Free Web NovelThe twilight light poured onto the watchtower of the Silver Creek Mine, illuminating the exquisite captured cigar in Earl Albert's hand.
He gently stroked the texture of the cigar, his gaze passing over the tower eaves and falling onto the mine square below.
Two armies were currently handing over defense duties.
One was a legion formed by the fusion of the Red Tide and the Northern Army; their black military uniforms looked like the Grim Reaper under the setting sun.
Albert watched this scene, an indescribable emotion welling up in his heart.
A few months ago, he had been worried that the Red Tide's rigid nature would grind away the bloody spirit of the Northern men.
But after fighting all this way, what he saw was not tamed beasts, but a pack of wolves that understood discipline.
That change made him feel gratified, but it also made him involuntarily recall that rainstorm night ten days ago, which was their first battle. frёeωebɳovel.com
It was only on that day that he realized just how powerful Louis's team really was.
The rain fell like a waterfall, crashing down from the sky.
When lightning tore across the sky, Albert still remembered standing in the mud outside Black Pine Fortress, looking at Lambert beside him with a heart full of doubt.
Louis let a naive kid take command? This was too much of a joke.
With the terrain of Black Pine Fortress, it would be impossible to take it without filling it with lives, let alone with zero casualties.
He had even decided that as soon as Lambert showed improper command, he would immediately take over and lead the charge himself.
However, Lambert did not give him that chance.
The young man just looked down at the letter in his hand, written by Louis himself, and then raised his hand, pointing to an inconspicuous section of the wall at the northwest corner of Black Pine Fortress.
Immediately afterward, several knights, like shadows born out of thin air in the night, silently climbed the wall.
Albert remembered it very clearly; there were only a few dull sounds of crossbows, followed by a "boom" masked by the thunder.
By the time the firelight flared up, that section of the wall had already cracked, and stones were tumbling down.
In that instant, he was stunned.
It was as if Louis had dismantled this fortress in advance, knowing which section of stone was of the poorest quality and which guards would slack off on a rainy night.
An almost absurd thought rose in Albert: "If I were the one defending the city, I wouldn't even know how I died."
Even more shocking than the breaking of the city was the behavior of the Red Tide army after they broke in.
The treasury doors were blown ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) open, and chests of military pay were scattered all over the ground, a glittering golden sight.
The Northern knights instinctively lunged forward to grab the money.
He didn't think there was anything wrong with that; after all, the North was bitter and cold, and there was no shame in trading one's life for money.
However, he could never forget the sight of Lambert's back.
Standing right before the mountain of wealth, the young legion commander didn't hesitate for a second; he simply raised his hand.
The Red Tide Knights walked past them, and not a single person reached out to touch even a coin.
Albert was frozen on the spot at the time, his chest feeling as if it had been struck by a blunt object.
What he thought was Northern pride seemed, at that moment, like a disguised skin being peeled away.
What Louis had cultivated was a different kind of army that could remain calm in front of a mountain of gold—though, after he later learned of the Red Tide Knights' compensation, he wouldn't be so surprised.
He opened the map of the Grey Rock Province; a quarter of the province had already been colored with the hue of the Red Tide legion.
A chill crawled up his spine.
He imagined an extremely dangerous hypothesis: "If I were a vassal of the Remont... or if there were a Northern civil war and I chose to stand on the opposite side of Louis..."
Images flashed through his mind one by one:
He knew very well what it would be like to stand on the opposite side; intelligence couldn't be hidden at all, and all deployments would be like papers spread out on the opponent's desk.
The hidden moves he set up wouldn't last long before being seen through.
The city walls wouldn't even last until the first alarm bell against the Magic Bombs, and as for his own knights, they would likely be suppressed by the steel torrent before they could even react.
Albert's throat tightened, and he reached an undeniable conclusion in his heart: "I wouldn't last a day. No... I wouldn't even last half a day. My head would be hanging on a flagpole."
The tobacco in the cigar unknowingly burned down to his fingertips, and Albert flinched from the burn, snapping back from his memories.
"Lord Earl," Lambert entered the room, carrying the smell of gunpowder. "The Silver Creek Mine has been cleared. Following our usual practice, porridge sheds have been set up, and the bully mine owner is undergoing public trial. Your Knight Regiment... did very well this time."
Albert couldn't help but smile, not expecting that he would actually be happy in his heart to be praised by someone of common birth who was half his age.
Suppressing the chill in his heart, he said to Lambert, "Lambert, where is the next target? Is it Red Leaf Town ahead, or the White River Ferry? My Knight Regiment requests to lead the vanguard."
Lambert didn't directly refuse but simply walked to the map, picked up a red pen, and lightly drew crosses next to several frontline strongholds.
His tone was steady and polite: "Lord Earl, on any other day, I would certainly support you leading the way. But Lord Louis reminded us that the current situation has changed."
Albert frowned. "The surrounding towns are as empty as the bottom of a wine barrel. My men could pick any one of them to charge and occupy it directly."
"Precisely because of that, the enemy will no longer be careless." Lambert pointed to the dense red dots on the map. "Our previous victories were built on an intelligence blackout. They didn't know where we were coming from or where the next blow would land. It's different now."
He slowly traced along the main road of the Grey Rock Province: "According to Lord Louis, the intelligence that our army has entered the Grey Rock Province has already reached Grey Rock Fortress.
Kyle Remont will certainly react extremely quickly; all the vassals are shrinking toward the center. They are burning grain, closing gates, and driving laborers into the fortresses, turning those peripheral strongholds into empty shells, but filled with traps."
He turned his head to look at Albert, his tone still courteous: "This is the judgment given by Lord Louis. If we try to rely on light-equipped surprise attacks again, we will only crash into the iron formation they have prepared."
Albert pondered for a moment. "Then we go step by step? Taking them down fortress by fortress?"
Lambert shook his head, his expression clearly carrying respect: "The Lord has another way of fighting."
He took an order covered with the wax seal of the Red Tide Territory from his breast pocket and placed it on the table: "The whole army will rest and reorganize on the spot for two days. Feed the horses well and count the ammunition. Then, converge toward the middle route."
Albert was startled. "The middle route? Converge where?"
Lambert's finger passed over all the peripheral strongholds, as if wiping away irrelevant noise, and finally landed on the massive stone fortress in the center of the map.
"Grey Rock Fortress." He steadily conveyed Louis's intention: "The Lord will meet us in front of Blackstone Canyon. All heavy firepower will be present. After that, we take Grey Rock Fortress directly."
Albert's heart skipped a beat.
Taking Grey Rock Fortress directly—that was the old nest the Remont Family had operated for hundreds of years, the symbol of the West's pride.
In his world, that place was never something any army could touch.
Albert stared at that straight marching route, feeling something ignited in his chest.
His blood began to boil; after all, he was also a Northerner, and the battle intent in his bones was awakening.
He murmured, "A direct frontal assault?"
Lambert straightened his posture like a true officer: "Yes. Head-on. This is the Lord's command, and it is something we can achieve."
Albert laughed loudly, his laughter full of heroic spirit: "Good! When the time comes, don't stop me. I'll be the vanguard!"
...The sky over Grey Rock Fortress was as gloomy as a block of lead, but the military intelligence center was brightly lit, the sealed stone room so stuffy one could hardly breathe.
A giant map of the entire Grey Rock Province hung on the wall, filled with dense colored flags marking key roads and towns.
Half a month ago, they were symbols of the Remont Family's control over order; now, they were like a skin being sliced open bit by bit by a knife.
Kyle Remont stood before the map, his face pale and bloodless.
"Report—!" The heavy iron door was pushed open, and a messenger stumbled in.
He knelt on one knee, gasping for breath, his voice hoarse yet striving to remain clear.
"White River Ferry has fallen! The Northern Army didn't build a bridge; they set up a pontoon bridge in the night! The defenders didn't even sound the alarm; they were caught while eating and were all captured!"
A rustle of whispers filled the secret room.
The current in that section of the White River was rapid; by common sense, anyone wanting to cross the river would have to gather timber, nails, and craftsmen in advance, and the marching route would be obvious at a glance.
But the Northern Army was like a road that had grown out of thin air on the river's surface, silently reaching the shore.
Kyle's Adam's apple moved, but he didn't speak; he just raised his hand and pressed down hard on the small family flag representing the White River on the map.
That flag shook slightly, and he seemed to hear the sound of some support snapping.
"Report—!" A second messenger fell to his knees, his voice tight. "The Baron of Red Leaf Town... has opened the gates and surrendered."
Kyle raised his eyes, his gaze cold. "Reason for surrender?"
"The Northerners raided the Baron's manor at night. They didn't harm a hair on his head, they just... tied his only son in front of him."
The messenger swallowed hard. "The child was held up on the city wall for the whole town to see. The Baron collapsed on the spot and took the initiative to hand over the city keys."
Someone gasped; the Northern Army could actually find the softest bone in a city with such precision and then snap it for everyone to see.
Kyle's fingers tightened, and he said in a low voice, "Pull out the flag for Red Leaf Town... as well."
"Report—!"
The third shout almost drowned out everyone's heartbeats.
"The Iron Wall Knight Regiment encountered the enemy vanguard on the plains." The messenger supported himself with both hands on the ground, his voice dry. "The enemy army is advancing with a kind of smoke-spewing steel monster.
Our knights had just begun their charge, and before they even made contact, they were blown apart in rows... not even a complete piece of armor could be recovered from the corpses. That wasn't a battle; it was... a massacre."
A moment of dead silence followed, with only the light sound of charcoal cracking in the brazier.
The Iron Wall Knight Regiment was the pride of the Grey Rock Province, one of the few aces Remont had left—heavy armor and thick shields, they had never suffered a loss in a frontal charge.
Now, they had been turned into minced meat from a distance on the plains.
Kyle slowly looked up at the entire map.
The small flag for White River Ferry had been removed, the mark next to Red Leaf Town had been smeared into a patch of dead gray, and the plain where the Iron Wall Knight Regiment was stationed had been heavily circled in red ink.
Those red circles swayed under the candlelight, as if something were seeping up from beneath the paper.
His finger stopped in the center of the map, his fingertips trembling slightly.
"How could it be like this..." Kyle spoke in a low, hoarse voice.
The enemy's footsteps followed an invisible network, cutting off communications, seizing ferries, and destroying mobile forces step by step.
It was as if they were already familiar with this land, familiar with every supply line, every warehouse, and the habits of every cavalry unit.
He suddenly had the illusion of being looked down upon from a high place.
All the defenses he thought were hidden, the secret grain storage points, and the backup retreat routes had no concealment at all before those invisible eyes.
"We have moles, and many of them." Kyle raised his head, his chest feeling stiflingly tight. "Just when did the infiltration begin?"
"We thought we controlled the province. But in his eyes, this is nothing more than a field of ripe wheat. Which patch to harvest first and which one a bit later has already been decided."
The messengers remained silent; no one dared to respond.
Kyle slowly took a step back, looking up at the map that was riddled with holes, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the battlefield.
It wasn't fear of the enemy's blades, but of the opponent's nearly omniscient control.
Louis Calvin.
That name rolled through his mind over and over, and with each roll, the pressure grew heavier.
He clenched his fists, only to find that he couldn't even distinguish which part of the map he should strike.
In that case, the only thing that could be moved... was the terrain.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and the moment he opened them, there was no more hesitation, only the cruelty of being driven into a corner.
"Since we can't stop this wolf, then we'll make it so it can't step forward."
Kyle's voice was low, yet it carried a cold resolve: "The steel monsters may be strong, but they are heavy and rely on roads. Mud can swallow wagons, and corpses can slow them down. As long as that road becomes a swamp and a mass grave... they won't be able to get through."
The adjutant was stunned: "Young Master, you mean..."
Kyle suddenly looked up, his fist slamming onto the table so hard the map trembled: "Burn all the northern villages! That way, they won't have any supplies either."
Firelight danced in his pupils.
"Then drive all the refugees onto that one necessary path—regardless of whether they are old, weak, women, or children, push them all up there! Let that road... become a swampy hell."
The adjutant's face turned pale: "Young Master, that will trigger a large-scale civilian uprising..."
"Then kill them!" Kyle roared. "Kill anyone who dares to resist on the spot! I don't want order; I want time!"
He pointed to the wide road leading to the heartland on the map, gritting his teeth: "I want the flesh and blood, luggage, livestock, and broken belongings of tens of thousands to fill that road. Let it rot, let it be slippery, let it stink so much the Northerners can hardly breathe!
I want Louis's steel monsters... to be unable to move an inch in a sea of corpses and mud."
The adjutant shrank back and didn't dare to argue further... After the order was given, the Grey Rock Province began a migration like a living hell.
The roofs of the villages were set on fire, and the flames formed a terrifying red line in the night sky.
Wailing people were driven onto the main road; the cries of infants, the groans of old people falling, and the panicked roars of livestock blended together.
The road was blocked into a non-flowing torrent of flesh and blood.
And Kyle stood on a high platform, coldly watching it all, as if checking whether a crude but effective weapon had begun to operate.
"Louis," he murmured coldly, "you are the one who caused their deaths."
"If you dare to come south, I'll dare to make the entire Grey Rock Province be buried with me. Come then, let's see if you, the King of the North, dare to crush your way through... or if you'll be dragged to death in my sea of mud."
Kyle stared into the distance, his chest feeling as if it were stuffed with a piece of red-hot iron, burning so much he couldn't breathe.
He ignored the tragedy occurring in the valley below and turned to look at the not-too-distant Grey Rock Fortress. If it came to the worst... Grey Rock Fortress hadn't been conquered for over six hundred years; he had to hold it by any means necessary.
