Knight and Wand

Chapter 271: Risky Moves
The rolling dark clouds, accompanied by pulses of souls that pierced the sky, slowly dissipated, revealing the real sky.

At that moment, the rays of dawn spread across every corner of the city of Finlaytown, and the streets and alleys were once again bathed in the glow of life.

The ghosts wandering in the shadows screamed, as if suppressed by some invisible force, and fled deep into the earth in terror.

The sun's rays are like a majestic king, dispelling the dark laws that do not belong to this land.

The square in the upper city, the market in the lower city, the barracks in the outer city, and the brutal battlefield in the hills in the suburbs. The ocean of zombies began to recede.

As if escaping from the sunlight that was once again projected onto the earth, thousands of zombies lost the restraint of the superior undead and the altar, and instinctively followed the inertia imprinted in their souls and the sound of the bells that still echoed in the hearts of the dead, and fled towards other remaining altars in the distance.

The excited cheers of the victors resounded through the sky like a tidal wave both in the city and in its suburbs.

In the countryside, looking at the endless sea of ​​retreating corpses, Baron Balfe knew that the outcome of the battle was decided. He raised his sword high and issued a deafening order.

The allied soldiers who stopped shouting reorganized their forces, facing the light gradually projected from the distant sky, and marched towards the city of Fenleytown, which had returned to the hands of the living.
After successfully destroying the secondary altar in the city, the Knights of Avalon and Ilaril did not linger in the battle after getting rid of the siege of the sea of ​​corpses. The two armies arrived at the square of the upper city of Finlaytown one after another and joined forces with the Knights of Kantadar who had experienced a hard battle.

Azerien, Lohak, Corvis, as well as Irem, Greenthorne and others, all rushed to the bell tower surrounded by strong winds.

They looked up and discovered in confusion that although the sound of the soul-summoning bell had stopped, the pendulum clock was not destroyed immediately.

Lohak was a little anxious, so he led a few guards into the building with concern.

Quickly reaching the top floor, they saw a knight girl standing with a sword in hand, guarding the entrance to the stairs.

"Where's Leon? Is he up there?" Lohak asked at the top of his voice, listening to the whistling wind at the top of the tower.

"Don't worry, he's fine." The girl replied loudly.

"But don't bother him yet, Leon is trying to break the enemy's magic."

Lockhart glanced at what was happening behind Olivia and immediately felt relieved.

Watching the big man turn around and reorganize the soldiers, Olivia turned around and looked at the stairs behind her.
The rolling magical wind whistled continuously at the top of the tower where the big bell was located, blowing the bright red cloak behind Leon's back armor.

With trembling hands, Leon resisted the powerful energy repulsion and forced his palms against the surface of the Soul Summoning Bell.

The dark green magic light under his feet had been replaced by dazzling, surging white flames. The corpse sacrifices on the hexagon of the altar and the bloody body parts on the ground had long been burned to ashes in the flames of magic.

The extraordinarily huge magical power around him did not come from him, nor from the weak Lola's spirit, but from the countless souls that should have been guided to other altars by the great magic.

At this moment, Leon was just struggling to maintain the magic channel connecting to the altar, using himself as a medium for Laura in his body to try to invade the altar.

The complex magic patterns engraved on the surface of the clock are changing. One by one, the runes, some strange and some familiar, change according to Laura's will, reconnecting the formations on it.

Finally, as the terrifying scream that erupted from the torrent of souls in the sky hit his heart, Leon felt as if a tremendous pressure was coming from above his head.

The knights under the tower looked up in surprise, seeing the spectacular green beam of light in the sky like a flood flowing back. The ghosts pulsating upwards poured back into the clock tower that had just rushed out. With a roar, visible air waves vibrated and then gradually disappeared.

Peace finally returned to the top of the tower.

After a while, Olivia heard footsteps and saw Leon leaving the top of the tower.

Returning to the girl and nodding, Leon walked down the tower with her, thinking back to what Laura had done with the altar.

Although she stopped the operation of the Soul Summoning Bell, she did not destroy the altar. Instead, she reversed the altar formation and intercepted a small part of the soul flow in this place in this large magic circulation system in an attempt to interfere with other altar nodes that were still connected.

The first to be affected is the largest core node, the Summoning Altar located in Ashford Port.

If the clock tower in the city can be paralyzed before the army attacks the river port city, the battle will definitely be safer than the surprise attack tactics implemented this time.

Thinking about his next move, Leon walked out of the tower building.

The soldiers in the square were guarding the streets and intersections on all sides, while Corvis and the Holy Lake priests were treating the wounded.

The two Kantadar wizards holding the holy lamps looked at the Bell of the Undead on the tower in amazement, as if they wanted to go up and find out what was going on.

Leon was not comfortable letting these two strange southern wizards touch the altar that was sealing a large number of souls. To prevent any unexpected events, he found Captain Irem and sent a team of elite knights to strictly guard the entrance to the bell tower.

Not long after, the army led by Balfe also arrived in the city of Finleytown.

The army reunited, and Leon ordered each unit to check the city defenses and repair the suspension bridge in the north of the city, and then sent out some elite troops who still had spare strength to clear out the remaining undead in the city.

He took his generals to a relatively clean room near the Upper City Square to hold a military meeting.

After counting and statistics, the Thorn Flower Army led by Baron Balf, the support troops of the Baldim family, and the Shatai Griffin Regiment suffered a total of more than 800 casualties in this battle.

Among the elite troops that raided Finleytown, Kantadar's 700 heavy cavalry and the Knights of Avalon suffered a total of more than 100 casualties.

None of the Knight Rangers and the elite Knights of the Holy Lake were killed, and only a dozen were slightly injured.

The entire army suffered nearly a thousand casualties, with the heaviest losses being suffered by the main coalition camp responsible for delaying the sea of ​​undead corpses.

But considering that nearly ten thousand zombies were annihilated in one fell swoop, with a casualty ratio of nearly one to ten, it was enough to be called a great victory. At the same time, tens of thousands of undead occupying this big city were defeated. The expressions of everyone at the military meeting were not too heavy.

Not long after the meeting, the knights who were checking the granaries in the city hurried over and reported another good news to Leon.

Perhaps it is because the city of Finlaytown is different from the port of Ashford where the warehouse area is concentrated, the grain warehouses in the city are extremely scattered.

The Ghoul Lords only found and destroyed some of the granaries near the upper town and the military camp.

In the lower city, warehouses scattered near various markets have still survived. The total grain reserves in these warehouses amount to at least 10,000 dan.

After Azerien and the other knights left, he thought for a moment and reminded Leon, "I heard that there were about 10,000 households in Finleytown before the war. The city was lost very quickly at the time, and there may be a considerable amount of food that can be collected in the houses in the city now."

"Yes." Leon ordered, "Immediately arrange for the soldiers to look for it."

There were no living people in the city, so he had no psychological barriers to looting the ownerless things. Now the priority was to ensure that the living soldiers had food to eat, which was more important than anything else. Azerien received the order and immediately went to execute it. However, after taking two steps, he turned back and asked, "It's not just food. The ownerless property in the whole city is probably a very astonishing amount of spoils. Do you want to collect them all?"

"Of course." Leon nodded.

Although the social and economic system in eastern Kantadar has collapsed long ago, these money and goods can still play their original value in the rear, far away from the war zone, in western Kantadar and even in Orland.

"Bring Lord Irem and Lord Balf's troops with you to store all the city's resources as soon as possible." Leon said without hesitation.

Although in theory, this was the territory of the Baldim family, and it would be unkind for an outsider like him to take advantage of their land, but in this wartime, as the commander of the coalition forces, it was natural for him to consider the continued combat capability of his troops. Moreover, in a sense, he was helping the other side to regain their territory.

Besides, he could return the private property belonging to Count Runaf's family, but other ownerless items in the city had to be used as supplies for the coalition forces to continue fighting.

In fact, Leon did not plan to lead his troops back to the north bank of the river to rest and reorganize the army. Before the end of the war, he decided to temporarily station in the city of Finlaytown as a base for commanding the army's operations.

The Shatai Griffins of Baron Ivan and Knight Ron would certainly be willing to fight under him. In this way, excluding Runaf's reinforcements, the number of troops he could directly command would be no less than five thousand.

Now with this batch of food in the city, Leon found that he had inadvertently gained the capital to lead the operation independently without relying on the Baldim family.

He did not intend to break away from those eastern nobles and face the undead alone, but now that he had food in his hands, Leon felt much more confident. At least the safety of his army would not have to rely on anyone else's opinion for a while.

the next day.

After resting and regaining his spirit in the city of Finlaytown, Corvis, on the orders of Leon, flew to the north shore on a Hippogriff to deliver the victory news.

The troops that were cleaning up the battlefields inside and outside the city also came to a preliminary conclusion of the gains from the battle that afternoon.

In addition to the 10,000 dan of grain in the granary, at least 3,000 dan of grain were collected from various places in the city.

This food was enough to feed 5,000 soldiers and their horses for nearly two months.

As for the collected wealth, not counting those goods that are difficult to price, the estimated value of the easily measurable gold, silver, copper and various coins and jewelry alone is no less than eight thousand gold crowns.

Of course, the only problem is how to exchange this money, which is difficult to convert into corresponding value in eastern Kantadar, for the military equipment and supplies needed by the coalition forces.

After thinking about it, Leon felt that he had to send a messenger to ask for help from the feudal lord far away in Glade County.

Finleytown was too far away from the rear, and it was simply unable to digest all this wealth on its own.

In addition to food and supplies, and a portion of the money that could only be used temporarily to motivate the soldiers, the only things that could be used immediately were the weapons and armor stripped from the remains of thousands of zombies.

Although most of them are damaged, and even those that are still usable have not been maintained and are covered with rust, it is still better than nothing.

Of course, the Ilaril Knights, who are equipped with luxurious weapons, have no use for these pieces of junk.

Not to mention the Knights-Errant.
Although the Knights of Avalon were small in size, they could still use a few sets of damaged plate armor stripped from the Ghoul Knights. The crude armor seized from the Undead soldiers was also of little value to the fully armored Avalon soldiers.

Leon simply found Baron Ivan, who was commanding the mercenaries to repair the suspension bridge in the north of the city, and told him about his decision to hand over hundreds of scattered sets of chain mail, cloth armor, swords and spears to the Shatai Griffins.

"It is difficult for the Orland army under my command to recruit soldiers in Kantadar, but you are the local lord of Kantadar. I will give you these weapons. You can find someone to repair and polish them. You can use them to expand the source of troops and make up for the losses in battle in the future."

Ivan was slightly surprised when he heard this, but then he looked a little embarrassed.

". Thank you for your kindness, Lord Leon, but I will tell you the truth. It is very difficult to recruit soldiers on the north bank now, even for a Cantadar noble like me. No one among the people has the courage to cross the river and face the undead."

Understanding his difficulties, Leon comforted him a little: "Although it is like this now, when I lead the army to recapture the land south of the river bank and let this land see the light of day again, as long as you local lords are generous enough and willing to make promises, there will always be desperate people who will see hope and opportunity in the land that needs to be rebuilt and join the army to fight for their lives."

"Have you made your next plan?" Ivan was immediately excited when he saw that the other party was so confident in regaining the lost territory.

Within four days, at such a low cost, they recaptured two important strongholds on the south bank. The more Ivan looked at the Baron of Avalon who had saved Shatai, the more he felt that he was really like what his soldiers had said, the chosen one sent by the gods to save the people.

You know, among the veterans of the Griffin Regiment who experienced the bloody battle of Shatai, many are still spreading the legend that the gods and Valkyries descended from the sky and defeated the army of undead.

Ivan could even imagine that after this battle, the mercenaries would probably worship Baron Avalon even more exaggeratedly for creating another miracle.

"We have a preliminary plan." Leon nodded, not stingy in giving the other party confidence.

Of course, strictly speaking, the person who proposed this battle plan was not himself, but Laura.

He pointed to the north and said, "I will gather all the large sailing ships in your Eastern Alliance and lead a group of elite cavalry along the river. We will sail directly through the Land of Darkness and land in the heart of the Undead Army. We will then head south and cut off the connection between the ritual altars of Ashford Harbor and the surrounding Undead strongholds. Then we will turn back and gather the army to launch a general attack on the Undead entrenched on the south bank."

".Take a boat up the river?!" Ivan opened his eyes wide in shock.

The Outer Usato River extends northeastward to the border between the Kingdom of Kantardar and the Kingdom of Serian. The hundreds of thousands of undead that are now scattered across the land were swept in from that direction.

"But even if you want to transport two or three thousand people, the ship will need to make several trips back and forth. If you go deep into the heart of the Dark Cloud Territory alone, once you are surrounded in such a long distance, you will have nowhere to retreat! The risk is too high."

"Not every step is certain, but you can relax. If I'm not sure, I won't joke with my life and the lives of my soldiers." Leon waved his hands helplessly and looked into the distance.

He also had to investigate whether the Undead Army was just as he and Laura had guessed, and that there was no real navy.

Now, bypassing the front of the Undead Army and quickly cutting through Baldim County from the rear to the south is the fastest route to cut off the river towns from the large Undead altars in the east.

As long as the cutting is completed and Laura flips the altar, the army of the living will be able to destroy the undead strongholds whose soul bells have been "forced to mute" one by one.

There is nothing we can do about this risky move.

After all, the combat forces he had were too few. If he faced a huge number of zombies head-on, every death of a living warrior would be a heavy loss. Even if the casualty ratio was ten to one, he could not afford it. Even if the casualty ratio doubled, it would not work.

What's more, even with such heavy casualties, they were only facing a sea of ​​corpses that were mostly made up of ordinary zombies.

When facing the real undead elite, ordinary soldiers simply cannot achieve such an exchange ratio.

(End of this chapter)