The Invincible Overlord of Heroes.

Xu Lai didn't know that Kerrigan had already sent out the Burning Legion's second-in-command.

After he liberated the entire Glorious Territory, he was choosing his next goal.

In addition to cities such as Hantan City across the Hanjiang River, there are three other territories intersecting with the Huihuang Territory.

The first is the Berk Territory, located in the southeast of the Glorious Territory and the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River. It was originally the territory of the Daan Berk family and is also an earldom.

But now, the Dan Burke family has long been destroyed. According to the refugees who escaped from Burke territory, not even a single child of the entire Burke family survived.

The remaining two, one is in the south of the Glorious Territory, which is a very large hilly area that far exceeds the size of a normal earldom.

The demons did not occupy a high percentage of this place. They only seized the cities and mining sites, and did not kill all the civilians hiding in the mountains.

Almost all the refugees from Glorious Territory and several nearby territories took refuge in this dense hilly area.

In this place, besides humans, there are also hill dwarves living.

It could be that the demons were short of manpower, or they were unwilling to provoke more enemies at this time, or it could be that the terrain was simply too complicated.

In short, the demons don't care too much about this area.

However, this place produces high-quality iron ore and crystal. The hill dwarves settled here because of the output here.

At the same time, humans also need the powerful forging skills of the hill dwarves.

The High King at that time granted special permission to nationalize this territory and leased it to the dwarves.

However, after the collapse of the empire, the dwarves have not paid rent for several years.

There is a size difference between dwarves and humans, so intermarriage is not suitable.

Moreover, they have relatively weird tempers. Not only can the elves not stand them, but humans can't really adapt to them either.

But the dwarves are, after all, on the side of justice. Even if they are more cunning, humans have done them a favor after all.

Over the past six months, it is estimated that tens of thousands of humans have escaped.

The last territory adjacent to the Glorious Territory is a Marquisate, which is as large as 4 or 5 Glorious Territories.

In addition to its large size, the land quality of this marquisate is also very good. It is a vast plain that is connected together.

Just in the part where the Glorious Territory and the Marquisate intersect, the land harvest has a bonus of more than 30%. If you continue to go deeper, this bonus will only get higher and higher.

Of course, this was all before. We don’t even know if these lands can still be used to grow crops.

Fortunately, Archbishop Durr, with more than a thousand official priests, has entered the Glorious City.

With the day and night prayers and purification of the people of Glorious City and many priests, the power of the abyss that has penetrated into the land is slowly fading away.

After the power of the abyss in the land completely dissipates, the terrain previously changed by the abyss will also be completely restored to its original state.

Fortunately, the population of the Glorious Territory is now less than one-tenth of what it used to be. Even if two-thirds of the land is unusable, the remaining one-third is more than enough.

Xu Lai naturally did not have enough troops to provoke the three adjacent territories at the same time.

However, after Lena led the main force of the Qingfeng Legion to the Brilliant City, Xu Lai was unwilling to attack the territories one by one.

On the huge map, Xu Lai drew three circles for these three territories.

He will choose two from these three circles as the targets for the next stage.

"Come on, tell me what you think."

Reina spoke first, “I’ve read the military briefing from a while ago.

I can personally lead a team to capture Berk County, and at the same time let Yan Feng lead people to the territory of the hill dwarves.

Hill dwarves are good at forging, but without humans, there is no way to make the weapons and armor they forge.

Moreover, they are not good at production, so they have always been dependent on the elves.

With the fall of the human empire, they probably haven't received supplies for some time, so they can unite to fight against the demons in this area.

The Marquisate is mostly plains. Although one third of it has been transformed by the abyss, it is still very conducive to cavalry combat. "

"No, your majesty, I have dealt with those dwarves before.

These dwarves may seem easy to talk to, but they are actually very cunning and greedy.

At that time, many lords around asked the hill dwarves for help, but they all refused.

If it was before, they might still need our help in life.

But now, they have detained more than 100,000 people there, and have no intention of returning them to us.

In my opinion, they want to take advantage of this opportunity to completely occupy our hills.

During this period of time, I heard that the dwarves on the other side of the fortress are also having a hard time. They might attract more dwarves and even establish a dwarven kingdom."

The person who spoke was Sir Eric, the new commander of the Vanguard Battalion appointed by Xu Lai.

This person was not one of the more than 800 people who moved out of Brilliant City, but a rebel leader who voluntarily joined Xu Lai and vowed to take revenge on the devil.

This Sir Eric is also a legendary person. He is a mercenary and a 7th-level mercenary king.

Originally, with his identity as a mercenary, no matter how high his rank was, it would be impossible for him to receive the honor of knighthood.

Sir, like knight, is the threshold of nobility. The difference is that to be a knight, one needs to have at least one manor, while a knight does not need that.

Therefore, some great nobles were willing to award the title of knight to great businessmen.

Obviously Eric is not a big businessman and cannot afford to spend a large sum of money to buy the Jazz.

The reason why Eric was able to obtain the title of Sir was because this guy was lucky and capable. He actually subdued a black dragon and became a dragon knight.

Dragon Knight has always been the highest honor for a knight, but he was unwilling to be loyal to any lord, so he only got the title of knight.

The title of the Eagle Kingdom is also not actually conferred, but a corresponding salary will be given.

In view of Eric's identity as a dragon knight, and in order to commend Eric for his unconditional loyalty, Xu Lai also recognized his identity as a knight.

Although Eric did not hold any position in the Glorious Territory, after becoming a dragon knight, ordinary lances could no longer satisfy his needs.

For ordinary lances, 3 or 4 meters in length is already the limit. Although a knight can lift a 5 or 6 meter lance, it is difficult to wield it.

Riding on a giant dragon, it would be considered good if the 3-4 meter long lance could barely protect the dragon's head and face, let alone be used for charging.

Therefore, he went to the hill dwarves and bought a 9-meter-long adamantine spear enchanted with a lightweight spell.

Although the lance became a magical weapon after being enchanted, it also added refined gold, making it sharp and strong enough.

But to be honest, the level of this big gun is not high. After all, it is just a lowest-level enchantment, and the refined gold content is not high. However, just such a big gun cost Eric half of his life savings.

As a mercenary king, Eric's income is not low. The income he has accumulated for half a lifetime is only exchanged for a big gun. No wonder he has no good feelings towards the hill dwarves.

After reaching a contract with the black dragon, Eric can share life with the black dragon. Although he did not inherit the black dragon's powerful defensive ability, he can share the black dragon's anti-magic ability.

Therefore, Eric was promoted from the previous 7th-level mercenary king to the 8th-level dragon knight.

Moreover, his actual combat power as a dragon knight is far beyond that of ordinary level 8 units, at least stronger than a level 8 black dragon.

Xu Lai also has a holy dragon that he is raising, and he is also a knight.

This holy dragon was raised by Xu Lai himself, so it is not difficult to sign a dragon knight contract with him.

It's a pity that his holy dragon is still in its growth stage and is not even a young dragon, so it is not qualified to be contracted.

But Xiao Lan is not short now, so there is no problem carrying Xu Lai.

But he did not bring Xiao Lan out. After all, the little guy was still in the growth stage. He only came out to fight occasionally, but most of the time he needed to eat and sleep.

Eric joined the Eagle Kingdom and the Vanguard Camp unconditionally.

Also joining were the mercenaries that Eric had previously led, as well as the civilians who were later recruited into the resistance.

There were not many of them in total, and together with other rebels who were willing to accept transformation, there were more than 700 of them in total.

These people combined with the 800-man suicide squad to form a 1500-man advance battalion.

For those who are unwilling to accept the transformation, their weapons will be confiscated and they will be returned to civilians, or they will be allocated land and houses.

Of course, although land and housing are distributed free of charge, in order not to waste resources, they only have the right to use them for the time being.

Only after three full years of cultivation and reaching the standard yield each year will permanent lease rights be obtained after the fourth year.

If you don't want to be a civilian, that's easy. Xu Lai has already transferred Hancock over and asked him to form a new mercenary guild in Brilliant City.

This time, Xu Lai is going to do something big. The mercenary guild he formed this time will no longer be connected with the Mercenary Association, but will belong entirely to the Eagle Kingdom.

Hancock is the first president of the Eagle Kingdom Mercenary Guild. He plans to establish more mercenary guilds not only in Brilliant City, but also in other castle-level cities in the Western Empire.

This was obviously a long-term undertaking, and as the entire grassland was incorporated into the Eagle Kingdom, the importance of Fort Konaston declined significantly.

Therefore, Xu Lai simply transferred Lin Qiu as well to serve as the deputy city lord and administrative officer of Huihuang City.

Xu Lai left the position of city lord to Avid, which was the promise Xu Lai made to him.

The coastal defense force was handed over by Avid to Baron Rhine, the former commander of the Cold Pond Fleet.

After mercenaries are registered, their family information, home addresses, etc. will all be recorded in the mercenary guild and supervised by the mercenary guild.

If they don't even want to join the Mercenary Guild, Xu Lai will have no choice but to drive them away directly and let them go wherever they want, but just don't stay in his territory.

The two heroes who came here and thought they had some connection with Xu Lai, as well as the leader who had the most rebels and bargained with Xu Lai, were all driven away by him.

Xu Lai didn't care where they went, they could no longer stay in the Eagle Kingdom's territory.

And as the Eagle Kingdom's territory expands in the future, we will probably have to keep moving.

Having done this, Xu felt that he had done his best. Otherwise, it would have been the right thing for him to do directly to kill these people and put an end to the trouble once and for all.

Back to the topic, after Lena and Eric expressed their opinions, the others said they had no further ideas.

Tahan Jianyuan and his friends are not familiar with the surrounding area, so they are unwilling to express their opinions easily.

Arvid and Rhine agreed with Eric's opinion and decided to ignore the hill dwarves for the time being and deal with the demons in Berkshire and Marquisate first.

Finally, Emilia, the commander of the Naga and Murloc army, thought that they should go up along the Hanjiang River and take down all the cities along the river first.

With the Coast Guard, Naga and Murloc troops, and relying on the Hanjiang River, it is indeed easy to turn the situation around.

However, this opinion was the first to be rejected by Xu Lai.

Going up the Hanjiang River, I don’t know how many demon lords I will have to fight.

Anyway, with the Coast Defense Force there, these demon lords cannot rely on Hanjiang to pose a threat to Hantan City and Huihuang City.

Xu Lai only needs to advance from the land and attack the nearby territories, and then he only needs to face two demon lords.

There's no way. Including him, there are only two heroic commanders in total.

As for the others, whether it is Luo Mingru or Qin Laoliu and others, they can bring their own troops to achieve success.

He was unable to ask Xu Lai to hand over his troops to them for the time being.

“That’s it, Reina. Thank you for your hard work. You will still lead the main force of the Qingfeng Legion and be responsible for capturing Berk Territory.

Fang Chao, you are still responsible for logistics for the Qingfeng Legion.

I took Brandi, Eric, Emilia and Chivalry to attack the Marquisate.

I have a warehouse ring here, so the logistical pressure will be less.

But it is also possible that we will act separately, so Avid and Lin Qiu, you will be responsible for providing logistical support for our unit.

Rhine, you continue to be responsible for patrolling Hanjiang and training new recruits.

But there is no threat on the river now, so you should first send half of your old troops to Lord Avid.

We also have to be on guard against the hill dwarves. With more than 10,000 people guarding the city and Bishop Durr here, it shouldn’t be a problem to defend Brilliant City.”

Xu Lai sent troops to attack the part that intersected with the Brilliant Territory. If the demons wanted to capture Brilliant City, they had to find a way to bypass Xu Lai's army.

This is basically impossible, so the most Glorious City can suffer is enemy attacks from the hilly direction.

There aren't that many demons over there, and it's even less likely that the whole family will go out.

There are more than 10,000 veterans guarding the city, and more than 1,000 mid- and high-level priests. Even if they cannot win, they can still hold out until Xu Lai sends troops to help.

After Xu Lai gave the order, everyone quickly responded and went back to prepare.

Just as Xu Lai was arranging combat tasks, bursts of red light suddenly came from the towering Gate of Hell in the largest castle on the Paphix Plains.

At first, the demons guarding the gates of hell didn't take it seriously and thought it was just a visit from demons from other places.

Until groups of figures as big as a mountain walked out of the gates of hell.

The warlords who were in charge of guarding the gates of hell hurriedly sent people to look for their master. (End of this chapter)