Chapter 857: Act 35 – Noble Knights from the Empire
The night belonged to those who never sleep. The remnants of the Undead Army advanced under the cover of darkness, the rolling ridges of the valley appearing like a great beast lying in wait. The silent, lifeless Black Forest, the dimly-lit meadows, and the gravelly banks of the river constituted a landscape rapidly receding from the pale vision of the undead. The Blood Staff and its high-ranking Necromancers were sheltered in the center of the skeletal riders. It lifted its bare skull and looked towards the southern end of the valley, where the shimmering river water outlined the narrow shape of the valley’s pass—behind which lay the exit to the Xilmann River Valley.
At the mouth of the valley stood a silent camp, similar to all undead encampments. It was formed by a large number of thorny barricades composed of bones and a few sparse black tents. However, this camp was currently empty, with no signs of activity visible inside. The Undead Army halted at the command of the Blood Staff. Originally, a squad of Necromancers was stationed here, commanding hundreds of skeletal warriors, but these undead seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The Blood Staff dispatched several scouts, who soon returned with news consistent with what it had observed—the camp was devoid of any presence, and there were no signs of battle.
The Blood Staff was not foolish and quickly realized that enemies now appeared behind it.
“They’ve noticed us,” Brendel exhaled a puff of white mist in the cold night; the sparse light in the rainy night made his sword blade black and non-reflective.
“They’ve realized, not just noticed,” Alwahite corrected.
“Close enough.”
“No, it’s a big difference. In tactical terms, noticing existence means they’ve confirmed our location, while realizing is merely speculation; the difference is significant, Brendel. This vagueness is not your style.”
“Shut up.”
Alwahite was about to say more when Xiao Peiluo turned around to glare at him and said, “You shut up.” He opened his mouth but eventually kept it shut. A low laugh emerged from the darkness, as the young Crusian men evidently found Alwahite’s embarrassment amusing.
“Is that the undead?” a female knight asked curiously.
Xiao Peiluo glanced towards the skeletal figures from a distance and nodded.
“The Empire faced them on Kree Island; they used to look like this. Those undead sorcerers committed atrocities with corpses on the Empire’s border. The Temple should have long since sanctioned them.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” Alwahite asked curiously. “I’ve heard that women are scared of these skeletons.”
“Alwahite, shut it!” the female knight shot back, annoyed. “You can’t expect wisdom to come from a dog’s mouth!”
“They’re alert now. What do we do?” Brendel ignored his friend’s embarrassment, sitting up straight in his saddle like a lance, asking with unblinking attention. Fine rain fell in the night, soaking his military uniform and clinging to his wet hair. The water seemed to pool in the seams of his armor, making him uncomfortable, yet it did not shake his resolve, almost embodying the ideal of an imperial knight.
“It’s fine. This is their only route. Lord Earl has fought splendidly; they’ve been weakened. We can just wait here; there’s no need for any conspiracies,” Xiao Peiluo replied.
“The more complicated the tactic, the more likely it is to fail,” Brendel recited as if quoting a scripture.
“Dogmatic,” Alwahite muttered under his breath.
The Broken Sword Knights formed up on the riverbank a hundred meters away from the undead camp. Hundreds of cavalry moved silently across the gravel ground, all that could be seen were rows of cavalry long swords and a myriad of eager, bright blue eyes.
The Blood Staff quickly noticed this unusual cavalry and was momentarily stunned, for it had expected to be subjected to an ambush, yet these bold humans were openly forming ranks to confront it. It suddenly felt a rush of anger; even a day before, such a small group of human cavalry would not dare to be so brazen. Even now, it had over a thousand skeletal cavalry at its disposal, and these human riders were clearly underestimating it.
The Blood Staff gripped its skeletal staff tightly, the sound echoing ominously, as if it could feel the furious energy pulsing from the flames of its tortured soul. Several necromancers’ apprentices beside it whispered warnings that this could be a human trap.
But the Blood Staff shook its head; before it could speak, the dark mercenaries around it burst out in hollow, pointless laughter.
The Blood Staff shot them an annoyed glance. “There’s no need for that; this is our only route. They could just charge us directly without all this mystery.”
“Not more than three hundred,” the taunting dark mercenaries quickly estimated the number of Crusian knights. Darkness is the ally of the eternally dead. “These humans truly do not know the meaning of death.”
“Send a scout cavalry to test their strength.” The Blood Staff suddenly sensed a hint of danger.
The young Crusian knights watched a small squad of skeletal riders separating from the undead army and immediately understood the enemy’s intent. Without a word, Xiao Peiluo gestured for Brendel to lead a small team of knights forward. These Broken Sword Knights were definitely not inexperienced greenhorns at their first battlefield. Before their life-and-death encounters in the Frost Dead Forest, they had clashed with many enemies; these skeletons were merely an episode in their military careers. Brendel soon intercepted that squad of skeletal cavalry, and both sides engaged in a fierce battle, managing to annihilate the undead within minutes. However, none of the undead turned to flee, which surprised him and made him more cautious.
The undead army was indeed different from any opponents he had faced before.
“The strength of the silver tier is probably at the lower mid-range.” The dark mercenaries from the Sea of the Dead Moon quickly concluded, the flames of their souls flickering as they spoke in hushed tones to the Blood Staff.
“There may be hidden strengths. That means Erluin now has another tier-four cavalry unit,” the Blood Staff replied solemnly. “No wonder they are so brazen.”
There was a deep resentment in its tone; it felt as though it should never have come to Erluin. Its previous understanding of this kingdom was completely overturned within just a day, and it still didn’t comprehend how this unexpectedly elite human army had come to be. There should not have been such a military force in the southern lands of the kingdom, and no one had informed it; all the intelligence it received indicated that this was the weakest moment for the southern part of the kingdom.
But now, the Blood Staff had an inkling that it had been sold out.
It was astute, already realizing that its route back to Madara might not be easy. Yet it still had a chance. It had taken away all the high-ranking necromancers from the battlefield, which was its most important strength. As long as this foundation remained, it would eventually have a chance at resurgence. It snapped back to focus, coldly observing this force it considered the “Erluin cavalry.” Its numbers nearly eclipsed those of the opposing force by six times. Even if this cavalry was tier-four, it still held a certain advantage.
“These humans must understand that the night belongs to the eternally immortal.”
The Blood Staff lightly waved its skeletal staff, pointing forward—
The skeletal cavalry began to disperse, these bone-clad riders, their eye sockets burning with flame, advanced alongside each other in the valley, quickly forming a wedge-shaped attacking formation. Throughout this process, the entire army made almost no noise, only the sharp clatter of skeletal hooves on the gravel, silence as unnerving as death. This oppressive silence was enough to smother any human military force, yet the young knights of the Broken Sword Knights were an exception; they had witnessed a pack of wolves racing across the frozen plains, and this scene was not much different from what they had experienced in the Frost Dead Forest.
“They really are coming!” Alwahite even whispered in excitement.
“They had to come,” Brendel replied.
“You are such a buzzkill.”
At this point, Xiao Peiluo turned around, scanning the faces of everyone. “Lord Earl Toniger instructed us not to reveal our strength above gold tier; it’s tied to our primary mission here, so I trust you understand how to approach this battle?”
“Oh, come on—”
“Hey!” Upon hearing Xiao Peiluo’s words, a chorus of sighs and grumbles emerged from the crowd.
“What fun is there in that, Xiao Peiluo?” Alwahite couldn’t help but shout. “Let’s have a good fight; my bones must be getting rusty!”
“Go say that to His Highness the Crown Prince.” Xiao Peiluo shot him a sidelong glance.
Instantly, the young Crusian men fell silent. To negotiate with the Crown Prince? They might as well take their own lives. Everyone knew the Crown Prince was serious and stern. Despite being of similar age, he seemed at least ten years older. The key was that behind the Crown Prince, there was the Grand Commander’s authority. These young men might dare to disregard royal dignity, but facing Veronika made them feel like mice caught in front of a cat.
There was dead silence in the knights’ formation, and Xiao Peiluo finally nodded in satisfaction. “Prepare for the first wave of attack.”
He raised his hand.
The knights raised their hands in unison, as if a dark forest had suddenly sprung up.
From this distance, the Blood Staff found it difficult to see the movements of the Crusian people, yet it still sensed something was off. The skeletal riders had entered the optimum distance for a charge, but the opposing force remained unmoving. Why was that? Did the commander not understand that when two cavalry forces encountered each other, the one that first charged into the best attack position gained the advantage? Moreover, the number of these Erluin cavalry was far less than its own. Theoretically, they should use their agility to take the initiative and overcome their numerical disadvantage, yet they seemed frozen in fear at the battlefield.
The Blood Staff certainly did not believe they were paralyzed by fear. A commander capable of commanding a tier-four army couldn’t be foolish. It instinctively sensed that a conspiracy was afoot, but at this moment, it was too late. The army had mobilized, and there was no stopping or turning back.
“What on earth is going on?” It found itself unable to hold back its curiosity and asked the unruly dark mercenaries.
But these battle-hardened tacticians were equally dumbfounded; they did not understand what this peculiar cavalry intended. Finally, an elderly necromancer from the most barren territories of the Sea of the Dead Moon realized something. “It seems they are preparing some kind of spell!” When this necromancer perceived this, the tone of its voice shifted because it did not merely see it; it felt an overwhelming surge of magical energy approaching.
Preparing a spell?
The Blood Staff was also taken aback; today it had seen mounted archers, cavalry without horses, and wizards used as archers. Surprisingly, at the end, it witnessed armored cavalry-wizards. “They wear armor, full cavalry gear, and you tell me they are preparing a spell!” The Blood Staff couldn’t help but exclaim in frustration.
But just as it finished speaking, a brilliant light flickered from the formation of the Broken Sword Knights.
The young Crusian knights raised their right hands high. Unlike most knights from the cavalry formation, they mostly wore elegant platinum gauntlets instead of heavy iron ones. The key distinction of these gauntlets was that their fingers were not connected, offering an air of grace and exquisite beauty. Beyond their artistic aesthetics, the most significant advantage of these gauntlets was that they left space for the wearer to don rings. Of course, not normal rings but those intertwined with power at the edges of the magical triangle, the little secrets that witches referred to—
Magic rings.
On the fingers of these young Crusians were beautiful rings, glittering and embedded with rubies, fire agates, emeralds, and blue crystals. Each ring bore an unfathomable quantity of magical circles engraved with mysterious runes.
If Brendel’s army appeared extravagant in Earl Jack’s eyes, compared to the outstanding youths of the Crusian lineage, it was a difference akin to that of a beggar to a rich man. The expense of outfitting each of them could practically arm an entire knightly fief. This sum of money was but a trifling matter to the financial clout of the imperial nobility; it seemed like a given. But in the impoverished land of Erluin, it marked a truly unprecedented occasion.
The Blood Staff bore witness to how the elite Crusian knights showcased their martial prowess and wealth.
In some ways, it was the foremost noble in Madara.
…
Alwahite stood beside her warhorse, the seams of her heavy white armor seemingly endless, spewing forth fiery flames. This lady, known as the Elf-lady King in the Sea of the Dead Moon, rarely showed her true face, but today she unusually wore no helmet. Beneath it was a pale visage; for a lady, she was handsome, yet her demeanor was chilling. Her hair resembled burning phosphorescence, with silver flames occasionally flickering about, emphasizing her colorless forehead. Beneath her sword-like eyebrows lay silver eyes hidden in deep, cavernous sockets; at that moment, she pursed her thin lips, her cheeks somewhat hollow, giving her an overall silent presence.
She did not speak, yet her eyes reflected the distant flickering fires.
A few Elf-lady guards stood beside her.
“Let’s go.” After watching for a moment, she suddenly turned and mounted her horse. The voice of this Elf-lady King was ethereal, akin to a haunting song. “There is nothing worth watching. The Blood Staff has already met its end.”
“Your Majesty, do you mean those Erluin people defeated the Blood Staff?” one Elf-lady asked in a sharp tone.
“Don’t call me Your Majesty, Vini. There is only one monarch of Madara,” Alwahite replied. “It’s nothing strange for the Erluin people to defeat the Blood Staff; it’s only a fool who has been played with by Instalung from start to finish. Poor thing, it thought the monarch would silently condone its actions—ah, I truly admire Tagus, daring to deal with that fool. With someone like Instalung, even if he sells you out, sometimes you still have to help him count the money.”
Alwahite provocatively mocked the top confidants around several of the highest figures in the Empire, and the Elf-ladies emitted hissing sounds, not daring to respond further.
She took one last look at the distant flicker of light on the other side of the mountain and muttered to herself, “But Erluin people have indeed given me a surprise. Did you see? This is the foundation of this ancient land. Do not underestimate any enemy; after centuries of accumulation, they possess some clever knowledge and secrets that can unexpectedly bring surprises. But unexpected outcomes in war can be fatal. The Blood Staff has always viewed its opponents through an outdated lens. Today’s battle for survival won’t hold back; its enemies will hardly show mercy either. Ah, the newly rising dark nobles of the Empire are eager to achieve great feats in this land, but perhaps this time your Majesty will have reason to persuade them.”
“Your Majesty need not concern herself with these minor Erluin affairs.”
Alwahite shook her head, not countering her personal attendant. She understood that what the exalted one was concerned about was not Erluin itself but the attitude of the Four Great Temples. Erluin’s sudden show of strength today represented some deeper meaning still unclear. The Earl of Toniger seemed to have ties to the wind spirits yet wielded powers that held the fingerprints of the Sanctuaries. It appeared as if he had suddenly emerged overnight, possessing a formidable following.
“Interesting,” she uttered softly. “Very interesting.”
But there was something she did not say. She had an uncanny feeling that this Erluin army emitted a somewhat familiar aura. The Elf-lady King shook her head, silently musing:
“No, it shouldn’t be possible.”
