Throne of the North.

Chapter 656 The Knight in the Nightmare (Part 8)

Boom! ! !
The ground collapsed, and hundreds of cavalrymen fell forward, crashing into the deep crater. Among them were stag squires and nightmare knights.

The horses absorbed most of the impact of the fall, and both riders were exceptional knights; the five- or six-meter-deep crater wouldn't have killed them.

Shaking his head, Michaela snapped out of his dizziness. The sword he had been using to prop himself up helped him stand up. He saw his mount lying panting in the deep pit of rubble, blood flowing from its body and its breath carrying an icy blue chill.

Without hesitation, the First General of the Frozen Territory stood up and charged at one of the Nightmare Knights opposite him. The opponent also possessed the strength of a Gold Knight, but Michaela had the upper hand.

He kept slashing and hacking, and every now and then, a dazzling light flashed on his weapon. The powerful knightly combat skills smashed the Nightmare Knight into the rubble.

"Kill them all!"

Michaela roared. The Bucks' knights generally had higher physical qualities and basic attributes. After all, they had received many blessings from Ryan, and their skills were powerful. During the fall, they were able to react faster and launch an attack on the Nightmare Knights who were also falling.

However, the Nightmare Knights weren't constantly in a daze. The power of the Nightmare allowed them to temporarily ignore the injuries to their flesh and blood, as well as the displacement of their internal organs.

After regaining consciousness, it was pure bloody combat. In this pit, absolutely no one could leave safely under the enemy's gaze.

"Ouch——"

The howls of wolves echoed, and looking up, figures transformed into giant wolves at the edge of the pit, leaping down to tear at the Nightmare Knights.

"Lord Ulf?"

Michaela shouted, gathering her blood and energy into her knight's longsword, unleashing a crescent-shaped sword aura that tore through the Nightmare Knight's armor, severely injuring him.

"Is it still possible to go up?"

A human voice came from the mouth of the giant wolf, and Michaela hesitated as she looked around. She saw that the panting northern warhorse had stopped breathing heavily, its eyes had turned cold, and fine frost covered its whole body.

"唏伦~"

With a resounding neigh, the warhorse rose from its fallen state. Michaela mounted it, and the horse's limbs trod on the slope, each step feeling as if frozen to the ground, as it continued upwards.

ground.

At the edge of the pit, a warhorse suddenly leaped high into the air. The blood-stained stag knight reined in his horse and stood still. Behind him, warhorses neighed and reappeared on the ground carrying stag servants.

Under the dim sky, Brand led the Bucks army in their third head-on charge against the Nightmare Knights. As long as the enemy did not stop, he would not consider retreating.

"Charge forward and catch up with the main force!"

Michaela commanded, even though there were hundreds of Nightmare Knights who had also fallen behind between them and Brand.
"For Ryan's glory!"

"Kill them all!!!"

Rumble!
On the desolate land of Redwing Plains, only the sound of warhorses galloping and pounding could be heard. The dark clouds did not bring thunder, but the trampling of these warhorses was far more terrifying than thunder.

There is no turning back; the only melody is to fight forward as long as we live.

Deep within the nightmare-like fissures of the earth, Grand Duke Meyers stood atop his castle. He was still in his castle, yet through the realm of nightmares, he gazed upon this battlefield with unfathomable eyes.

Krysus, standing beside him, was already feeling a chill run down his spine. For the past hundred years, there had never been a war composed purely of extraordinary knights.

In such a war, every person who dies represents a great deal of wealth. A knight represents the time, experience, cost of failure, the weapons and equipment he wears, the warhorse he rides, the magical potions he takes, and often represents a large number of serf families.

On such a battlefield, the fall of every soldier represents the decline of a village.

But they died in droves on the northern battlefield, like slave soldiers whose lives were easily reaped.

In such a war between elite forces, there will be no victors.

"Father……"

Chrysus began to speak, but Grand Duke Meyers raised his arm to stop him from continuing.

The two continued to watch in silence the battlefield in the far north, the brutal carnage. Although the two sides combined numbered only about 20,000, in reality, these 20,000 were able to rout a million ordinary soldiers.

Grand Duke Meyers knew he couldn't concede defeat, but what about the other side?

Ryan stood alone, riding his warhorse Winter, on a high slope in Redwing Plains, looking down at the extraordinary battlefield in the distance.

Was it brutal? On a battlefield where armor that blacksmiths in the frozen tundra could forge over two weeks or even longer was being brutally hacked apart, it was certainly brutal.

Is it bloody?

On the surface, it looks alright. The blood flowing through the Nightmare Knights' bodies has a hint of black, and the power of the Nightmare makes their blood different from that of ordinary humans.

The Stag Squires made up for this deficiency of the Nightmare Knights. They were blessed by the Stag and had a more powerful life force. On the battlefield, each Stag Squire looked like they were bleeding profusely and were launching attacks while trampling on their own blood.

Ryan also stared intently at the battlefield, showing no sign of stopping. He wanted to use this war to let Grand Duke Meyers know that the lands of the North Wind were not his to conquer.

No matter how great the loss, Ryan would not hesitate.

Similarly, no matter how small the battle losses, Ryan would be heartbroken. He had a spiritual blessing that allowed him to create knights and squires more quickly, but it would take a long time and many battles to turn them into the fearless elite on this battlefield.

Putting everything else aside, any one of them pulled out from this battlefield could compete for the title of Eight Knights in Zero Crossing City.

"Let's see if you, as the Grand Duke, have the confidence to bear this loss."

Grand Duke Meyers must be heartbroken by the loss of the Nightmare Knights Legion.

A century after blasphemy, the powerful Nightmare Knight Legion emerged, and Ryan did not believe that they could mass-produce them so easily.

"You have no right to speak on this land, North Wind."

Ryan looked toward the deep Nightmare Path. Most of Redwing Plains had been engulfed in Nightmare, becoming a kingdom of Nightmares. From the end of that Nightmare Path, he sensed the power of a being named Meyers.

As if sensing something, Grand Duke Meyers also looked up in the direction of Ryan. Neither of them could see the other, because Ryan was standing outside the Nightmare Kingdom.

Chrysus walked up behind the Grand Duke carrying a box.

"Father, what are you looking at?"

“That baron from the North, I could feel his aggressive gaze. He wanted to break into the nightmare, but he hesitated.”

After saying that, Meyers reached out and opened the jewel-encrusted box without turning his head. In an instant, a thick, evil abyssal mist rushed out and flew directly into the Nightmare Kingdom.

The vast Redwing Plains seemed to be shrinking. Brand sensed the boundaries of this wilderness in all directions, as if they were approaching him.

It wasn't just a possibility, it was real. The moment the abyssal aura of that nightmare crossed the path and arrived here, wisps of mist began to rise from the soil beneath the Redwing Plains, where black flames burned.

These mists drifted into the sky, and the massive amounts of nightmare black mist connected to form a curtain, enveloping the entire Redwing Plains like a dome. Beneath this curtain, in the void, shadowy outlines appeared and disappeared.

That was a nightmare, a terrifying nightmare, a nightmare born from the land of Redwing Plains, possessing legendary power. As for the dim surroundings, Brand felt a sense of familiarity.

In the original world of Hellesweg, within the Bone Field of the Eagle, the ghoul Hobbie appeared and transformed the Bone Field into his own divine realm, with countless ghouls attempting to kill Griff and his companions.

In the end, it was Ryan who swung that divine sword.

……

Ryan looked ahead, the dark shadows obscuring his vision, but he understood what was happening before him.

"The Grand Duke's methods are still inferior to those of a true god."

“Back when Hobbi created the realm of gods, I couldn’t see it even if I stood right in front of him, but you…”

“I saw it very clearly.”

Ryan drew his longsword from his waist. The scabbard of Gram, imbued with the divine power of the Bilge World War Lord, crashed down from the sky like a waterfall, accompanied by raging lightning, shattering this nightmare kingdom completely.

Brilliant lightning crashed down upon the legendary nightmare born in the void. On the battlefield, as his vision gradually cleared, Brand knew that Lord Ryan had torn open the veil of the gods.

He looked up at the nightmare that was about to be born.

Am I scared?

Brand pressed his hands to his chest, his eyes blazing, his brows furrowing like those of a majestic stag.

He drew his knight's longsword from his waist, leaped into the sky, and a raging crimson aura gathered behind him as the stag roared, then transformed into a sword beam hundreds of meters long, slashing towards Nightmare.

"Amidst the collapse of the world, the first cry of a stag was heard."

"This is Exner's—god!"

A hundred-meter-long sword light shattered the nightmare with legendary power. Brand fell from the sky, returned to his mount, and raised his longsword high!

"attack!!!"

Behind them, a large number of stag servants followed with unparalleled fervor, charging forward without hesitation, clashing head-on with the Nightmare Knight Legion for the tenth time.

Grand Duke Meyers looked down at the castle, where the second batch of Nightmare Knights had already assembled.

However, he did not make up his mind to send these Nightmare Knights to the battlefield in the North.

“Father, we have suffered too many losses at Twilight Keep.”

When the orcs launched their full-scale invasion, in order to gain control of the Northwind Province, Grand Duke Meyers dispatched the Nightmare Knights to the Twilight Province fortress to stop the Behemoths, the most powerful of the six orcish royal courts.

lost heavily.

Are you suggesting we should give up?

Grand Duke Meyers turned his head and stared intently at Chrysus.

"The greatness of abandoning the Meyers bloodline?"

“Father, we still have thirty years. We can’t put all our hopes on the North Wind Province.”

“A true aristocrat knows how to assess the situation and cut their losses in time.”

“It is obvious that you, my child, are a typical aristocrat.”

After Grand Duke Meyers finished speaking, he continued:
“But unfortunately, your father, I, one of the first blasphemous dukes, was not such a nobleman.”

"This war is not yet at the point where I should admit defeat. Ryan Clayton is not strong enough."

With a wave of his hand, he sent thousands of Nightmare Knights charging into the Nightmare Path, storming into the Northwind Province with overwhelming force.

The thunderous trampling of iron hooves and the neighing of warhorses brought new variables to the war.

Ryan sheathed his longsword and turned around.

He stood on a high slope, the highest point in both front and back, but those in front of him could not see behind him, and those behind him could not see in front of him.

"Offer your loyalty to me."

As Ryan finished speaking softly, chains were severed one by one on the wilderness behind him, and a deep, hoarse roar came out. Thousands of black dragon warriors, their bodies covered in hard bone and barbs, grew dragon fang blades on their hands.

In the sky, the wings of the high-ranking dragon warrior, Nightmare the Mad Dragon, slowly unfurled.

Their roars were hoarse, yet they dared not veer beyond Ryan's side. As Ryan's command finally arrived, the fragile chains binding them broke free, and they charged forward madly.

Along the path of nightmares, one Nightmare Knight after another arrived at the battlefield. They looked up and saw that on a distant high slope, terrifying monsters were also heading towards them.

Dragon warriors are born executioners, possessing the most intense bloodlust. They are not living beings, but war machines for the Nidhogg dragon lords.

They were born for war, using every weapon they possess to inflict harm and kill on the enemy.

"Let nightmares also experience the civilization from the dragons."

As bets continued to be placed on the battlefield, even more brutal warfare ensued. Grand Duke Meyers silently watched the dragon warriors and the Nightmare of Mad Dragons appear. He admitted that he had not expected Ryan to possess such power besides the Extraordinary Legion.

"Isn't the [Prophet Witch] omniscient?"

Grand Duke Meyers looked at the battlefield in the North, but he did not feel that the war was tilting in his favor.

The Extraordinary Legion has three tiers.

The Nightmare Knight Legion on the battlefield is only showing the first stage of the extraordinary legion.

Death is not the end, but may be the beginning of another journey. The Nightmare Knight Legion is one of the six top extraordinary legions of the Flor Empire, and they are located in the second tier of extraordinary legions.

"In the name of Meyers, I call upon you to fight for me."

Grand Duke Meyers' voice finally reached the sky above Redwing Plains. His bloodline contained extraordinary power. With the Grand Duke's command arriving, Ryan also looked towards the battlefield, guessing at the possible changes.

On the battlefield, amidst countless carnage and gore, flames began to burn the corpses of the fallen Nightmare Knights, their flesh and souls consumed by the flames.

Then, amidst the flames, new life was born—pure spiritual beings, soldiers called Nightmare. They opened their blood-red eyes and, within the black mist, stretched out their hands—two sharp blades.

Without legs, clad in tattered armor, nightmares awaken from the death of knights, then lock onto the nearest stag squire or dragon warrior and fly straight toward it.

Their hands, those two sharp blades, launched a frenzied attack on the enemy, tearing their armor inch by inch until flesh and blood were exposed and bones were shattered.

This is the Nightmare Knight Legion, its extraordinary second form!
(End of this chapter)