Your Majesty, I have contained a localized, highly infectious technological threat. Lord Scorpia possesses a singular, non-magical defensive system of unprecedented lethality. The shot that disabled the Imperial Knight shattered Mythril, Your Majesty, and did so by targeting the force, not the plating. We cannot know if this technology can breach Adamantine or the defenses created by Meteorite ore, but any conventional military action would have resulted in the irreversible destruction of the Western Imperial Garrison—one hundred thousand trained men—and handed the West to our enemies."
He presented the charter, smoothing the parchment on the Emperor's ancient obsidian desk. "This document is not a surrender; it is a containment treaty. We grant Valum economic immunity, but in exchange, we receive two vital concessions: political non-alignment and a guarantee that they will never sell their advanced weaponry to any enemy of the Empire. We have turned a lethal enemy into a neutral fortress guarding our western flank, and saved the manpower that defends half the realm."
Emperor Alaric took the charter, tracing the lines of Maximilian's name. He did not ask how a seventeen-year-old bastard had acquired such power, nor did he ask why the mythril armor failed. He asked the only question that mattered to an Emperor, cutting straight through the military jargon and political spin:
"Does this independence cost me any direct territory, Enoch?"
"No, Your Majesty. It costs us only revenue and pride," Enoch replied, unable to meet his brother's gaze.
The Emperor slowly set the document down. "Pride, Enoch, is the glue that holds this Empire together. It prevents the lords from questioning authority. But glue can be replaced by steel, and steel can be purchased." The Emperor understood the catastrophic nature of the precedent set, but he was a realist. Preserving the 100,000 men was strategically paramount, especially since the failure of Mythril raised the terrifying specter of the Emperor's own guards—protected by even rarer materials—being equally vulnerable.
The Emperor's final verdict was delivered with terrifying calm: "The treaty stands. Valum is now a sovereign protectorate of the Crown. We will not attack it. But we will surround it."
He looked at Enoch, his gaze sharp and cold. "Duke, your failure to seize this technology is unforgivable. However, your decision to preserve the Garrison is correct. Go back to your command. You will not move against Valum, but you will treat its borders as if they were a foreign nation. Use your intelligence, not your army. I do not want to know how the boy's weapon works, Enoch. I want the knowledge to replicate it without him. Valum may be independent, but its secrets belong to the Empire. Every road leading out of Valum will be monitored. Every traveler interviewed. Every piece of paper scrutinized. You will institute a total knowledge embargo."
The implication was clear: Max was now under a massive, invisible Imperial siege. Enoch had saved his army and his life, but he had just started a new, covert war of espionage that would determine the future of the Empire, a future where the strongest defense was no longer Adamantine or Meteorite ore, but mere information.