Chapter 300 |
Aside from the small incident between Thor and Loki, the entire event of that day in the United Kingdom of Austria proceeded very smoothly.
After all, under the formidable strength of Josh and his organization Ouroboros, there was no other national power on Earth besides [beep] that could pose a threat to present-day Austria.
Thus, at the Hofburg Palace, Carol was successfully crowned as the first queen of the United Kingdom of Austria.
However, this time, the one who crowned her was neither Pope Pius XII nor the Bishop of Vienna.
It was Karl Renner, an elder who had devoted his life to the “Habsburg Empire Dream.”
This was Josh’s idea.
Compared to the Pope or the Bishop, no one was more suitable to complete this historic transfer of power than this old man who had dedicated his whole life to Austria.
However, when the attendant handed over the crown and scepter to Karl Renner, there was a slight commotion among the French delegation who had just arrived to witness the ceremony.
Indeed, on such a significant occasion, Josh once again stirred things up, stabbing right into the hearts of the French.
The new queen’s crown was Napoleon’s laurel crown, not only because it was a French national treasure.
Nor was it just because of Napoleon’s high historical status in Europe.
More importantly, in 1806, Napoleon led troops to defeat Franz II, the last emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which downgraded the once Holy Roman Empire to the Austrian Empire. Vienna was captured by Napoleon three times.
So from this perspective, Austria and France were indeed ancient enemies.
Now, Carol was the queen of a newly consolidated nation composed of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bavaria, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and parts of northeastern Italy that had been secretly occupied over recent years due to territorial disputes. Wearing Napoleon’s laurel crown carried deep, obvious symbolism.
When Karl Renner placed the golden laurel crown, representing the supreme authority of the kingdom, on Carol’s head, tears streamed down his face.
Since the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, he had awaited this day for nearly forty years.
After countless twists and turns, Austria had finally restored its former glory!
As for the change of dynasty, Karl Renner didn’t care at all.
What he wanted was a Habsburg Empire belonging to the people of Austria, not a Habsburg Empire for the Habsburg family.
Compared to the laurel crown, the scepter that followed seemed ordinary to most people present — it looked like a simple silver scepter with an orange crystal embedded at its tip.
Only Thor, Loki, and other Asgardian members standing nearby sensed the intermittent magical fluctuations emitted by the scepter.
And only Josh and a few trusted aides knew of the scepter’s true extraordinary nature.
After all, Josh only had this one daughter; in such an important matter, how could he treat his daughter poorly?
Though the scepter looked simple, it was actually forged from a small amount of Titansteel obtained by Abbendis in Northrend, mixed with thorium, mithril, and vibranium.
The crystal embedded at the top, over ten centimeters in diameter, was the largest arcane crystal Abbendis could collect from various Azeroth factions’ markets.
So this seemingly ordinary scepter was actually a very high-quality magic staff, and more importantly, it was forged with the help of Tiamut.
Though it didn’t contain as much of Tiamut’s primordial divine power as Josh’s Divergent Sword did, it still carried a trace of divinity.
Thus, this staff could also be called a divine artifact.
Initially, Josh had wanted to give Carol either the Sin’dorei scepter or Antonidas’s Arcus staff, but unfortunately, those were not for sale, so he had to ask Tiamut for help to forge this one himself.
‘Not selling is not selling; when you guys fall, I’ll have Abbendis collect your corpses.’
The reason for making the scepter into a staff was naturally because Carol was a mage with quite good talent; she had learned a lot of Kamar-Taj and Azeroth magic.
This was also why Carol had once called Ancient One her teacher.
Following the crown and scepter, the new national flag and coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Austria were presented.
When the new flag and emblem appeared before all the guests, another wave of unrest broke out.
The flag was simple in color — the original red and white stripes with a national emblem in the center, but the emblem was different.
The original emblem was Austria’s symbolic black eagle, but it had only one head while the new emblem was a double-headed eagle.
This was the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire from several centuries ago.
The difference was that the shield on the eagle’s chest now bore symbols representing Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and other member regions.
For the United Kingdom of Austria, which in many ways was aligning itself with the Holy Roman Empire, the representatives of European countries were extremely displeased.
After all, it had taken them centuries to dismantle this vast empire, and now they were watching this empire “reborn.”
How could they be happy about it?
However, thinking of the super nuclear bomb detonated yesterday at the North Pole, no matter how unhappy the representatives were, they could only watch silently as the coronation ceremony concluded.
Seeing the European delegations with expressions like they had just been shocked, Thor and the other Asgardians were also very curious but refrained from asking too much due to the occasion.
Loki guessed immediately it must have been Josh’s doing.
This made him involuntarily recall the horrific scene of Xandar’s destruction. As a frost giant, he even shivered.
This in turn drew a sarcastic comment from Thor nearby because Carol — crowned, holding the scepter, and wearing the golden fleece cloak from Asgard — indeed looked stunning, but there was no need to be so agitated.
After the coronation ceremony came the military parade.
As the mighty Austrian army marched past Heroes’ Square, the delegations from various countries who had been pondering how to unite against Austria immediately extinguished those thoughts.
Why?
Because among the delegations present, most brought their top military observers and experts.
But as the parade proceeded, they realized that many of Austria’s military equipment was incomprehensible to them.
The infantry formations were relatively normal, holding new types of unknown automatic rifles, and their gear looked just somewhat “bulky.”
But the armored units were different.
They could understand the Guardian tanks, which were main battle tanks, but the multifunction infantry vehicles, phantom tanks, plasma tanks, Athena cannons, and other bizarrely shaped vehicles were utterly beyond their understanding. They had no clue what the strange devices on those vehicles were for.
They also couldn’t understand the helicopters. Except for the obviously heavily armed heavy attack helicopter, the twin-blade helicopter, and the obviously transport helicopter called Nightingale, the other two— the Frozen Helicopter from Red Alert 3 Allies and the VX Striker Helicopter from the Rising Sun Empire — had military experts at a complete loss trying to figure out their functions based on appearance alone.
There were no major surprises in the battles; the modified F4 Phantom became mainstream.
However, besides the modified F4, another very beautiful new fighter jet appeared, that was the F16.
Because the performance of the modified F4 already far exceeded the F15, the F15 naturally became unnecessary.
But since the F4 was a twin-engine heavy fighter, a light fighter was still needed, so the F16 was brought out.
If the fighter jets weren’t too shocking, then the bombers that appeared afterward made many countries look rather grim.
Austria released two types of bombers, both from the Red Alert 3 Allied faction: the Peacekeeper bomber and the Century bomber.
The massive size of these two jet bombers made it clear they were not to be trifled with.
And the subsequent missile forces, especially the final strategic missile formation, cast a shadow over the faces of European countries.
Damn, we still haven’t figured out our fixed land-based ballistic missiles, and Austria is already playing with vehicle-mounted ones?
And if they have vehicle-mounted, what about ship-mounted?
At this time, the US delegation’s military experts suddenly recalled a piece of intelligence they had previously overlooked.
That was that Austria had launched several submarines of somewhat oversized size in the Adriatic Sea.
The US Navy stationed nearby jokingly said Austria was planning to imitate Germany’s outdated wolf-pack tactics.
Could it be...?
Actually, as early as 1954, the US had launched a nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus.
But a nuclear-powered submarine is one thing, and a strategic nuclear submarine capable of launching strategic nuclear missiles is quite another.
The first strategic nuclear submarine on the original Earth timeline, the USS George Washington, was launched in 1959 and was still in the research stage.
Now these military experts thought: could those submarines all be strategic nuclear submarines?
If true... then things would be very serious.
Mobile land-based nuclear missiles with extremely long range, and highly stealthy strategic nuclear submarines.
Austria has already achieved a nuclear triad ahead of the entire world!
What? You ask if that’s only two legs? The third leg is naturally airborne nuclear weapons—the two bombers that just flew past. You don’t believe they can’t carry nuclear bombs, not even ghosts would believe that!
The United Kingdom of Austria is now completely uncontrollable.
Since they can’t be contained, cooperation is the only option!
………………………………………………………………………………
The parade ended. Although Austria warmly hosted and tried to keep them, many countries’ delegations still returned to their countries immediately, burdened with heavy thoughts. They needed to work overnight to devise and adjust new national policies targeting Austria!
But these were mostly major powers.
The small countries, on the other hand, were not worried at all and calmly attended Austria’s banquets, enjoying the top-tier hospitality provided by Austria.
Because these small countries never had the strength to resist the major powers; it was better to lie flat.
Austria’s hospitality standards were very high, and officials from these small countries usually couldn’t afford such enjoyment.
Of course, there were also some carefree ones who didn’t care at all.
For example, Prince Thor of Asgard and his entourage.
Josh did not trust these Asgardians to interact too much with representatives from other countries, so they attended a private banquet held by the Kane family.
Attendees were all Josh’s friends, followers of the Ouroboros, allies like Kamar-Taj, and vampire families who had maintained some contact with Austria since Dracula left.
Everyone was an extraordinary existence; with such company, Thor and his group enjoyed themselves freely.
Only Loki left the banquet hall unnoticed and found Josh.
“Sorry, my lord, it was inconvenient to salute you at the previous occasion!” Loki respectfully saluted Josh.
“It’s alright. You did well today. But why didn’t you notify me in advance about your visit to Austria’s ceremony?” Josh waved for Loki to rise and then asked.
“My lord, I didn’t know you had already returned to Earth, nor that Her Majesty the Queen was your own daughter. It was my oversight!” Loki quickly apologized.
Hearing this, Josh recalled that Loki didn’t know he had returned to Earth and that Austria was under his control.
But as a leader, Josh certainly wouldn’t apologize to Loki for this and only nodded to show he understood.
“How are the tasks I assigned to you progressing?” Josh changed the subject and asked Loki.
“I have already sent a large number of the Vrykul to Jotunheim. They have now gained Laufey’s trust. Even if Laufey wanted to explain, it would be impossible!” Loki answered hurriedly.
In fact, to firmly establish the destruction of Xandar and the Frost Giants, Josh had intentionally asked Loki to send some Vrykul people to Jotunheim to “pledge allegiance” to Laufey.
This way, if anyone continued to investigate who destroyed Xandar, they would primarily associate it with Jotunheim.
Jotunheim, due to Asgard’s involvement, had been in a semi-isolated state, with their minds set only on reclaiming their treasured Ice Box and overthrowing Asgard’s rule. They had no clue what was happening in the universe and didn’t know they had unknowingly taken the blame.
Josh made the Frost Giants take the blame to guard against investigation by a special force.
This force was the true master behind the Nova Empire, the Shi’ar Empire.
According to recent news from Dracula and Vereesa, the situation in the Nova Empire has stabilized.
After Xandar was destroyed, although the Nova Empire lost large territories to the Kree Empire, it was not destroyed because the Shi’ar Empire intervened!