“Leave not any roots behind, lest the weeds grow back later.” - Old folk saying.

A week after Reinhardt returned to Levain from Aldenstadt, the armies of Levain and their Caroman allies – twenty thousand of Levain’s best, and another twenty thousand from Caroma who had sent some of their soldiers home and refilled their numbers with reinforcements from their homeland – marched to the south once more.

It could well be argued that the entire conflict that ended up involving many of the remaining forces that remained in the former territory of the Clangeddin Empire was one instigated by the Southern Coalition, with their unprovoked assault on Levain that ended in a fiery disaster. That incident was the first card that knocked others over as it fell and resulted in the full-blown conflict that ended with tens of thousands dead from multiple nations.

If Levain and Caroma stopped pursuing the Southern Coalition – whose letters were what brought Podovniy and Anduille into the mix – then it would be the same as giving the southerners what they wanted in the first place, and neither side were willing to accept that after the losses they took in the battles.

As such, a second southern expedition was rapidly assembled, this time with the intent of finishing off the Southern Coalition once and for all.

With how Podovniy left defeated to lick its wounds, and Anduille having signed a non-aggression treaty with both Caroma and Levain for the next twenty years, they were safe from those two directions, which left only the south like a thorn in their side. Now that they had the time to finish what they started, it was no surprise that both Estelle and Caroma’s council – partly influenced by the suggestions given out by the Marshals – rapidly assembled another offense right away.

This time around only Marshal Publius Cornelius represented the Caromans, as the Lady Marshal had returned home with their injured daughter to care for her. The Marshal had informed Estelle that it was probably a good thing, because his Lady had a tendency to go overboard when in such an emotionally heightened state.

As such, it would be far better for the southerners if he was the one leading the Caroman forces.

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Reinhardt did not participate in the campaign actively, as the contract the Free Lances signed excluded them from offensive actions, but he did lend his flying scouts to Estelle, having them range far and wide ahead of the army and periodically reporting anything of note. The advantage in information gathering should be enough for the joint forces to snuff out what resistance remained in the south, he thought.

When the army marched south, though, they found themselves mostly faced with a realm that was in the midst of tearing itself apart.

The army slowed down as a precaution while they tried to gather information from the people they encountered, mostly those people who decided to strike out on their own and remain in the land they were born in instead of heading north into Levain back during the first expedition. From those people, they learned that the Coalition had broken apart and devolved into a civil war shortly after the expedition.

The civil war itself mostly took place between Olfas – which took in most of Cezar and Sebaque’s forces now that they had lost their lords – and Nomen, which according to rumors found backing from Sevras-Galastine further south. Some of the smaller states sided with one of the two, while yet others declared their independence and struck out on their own during the chaos.

It did not take long for Estelle and the Marshal to make a decision to reach out to Nomen – which had never fought against them in either of the previous conflicts – and offer to rid them of their mutual enemy in exchange for a pseudo alliance between the states and a recognition of Levain and Caroma’s claim to the northern side of the Coalition’s territory.

Things went far more smoothly than expected when the young High Lady of Nomen agreed to their conditions, and after a swift but brutal battle and a short siege that saw the maddened High Lady of Olfas commit suicide by burning her wing of the castle, the situation in the Southern Coalition ended due to Levain and Caroma’s interference.

What remained of the Southern Coalition splintered into many small nations, the largest of which was Nomen, which signed the treaty with Levain and Caroma and acted as a buffer state between them and Sevras-Galastine to the south. Estelle and Publius then shared the northern side of the Coalition’s lands, with Levain mostly claiming a strip of land that connected their original lands to Nomen and the lands furthest north, instead opting to migrate people who were willing to move into their territory. The rest went to Caroma or turned into independent small states.

News of the victory was brought to Levain by some of Hannah’s people mere days after they actually happened, the fliers allowing for swift communication despite the distances involved, and the city threw another celebration for the victory. Caroma was notified the same way, though they received the news a day later than Levain, due to the distances involved.

It was such that a mere three months after the Siege of Levain city, the Southern Coalition came to an end, partly by their own hands, and vanished from the history books, though the splinter states that came from that breakup would last longer than the Coalition itself ever did. Some even managed to remain sovereign states many centuries into the future.

As for the armies of Levain and Caroma, the main force returned to their respective nations, though they were replaced with forces meant to garrison and help keep the order in the newly claimed territory. While all this went on, the Free Lances continued to follow their contract, and took the chance to finish their training of the second batch of now somewhat more experienced militiamen.