Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 528 Confused
"Your Majesty—" A cautious whisper rang in Charlegios's ear, and a soft touch came from his shoulder as a cloak was gently draped over his shoulders.

"The night is cold and deep. Even if you are worried about state affairs, please take good care of your health," the maid named Linte said softly.

Her eyelids trembled slightly, and she didn't dare to look him in the eye. She simply bowed timidly as she had many times before and quickly left the hall.

Charlegios withdrew his gaze and looked down at his humanoid body. It was tall, heroic, and strong, unlike those burly men who made a living by fighting, who were savage and bloated. Even by the most demanding standards of human nobles, this body was impeccable.

This still couldn't stop humans from fearing him. Even though he had explicitly prohibited all atrocities against human prisoners after abolishing the Council of Elders and had begun to work on gradually integrating them into giant society, when they met him, they still looked at him as if he were a terrifying monster, a man-eating demon king.

Compared to that, the little girl was actually quite alright.

It was not his intention to take Linte into the palace. At the end of the coup at the Starfall Temple, he personally executed the Holy Son Edmure and led the massacre of most of the giant nobles who considered themselves to be of "heroic blood." He encountered her when he stormed into the Holy Son's palace. At that time, she was holding a deformed candlestick with both hands, straddling the chest of a blood-soaked man, and desperately smashing his head. Chareleus shouted away the guards who had drawn their swords to stand guard. He saw that the head under the candlestick had become a pool of bloody, unrecognizable mud.

He soon learned that the man—or rather, the eunuch—was named Collifors, Edmure's steward of the inner court, and also the advisor who devised schemes for the Holy Son, loudly calling him "Angmar" in front of hundreds of elders, intending to force him to abdicate.

It was also Clifford who betrayed his niece to curry favor with Edmure. If Edmure hadn't died that day, Lint might have died that night like the hundreds of women he had tortured and killed before, her body mutilated beyond recognition.

Carles didn't care about the life or death of such a scumbag, so he simply arranged for a guard to take Lint back to her relatives in the prisoner-of-war camp and wait for further arrangements. However, less than half a day later, the guards in the prisoner-of-war camp discovered the girl who had been beaten half to death during their routine inventory of the camp.

The guards discovered that Lint's parents had died in the war, and her closest relatives in the prisoner-of-war camp were her aunt's family. When the aunt saw that Lint had been "sent" back with injuries on her face, she mistakenly thought that Lint had offended the giant nobles by not serving them properly. In fear, she beat Lint to the point of near death and threw her to the edge of the camp to prevent her from being caught in the crossfire.

At that time, Chareleus was wielding his sword to purge dissidents. Everyone in the royal court, whether they had previously been Chareleus's faction or not, was so terrified of the king's authority that they were almost paranoid. So when the camp commander found that the prisoner whom His Majesty had personally intervened in had been beaten like this, he was so frightened that he almost died before Lint.

In the next three hours, the garrison commander arranged for the best doctors and medicines to treat Linte's injuries, while also using the highest-level channels to report the matter to higher levels. When Carelios found this memorial among a whole stack of important military and state documents, he was completely stunned.

Although he casually arranged for Linte to serve as a maid in the palace after her recovery, the underlying issues reflected in this matter also caused him considerable concern.

Even after eliminating the Elders who were acting against the will of the people in the rear, the situation facing the royal court was still very serious. Although he and his people had inherited the name of the ancient royal court from their ancestors, the giants of today could not even maintain the basic operation of a dynasty. They never looked at the laws of the dynasty, but only at the authority and power of the superiors.

For a small, uncivilized tribe, this might be understandable, but for the Giants' Court, which now has a population of over a million and is at a critical juncture of rapid expansion, this flaw is fatal.

This was reflected in the life-or-death battle against the Northern Expeditionary Army, where the Royal Army moved slower than its opponents in every move. From skirmishes involving a thousand or even a hundred men to large-scale battles with hundreds of thousands of troops, the Titans' existing combat system simply could not support the complex changes in the battle situation, let alone fight against the well-trained Northern Expeditionary Army under Lucia's command.

Scouts were not quick enough to gather intelligence, and staff officers were not accurate enough in analyzing intelligence. The lower-ranking soldiers were far inferior to the Northern Expeditionary Army in terms of weapons and equipment as well as combat skills. The middle-level commanders, who were the backbone of the battlefield, only knew how to follow the orders of the first generation and the founder. The high-ranking officers were complicated and had their own ulterior motives. Everyone had their own ideas.
In the end, on the macro battlefield, Lucia led a small elite force to walk around like a dog. On the local battlefield, he only had a slight numerical advantage each time. In reality, his hard strength was always crushed by his counterpart, so he collapsed at the first touch and suffered a series of defeats.

These are just issues on the battlefield, but the outcome of a war never depends solely on the battlefield.

At the outset of the War in the North, Chareleus and the former High Priest Gulag shared a strong consensus on at least one point: the war in the North had to be won swiftly. Only by seizing this most vulnerable and desolate region under the Golden Dynasty's control as quickly as possible could the newly formed and fragile Giants' Court have the opportunity to leverage the North's isolated geographical location to secure a stable rear in the ensuing chaos, thus buying sufficient time for internal reforms and external expansion.

When they launched a sudden attack, taking advantage of the long-term infiltration of the Flame Sanctuary and the corruption and indolence of the garrison, and wiped out both in one fell swoop, while seizing Lord Fortress with lightning speed, the plan could almost be said to have been achieved. Even if Sol City and Frozen Lake could put up a stubborn resistance for a while, as long as there was no external intervention, it would only take three to five months to take them down.

But then, Lucia entered the arena with 30,000 troops of the Northern Expedition.

The previous round of chaos completely destroyed all of the royal court's deployments in the north. When the Northern Expeditionary Army joined forces with Porelius, the Samir clan, and Thor's Storm Army, forming a north-south standoff with the giants, the royal court's life began a suffocating countdown.

The sealing of the dead is not a long-term solution. Even the earth vein runes cannot withstand such terrifying consumption for long. Moreover, both the Northern Expeditionary Army inside the seal and the Dragon Moon Kingdom outside the seal must be preparing a way to break the seal.

Charlegios now faces the situation that once the seal is broken, the Dragon Moon reinforcements will march north, and the royal court will be powerless to retaliate.

Even if the seal is not broken, with the two sides, one in the south and one in the north, developing at a slower pace than Lucia due to the royal court's crude and inefficient ruling system, his speed of consolidating his strength will certainly be slower.

If this drags on for a year or two, Lucia could train a new army from the 120,000 human soldiers and civilians and the Samir clan, and with his own strength further improved, it wouldn't be impossible for him to march south and sweep him away.

Therefore, the current match has naturally become a race against time.

In terms of military strength, the giants have a numerical advantage, but their overall combat power may not be stronger than the 100,000 battle-hardened men under Lucia's command. They are more than capable of holding their ground, but they should not even think about breaking through the narrow snowfall ridge to launch a counterattack on the lake region that Politics has been cultivating for thousands of years.

His only chance of winning lies in his temporarily superior personal strength after merging with "One-Eyed". If a decisive battle can break out outside the frozen lake, and he can use a human wave tactic to force Lucia to face him head-on, then he can behead the enemy chief in a king-on-king battle and completely break this stalemate that is almost a slow death.

Charlegios tightened his cloak and looked down at the vast buildings that had sprung up in less than six months below the temple. The magnificent and brilliant flames resembled a blazing ocean, symbolizing the supreme authority of the king.

But atop this high pavilion, looking around in bewilderment, he found himself all alone.

After a long while, he let out a deep breath.

The high priest only taught him how to be a puppet, but after the high priest died at his hands, who could teach him how to be a king?

　After undergoing a lot of tests, which delayed things for a few days, it turns out to be severe allergies triggering asthma. The COPD diagnosis was likely a misdiagnosis, and the lung nodules don't seem to be at risk of worsening. I'm finally relieved. After taking anti-inflammatory medication for four or five days, I can finally breathe and sleep normally again. I'm going home on the 2nd, and I'll try to get back to two updates a day next month.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)