Free Web NovelAt the flank ambush point, Osser was frozen stiff in his saddle.
He had already drawn his sword, ready to lead the Silverfang Knights down from the high ground to cut off the rear flank of the 17th Legion the moment they broke free from the mud.
But when he personally witnessed a hundred Steam War Chariots pushing aside the mist side by side, firing simultaneously, and instantly wiping nearly a thousand Black Steel Knights off the face of the earth.
His sword was raised halfway, but he hesitated to swing it down.
"This... what... what the hell is this thing..."
Osser's throat tightened; thirty years of experience had become useless.
The appearance of certain things was not a tactical advantage, but a complete discontinuity in the era itself.
He had never seen a weapon that could cause destruction on such a scale without relying on Battle Qi, incantations, or the command of a general.
It wasn't siege weaponry, nor did it even resemble magic.
It was more like... a horde of monsters driving out of an iron hell.
As he stood frozen, a steady and cold hand slapped his shoulder armor.
Ferran's voice was like a heavy hammer on a winter night: "Osser, pull your jaw up. If you don't charge now, that brat Lambert is going to steal all the glory."
Osser jolted violently, as if kicked awake from a dream, his face flushing instantly.
To cover his earlier lapse, he abruptly raised his sword high above his head, his voice hoarse but thunderous: "Silverfang Knights! For Lord Louis!! Charge!!"
On the high ground, thousands of silver-grey cloaks fluttered, and the knights descended like a sharp blade cutting down from the snowy ridge.
On the other side, the Frost Iron Knights advanced steadily like a descending iron curtain, moving in sync with them.
Nearly two thousand Frost Halberd Knights, led by Ferran and Osser, converged from both flanks, their blades pointed directly at the remnants of the 17th Legion who were scattered and fleeing after being crushed by the Steam War Chariots.
Like torrents of steel converging from different directions, they forced all fleeing enemies into a dead end, completely sealing off the last retreat route for Ackerman’s knights... Ackerman was covered in mud, his armor shattered as if bitten by a giant beast, and the Battle Qi around him was in chaos, unable to form a complete shield.
The air was thick with the smell of blood and char, surrounded by mutilated corpses, flattened warhorses, and the roaring sound of hot steel treads.
He stood staggering, like an old lion whose limbs had been severed but still sought to pounce on its enemy.
He had gone mad, his eyes bloodshot, his breathing heavy like a wheezing bellows.
"Come out! Louis—!!"
His roar carried the despair and fury of a tearing throat: "Is this your honor? Relying on bombs? Relying on these monsters? What kind of knights are you!!"
Just as he was screaming, one of the Steam War Chariots in front of him stopped.
The treads made a "kaka" metallic grinding sound, as if the steel behemoth was looking down upon this dying human lion.
Alongside the war chariot, a figure draped in a Red Tide crimson cloak slowly emerged from the steam on horseback.
Lambert looked as if he were strolling through a peaceful courtyard, forming a stark contrast to Ackerman's wretched and filthy appearance.
Ackerman stared at him, his expression shifting from madness and pain to a strange... sense of delight.
He chuckled softly, the sound full of desolation, "At least... it's a Knight who came."
Although he had never met Lambert, the sensation of Battle Qi did not lie; the opponent was also an Extraordinary Knight and worthy of delivering his end.
Ackerman rushed forward, roaring as if grasping a final straw, Battle Qi exploding on his broken sword like the last flame of his life being ignited.
"Come!! Let this old man see! Can the youth of today still fight a battle honorably!!"
Lambert merely raised an eyebrow.
He didn't even draw his sword.
He unlatched the leather pouch next to his saddle and took out three silver-white light Magic Bombs.
Ackerman's eyes widened. He finally realized... the Knights of this era didn't need to draw their swords.
"You—!" His roar turned into a ripping shriek.
Lambert spoke flatly: "The times have changed, Lord Ackerman."
He flicked his wrist, and the three bombs landed in a 'pin' formation around Ackerman.
There was only enough time for Ackerman to widen his eyes.
Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!!
The triple detonation overlapped, creating a visible vortex of air current that ripped Ackerman entirely off the ground.
His Battle Qi shield shattered like broken glass, and his armor was peeled into curled edges by the shockwave.
He slammed violently into the armor of the Steam War Chariot, leaving a deep dent in the metal, while his body slid down like a flattened leather sack.
Blood flowed out of the armor seams, staining the snow and mud below red.
Lambert dismounted and walked up to his fallen body.
Ackerman's consciousness struggled on the verge of fading, his lips trembling as if he still wanted to say something.
But he couldn't speak. The last thing he saw was Lambert's utterly indifferent gaze.
A look of a new era's spark overlooking the embers of the old.
A silver flash.
Ackerman's head rolled onto the snow, still bearing the unwillingness, confusion, and fear toward the transition of the old and new eras.
Lambert reached out, grabbed the still-warm head, and casually held it, saying: "Hang his head in front of the war chariot and send it to Lord Louis."
The roar of steam sounded again, and the war chariot slowly moved forward.
Ackerman’s head was raised on a spear, his once ambitious eyes finally losing all light, leaving behind only the sigh of an era... On the other side of the high ground, at the observation point of the 14th Legion and the 7th Legion.
Iron Wall Saul, who was usually as steady as a mountain, and Balt, who was known for his madness, both froze on their horses.
They watched through binoculars as three thousand Black Steel Knights under Ackerman were crushed into a pulp by the war chariots.
They then saw Ackerman himself get thrown by a tank like a rag doll, and finally reduced to half a body by three light explosive bombs.
This wasn't a battle; it was an annihilation.
Balt's Adam's apple bobbed twice, his face whiter than snow: "Something's wrong, something's very wrong, this is..."
The next second, this man known as "Mad Dog" suddenly yanked his reins, turning and bolting as if struck by a whip!
He howled as he ran: "Retreat! Retreat, retreat, retreat!! I, Balt, saw nothing today! Who is Ackerman? I don't know him!! This is a drill!! A drill!! Run, quick—!!"
The guard company of the 7th Legion didn't even have time to react and hastily followed, the scene chaotic like a herd of startled deer.
Saul stood frozen in place.
He watched Balt fleeing for his life like a mad dog, momentarily at a loss.
"That bastard... ran away without even taking the flag?!"
The next second—RUMBLE!!
Another round of simultaneous war chariot fire turned the opposite side of the battlefield into a storm of screams and shattered armor.
The heat wave even caused Saul's cloak to whip violently.
Nearly a hundred Black Steel Knights were reduced to an iron-red slurry, their bodies unrecognizable. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Saul felt as if he had been punched in the chest; he finally understood why Balt ran.
His throat tightened, his lips trembled, and his voice broke as he cursed:
"That idiot Ackerman... he doomed us!! This isn't a fight! This is suicide!!! Who... who the hell can fight these monsters?! Damn it—!!"
Then he finally couldn't hold on anymore, violently pulling the reins and making his mount rear up.
"14th Legion retreat! Retreat immediately!! If you run slow, there won't even be bones left! Run! Head back to Greyrock Fortress!! If anyone asks what we were doing here today, tell them we were patrolling!! Everyone say it was patrol!!"
"Run—!!!"
Under his roar, the Knights of the 14th Legion retreated madly, as if dragged awake from a nightmare, their armor clanking loudly, completely devoid of the majesty of Imperial Heavy Cavalry.
The two torrents of cavalry, which should have been the greatest threat to Frost Halberd City, thus separated and fled in despair and terror from both sides of the high ground.
The roar on the battlefield gradually ceased, leaving only the "hissing" sound of pressure releasing from the Steam War Chariots' exhaust pipes, lingering in the cold wind.
The sound was not like a machine, but rather some colossal beast slowly breathing.
On the North City Wall, there was dead silence, with only snow rustling down in the wind.
Earl Ebert still stood ramrod straight and motionless, like an old pine tree frozen on a cliff.
But the cane in his hand was gripped tightly.
The expensive and sturdy wood emitted a subtle, almost inaudible "ka... ka..." sound in his palm, like a dying struggle.
His gaze slowly swept over the area below the city wall.
It was a slaughterhouse. The 17th Legion, the pride of the Empire, was spread across the snow like a nightmarish tableau.
Black Steel armor crushed beyond recognition by the treads; warhorses whose spines were broken and limbs twisted from the impact.
Wounded soldiers shouting for help in the mud and snow mixed with blood.
More knights, who didn't even have time to scream, had their bodies pressed into flat, dark red sludge.
Ebert remembered when he was young, he would thrust his spear eight hundred times in the blizzard before sunrise every day.
Day after day, year after year, for a decade without stopping.
That was the honor of a Knight, the strength as he understood it.
Yet just now, these Knights who had trained for decades and mastered Battle Qi didn't even qualify to approach those hundred "iron boxes."
They didn't lose due to technique, nor courage, nor even Battle Qi.
They lost to the era.
A cold wind blew across the city wall, making his cloak snap loudly. freewёbnoνel.com
Ebert's Adam's apple moved, and he finally admitted a fact he had never considered:
"This is not a denial of our way of fighting; it is the burial of our reason for existence."
Behind him, a young noble was terrified, his face pale and his voice trembling uncontrollably: "Earl... is this... is this magic? Is it some kind of forbidden spell? How... how did they do it?"
Ebert slowly turned his head.
His face held no anger, no emotion, only a deep, irreversible emptiness.
He released the cane that he had almost cracked, his voice hoarse but exceptionally clear: "It is not magic."
He pointed toward the formation of war chariots in the distance, which were slowly stopping, steam venting from their pipes.
"Starting today, the era of the Knights... is over."
After saying this, the old man, who had ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ been unyielding his entire life and never retreated a single step before an enemy, visibly aged ten years.
His back seemed to slightly stoop.
The air seemed frozen for several seconds.
Then everyone's gaze naturally converged on the other side of the city wall—Louis Calvin.
He was sitting on a temporarily placed wooden chair, wrapped in a cloak, lazily blowing the froth off the surface of his black tea.
There was no excitement, no tension, not a hint of a victor's wild joy.
It was as if he were admiring the snow, or listening to a piece of leisurely courtyard music.
Ebert's pupils contracted slightly.
In that moment, the Louis in his eyes was no longer just a young lord, a new noble, or a junior who won by strange techniques.
He seemed like the first human to raise a torch in ancient times... Fear, awe, and submission—these complex, inexpressible emotions surged up all at once, making Ebert sway precariously, yet he dared not close his eyes.
The reactions of the other nobles were even worse; over a dozen minor nobles nearly fainted from fright, their faces paler than corpses.
Amidst this widespread trembling, Louis gently set down his teacup.
The wind and snow seemed to pause for an instant.
He spoke lightly, as if making small talk about the weather: "It should be over."
The moment that voice fell, everyone understood clearly that he wasn't saying the battle was over; he was saying the old era was over.
Da, da, da... In this dead silence, a series of steady footsteps came from below the stone steps.
Lambert appeared.
He slowly stepped onto the city wall, his red cloak stained with blood, his armor covered in a thin layer of frost, yet his face was as calm as if he were returning from morning training, showing no trace of having been through a slaughterhouse.
His left hand was carrying something, and blood dripped steadily, beads of blood sliding down his iron gauntlet and forming a dotted trail of scabs on the ground.
It was a head.
The head of Ackerman Greir.
That once arrogant face was now hideous and distorted, eyes wide open, pupils dilated, as if still trying to roar something out in the final moment before death, but forever frozen in silent agony.
In that instant, the entire city wall felt as if an invisible giant hand had gripped its throat.
The nobles instinctively made way, and some even went weak-kneed and collapsed onto the ground.
Lambert walked up to Louis, knelt on one knee, and held up the head with both hands:
"Reporting to the Lord Governor, Ackerman Greir, the chief culprit of the rebel forces, has been executed. The remnants of the 17th Legion have all been disarmed and await your judgment."
Louis set down his teacup, his gaze sweeping over the head as if assessing a piece of low-quality merchandise: "Very good, Lambert. Have Logistics distribute wine to everyone later to warm up."
That was all.
Killing an Imperial Legion Commander was, in his words, only worth a few barrels of wine.
The nobles gasped inwardly. They finally realized that Louis's way of viewing high-ranking officials and generals was completely different from their own.
Louis stood up, walked to the railing, looked at the head, and suddenly sighed.
His tone carried a hint of regret: "Ackerman was originally a loyal defender of the Empire, but unfortunately... he became greedy for power and went mad. He brutally murdered Baron Morcan, then coerced the 17th Legion into attempting rebellion and attacking the Northern Territory."
Those around him stiffened their backs.
Everyone understood that whether Ackerman or Louis was truly mad was irrelevant.
What mattered was that Louis had openly and firmly pinned the crime of treason on Ackerman.
Louis raised his voice, his tone steady: "Fortunately, with the witness of my colleagues in the Northern Territory, I successfully assisted the Empire in quelling this rebellion."
He slowly turned and looked at Earl Ebert, smiling: "Earl, as you witnessed yourself, this is the truth of the matter, correct?"
Ebert put down his cane, braced his hands on his knees, and slowly bowed deeply, placing his hand over his chest.
This was the highest salute of the old nobility.
"The Guardian of the North... is you. You saved us and upheld the Empire's honor."
A single sentence, like a ritual announcing the end of an era.
The city wall was silent for three seconds, then, like Wheatwave being swept by the wind, hundreds of nobles bowed in unison.
"The North owes you a debt of gratitude."
"We can all testify to today's events."
"It was quelling a rebellion... absolutely quelling a rebellion."
Louis waved his hand lightly: "Hang this head on the tallest flagpole in Frost Halberd City. Let everyone remember that anyone who dares to run wild in the North will meet this end."
Lambert bowed his head and accepted the order: "As you command, Lord Governor."
The head of Ackerman Greir was raised high, swaying in the wind and snow, and the dripping blood splattered on the cold city bricks.
The new Northern Order was fully established at this moment.
