Battle of Samara City

As per the usual protocol, the two armies sent messengers to negotiate before the battle.

However, Rougenfort Kingdom's messenger immediately made it clear that the only way for Rougenfort Kingdom to go through with this peacefully was if King Samara and his close aides surrendered themselves to Blanc.

Unfortunately, there was no way that the self-centered King Samara would surrender and give Blanc everything he worked for.

As expected, the negotiation failed and the battle was inevitable.

Of course, Helena didn't want King Samara to surrender because she wanted to end his life with her own hands so she was quite happy that they were going through with the battle.

Although Helena didn't want to commit more lives to the battle, she knew that it was inevitable because if they showed mercy to the Samara Kingdom now, it would mean that they also chose to be cruel to themselves and the citizens who placed their trust in them.

If they allowed King Samara to recover his military might, who knows what will happen in the future? In addition to this, would King Samara be lenient towards them? Absolutely not! So they have to cut off the roots to remove the problem and ensure the safety of the entire Rougenfort Kingdom and its citizens even at the expense of more lives.

This is what it meant to be the leader of a kingdom. They had to be lenient whenever they could but be ruthless whenever they had to.

Finally, after a few more moments, Helena ordered her men to attack. 

They weren't beginners when it came to conquering cities because they methodically conquered each and every city in Dumont Dukedom before finally taking over its capital city.

In addition to this, they had thrice the number of enemy soldiers on each gate so although Grand Marshall Emille might be able to properly defend the north gate, it would be hard for him to defend all four gates.

Helena, Alexander, and Leif didn't waste any time and directly joined the attack to not only lessen the casualties but also to provoke the enemy Swordmasters into action.

They knew how strong they were and they weren't scared of duels. In addition to this, Blanc told them to finish things here as fast as possible because as more time passes, there would be more chances for the enemy to make decisions.

Their attack had to be swift and decisive so that's what they did. 

As expected, Leif and Alexander easily won their matches against the mercenary Swordmasters so they immediately ordered their men to advance inside the city.

Of course, they didn't hurt any civilians and purely focused on taking down the forces of King Samara as they advanced steadily towards the castle.

The southern and eastern gates were already taken down by Alexander and Leif in less than four hours.

In addition to this, although Sabre hasn't broken through the western gate yet, it was only a matter of time before he managed to do so.

What's surprising was, that Helena was still locked in a fierce combat against the enemy's Grand Marshal, Emille.

The two grand marshals faced off as they fought for control of the northern gate.

Helena thought that she would be able to easily defeat her opponent but who would've thought that this Grand Marshal Emille, who seemed to be a bit younger than Geraint would give her problems?

*CLANG*

After another clash, Emille was slightly blown back by Helena who then lifted the Salamandr and rested it on her right shoulder before speaking.

"Not bad, What's your name?"

"Hmmph! I don't give my name to filthy invaders."

"Hah! Listen to the hypocrite! As if you guys weren't the ones who attacked first! Tell me, are you the victim here? Huh?!"

Helena was a bit enraged. 

These bastards dared to play the victim now since they were about to lose the war? Pathetic!

However, before the two of them could resume their duel, Emille's subordinate urgently reported that the southern and eastern gates had already fallen and that the two mercenary Swordmasters were dead.

Grand Marshal Emille gnashed his teeth as he was forced to order his remaining men to retreat to the castle.

After seeing that the enemies were retreating? Helena inwardly sneered.

"Hah! Retreating? Why don't you guys just accept defeat? There's no way for you to win this war!"

Helena said in a loud voice to try and reduce the morale of the retreating enemies.

However, Emille wasn't affected at all. He effectively commanded his army to retreat in an orderly manner as he continuously shouted encouraging words to his men to try and keep their morale as high as possible.

After seeing how capable Emille was, Helena was genuinely impressed. She even thought that it was a shame for such an excellent military leader to be serving such a self-centered and greedy king. She thought that if they met under different circumstances, they might even become friends.

Unfortunately, Emille was fighting for his nation while she was fighting for hers so there was no choice but to fight.

Finally, after two hours of organized retreat, Emille had four thousand men left to defend the castle but unfortunately for him, Helena barely lost men and there were still 28,500 Rougenfortians advancing steadily towards their castle.

It had only been a day and they had to defend for two more days before help arrived but they were already pushed back towards the castle.

Emille heard about the combat prowess of the Rougenfortian Swordmasters but he didn't think that they could take down the hired Swordmasters in just a few hours.

This is the reason why they had to fall back way earlier than expected.

Meanwhile, King Samara was like a deflated balloon as he sloppily sat on his throne.

After hearing negative battle reports after negative battle reports, he started to lose hope. Especially after hearing that two of the gates had already fallen in only four hours.

However, His Grand Marshal, Emille, was still trying his best to defend the city but he, the king, had already lost all hope.