Pale Emblem

Chapter 203 A Night of Chaos
That night.

The town mayor's residence.

Clark is furious; he just had a huge argument with Sage Pograk.

To be precise, Pograk yelled at him and called him an idiot.

Clark, having reached his limit, ordered his trusted servants to temporarily imprison the old man.

The conflict between the two dates back to a few days ago.

That day, the defenses of the Bolang Town outpost completely collapsed. The commander of the Wildfire Adventurer Group abandoned the outpost and led more than two thousand adventurers, garrison troops, and recruits in a grand and rapid retreat toward the Godore Line.

Upon receiving the message, Clark repeatedly dispatched men to stop the Wildfire Adventurers' evacuation and ordered them to return to their base in Braun.

However, the Wildfire commander not only refused to carry out Clark's orders, but also detained several messengers and accelerated the march, arriving at the Godore Line the following morning.

Clark immediately ordered his regular troops to intercept the deserters at the Braun town stronghold.

That's right, he labeled the Wildfire Adventurers, the outpost garrison soldiers, and the new recruits as "deserters" and intended to subject them to military law.

The two sides faced off on the hillside, the atmosphere extremely tense, and a bloody conflict seemed imminent. At this moment, the Flaming Tiger Legion, stationed at Godore Fortress, sent 400 cavalrymen to appear behind the Clark Legion.

Together with the "deserters" below the hillside, they formed a pincer movement against Clark's army.

After a brief negotiation, Clark chose to back down and allowed the Flame Tiger Legion to take away the deserters from the Boron Town outpost.

This incident not only humiliated Clark, but also put the two military groups on the Godore Line at odds, and changed the balance of power between them.

The Wildfire Adventurers who originally supported Clark, along with some of the garrison and recruits, have now become the wings of the Flame Tiger Legion.

Clark now strongly suspects that the fall of the Bolang Town stronghold was orchestrated by Bartru, the commander of the Flame Tiger Legion. He believes that the killing of the warlord he appointed and the theft of military funds are all related to Bartru.

As if things weren't bad enough, news of the rebellion of Grand Master Dickot soon followed, and to make matters worse, survivors testified that Clark's private guard had also been involved.

The survivor was a follower of the prestigious Golden Oak clan, a level six Shadow Hunter. He demanded that Clark lead his legion to the scene of the incident to hunt down the Wolf Witch and the rebels.

Clark was both surprised and suspicious, and quickly summoned the wise man Pograk, who was with the army, to ask him for advice on how to deal with the situation.

As a result, the two had a disagreement after exchanging a few words and a heated verbal conflict broke out.

The wise man Pograk believed that the most urgent task was to maintain morale, and he ordered Clark to immediately enforce the harshest military law on the deserters, namely the order to kill one in ten.

Clark dismissed this, now suspecting that the Silvercorn Nobles had been caught up in a conspiracy from the very beginning. The Golden Nobles of Highland City, in alliance with the Adventurers' Guild, had orchestrated a scheme under the guise of reclaiming the Bolang Lake basin, with the aim of completely seizing Silvercorn's coveted wealth and business.

Such things are not uncommon; ancient, prestigious families have always harbored deep resentment towards emerging powerful clans. In fact, there are quite a few emerging forces that have been served up and devoured.

Having gone through so much, Clark now couldn't even trust the goddess priest of the Earth Temple. That's why he summoned the sage Pograk from his clan to discuss countermeasures.

Clark's advice was to preserve strength as much as possible and do everything possible to avoid the upcoming battle.

Pograk was furious, calling Clark a complete idiot and listing the stupid things he had done.

The first foolish thing he did was to persecute the mixed-race survivors of Braun without cause.

Although the adventurers participating in the military operation would not stand up for the mixed-race children of Braun, they witnessed Clark's cruel attitude towards adventurers.

Clark believed that persecuting half-bloods would establish his authority without consequence. However, he actually lost the trust of various adventurer groups. Therefore, once the war ended in defeat, the groups didn't hesitate to abandon the prestigious Silverhorn Clan and choose to join the Flame Tiger Legion.

The second foolish thing was to remain inactive and passively prepare for war.

The stronghold of Braun Town was originally an excellent strategic base. Clark could send out elite cavalry, with their backs to Braun Town, to cooperate with various adventurer groups in sweeping the wilderness, retreating to the stronghold when encountering strong opponents, and encircling and annihilating weaker ones.

However, in order to preserve his strength, Clark did not send any cavalry to support the various adventurer groups. He completely ignored the adventurers' resentment towards Clark's Legion, as well as the problem of low morale among the legion's soldiers.

Soldiers are willing to fight because they want to achieve merit and establish themselves. However, Clark forbade the army to launch attacks, which dampened the morale and confidence of the legion's soldiers. The third foolish mistake was the loss of the stronghold of Braun, which meant the legion lost its only strategic foothold for advancing forward. This severely damaged the legion's morale and led to widespread disdain for their commander among the soldiers.

If the soldiers of a legion begin to rebel against their general, that legion is in its most dangerous moment. It will gradually lose its cohesion and is very likely to disintegrate from within during battle.

Clark should have strictly enforced military law and publicly executed the deserters to establish the authority of the legion commander. However, he actually chose to back down under pressure from the Flame Tiger Legion.

Losing both morale and military discipline, this legion is not far from death, even without casualties!

Faced with the sage's accusations, Clark defended himself, claiming that he was not backing down in front of Bartru, but rather observing the situation to avoid a bloody conflict with the Flame Tiger Legion, to prevent being framed, losing the family's military power, and being dismembered and annexed by other prestigious families.

In short, the current situation is unpredictable, the enemy is unknown, and the Clark Legion cannot act rashly, otherwise they will fall into the enemy's trap.

Bograk vehemently criticized Clark for his cowardice and shortsightedness. If the Silver Horn noble families were only preserving their strength, it meant they intended to fight the Highland noble families to the bitter end. Therefore, the Highland noble families would never tolerate Silver Horn. The dismemberment and annexation that Clark feared would inevitably happen.

On the contrary, Silverhorn fought the orc invaders at all costs for the common good of the Highland noble families, proving the usefulness of a new family, which is why the Highland noble families would truly accept them.

Enraged by the insults, Clark ordered his trusted servants to take Pograk away and imprison him.

However, after calm reflection, Clark realized the sage's words made sense. Compared to those ancient, prestigious families, Silverhorn was still a weak new power; if it couldn't prove its worth, there was no reason for it to continue existing.

However, Clark found it difficult to make the decision to put the legion his family had worked so hard to build on the table.

Just then, a soft footstep sound came from the outer room, along with the noise of tables and chairs being knocked over.

Frustrated, Clark immediately demanded, "Who's out there?!"

The rustling sounds outside the door immediately ceased. A moment later, someone answered, "Master, it's me, Pild... I've come to report that a thick fog has formed outside."

"Hmm? Fog?"

"Yes, there's a very thick fog. You can't see more than fifteen meters away from the city wall... Would you like to go out and take a look?"

Clark got up, pushed open the door, glanced at the respectful Pild, and then walked out.

Pild saw that Clark had come out of the outer room, and shouted, "Master, your cloak..." as he rushed into the inner room and grabbed a fox fur cloak.

He deliberately stumbled and made a commotion, taking the opportunity to put the silver token back in the drawer.

outside the house.

Thick fog fell like rotting cotton, engulfing the outline of Echo Town.

The lights of the watchtowers outside the town were blurred into murky yellow spots in the heavy, damp fog. The archer on night watch rubbed his sore eyes—he heard the frantic barking of the war dogs, but it was probably just some small animal.

Until a rough stone axe tore through the night fog and whistled as it flew over.

The secret blood ability, granting the archer the advantage, allowed him to nimbly vault off the watchtower. But the heavy throwing axe cleaved the watchtower's roof in two.

"Enemy attack!" the half-elf archer cried out, his roar sounding particularly mournful in the thick fog.

Thousands of orcs emerged from the mist. Their muscles were bulging, their red skin covered with scabs and battle markings, and they carried crude axes, rusty knives, and wooden clubs bound with stones. There were no horns, no battle cries, only heavy breathing and the dull thud of bare feet crushing mud.

They were like a pack of hungry beasts, their pupils glowing crimson in the darkness.

The wooden fence collapsed under brute force. A half-elf guard had just raised his spear when he was struck simultaneously by three stone axes. Blood splattered as more shadowy figures stepped over his fallen body.

In the center of the camp, the warning bell had barely rung once when it was smashed to pieces by a flying chain hammer. A level four swordsman, leading a squad of guards, had just rushed out of his barracks when he was met head-on by a 2.6-meter-tall orc chieftain wielding a giant axe—the monster's fangs still stained with the flesh and blood of its previous victim. With a single axe blow, he crushed the level four swordsman on the spot, then threw his head back and let out a muffled, thunderous roar of slaughter, which even caused the surrounding mist to churn.

A moment of silence fell over the battlefield.

Then, he was met with a series of bloody roars echoing through the half-elf camp.