Two days ago, the king of the "Kingdom of Sero" began implementing a plan.
The king handed over seven letters transcribed by the villagers to their respective spies in the country.
These spies had been deployed within the borders of the seven major countries for many years;
If it weren't for the temporary summons from the kingdom, they would never risk being discovered and quickly returning home through the teleportation array.
When summoning these reliable subordinates, the king instructed them to disguise themselves as envoys sent out by the remote village and go to their respective hidden countries;
The only goal of the spies was to transmit false information, to create a massive lie!
It is well known that the premise of fabricating a lie is to make the lie itself appear as genuine as possible!
Therefore, the king had thoroughly analyzed it in advance.
First, an analysis was conducted based on distance:
The village is located within a five hundred mile radius, which shares varying degrees of border with eight countries, including the "Kingdom of Sero".
If one were truly a villager and wanted to enter the borders of the seven major countries without relying on magic, they would only need a horse and no more than a week's worth of provisions.
In other words:
As long as a few spies are disguised as weary travelers, the people in the major countries may fall for it.
Next is the motivation behind the "villagers" seeking help:
The cause of this matter was that the village chief and all the villagers, out of self-preservation, wanted to strike a decisive blow against the roaming demons.
Even in the present day, the villagers believe that those demons are just low-level creatures that cannot be taken seriously and are only meant to scare ordinary people.
In fact, the villagers' idea is completely wrong!
Not only do those demons have a notorious reputation among the common folk, they are actually well-known throughout the entire western continent.
Although the demons have not done anything wrong, with their number surpassing three thousand alone, it is enough to make the various countries feel a sense of pressure.
Even the demons that smaller nations fear migrated near a remote village, causing fear among the villagers; this is a natural reaction.
Therefore, from the perspective of the village, the villagers do have the motivation to seek assistance from major powers.
Finally, how to gain the trust of the high-ranking officials of the major countries.
As early as ten years ago, intelligence warfare and spy battles between countries had become a common occurrence;
Thanks to this, each country, to varying degrees, possessed some skills in military actions against spies.
The king was able to make the prominent figures of the seven countries believe that the village could send envoys;
But taking it a step further:
What made the king think that those guys would believe that the "envoys" in front of them were not spies but honest and diligent country folks?
The answer lies in the "old script".
In the western continent, decades ago, the present-day "new script" had already been adopted for writing, becoming the official writing standard.
Currently, only some remote regions or isolated and impoverished areas, like the village of Birth, still use the "old script".
It is impossible for ordinary people to imitate the style of a letter.
Unless they have been writing in the "old script" since childhood, anyone forging a letter would make the content feel out of place;
It's like someone who doesn't understand a foreign language mechanically piecing together words according to a dictionary, making it easy to tell if it's true or false at a glance.
Considering this detail, it was only due to this consideration that the king insisted on having the villagers transcribe the letters when they met, in order to avoid any revealing flaws.
Later on, the king entrusted the letters to seven spies, instructing them to present the letters filled with "ancient script" to the border garrisons of various countries after meeting with them.
It should be noted that major nations strictly follow procedures and would never "wipe out" suspicious individuals like the "Therlo Kingdom" did.
So when the border garrisons of each country encountered someone who seemed like an envoy, their initial response was to have a diplomat stationed at the border analyze the contents of the letters.
Although the diplomats did not use the "ancient script," they could still recognize it.
The spies used this method to gain trust and the opportunity to meet with higher-ups.
When the spies repeated the words of the true village envoy verbatim, the royal families of the seven countries became restless.
There was no royal family that did not want to increase their population.
After all, an increase in population meant increased national power and more tax revenue!
When the leaders of the royal families, namely the kings of the seven countries, believed in the identity of the envoy, the disguised spies began to convey a unified message:
The spies, in the name of the village chief, told the kings that in order for the entire village to surrender, the demons outside the village must be eliminated, and for this, a knight order must be mobilized.
The kings who were informed of this weighed the pros and cons:
The thousands of people within the village must pledge allegiance to their respective countries.
To achieve this goal, they must go to war with thousands of demons.
Is this exchange worth it?
In reality, it seemed to be a seemingly profitable deal.
After all, for each country, the roaming demons were like unpredictable bombs, with the risk of detonation at any moment.
Rather than allowing this dangerous force to roam freely and causing fear among the people, it would be better to find a suitable opportunity to eliminate them.
Their own countries would eventually go to war with the demons, and now there was an opportunity to start a war while also increasing their population.
With this in mind, the kings had no reason not to take advantage of this opportunity.
Thus, the seven countries, each thinking they were the only ones sending troops, unintentionally mobilized their large armies on the same day with their six hostile neighboring countries.
It didn't take much thought to realize that this was the result of the operations of the seven spies!
The number of troops sent must not be too few or too many.
Too few soldiers would not be able to completely eliminate the demons, while too many soldiers would strain the defense of their own country.
Therefore, based on minor differences in national power, the kings of each country dispatched forces ranging from over ten thousand to around twenty thousand.
In total, the combined forces of the seven countries amounted to approximately one hundred and thirty thousand.
The border was not far from the village, only a few hundred miles away.
Within a day and a half after the spies were dispatched, the vanguard of the first country had already arrived at their destination.
This vanguard force consisted mainly of the Pegasus Corps and the Gryphon Corps, also known as the "Aerial Legion."
The leader of this force was approximately thirty years old, with a narrow scar that covered half of his face, extending from the area above and below his right eye.
Judging from the way the scar blended with his face, it seemed to have been there for many years.
And from a certain moment, the crucifix pendant hanging on the officer's neck began emitting red light, a color that resembled flowing blood.
