The Duke's Eldest Son Escaped to the Military
Chapter 258: Conquer the West!

Translator: Pai_

The great war began with a clash between gods and Grand Master-level beings.

This came as a massive shock to humanity.

Despite the enemy’s large-scale air raids, the Western Front held out to the end, and when it became known that one of the biggest reasons for this success was Iron’s thought power, the Empire was thrown into chaos.

“Thought power… had this much strength?”

“Ha… truly unbelievable power.”

“The tide of the battlefield will shift.”

In ancient texts, it was written that a Grand Master was a being who could boost the morale of allies and cause confusion among enemies.

But people had thought of that as merely flowery language used to embellish heroes.

The same was thought of thought power.

Scholars had regarded it as a kind of mental-type magic.

It made sense, considering that the appearance of Grand Masters had been so long ago, and even then, instances of two or more clashing in battle were rare and had to be traced back much further in history.

As a result, few records remained, and even those were assumed to be exaggerated.

Just like the way heroes of the Mythical Era were glorified.

However, now it was being revealed that even the giants and god-level beings of the Mythical Era were not exaggerations, and with this battle as evidence, it became undeniable that the same applied to Grand Masters.

“From now on, the tide of battle will revolve around the Grand Masters.”

Everyone nodded in agreement to the old scholar’s words.

Even a Master was called a one-man army and considered a monstrous being.

But Grand Masters were on another level entirely.

At present, they were irreplaceable beings.

Naturally, Iron’s status in the central government rose even further.

He had become an even more crucial figure than during the time when he was the only Grand Master on the continent.

And this had an even greater impact within the military.

“Fighting against gods will require Grand Masters.”

“That’s right. No matter how incomplete they are, unless you’re a Grand Master, it’s hard to go up against them.”

Iron nodded in agreement at the Western Commander’s words.

Incomplete mental images and pitifully low level.

But knowing how to use that and not knowing made a huge difference.

Even if it was incomplete to a Grand Master, thought power through mental image was a force that was nearly impossible for those below Master level to counter.

“Still… is there really no other way?”

At German’s question, Iron gave a bitter smile.

Leaving everything to the Grand Masters.

For a commander, that was the worst-case scenario.

In a situation where it was impossible to know how many more gods might exist, trusting only the Grand Masters to lead all the battles was riddled with uncertainties.

“If I had to say, overwhelming firepower might be an option.”

“Overwhelming firepower…”

“Pushing forward without giving them even the chance to corrupt the soldiers with thought power. That’s the only answer.”

As Iron presented the only viable answer he could think of for now, German’s expression turned grim.

“Something like that… does it even exist…?”

German tilted his head in doubt as his voice trailed off.

But when he thought about it, it wasn’t entirely impossible.

“In terms of sheer power, fortress cannons are stronger than even a Grand Master’s ultimate moves. But what if we used supermassive fortress cannons?”

“But would they actually get hit by that?”

“There might be some idiot who would. You saw it, didn’t you? The foolishly oversized Incarnate Bodies.”

Just like with the Incarnate Bodies of the Ancient Gods, some of the outer gods also used stupidly large Incarnate Bodies.

It all stemmed from their pride in their overwhelming strength.

And Iron believed he could exploit that arrogance to at least use the fortress cannons effectively once.

German nodded, seemingly in agreement with that point.

But that was as far as it went.

Even if they poured all their strength into preparation, the best they could manage was using it effectively against an Incarnate Body.

If it were the smaller forms of gods that Iron had faced... and gods whose restrictions had weakened, then it would have been useless.

“But... we lack the power to bind their movements.”

German spoke with an uncertain expression.

It raised the question of whether the Masters who had been active in holding back the Frost Warriors in the Northeast could perform well in this battle.

“Is there really no way...?”

“......”

Just as German asked again, he hurriedly shut his mouth.

It was to avoid disturbing Iron, who was deep in thought.

After a long silence, German asked Iron.

“Have you found a way?”

“I'm not sure. For now...”

Iron looked out the window.

There, the knights could be seen training.

“I need to confirm something.”

As Iron spoke and got up from his seat, German also quickly followed him.

Iron hurried to the training area of the knights and grabbed one of them.

“C-Commander-nim?”

The knight looked at him with a flustered expression as Iron grabbed him.

Not only Iron, but German too was looking at him with a serious face, and for a moment, he thought he might have done something wrong.

“There’s something I need to check. Can you help me?”

The knight, though flustered at first, straightened his posture and replied to Iron’s question.

“Yes!”

“It could be dangerous.”

“That’s fine! If I can be of help to you, Commander-nim, that’s all I need!”

At the knight’s words, Iron nodded slightly and began infusing divine power into the knight’s armor.

Then the silver armor began to shine and soon started radiating a brilliant glow.

The first to react to the armor was German.

“T-This is...”

German looked at Iron with wide, astonished eyes.

“Could it be...?”

“Yes. I embedded my mental image into the divine power. As you can see... it’s still weak.”

As Iron said this, he looked at the knight.

“As you can see, the thought power is too weak, so there seems to be almost no effect.”

At Iron’s words, German examined the knight closely and then nodded.

It wasn’t as serious as when he clashed with Zodiac at full power.

“But why are you suddenly doing this?”

“At that time, didn’t you say that our army was consumed by madness because of my thought power?”

“That’s right.”

“To put it the other way, you could also say that thanks to my thought power, they developed resistance to the thought power of the outer god, couldn’t you?”

At Iron’s question, German’s eyes widened.

“It’s still just a plan... but if I embed thought power into the buffs given by my divine power...”

“They could resist the outer god’s thought power.”

“Yes. And if that keeps repeating, the system might throw something at us too.”

Iron said this as he looked up at the sky.

Through the progression of the Apocalypse, he had learned many secrets, but he still had no idea what the system was thinking.

Even beings called gods couldn’t strongly resist the system, and some gods, like Zodiac, staked their lives on trivial things.

‘Is the system using the gods?’

Iron thought about it, but there was no way to know right now.

He could only speculate that the system was something above gods.

“For now, we’ll need an experiment to see if your plan works.”

“Whew... yes. But first, I need to become a bit more proficient.”

At Iron’s words, German turned his head to look at the knights.

“You’ll need test subjects, right?”

“Hmm...”

At German’s question, Iron also quietly looked at the knights.

Then a few knights began to tremble.

It was because they had heard well of Iron’s infamous reputation.

They knew exactly why the Mobile Field Army trembled just at the sight of Iron, and their expressions soured.

“Ahem! It’ll just be divine power infusion, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

German cleared his throat and spoke.

He too knew of Iron’s reputation and tried to reassure the trembling knights.

But the knights only trembled more, as if saying they didn’t believe that for a second.

“I’ll only do it on the armor.”

At Iron's words, the knights wore uneasy expressions, yet one by one, they stepped forward.

Seeing them, Iron smiled as if to say not to worry, and looked at German.

“Go easy on them... will you?”

“Yes.”

Iron nodded vigorously, as if to ease German’s concerns, but the more he did, the more anxious German became.

And German’s anxiety turned out to be right on the mark.

This was exactly why the Mobile Field Army would tremble before Iron during training.

“Uugh... aaah...”

“Hmm... Did I inject too much divine power? Still, it shouldn't be harmful to the body.”

Iron said this while looking at the half-conscious knight.

It was true that it didn’t harm the body.

Iron’s divine power buffs far exceeded the buffs of ordinary priests.

Though he lacked finesse, he compensated with overwhelming strength, so his buffs were so powerful that even saints or popes would have to yield a step.

He had applied such buffs individually to each knight he grabbed.

And then, as a bonus, he gave them training against these newly enhanced knights.

He even used mental image deliberately to attack and verify whether they could resist.

However, since the thought power embedded in the buff also belonged to Iron, the experiment had little effect.

In the end, Iron changed his objectives.

1. Become more proficient at using thought power.

2. Familiarize as many knights as possible with this thought power.

3. Verify during war against outer gods.

To achieve step 2, he trained in step 1 while injecting divine power into more and more knights.

Eventually, he began injecting divine power not only into knights but also into rangers and special forces.

He repeatedly infused divine power mixed with thought power into their weapons and, in some cases, directly into their bodies to help them become accustomed to it.

All of this was for step 3.

“Hmm...”

Even today, as he diligently infused divine power, Iron sat on a rock with a serious expression.

Now able to infuse divine power into multiple people at long range, Iron fell into deep thought.

This experiment would be complete only through battle with outer gods or with the Holy Alliance, which received power from the gods.

He could confirm it by fighting them, but perhaps due to the shock of losing the first battle, those enemies showed no sign of coming out.

‘Are they aiming for perfection now?’

Even though they had deployed two outer gods and weakened restrictions, they were overwhelmingly defeated by Iron.

They had assumed he was merely a rookie who had just entered the Grand Master level, but after suffering immense losses, they had realized that wasn’t the case and were now devising new plans.

“It can’t be helped.”

Iron said this as he sprang up from the rock.

“If they won’t come, then I’ll have to go.”

As he said this, he looked ahead.

The knights who had undergone intensive experimentation were lying on the ground.

“Everyone, get up!”

At Iron’s shout, the knights who had been lying there dazed opened their eyes wide and shot up instantly.

If they didn’t obey, they’d be subjected to hellish training, so they reflexively leapt to their feet.

“Thank you all for cooperating with the trials until now.”

At Iron’s words, smiles began to bloom on the knights’ faces.

Through the repeated strengthening and sparring with Iron in that state, their skills had clearly improved.

They could feel their bodies had gotten much better.

Still, the training had been so intense that they had been praying for it to end, and now their wishes seemed to have been granted as Iron declared the experiments over.

“Now it’s time for the real thing.”

“...Huh?”

“Since we’ve run the experiments, we have to test them in real battle, right?”

Iron said with a cheerful smile to the knight who dumbly asked back.

***

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