Zhuge Lan had already predicted this to happen, but it was all part of his plan. At the moment, he was in a meeting with Eos and a few other guild leaders, along with the Lycan King himself. He was in a grand meeting hall with the Lycan King and some other Lycan and werewolf nobility. There were also a few players present. These players were naturally Guild Leaders and those that possessed some kind of position in the Lycan Kingdom’s social hierarchy thanks to the contributions they've made before and during the ongoing war.
Zhuge Lan was sitting close to the Lycan King along with Eos and a few other players. While everyone were paying close attention to what was being discussed in the meeting, he had a bored look on his face while watching the meeting unfold. Everything being discussed was inconsequential to him because he was only participating in this war due to his master's orders. If it wasn't for Hecate's command, he didn't want to participate or be a part of this continental war.
He'd rather be by his master's side, observing her and thinking of ways to defeat her with his formation techniques. Of course, the only good thing about this war was that he was able to confront Maria again, but this time, with his brains and not through actual battle. He prided himself as a tactician than a fighter, so his current position as the Lycan Kingdom's strategist was alright...for now.
After the meeting that only discussed the current ongoings of the war which was already completely within Zhuge Lan's grasp hence why he was mute throughout the entire thing, a banquet was next and he really wanted all of this to just end already. Instead of going to these useless social gatherings and meetings, he would rather be somewhere else to plan for his future strategies that he would use against his master's nemesis, Maria.
Right now, he had already come up with around 50 strategies to use against Maria in different scenarios depending on how she would act after taking over the Lycan’s mid-outer territories and he couldn't wait to test them out. The fools at the banquet were celebrating their recent successes that were largely attributed to his plans, but they didn’t know that he was going to sacrifice some of their territory for the bigger plan he had in mind to mess with Maria.
He didn’t believe for a second that the rag-tag group of players and NPCs could possibly defend against Maria’s well-organized and well-equipped army. There was just no way. He had a few secret informants in the Dire and they were able to give him quite a bit of information about the quantity and quality of Maria’s army, so Zhuge Lan knew that Maria had more secrets about her army's strength than what she currently let know to the public.
The recent debuts of the magitek weapons, for instance, he knew that it was just a smokescreen to divert the players’ attention from the real threat, which was her navy and air force. No one had been paying any attention to the fleet that Maria had brought with her to the Vanargand continent. Most people thought that they were just transport ships, ships used to move the armies of the Dire from the Dreyra Continent over to the Vanargand Continent. Not a single player paused to think that maybe those supposed 'transport' ships were actually ships equipped for war. If anyone did think of this, then they were absolutely correct.
Maria had created cannons for the tanks, so it was easy for her to equip those magic cannons on a large ship. The tricky part to all of this was creating a ship that could hold those cannons. It took a bit of time, but she managed to create multiple ships that could do it, and all it took was a little bit of thinking, money, and some would say, 'cheating', on her part.
She had given her empire's shipwrights the plans of modern day battleships that she had obtained from the internet. Naturally, these were declassified plans which were a little bit outdated compared to the modern ones that were used in any of the real world country's current navies, but the ones she found were more than enough to serve as inspiration to her very capable subordinates who created better versions of the ships that she wanted them to make.
She originally only gave 2 ship plans to her subordinates, expecting them to only create the destroyer-class and cruiser-class battleships, but they managed to create 5 different classes of battleships to Maria's surprise. In addition to the 2 previous ones Maria originally wanted them to make, her subordinates were also able to create carrier-class and corvette-class battleships. The final classification was rather iffy.
The last type of 'battleship' they made was a mix between a submarine and a magitek suit. Unlike the magitek suit that was previously revealed to the public, this 'submarine' magitek suit was much bigger. It was big enough to fit a team of 3-4 people inside of it and it was able to dive and move underwater, and when needed, it could also go ashore and land the people inside of it. Unfortunately, it couldn't move on land for too long due to its large size, but that didn't really matter since its intended purpose was for maritime battle.
Some of these ships, the smaller ones obviously, were currently making their way through the wide and deep rivers of the Vanargand continent and into the lands of the Lycan Kingdom. Maria didn't plan to just attack the Lycans with her ships from the rivers, the larger and more destructive ones were circumventing the continent and going towards the coastal areas of the Lycan Kingdom with the intent of decimating those areas and landing her soldiers there.
She was preparing a two-pronged attack, one from land and one from the sea. Once her soldiers landed in the coastal areas, she could then start pushing her way into the deeper areas of the Lycan Kingdom and slowly suffocate her enemies by cutting off all outside support.
Zhuge Lan had more or less figured out Maria's plans, but he wasn't going to make a move to stop it. It was practically impossible to stop, the only thing he could do was delay it, but he saw little meaning to even do that.
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'Why stop something that is inevitable going to happen? This isn't real life, so exhausting the enemy forces when it could just be replenished within a day is meaningless...' thought Zhuge Lan as he watched the people around him enjoy the banquet. He shook his head at how carefree they were when doom was slowly, but surely encroaching on them.
Maria was able to create a tank in the game, so it didn’t come to him as a surprise that she would be able to create battleships and that's not all. Since she was able to create carrier-class battleships, then that means that she also was capable of–
'–creating aircrafts.'
Zhuge Lan thought to himself and let out an amused chuckle while looking at a picture that one of his subordinates had sent to him. It showed an extremely large aircrafft carrier that was fitted with large cannons and had an array of airships of various designs on it. These airships even had guns on it and some had cannons and missiles. He shook his head at this image that had something that obvsiously shouldn't even be on this planet.
'Haha, if I had met her earlier than my master, then she would've been my liege.'
"...But where's the fun in that? The current situation is only fun because I'm not her subordinate!"
He stood up after saying this and left the banquet hall. He didn't plan on being too proactive in this war, but Maria kept on giving him more and more reasons that have some fun playing this game. Even though he didn't act like it, Zhuge Lan was actually pretty surprised that Maria had already created an air force. A few of the ships that were brought to the Vanargand Continent weren’t just for transporting players and Maria’s soldiers. Some of them had other cargo and those were the fighter airships that Maria’s craftsmen had invented.
Creating a fighter jet was a little too advanced for Maria and they didn't seem feasible with the current level of technology that her Dire had, so the next best thing her people could make was an airship that was fit for aerial combat and aerial bombardment. She had brought a few airships for this war and all of them had magic cannons, magitek battery guns, and a few other heavy and light magitek weapons equipped on them. It was a total menace to those in the air and on the ground.
Maria had armies for all types of combat; air, land, and naval combat. The Lycan’s, on the other hand, only had their regular armies and a small fleet. This so-called fleet was ill-equipped for battle in comparison to Maria’s large navy. If they were to fight, Maria would easily decimate them. The armies on land were alright, but compared to Maria’s armies, they were still lacking. As for their air force? Well, that was completely nonexistent to the Lycans because they never thought about fighting from the sky. They might have a few tamed flying monsters, but compared to the airships that Zhuge Lan received news of, they were useless.
Thanks to all of the information he obtained, Zhuge Lan knew that the outcome of this war was already set in stone. The Dire were going to win and it would be a landslide victory at that. The only thing he couldn’t wrap his head around was why Maria still hadn’t mobilized all of her armies yet and just finish the war as quickly as possible.
From the looks of things, the placement of her navy would be complete in the next few days and honestly, she didn't even need to do that. It was just complete overkill to put the Lycan Kingdom under a blockade like that.
The Lycans and the players still didn’t know any of this and were having a banquet to celebrate their recent success against the Dire. If only they knew what he knew, then they’d be more frantic than joyful. He could only scoff as he watched the clowns prance around on their high horses. If he was Maria, he would’ve already mobilized all of his soldiers and struck immediately to cripple the Lycan Kingdom. After that, all he had to do was slowly, but surely, take over the rest of their territory one by one.
He just couldn’t understand why Maria wasn’t making a move at all right now. From their previous encounter, Zhuge Lan was able to get a better understanding of his opponent and knew for a fact that Maria wasn’t the type of person to hold back. Knowing that, he couldn’t figure out why Maria was letting the current situation play out...as if everything happening right now was just a game to her.
Zhuge Lan's eyes widened and he stifled the laughter that was threatening to leave his mouth and quietly said to himself, "So that's what it is...she's just playing a game and enjoying herself..."
He finally remembered that before Maria had broken apart his formation array with that nuclear-like attack, she had been moving around inside of his formation and was purposefully letting herself get trapped inside of it despite having the means to instantly get out.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, she has an even worse habit than Master does. I guess this means that the war will be prolonged, but that’ll be in our favor. We may lose, but I won’t let these fools lose so easily. I’ll prick that little mouth of yours, Empress Maria, for daring to play with your food.”
There was a smile on Zhuge Lan’s face because now, he could expect the coming days to be full of fun and surprises. After all, a strategist could only ever display his full potential when he was on a battlefield and in order to have a battlefield, you must have a war. He was both grateful and hateful towards Maria, because one, she was giving him a grand stage to perform on where he could display all of his talents to the fullest, and two, she was the first person to toy around with him before utterly destroying his confidence and making him lose a lot of face in front of his master.
“Your victory won’t be an easy one. I still have to pay you back for the humiliation I suffered last time…”