Throne of the North.

Chapter 580 Knight's Blitz (Part 8)

Ryan quietly watched the densely packed army slowly advancing ahead. He wore tattered mithril armor, yet he exerted unimaginable pressure on these 100,000 men.

As dawn broke, the army of 100,000 believers, while praying and waiting for breakfast, discovered thousands of powerful knights who had suddenly appeared on the edge of the earth in the distance.

Theodore in the group had no doubt that these few thousand knights could slaughter the hundred thousand devout followers of Dawn behind him.

But similarly, because these 100,000 people were all believers of the Lord, he also believed that if the thousands of knights standing there who dared not charge dared to come over, they would also be completely wiped out.

Even though he had just received a shocking piece of news: this cavalry legion from the Empire had slaughtered the Holy Knights army, and that damned Archbishop Elliot was really so incompetent as to let the Lord's ten thousand Holy Knights be wiped out.

Theodore was furious, but he didn't act rashly. The rule of legends still applied, and no one could bear the consequences of a legend acting recklessly.

Moreover, the ferocious dragon in the sky was also warning him, spewing flames from time to time.

If he could, Theodore would not want to go to war with dragons; their vitality is too strong, and it is almost impossible for a human of equal rank to kill a mature dragon.

The dragons riding under the Imperial Dragon Knights are, of course, mature dragons that have been through countless wars.

Many believers' stomachs rumbled; they were starving, but this was clearly not the time to cook. The Bloody Baron of the North, leading thousands of powerful knights, stood silently in front of them, preventing them from relaxing their guard.

"Archbishop Catherine, do you have a way to drive them away?"

The army was under the command of the legendary Theodore, but he clearly did not, and these believers were originally under the management of an archbishop.

A woman with brown hair, golden eyes, delicate features with a forbidden allure, a flat chest, and a height of less than 1.5 meters came to Theodore's side, surrounded by a group of missionaries.

"I'm sorry, Lord Theodore, but our army has fewer than three hundred Holy Knights, and they are no match for this Imperial cavalry."

After Archbishop Katherina finished speaking, she confidently added:

"But he would never dare to attack us; the Lord's followers will kill any enemy who tries to challenge the Lord's faith."

“We will defeat the nobles on the other side in the war ahead, under the leadership of Archbishop Doyle, but not now.”

So, won't a fight break out? The reason that Imperial Baron on the other side is standing still is probably because he doesn't dare to launch an attack. They are afraid that this army of believers also possesses the power of divine punishment.

“They fear the judgment of my Lord.”

……

"Do you think they can unleash the same divine punishment power as the Carlos Royal City?"

Ryan asked, but no one around him could answer him. To be honest, apart from the stag legion servants behind Ryan who had absolute faith in him, the many powerful knights on the Flame Dragon Knights' side were somewhat uneasy, worried that this dense army of believers would unleash a terrifying power that would annihilate them.

"If they don't have it, then we've come all this way for nothing."

Ryan hesitated, but still made a decision.

Just try and you will find out.

"attack!"

At Ryan's command, thousands of warhorses galloped forward, their iron hooves pounding the ground. Faced with the charge of thousands of knights and cavalry, almost instantly, the faces of the countless believers in front turned pale with fear.

They were just believers, not even soldiers, so how could they not be afraid of the army?

"How dare they?"

Archbishop Catherine, pale-faced and somewhat frightened, said that the missionaries around her had already led her to retreat hastily.

"Lord Theodore, stop these Imperials who blaspheme my Lord."

Theodore nodded, but the next moment he knew it was impossible. The dragon in the sky roared and swooped down, spewing scorching dragon breath. The dragon's breath contained the purest power.

The Flame Dragon Christman charged faster than the cavalry. Since there was a legendary figure among this army of believers, it naturally had no reason to hesitate.

The dragon's breath was like a sharp blade cutting through the world, leaving scorched earth in its wake. Under this dragon's breath, the 100,000 believers were terrified, yet they could not prevent a large number of believers from being overwhelmed by the dragon's breath.

All legends are powerful, but among them, the legendary knight has the least destructive power. On the contrary, dragons, beings that are born with magical power, possess terrifying destructive power.

When the dragon unleashed its fury and devastation, no one could stop it. Theodol the ascetic also looked grave. All he could do was force the dragon away from his followers.

Divine Art: Judgment

A blinding light illuminated the sky, while on the ground, thousands of knights' warhorses trampled on the scorched marks left by the dragon's breath.

Ryan was surprised to find that the hooves of the warhorses beneath the Flame Dragon Knights were beginning to burn from the scorch marks left by the dragon's breath. Not only that, but the weapons of the Flame Dragon Knights were also beginning to burn. It seemed that the dragon's breath had ignited some kind of power in their blood.

Ryan is unaffected; he is a direct descendant of Clayton.

However, in this environment, Ryan also noticed the activity of the Flame Dragon Knight's Breathing Technique. He had a feeling that he could release a violent energy similar to dragon breath at any time.

That being the case...

Flames gathered at his feet, and scorching power flowed from the Flame Dragon Knights and onto Ryan. In the next moment, the flames formed a massive dragon, engulfing all the Flame Dragon Knights behind Ryan.

Immediately afterwards, the fire dragon roared and flew forward, bringing even hotter flames in its wake than those of the sky dragon, setting vegetation ablaze and igniting the Dawn Followers.

"Perfect, this makes it even easier to complete the plan."

Ryan smiled as he stared at the clergy among the believers ahead. As the Dawn Believers screamed and howled in agony as their bodies were set ablaze, his smile instilled fear in the sharp-eyed Holy Knights.

What kind of enemy is this?

"kill!"

Behind Ryan were only the Flame Dragon Knights. Although their numbers were small, their charge into the 100,000 believers was like a giant wolf entering a lamb's den. No one could stop them. The hundreds and thousands of believers in front of the warhorses could only slow down the warhorses with their own flesh and blood.

As for the two sides, the ratio of believers killed by the Flame Dragon Knights to the Flame Dragon Knights dying in battle is a ratio of hundreds to thousands to zero.

This army of believers is not an army of soldiers; they have weapons, but because they are praying, they haven't even picked them up.

The massacre brought unimaginable psychological shock to countless people, who all fled and screamed in a frenzy of fear.

"archbishop……"

The Holy Knights surrounded the Archbishop, gripping their weapons nervously, while the missionaries and priests stared intently at him, filled with fear and tension. Ordinary people had no power to resist this imperial army that had slaughtered tens of thousands of Holy Knights.

The only chance is the Holy Judgment.

"Archbishop, hurry! If this continues, they'll be here soon!"

Everyone was shouting, and Katherina, trembling, calmed down. Holy light began to emanate from her, and the archbishop's scepter in her hand floated in mid-air. As the archbishop began his prayer, the surrounding people quieted down, and some priests began to pray along with him. As the sound spread in an extraordinary way, the believers stopped running around and screaming like headless flies and instead went to find weapons to surround the terrifying knight army.

"Surround them, and absolutely do not let them escape."

Archbishop Catherine said this, and during the prayer, she struggled to give commands that had nothing to do with the Lord. The knights nodded like chickens pecking at rice, but few left the archbishop's side to command the army of believers.

Those believers have already spontaneously surrounded that imperial army.

[Divine Art: Holy Judgment!] After killing countless believers, Ryan finally heard a magnificent sound. He looked up and saw that the sky was filled with magnificent holy light. The believers around him had also changed; their strength had increased.

Normally, a charging warhorse could knock a believer back more than ten meters, but now that believer was clinging tightly to the warhorse, raising his head, staring at the rider with his snow-white eyes, and muttering prayers like "the glory of my Lord" as he attacked wildly.

Their strength is increasing, which gives these originally vulnerable believer soldiers the power to fight against the knights, even if it takes three or five, ten or twenty of them to do so...

There are also enough believers here.

The objective has been achieved.

Seeing that all the believers around him were in a non-human state, Ryan laughed. His purpose was to force these believers into this state.

They are doomed to die; the only outcome is how many Imperial knights these believers can kill before their life force is completely exhausted.

"rush out!"

Ryan shouted that their charge was not for killing the enemy.

Behind them, the fiery dragon knights, like his own retinue, resolutely carried out Ryan's orders, charging towards a weak point in the path of the dragon Christman's earlier rampage.

The earth was burning, and the believers naturally avoided the place where the dragon breathed.

"Stop them! Stop them!"

A priest saw through Ryan's intentions, his face turned pale with fear, and he roared in alarm.

We can't let them leave!

Under divine judgment, we cannot return empty-handed.

Archbishop Doyle has been condemned for using the lives of 200,000 believers to secure the royal city of Carlos. If they release the holy judgment but fail to stop this imperial army that has brought unimaginable terror to the southern lands, then what awaits these clergy who have killed so many believers is a judgment more terrible than death.

A believer's life is also a life. If the important figures on the holy mountain take it seriously, the life of a believer can make an archbishop pay with his own.

Because they are all equal, servants of an equal Lord.

The fact that Doyle's great residence allowed 200,000 believers to die unscathed is because he instigated divine punishment and also brought unimaginable war victories to the Dawn Church.

Without these, Archbishop Doyle's fate would have been utterly hopeless.

At this moment, how could the priests not be afraid when they saw Ryan trying to break free from the crowd of believers?

Their power is closest to that eternal heaven, so they know best how terrifying that judgment beyond death is.

"Stop them."

Ryan discovered that those believers who had not yet been overwhelmed by the Holy Judgment spell ahead were also being covered in large numbers. Clearly, the divine spell, which was originally intended to sacrifice only 10,000 people, could no longer be used.

Ryan's lips curled into a smile; this was the sunk cost of war.

When the clergy of the Papacy realized that 10,000 believer soldiers could not stop Ryan, they needed to produce 20,000, 30,000. If that was still not enough, they had to continue, otherwise the deaths of the previous 10,000, 20,000, and 30,000 believers would become their sins.

Sin needs to be purified by victory; without victory, all divine magic is a sunk cost.

"Unfortunately, you think you can fight like the war in the Kingdom of Carlos?"

Ryan never believed that the Empire's war in the capital city of Carlos was wrong, even though the war ended in defeat.

The reason is simple: it is the royal city. No matter what, the imperial army cannot easily give up the royal city. This has led to hundreds of thousands of soldiers having no choice but to defend it to the death, their lives being crushed like a meat grinder.

The soldiers there had to face the Dawn Believers soldiers who sacrificed decades of their life force for power.

Even if they die on their own in a few days, the Empire's soldiers have no choice but to fight them head-on.

Ryan didn't like this kind of war. If it were him, he would definitely abandon the royal city of Carlos, but the nobles of the empire had no choice but to do so.

For the sake of... so-called glory, every fall of the Carlos royal city is a stain on the nobles' surnames.

The war waged by the imperial nobles in the Thousand Lakes Province of the Empire was beyond reproach, but Ryan could not condone the use of the same methods of warfare once they entered the Kingdom of Carlos.

He has his own bottom line, and this bottom line—

Heh, it's like having an army impersonate a noble army, which is far inferior to the lovely nobles of this world.

Ryan led the Flame Dragon Knights out to fight their way out. His previous charge was not aimed at the center of the believer army; otherwise, he would have already reached the clergy.

He divided his army of 100,000 followers, resulting in a smaller number of followers on one side.

Warhorses are not ordinary horses; they are nurtured by extraordinary power. Unless their legs are broken, these warhorses are far more resilient than one might imagine, and this is precisely why they were born.

Furthermore, these believers did not initially possess the power to seriously threaten them.

Ryan maintained control of the distance, and the knights behind him only needed to follow and charge, but Ryan's vision was always of the whole situation.

"Keep them here, keep them here!"

Behind him, the clergy were still screaming in terror, and Ryan decided to give them a glimmer of hope.

He slowed down and charged toward the edge of the believer army.

To reiterate, it's a sunk cost. Tens of thousands of believers have already sacrificed their life force in the Holy Judgment, and there's still a chance of victory. So these clergy have no choice but to continue investing to ensure they can keep Ryan alive.

Archbishop Catherine was no match for Archbishop Doyle, but she was still going all out. Her body trembled slightly, and a large number of bottles and jars were broken, releasing a massive amount of snow-white holy light that almost solidified into stone.

[Divine Art: Judgment Prison]

Ryan noticed that his warhorse had slowed down and was struggling, but it had gotten stuck in some kind of swamp-like situation. A large number of believers were surrounding them, but they were unaffected.

Magic cannot accurately distinguish between friend and foe, but the divine magic of dawn can.

That's cheating.

Ryan took a deep breath, knowing he couldn't stay any longer. The power of these clergymen's divine magic had little to do with their level of cultivation; even ordinary priests could unleash terrifying divine magic.

"rush!"

At the final command, a large number of arrows drifted down from the distant sky, landing on the densely packed believer soldiers behind them. Although they could not kill them, they could create an obstacle. Some of these believers had to stay behind to tear off the arrows stuck in their heads.

In the distance, the Bucks army charged in, each knight carrying a longbow and a quiver instead of a spear.

Ryan's blitzkrieg to the south never required any worries about supplies; the dimensional gate gave him absolute confidence.

The exceptional skills bestowed by Ma Ling's blessing transformed the attendants into the finest mounted archery legion at that moment.

Ryan, having broken free from the encirclement of the believers, turned around and coldly looked at these devout followers of the Lord of Dawn.

Next, it was a matter of slowly chipping away at the flesh until this bloated army was completely annihilated.

(End of this chapter)