Knight and Wand

Chapter 352: The Usato Incident

The hills outside Kilmerton Fort.

In the summer wilderness of eastern Kantadar, the chirping of insects, once almost extinct under the cover of dark clouds, once again echoes in the resurrected land.

A stone pillar stands silently high up on the hill.

That was where Leon had stood, and it was also the place where, after the last test of will that year, he, in the name of the Marshal of the Allied Forces, appointed the positions of the original 1,500 or so Crusade Knights.

After nearly a year and a half, Leon returned here again, just to awaken the heroic spirits of the past.

Walking past the stone tablet commemorating the heroes, he came to the place where those brave warriors were canonized.

The ritual magic pattern opened, and Corvis, holding the Sword of Holy War Oath in his hand, placed this sacred object of the Alliance in the center of the ceremony.

According to the magical principles of the Aphrodite manuscript, after the two of them consulted and deduced in the Mage Tower, it is counterintuitive that the summoning of an entire group concept like this should not present too many ritual bases for locating individuals like the summoning of individual souls. Otherwise, the chaotic guidance pointing to multiple souls at the same time will greatly disrupt the summoning process and cause the magic to collapse.

In other words, the more individuals are summoned and the more detailed the positioning base is, the better.

For a group that summons multiple souls, the fewer and more precise the positioning base, the better.

Leon drew the empty Neti card and began his first attempt to summon an entire army.

The miraculous magic in operation gradually began to analyze the information in the world based on the ritual, and the consciousness of the caster seemed to sink into the Dead Sea.

In the infinite realm of nothingness, one is surrounded by the remnants of consciousness of countless dead souls.

Leon listened to the sounds of blood and iron, and his mind reflected scenes of the past outlined with courage.

The horrific demonic disaster sweeping across the land was like a cruel blood net, ruthlessly filtering out the weak, cowardly and fearful. The souls that intersected with this sword were the countless dazzling golden and white lights that finally stood at the finish line.

Different from the twisted ghost-like Cannis evil spirit.

In the dead silent deep sea, Leon felt the enthusiasm and warmth surrounding him.

A fiery spirit rising with heroic shouts and laughter surrounded him.

His extraordinary memory allowed him to remember the name of each of these 1,225 noble souls.

All the people were in a long sleep, and they came forward on their own initiative and responded to his call.

—Take these souls away.

As soon as this idea came into his mind, the ritual connected with the surrounding souls, but Leon helplessly realized that the capacity and stability of the black Neti card were far from enough.

As expected, without the Isiah Soul Stone to expand the soul capacity of the Neti card, it is simply impossible to bear so many spirits at once.

After pondering for a long time, he tried to calculate the best capacity ratio, but in the end he could only leave behind the words of regret in his soul.

Wait for me, I will come back one day and take you all away
Finally, he selected the appropriate number of souls that his own magic power could sustain and that the Neti Card could hold. The souls of one hundred holy war knights suddenly rose from the Dead Sea as Leon signed the contract with his consciousness.
On the open grassland, an unprecedented magical gale blew so hard that Corvis covered his eyes and bent over, his battle robe fluttering wildly.

The light lingering in the magic patterns shot up into the sky. When the light in the sky was reshaped into a spirit, the Crusade Knight wearing the heaviest armor from the last battle reappeared in the world.

The demon-slaying warriors stood there, their weapons in unison, shaking the spiritual weapons that had been recast into matter.

The leading knight took off his helmet, revealing a knife-like resolute face, and looked at the living leader of the Crusade.

".Under the witness of the sun, the holy warriors respond to your call, Marshal. We will continue to follow you, abide by the oath, and defend all living beings with the blades in our hands."

In Kilmerton Fortress, Leon walked towards the main hall of the castle and turned over and admired the brand new Heroic Spirit Card in his hand - "Crusade Knight".

The front of the card shows the numerous knights who are being canonized, and the symbolic pattern on the back of the card is the Alliance's sword-wielding griffin emblem.

One hundred warrior souls transformed into heroes were already the limit of the Black Neti Card. In addition to the warriors under his own command and those from the Thorn Flower Family, some of them were Ranger Knights, some were Kantadar Knights, some were Holy Lake Knights of Dineshien, and some were Orland Sea Eagle Knights under Ines.

Although it is also a black card, the mana consumption to maintain this Heroic Spirit card is almost dozens of times that of "Canis". Even Callisto the Dread Mountain Bear seems much easier to maintain compared to it.

This is understandable, because even though most of the heroes he selected were individuals with moderate soul strength, among these one hundred heroes, there are still some knights of honor who are as strong as Canis, or even stronger than the young master of the Wolf family.

However, even though the cost of using this card is so high, it is still very worthwhile.

Even though it was not possible to keep the card spirits appearing for as long as it was to maintain Canis, generally speaking, a battle did not require them to appear for that long.

If a hundred brave steel knights wearing heavy armor, fearless of death and ignoring casualties, could suddenly appear at the most critical position on the battlefield and unexpectedly behead the enemy, it would not be an exaggeration to say that they could determine the outcome of a battle.

Thanks to Canis, his flying card skills became more and more sophisticated, coupled with the air control ability of the Death Claw, he could fight in the future, break through the air and use the silky combo of flying card summons. A hundred iron cans of the Crusades fell from the sky over the enemy's head.
The scene was so beautiful that Leon couldn't let go of the crystal card that was flipping between his fingers, and then put it back into his wallet in a happy mood.

Now it seems that Canis, who has always been very convenient, may be replaced by the Holy War Knights in the future, unless the situation is not so serious and it is not suitable to reveal the trump card.

It’s a pity that reality is not the card game I played in my previous life, and there are no strengthening and advanced functions.

Although Canis's martial arts and combat experience have been improving in a series of inhuman life-and-death battles, his physical functions have been frozen in the state he was in before his death. Even though he is very strong as a knight, his upper limit has been set. He can summon multiple knights to fight. Leon believes that he will probably choose the Holy War Knight rather than the young master of the Wolf family.

After all, as long as you can deal with the enemy quickly and efficiently, you can completely make up for the shortcomings of excessive magic power consumption and insufficient maintenance time.

And if even a hundred Crusade Knights could not defeat the enemy in a short period of time, summoning Canis might not be enough to completely solve the problem.

I don’t know. If the young master of the Wolf family, who was extremely talented in martial arts, had not died young and been stabbed in captivity, if he had been able to survive, how much he could have grown.

Will he also die in a battle in the future, or will he embark on a path of military glory that belongs to him?
Leon shook his head in his heart. In another destiny, he had no contact with Canis of the Gunnar family, and he didn't know if he would have had another fate if he hadn't been murdered by the warlock Met. In any case, life cannot be repeated.
Cough
Well, to be more precise, at least for creatures other than Aphrodite, it is indeed impossible to start over on their own initiative.

Thinking about everything about the Neti cards, Leon walked into the main hall of the fortress.

On the honorable chairs on both sides of the throne, Olivia and others in his group, as well as Ivan and the local alliance lords who came to Kilmerton, were all seated.

Leon ascended the throne and convened a simple alliance meeting to listen to the lords from various places talk about the current situation in the Sobornitz Territory.

Today, in this land that originally belonged to the eastern part of the Kingdom of Kantadar, the population under the rule of the Jihad Alliance is more than 400,000.

The vague and rough statistics seem to show that there are a lot of people, but compared to the original population of the east, it is less than one-tenth, and a considerable number of them migrated from the areas ruled by Princess Ines and the Thorn Flower Family after the war, and now they are gathered in the territories of these two families.

As for more areas under Sobornitz's rule, not only are they sparsely populated and difficult to use, they are also difficult to control.

The most obvious problem was that many Kantadar lords from the Usato Kingdom and even from unknown areas passed through the checkpoints in the eastern mountains of Usato after the war and entered the Kachin County area, openly "invading" the alliance's territory.

This is the big trouble that comes with not having a legal status.

The lord who invaded Sobornitz claimed that he came in the name of King Cantadalcaso to "recover the lost territory in the east."

In the eyes of the local lords of the alliance today, some of these people were stray dogs who chose to flee when faced with the pressure of the undead.

Most of them are simply speculators who come here to gamble without knowing where they are from and want to get something for nothing.

The alliance lords were naturally unwilling to hand over the territory gained with blood and sacrifice to the jackals who came later to snatch the fruits of victory.

The two sides almost had a military conflict due to the friction.

Leon was well aware of this matter. Last year, he and Ines made a special trip to Kachin County to mediate a small-scale war that was about to break out.

Looking back now, Leon estimated that it was hard to say whether or not that conflict had even been approved by Redwin III.

Otherwise, how could Casso of Usato dare to instigate the lords of Usato to move eastward when the royal court was under the constant control of the Orland army?
It was probably after that conflict that Ines secretly approached Casso, intending to obtain a title of a high noble of Cantadar in order to mediate the conflict between the two sides and accommodate the nobles sent by Casso to accumulate power, so that the two sides of the conflict could become friends.
This would also secretly serve as a precondition for any future moves by Ledwin III, who was eyeing this land.

The situation in the Kingdom of Kantadar is now very delicate and peculiar.

In the overall situation, the royal city of Kantadar is now garrisoned and controlled by an elite army of 6,000 people under the command of King Orland.

And the king of Orland, whether it is Ledwin III or the new king Eric, judging from the information they received from Ines, both are very covetous of the Kantadar territory under the name of the little princess.

Since Ines's father and brothers were coveting the fertile territory under her name, it was natural that they would not let go of other areas of Sobonitz's territory.

Even though the Thorn Flower Family, Princess Ines, and himself were nominally subjects of King Orland, the food, wealth, and land income obtained by the members of the Jihad Alliance in the Territory of Sobornitz had nothing to do with the Kingdom of Orland or the Royal Court of Kantadar. The alliance was a political entity of its own.

Although King Orland would not resort to armed force to attack his vassals, he took advantage of certain situations to force the Orland lords who held a dominant position in the Holy War Alliance to submit to and pay tribute to King Orland in the name of the alliance, thus in effect taking the semi-independent eastern part of Kantadar into his possession.

Well, now that Kaso's faction, Lord Usato who nominally submits to King Orland, and even the nobles of Kantadar who use Kaso's name, are encroaching on the alliance's land in the east in the name of recovery, Orland's army will inevitably stand by and watch, or even secretly support them, increasing the pressure and chaos on the Jihad Alliance, in an attempt to exert pressure at the same time in the future and further achieve its goal of annexation.

Leon naturally didn't want to get into such a troublesome situation.

If he and Ines, as leaders of the alliance, surrendered to King Orland on behalf of the alliance, then even with his prestige, the Crusade Army would be split.

King Orland may not care about the continuation of this alliance as long as he wants a reason to annex territory, but Leon does not want this organization that united all parties to fight against the demonic disaster in the Undead War to exist in name only in the future.

It's not just a consideration of his own personal interests and power, but also a worry about the millions of undead corpses in the south that have not yet been destroyed, and even the hidden danger of another demonic disaster in the future.

Leon really didn't want to experience again the inability to stop the internal strife in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms and the frustration of dealing with the catastrophic disaster early on.

Faced with such a delicate three-party relationship, the original plan that Ines came up with in her little head was a perfect way to undermine her father's intention.

Once he, the marshal of the Holy War Alliance, became a vassal of Casso while being a subject of King Orland, he would not only have the legal right to lead the Territory of Sobornitz, but also achieve a triangular balance between them.

Among the three parties, the weakest Casso benefited the most. The Kantadar Royal Court was the one most unwilling to submit to King Orland, which was why he was trying to win over the alliance and plan to break free from the constraints in the future.

In this way, as long as the conflict with Casso was resolved, Ledwin III would have to give up his plan unless he went to war and robbed the enemy.

However, man proposes, God disposes.

King Ledwin III was assassinated and the knight's tournament was terminated. He was unable to obtain the title of Duke of Anderville from Casso in a dignified manner. Even Casso himself was now detained in the city of Orlandon by the new king Eric.

Leon only hopes that Casso will not be able to return to the territory of Usato, so as not to lead to the intensification of territorial conflicts between Lord Kantadar and the Holy War Alliance in the west.

Thinking about the progress of Leon's understanding of the grain harvest, town trade, and jihad army dispatch in various parts of the Jihad Alliance during the meeting, as well as the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Jihad Alliance and the Holy Sun Church in Serian.
The political discussion in the hall had not yet ended when a hurried messenger suddenly broke into the meeting, came to Leon's seat eagerly, bowed and handed over a secret letter.

"Marshal, this is an urgent report from Archon David."

Leon raised his eyebrows. When he arrived in Sobornitz, he heard from Ivan that David had recently taken an elite group of troops to Usato Territory to investigate the traces of vampires.

Is there any further news from Sir David?
However, after breaking open the sealing wax and unfolding the letter, Leon's eyes quickly swept over the contents and he was stunned.

The letter came from Avim, the royal city of Kantardar in Usato
It says that the Count of the Stag, General Trosa, who was in charge of the garrison and supervision of the Cantadar Royal Court, was assassinated by a vampire.
Leon couldn't help but be surprised.

Count Trosa was in Orlando City not long ago. When did he go south to Usato Territory?
Moreover, it had only been over a month since Ledwin III was assassinated. As the late king's close confidants, shouldn't the king supporters stay with the new king and help Eric run the government?
What kind of vampire could actually bypass the powerful Knight Kailan and successfully assassinate General Trosa?
Could it be that Azerien's powerful vampire father took action?

But how could Charleman, who had been missing at the time, suddenly appear to assassinate Trosa?
Leon held the letter in his hand and looked at Azerien who was sitting next to him. His head felt confused.

(End of this chapter)