Throne of the North.

Chapter 579 Knight's Blitz (Part 7)

War is never pleasant, but there are always people who crave the thrill and excitement it brings.

The knights of the Buck Legion blocked the three thousand soldiers behind the Holy Knights, as well as the Holy Knights who had originally been protecting the priests but later joined the battle to try and rescue them. Even the Holy Knights who had originally charged towards the Flame Dragon Knights were now surrounding the Buck Legion from behind.

They faced many enemies, but in the end, the Bucks wiped them all out.

Their northern warhorses were summoned. These horses, which had initially followed Ryan's army and galloped away from the battlefield, were now finally returning.

Under the moonlit night, more than 1,500 squires of the Stag Legion launched a charge, but the battlefield where the Flame Dragon Knights were located was already in complete chaos.

But it was too late; they had to get back to Ryan's side immediately. What kind of servant is a knight if he's not by his lord's side?

"Go kill them!"

Brand grabbed Egil's arm and pointed into the distance, to the place where the priests were located on the ground that shone brightest under the moon that night.

Aegir's frenzied eyes revealed a cruel glint, and the three giant wolves beside him, whose fur had already stood on end during the battle, roared as they charged toward him.

Not a single Holy Knight fled out of fear of death, precisely because of those damned priests. Their constant casting of divine spells prevented the Holy Knights from even making a move to escape.

Perhaps it was also because the archbishop had died, and the burden of responsibility required victory in the war.

In terms of individual combat strength, the Bucks are more elite, and the power of many spiritual blessings allows them to maintain their vigor at this moment. However, Brand is not optimistic about the servants guarding Lord Ryan. Their numbers are too small and they cannot coordinate well with the Flame Dragon Knights.

The losses are probably...

Brand took a deep breath and charged into the murky battlefield.

……

Ryan didn't know how many Holy Knights had managed to escape after the priests were all slaughtered, but during the headcount in the middle of the night, his extraordinary legion had lost more than two thousand men.

More than 500 were seriously injured, and the rest were all wounded.

“Send a message to the surrounding noble armies, asking them to clean up this battlefield and bury the soldiers here.”

“If we have our soldiers, let them be sent to the Kingdom of Carlos. Isn’t that where they were going anyway?”

Ryan opened the dimensional portal and sent the corpses of all the Stag Legion servants and Flame Dragon Knights inside. This was the only thing he could do. As for the Holy Knights and Priests on the ground, he couldn't care less.

At this moment, he was covered in the terrifying aura of bloody war, which made Griff somewhat afraid. He nodded and quickly left to send a message to the noble army that was marching on.

They were enemies of Ryan, but what did it matter? Ryan sent them here to see the corpses of thousands of Holy Knights and then spread the news throughout the southern lands.

Ten thousand knights, ten thousand Holy Light Knights, blessed by the Dawn Divine Art and belonging to the backbone of the Dawn Church, died here, brutally slaughtered.

After the battle, the number of warhorses exceeded the number of soldiers. Ryan didn't even rest on the spot. He didn't want the noble army that would arrive tomorrow to see his knights in such a miserable state. Only mystery could bring them more fear.

"leave here."

The warhorses traveled dozens of miles in the darkness before stopping to rest in a valley.

In the darkness, the wings of a colossal dragon cast a shadow that obscured the moon. The fiery dragon was on alert, and Ryan instructed it to ensure that no army would surround it within a ten-mile radius.

As for the valley, after a brief period of removing their armor, all the knights fell into a deep sleep within minutes.

Unfortunately, the knights' physical strength might not all be at its limit, but their spirits had already been taut since the early stages of the war. The only thing that kept them going was the extraordinary attribute brought by the knight's power.

Early the next morning, many birds hovered in the sky. They smelled the suffocating stench of blood. Many of these magical birds tried several times to fly down and devour the nutritious blood, but were stopped by the soldiers below.

Count Toya looked at the battlefield with shock and fear. The battlefield was full of corpses. As far as the eye could see, there were corpses everywhere!

Each corpse was clad in expensive armor, and each had a knight's longsword that an ordinary family couldn't afford in several years, not to mention the warhorses whose bodies were almost completely obliterated in the pool of blood.

Having full-body armor, a sharp longsword, and a well-bred warhorse—these three conditions combined point to one unique answer.

Knights, every corpse here is a knight. Each of these corpses, when alive, could decide the fate of dozens or hundreds of people, but they died silently here, dying in droves.

Count Toya approached the battlefield almost trembling, but even worse off were those who moved across the battlefield arranging the corpses of knights they would normally kneel before.

War brings enormous benefits, the most direct being the equipment found on the battlefield. If one could hide some of it and bring it back, it would be a huge fortune. However, on this battlefield, none of the count's soldiers dared to do so; they were even afraid to touch the dead corpses.

The bodies were still slightly warm, and the broken state of their hard armor made it impossible for them to imagine what kind of war these knights had gone through.

So they couldn't help but look toward the center of the battlefield, where a flag was planted, bearing the legendary, noble, and eternal flower of heaven. The emblem of the Flor Empire stood on this battlefield, telling the world who the victor of the war was.

No one dared to touch the imperial flag, not even Count Toya. He didn't even know what tone to use to tell his allies what had happened here.

"Master Toya."

A knight approached Count Toya. Since the Count dared not enter the battlefield, his knight was naturally in charge. However, at this moment, the knight's body was trembling.

“We…we found…we found the body of an archbishop among two hundred priests.”

"His head was cut off, and we don't know where it is."

Upon hearing this, Count Toya turned pale and ran towards his carriage without looking back.

"Get out of here, get out of here quickly, Knight Rud! Bury the Holy Light Knights here, and those damned... take the corpses of those Imperial Knights who are already dead, and get out of here right now!"

"Damn it, the Holy Mountain will be furious. We need to get to the front lines of the Kingdom of Carlos as soon as possible."

Count Toya, having undressed, looked at the battlefield with fear.

“No, Sir Rud, you took half...a third of the soldiers to the Kingdom of Carlos. I’m going back to the Earl’s territory. I’m going back immediately.”

The war on the front lines was too terrible for the count to bear; he absolutely refused to go any further.

The Blood Eagle was fast, but so was the speed at which information was transmitted between nobles. After the interdimensional war of the gods, the nobles of the southern lands were not entirely the same as they were a hundred years ago. They made a few changes to the efficiency of information transmission between the nobles.

To avoid being caught off guard when disaster strikes.

In a short period of time, many nobles learned that tens of thousands of Holy Light Knights had died on their way to the front lines of the Kingdom of Carlos. The ghostly Imperial cavalry had slaughtered a cavalry legion of ten thousand Holy Light Knights.

The name Ryan was renowned for the bloodshed of war, and the nobles addressed him with awe as the Bloody Baron of the North.

Most of the nobles abandoned their journey to the front lines of the Kingdom of Carlos, and the rest stopped. Ryan awoke at dusk, and like him, most of the knights in the valley were awakened from their slumber by hunger.

In just one day, Griff brought back a lot of news.

"Can we go back now? This war... is more powerful than the two years of fighting between the Empire and the Papacy in the Thousand Lakes Province."

Kaz Clayton looked at Ryan and said that his younger brother was even more insane than he had imagined. During yesterday's battle, he never once thought of giving a retreat order, and even forced the opposing Holy Knights to not have the opportunity to give a retreat order.

Those priests who had not received orders could only pray incessantly, using all their faith to bless the army of Holy Knights, so much so that when the swords that were about to kill them drew near, the priests did not even have the strength to call upon the griffins to take them away.

Over the past few years, the Empire and the Papacy have fought countless wars, large and small, but the number of Holy Knights who have died in all those wars has never exceeded the number of casualties they suffered yesterday.

The Holy Knight is a clergy member.

Kaz could already imagine the shock and silence that would fill the nobles' eyes when they returned to the Empire.

Ryan came to a wooden box containing a large amount of jewels and agates, which belonged to the head inside the box. Of course, the owner of this wealth had also become part of the wealth.

"In yesterday's battle, this bishop helped us a lot. If he hadn't died, that Holy Knight wouldn't have hesitated so much, allowing the entire Holy Knight army to sink on the battlefield."

"Let's present him to His Majesty the Emperor as a gift."

"but……"

Ryan looked up at the valley, where the air was filled with the freshness of nature, making him forget the murky stench of blood that lingered in his mind.

"We can't go back yet."

Kaz was puzzled and also somewhat anxious to return to the Empire; he didn't want to stay here any longer.

However, it was only yesterday that Kaz, a baron, was the legion commander, and he was shocked to discover that his younger brother, who had once needed him to deliver the Dragon Heart, was now so much stronger than him.

"why?"

"Because we still need a war."

"I originally thought that war would have happened yesterday, but it didn't. This legion of Holy Knights must be trying to get to the front lines of the Kingdom of Carlos as quickly as possible."

"Their group had no supplies or slaves; they probably just ate whatever noble family they encountered along the way."

"But we still need a victory against the army of Papacy believers."

"During the war in the capital of Carlos, the Empire witnessed the terror brought by the fanatical believers of the Dawn Church. The only weakness of the army of undead believers was their heads, but in war, that was not a weakness."

"We must win a victory against these armies of believers and restore the Empire's faith."

The extraordinary knights have no problem fighting ordinary people, but if there are too many Dawn Cultists, they will probably suffer heavy losses, and they are already injured.

Kaz hesitated for a moment, but Ryan said easily:

"Don't worry, when dealing with equally extraordinary knight legions, tactics are not very useful, but when dealing with ordinary people, there is no better means of warfare than strategy."

"We will win this war easily."

Ryan looked up. The Blood Eagle in the sky was conveying a unique message: it seemed that Griff had found the location of a large army of believers.

……

The greatest credit for the southward advance, where the extraordinary knightly legions blitzed the noble armies and papal forces of this land, rests on one person: Griff.

Without the eyes of the sky, Ryan would need ten times as long to find his enemies.

And the view of the sky did not disappoint Ryan.

With Archbishop Doyle losing 200,000 Dawn Followers in a battle in the royal city of Carlos, this would have been a severe blow to Archbishop Doyle on the Holy Mountain, such as causing the deaths of 200,000 people.

But divine punishment stopped all of this. The appearance of the angels silenced everyone, making them realize that the deaths of the 200,000 believers were because the Lord needed them to go to the eternal Kingdom to serve.

Archbishop Doyle, who had lost 200,000 followers, naturally needed to replenish his army of believers. His prestige was at its peak, and the Holy Mountain would naturally send believers to hand him over.

However, there are no 200,000 left, and even the Vatican cannot easily pull out 200,000 believers.

This time, the quantity is only 100,000, originating from an alternate world controlled by the Dawn Church.

With the North submerged, who could acquire believers from other worlds more easily than the Dawn Church? No one.

The army of 100,000 believers was commanded by the legendary ascetic Theodore. Theodore was originally supposed to stay by Archbishop Doyle's side to protect him, but Archbishop Doyle said that the great Lord always looked after him and that he was safe in the light of dawn, so he sent the legend away.

Everyone was moved by the archbishop's devout faith, but in his heart, Archbishop Doyle only wanted to ensure that no legendary power on the front lines could help the cardinal he wanted to kill.

By setting aside the legend, one can not only demonstrate one's devout faith and fearless courage, but also force Cardinal Ta Walter to appear on the front lines of the Carlos Royal City in the war against the Empire.

"Elder Walter, we must kill that King Carlos."

“Olsen Carlos must not survive divine punishment again and again, otherwise the majesty of my lord will be damaged.”

"This is absolutely unacceptable."

Archbishop Doyle looked at the newly appointed cardinal before him with exceptional humility. One was an archbishop, and the other a cardinal; they seemed to differ by only one rank, but their actual status was vastly different.

Between these two identities, many people can criticize Doyle, but they can't be so loud and boisterous towards the woman in red.

Looking at that bright red robe, Doyle's eyes burned with desire; this was the status he had longed for for many years.

“I know you desire to kill that Elector, but isn’t the glory of the Lord the most important thing? And if the process of killing a king can… perhaps there’s also a chance to kill the Elector.”

“I intend to pray to the Lord and judge the King of Carlos in His name. If the nobles of the Empire dare to stop me, then they are enemies of the Lord. If they do not dare, then the nobles of the South will fearfully turn to the Empire.”

"This is also... His Holiness the Pope's idea."

The title of Pope convinced the cardinal to grant Doyle's request, and as a cardinal who had benefited from the legacy of the Pope, Ta Walter also needed to prove himself.

(End of this chapter)