After I died, my personal maid rebelled.

The marching speed of the 80,000-strong army was even slower than Lucas had imagined. If an army is a hierarchical system, then Lucas and his men belonged to the category of purely high-level combat personnel.

They didn't need to move goods, set up camp, or cook.

They travel by horse-drawn carriage, have soft bedding in their tents, are served meals and wash up, and are occasionally given fresh meat and a special meal.

At first, Lucas was not used to this kind of life. He was not used to having people bring him washcloths and pour water for washing his feet. When he made suggestions to the generals above him...

The general simply replaced him with a more efficient orderly; the previous one was already covered in wounds and had been whipped unconscious.

Lucas learned to shut up. The army was nothing like he had imagined, and the so-called camaraderie was limited to small groups of four or five people.

The strict class system here is no less rigid than that of the nobility.

When Lucas woke up one day and found that the orderly had not brought him steaming hot water to wash his face on time, a nameless anger suddenly rose in his heart. He finally realized how the system environment alienated people.

As if waking from a nightmare, Lucas slapped himself hard across the face to remind himself to maintain his human dignity.

He wasn't some high-ranking general; he was just like these lowly soldiers, forced to participate in an extremely dangerous war.

A short while later, the orderly brought him water to wash his face, his body trembling, and gave him a fawning smile. Lucas nodded, saying nothing.

After finishing breakfast as usual, Lucas arrived at the gathering place of these high-end combatants, waiting for the soldiers to break camp and march.

After exchanging a few casual greetings with his classmates, Lucas met the generals who were emerging from the village. It's worth mentioning here that, if circumstances allowed, the generals would spend the night in the village, not at their camp.

One of the generals waved his hand, picked up his belt, and returned to the camp. Immediately, several soldiers entered a house in the village and carried out the body of a young girl who had been tortured beyond recognition.

"It's disgusting! They've completely disgraced the aristocracy!" A female student crossed her arms and expressed her dissatisfaction.

Lucas was about to agree when she said, "He actually likes to play around with country bumpkins, humph, doesn't he care about getting himself dirty?"

The world's harshness and filth taught Lucas a lesson: perhaps life is a gamble, and most people are destined from the moment they are born to be a short, bitter, and monotonous lament.

The highs and lows of life are merely for the amusement of certain different kinds of people of the same kind.

In short, in the military camp, humanity can completely tear away all pretense, and even if his stomach was churning, Lucas could only force himself to swallow it down.

Because once he vomits it out, he will only become an oddity in the eyes of others.

On the twentieth day of the march, the army finally held a large-scale meeting, and the generals informed their subordinates that they would arrive outside Green Gorge in about five days.

The siege plan was quickly finalized. Some non-core local troops were sent out to lead the charge, depleting the Northern Army's strength. Then, the elite Imperial Guards would launch an attack, opening the city gates in one fell swoop, allowing the Royal Knights to advance unimpeded and annihilate the defenders of Green Gorge.

In addition, Lucas and others also need to cooperate with the Imperial Guard's operations. Intelligence analysis indicates that the Northern Army's Second Division is stationed in Green Canyon, and it has a heavily armored unit that is difficult to deal with, requiring a strong force to be deployed to counter it.

Lucas had no objections; this arrangement was better than being cannon fodder, and he didn't want to become a human shield that consumed arrows.

But Lucas underestimated the war and was completely unaware that his enemies were filled with unvented rage.

In fact, as early as the seventh day after their expedition, Green Gorge City received news of the Central Army's deployment. The scouts, with their eyes hidden in the shadows, had already ascertained the Central Army's every move.

In the dead of night, the sound of rapid hoofbeats shattered the darkness, and Lucas, who had received his siege mission just hours earlier, was jolted awake.

He rushed out of the tent, and by the dim moonlight, he saw not heavily armored soldiers, but heavily armored knights sweeping in like dark clouds obscuring the sky.

Night was falling, and a cold, star-like glimmer shone across the vast plains.

The wind lashed my face, like the gentle caress of death...

"Enemy attack!!!"

The bugle call for an emergency assembly sounded, and perhaps the only consolation for Lucas was that the generals were all in the camp tonight.

Yes, despite their shortcomings, the soldiers' combat skills are undeniable. With their fortified camp, they will surely be able to launch an effective counterattack under the general's command.

However, when the Paladin's symbol appeared, Lucas's mind went blank.

The night raid was launched by Paul's Holy Knights and Red's Knights, along with five thousand newly arrived cavalrymen.

Jenny also arrived at the front lines.

She commanded all the cavalry of the Northern Army, ordering Paul to lead the attack, Red to be the main force, and the cavalry, mostly from the western pastoral areas, to provide support, intercept and harass, and use bows and arrows to kill the enemy from a distance.

The Central Army will likely choose Green Canyon as the location for their first battle, and Jenny intends to take advantage of their informational errors to launch a surprise attack before defending the city.

This is not an isolated advance. The border area between the Northern Territory and the Central District is now under the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, so the Central Army has effectively entered the area controlled by the Northern Territory.

A man of unparalleled bravery, clad in gleaming gold armor, deflected a few stray arrows and raised his sword high.

Lucas's heart stopped beating at that moment.

"Blazing Star, the Divine Word has fallen!"

A crimson light, three thousand feet high, poured down, illuminating the entire battlefield. The sturdy camp gates were instantly reduced to ashes, and a series of trigger explosions scattered the newly assembled local troops.

Even from hundreds of meters away, Lucas could smell the acrid odor in the air.

Braving the sandstorms and corpses, the paladins, led by Paul, stormed into the camp, and their colorful magic ushered in a massacre.

The generals appeared on the battlefield and methodically urged the Imperial Guards to stop the local troops who wanted to escape. The Imperial Guards assembled their troops while using their swords and spears to force the local troops back into the battlefield.

An army of 80,000 men was still too large, and the generals of the Central District had long been prepared for the Northern Army's night attack.

From the very beginning, they placed the local troops' camps at the forefront as a buffer zone in response to attacks.

Like lambs caught between two tigers, the local forces of several thousand men, with no way to escape the battle, chose to fight the Holy Knights to the death.

They charged forward with shouts, but all their actions were meaningless before the steel walls of the Paladin Order, which constantly spewed spells.

Life after life engulfed the horses' legs as the paladins mercilessly slashed through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, their cries of agony becoming the dominant melody of the battlefield.

Local troops did indeed risk their lives to halt the Holy Knights' advance, but the central army generals also failed to launch a counterattack as they had hoped.

The Imperial Guards had just assembled and formed a spear formation when Red's Knights accelerated, their black steel armor and the neighing of their warhorses unleashing the knights' fury upon the dense formation.

Charge! Charge!

The hail of spears crumbled in disarray, warhorses fell in rows, countless bodies were torn apart by the spears in their hands, and countless holes were pierced through the shattered armor.

The meat grinder spun instantly, like a bright red orange being squeezed and crushed, bursting forth with surging waves of blood.

The waves engulfed everything, and the knights fought fiercely, their speed slowed by countless corpses, yet they pressed on relentlessly!

His eyes were even redder than blood, and a battle cry of "For the Duke!" echoed through the sky. Red took the lead, removing his tattered armor, and once again ignited the knights' raging fury.

Even if they claim it, they must prove that they are the sharpest blade in the Duke's hand!

The Imperial Guard troops were torn apart by the thrashing of spears and blades, rolling through a sea of ​​steaming blood. In just ten minutes, the Knights had annihilated a force of Imperial Guards equal in number to their own.

The generals of the Central Army were shocked, and so was Lucas.

But the Northern Knights, having reorganized their attack formation, would not give them any time to breathe. Red had already set his sights on the next position: the Royal Knights' assembly area.

At the same time, Paul, who was leading the Holy Knights, also discovered a special camp. Without the slightest hesitation, he spurred his horse and headed straight for Lucas's location.