It's better to conquer them than to command the steel torrent

Chapter 1 Wedges
Thick dark clouds hung in the sky. The sky in St. Petersburg had never been so gloomy and gray. The world seemed to have been erased of its colors and turned into a still black and white photo.

Suddenly, a flash of lightning tore the picture apart, and the white light was dazzling but short-lived.

In a corner of Catherine Palace, lightning illuminated a slender figure through the window.

On the table in front of the girl lay an old, damaged book—it was hard to call it a book, as it looked like just a few sheets of birch bark paper, with words scribbled on them in Old Russian that could be traced back to the Kievan Rus era.

She closed her eyes tightly.

A small copper hourglass is located at the corner of the table, and time passes quietly through it.

When the last wisp of sand passed through the narrow neck and fell, lightning flashed outside the window again, and heavy rain poured down in an instant.

The girl's body froze, and her long golden hair flew apart.

A trembling mysterious aura rushed towards them, quickly enveloping the surroundings. The fear it brought to people was far greater than a poisonous snake crawling up the body along the legs.

"Wildness, withering, this is the wrong time." An ethereal and faint voice came into his ears, and seemed to be engraved directly into his mind.

The girl's surprise was fleeting, and her blue eyes sparkled with excitement.

She had a lot to say, but was speechless because of excitement.

"You are filled with hatred and ambition. This is not good, but it is acceptable." His voice was still disembodied.

He understood the girl's intention and said nothing more. He coldly promised her a good harvest, an unprecedented good harvest.

"I... want more, is that okay?" the girl asked tentatively. Silence followed, no response, only the rumble of thunder echoing through the heavens and earth.

After a moment, she accepted it with disappointment.

"On the honor of the Romanov family, glory to Ivan Rus."

She recited softly, cut her thumb with a silver knife, and the bright red blood dripped onto the torn birch bark paper.

At this time, He added: "The term is thirteen years."

"Please wait." Feeling that the aura was dissipating, the girl hurriedly asked, "What is the price?"

"Fairness and constancy." After replying with these two words, his remaining soul fell silent.

The thunderstorm stopped.

A few days later, Valland Empire.

At this worrying time between spring and summer, a new comet was observed at the Heidelberg University Observatory, which astronomers named: Schwarzmann-Watzmann 3.

As the shadow of the Great Depression spread to Europe, no one paid much attention to this discovery.

(End of this chapter)