The Exposition had barely ended when Cipher Corps confirmed the inevitable:
The so-called "Mutual Defense Agreement" between Britain, Austria, and the Ottomans had evolved into Project Icehammer—a coordinated plan to invade Russia on three fronts by the next spring.
Mikhail did not wait.
He would strike first.
[Strategic Directive Issued: Preemptive Assault – Operation Winter Fang]
The first target: Ottoman Eastern Command, stationed in Kars, a fortress city nestled in the Armenian Highlands.
Using a combination of Cipher infiltration, espionage, and rapid-deployment mechanized forces, Mikhail's armies launched a midnight offensive.
Steam-powered climber units scaled the snow-capped ridges under cover of darkness.
Thunderstriders marched through blizzards, their massive steps shaking the earth.
By dawn, Kars was encircled.
[Tactical Maneuver: Encirclement Doctrine Executed]
Ottoman forces were overwhelmed. Field commanders, relying on cavalry tactics, found their mounts shredded by Volkhov Arc Projectors and aerial mortar drones.
The city fell in two days.
Its commandant surrendered personally to Marshal Rostov, handing over not just the garrison—but documents revealing deeper coordination with the British.
[Intel Gained: British Plans to Invade Murmansk by Sea]
At the same time, a diversionary offensive struck Austrian border towns near Galicia.
Automated artillery emplacements—hidden within merchant wagons—suddenly erupted into coordinated fire, clearing a path for Russian mechanized columns to seize railway hubs within 48 hours.
The Austrians, caught off guard, scrambled to mobilize.
[Austrian Morale: -25% | Railway Infrastructure: +15% for Russia]
Yet the boldest move came not from the battlefield—but from the shadows.
Cipher Corps launched Operation Scythe, a deep-cover mission to disable the British Baltic Fleet before it could sail.
Using forged documents, mechanical diving gear, and sabotage drones disguised as sea ice, Russian agents sank two dreadnoughts and disabled the HMS Drake.
[Covert Sabotage Success – British Baltic Operations Delayed by 3 Months]
The coalition's carefully laid plans shattered.
Ottoman morale collapsed. Austrian nobles began secretly corresponding with Mikhail's court. British newspapers called it "The Iron Blitz."
But even as victory flared across Russia's frontiers, Mikhail stood wary.
[System Alert: Global Resistance Threshold – Reached 72%]
They would regroup.
They would retaliate.
And when they did, it would be with fury.
In the Imperial War Council, a single directive was now pinned across every map:
"Consolidate, Fortify, Advance."
Because this was no longer a war of strategy.
It was a war for the soul of the century.
And the Iron Tsar intended to win it.