Lord: I can see loyalty.

In the village of Savannah, countless militiamen are gathering.

The nearly one hundred militiamen were divided into ten teams, and the captain of each team was making patrol arrangements for the day in front of their team.

After the patrol team went back to rest, the remaining six militia teams quickly began to act separately.

Glenn, also a militia captain, carried a greatsword and led his militia to guard the entrance to Savannah village. His task was to protect the village.

Looking at the distant mountains and dense forests where only a few birdsong could be heard, Glenn's eyes remained unchanged, standing like a stone pillar.

He was no stranger to the task of guarding the village.

Before following Count Vio, he had spent eight years guarding the village of Broadbridge.

No reward, no companions. Except, of course, for the taciturn, tall, thin swordsman, Brandon, who had wandered from the far north.

Day after day, he gazed at the same dirt road and the same grove of trees, until the swords and spears of bandits shattered the peace.

At this moment, he looked at the scenery before him, which was completely different from that of Kuoqiao Village. In the distance were the towering Luoba Mountain, and at its foot stretched a dense forest.

Glenn's eyes remained unwavering; his vigilance was ingrained in his very being.

Listening to the whispers of the villagers behind me, memories flooded back during that tense moment.

family.

This word had long been shrouded in ashes in Glenn's heart.

He could no longer remember his father's face, only vaguely recalling a pair of rough, large hands that had once carried him on their shoulders, making his field of vision suddenly appear much higher.

His mother's features became a little clearer; she was a thin woman with a kind of anxiety and longing in her eyes that he didn't understand at the time.

The change probably occurred during the harvest season when he was seven years old.

When he woke up that morning, the house was empty. The campfire outside had been extinguished for a long time, and his parents' bed was made so neatly that it looked as if no one had ever slept there.

He waited all day, cried himself to sleep, and woke up to continue waiting. The villagers also helped him search for three days, but in the end, all he got were a bunch of chilling speculations.

"They probably ran into some bandits passing by..." The old village chief leaned against an old tree at the entrance of the village, sighed and shook his head.

"Didn't the back mountain suffer a beast plague last year? I heard there were even monsters..." the hunter said in a low voice.

But the most widely circulated version is the drunkard's mutterings that Glenn overheard in the tavern:

"That child's mother...could she really have gone to find that mysterious god? I think I saw someone in a gray robe loitering around her...Cults abducting people to sacrifice to gods isn't unheard of elsewhere..."

Cult.

Upon hearing those two words, Glenn's heart skipped a beat.

He vaguely remembered that his mother often whispered prayers to a distorted symbol she had never seen before; it was not the star of the Holy Light Church of the Kingdom.

He had asked her about it before, but his mother just hurriedly put it away, her eyes darting away as she said, "Children shouldn't ask so many questions."

Most of the villagers are kind-hearted. One family gives him a meal, another gives him an old piece of clothing, and that's how they raise him.

Glenn was stronger than most people his age, but he became increasingly quiet. He spent all his free time on two things: practicing swordsmanship and using his limited mind to piece together clues about his parents' disappearance.

Of all the rumors, being abducted by a cult is the only one with subtle clues, but it is also the possibility he is most unwilling to accept. Even so, he wants to find the truth, even if the truth may be too cruel for him to bear.

As for guarding the village, the initial reason was simply to repay the village for its nurturing kindness, and at the same time, to keep an eye on every unfamiliar face entering and leaving the village.

This became his habit until the sound of bandits' hooves reached Kuoqiao Village. He brandished his greatsword and stood guard at the village entrance, but he couldn't hold it and had to retreat to the other side.

Until that young lord appeared.

Vio Rose's swordsmanship was so strong that it was unbelievable for a nobleman's son. The militiamen who followed him were powerful and well-organized. They defeated the bandits and changed Glenn's original destiny of living a solitary life.

……

"Captain, the brothers have been watching all morning, their eyes are sore." The voice of a young militiaman beside Glenn pulled him back from his long reverie.

He turned and glanced around at his subordinates' tense faces and slightly distorted postures.

He knew very well that guarding the village was tedious, especially this long and uneventful standoff.

"It's not time for your shift change yet, but you can sit down, rest your feet, and have a drink of water." Glenn's voice wasn't loud, but it made his militiamen's eyes light up. "Don't let your guard down. Pay close attention to what's happening outside. The patrol team is right outside; they'll be the first to notice anything."

The young militiamen felt like they had been granted a pardon. They quickly thanked him in hushed tones, sat down on the spot, stretched their sore and numb legs, took out their water bags, and their tension eased a little.

Glenn turned his gaze back to the forest.

His thoughts drifted back to Lord Vio. It was the count who had given him a new direction. Under the lord's rule, Broadbridge Village was thriving and no longer needed a reclusive village keeper like him.

Glenn's life was saved by the lord, and perhaps only by following the lord and relying on greater power can he continue on his path.

Sa—

A strange noise suddenly came, and Glenn knew very well that it was not the wind.

His muscles tensed instantly, and he bent down slightly to grip the hilt of the greatsword.

That was the sound of grass and trees being rubbed together rapidly, coming from the left edge of the forest, from the bushes about thirty paces away from their patrol route.

"Be on guard!" Glenn's low shout interrupted the brief rest.

The militiamen who were sitting on the ground sprang to their feet as if by reflex, their weapons instantly drawn, forming a simple formation, all their eyes fixed on the direction Glenn had warned them to stay in.

Glenn didn't move; his ears caught any slightest sound in the woods, and his eyes sharply scanned the suddenly quiet shadows.

As if the commotion had never happened, the sporadic bird calls that had been there just moments before vanished completely.

"Hans!" he raised his voice, shouting in the direction where a ten-man patrol should have been passing by.

Patrol captain Hans had a loud voice, and if he were nearby, he would never fail to respond.

But the only response he received was the low rustling of the wind through the leaves.

"Will! Respond!" Glenn called out the name of another patrol captain who might be nearby.

However, it remained completely silent.

Cold sweat silently slid down the militiamen's foreheads, and their palms, gripping their weapons, were slightly damp.

And just as this suffocating silence reached its peak...

From deep within the bushes on the left, a cold, sharp glint suddenly flashed, as swift as a viper's tongue!

That wasn't sunlight reflecting off metal; it looked more like sunlight emanating from some kind of bone or stone!

"Enemy attack! Hold the village entrance, blow the horn!"

Glenn shouted out instantly, and at the same time, the heavy greatsword behind him was silently drawn and held horizontally in front of him.

His massive body leaned slightly forward, his gaze fixed intently on the shadow where the cold light appeared.

The tranquility of the forest was shattered, and the sound of horns echoed throughout Savannah.

Meanwhile, a man and a horse charged off from Savannah toward Bordeaux, raising a cloud of dust as they sped away.