Saint Sunil City, the capital of Anzu King, Silver Castle.
In the military hall, several royal nobles and knight lords sat at a broad long table made of heavy oak wood with gold edges. The two current regent dukes of Ansu and the nominal prince Prince of Wales Sitting at the head of the long table - a high-level military meeting is being held.
The radiance of the magic crystal lamp illuminates the slightly dull atmosphere of the hall. The metal shield hanging on the north wall of the hall reflects the light of the magic crystal lamp and vaguely illuminates the two sides. In the blurry reflection of the backs of the Duke Regent and the Crown Prince, the bright red coat of the Prince of Wales stood out like a streak of blood.
This man, who returned to the position of crown prince after middle age, quietly watched the nobles speaking, discussing, and arguing at the long table. His eyes occasionally fluctuated, but he hardly said anything. In a word, he was sitting here like a person who had nothing to do with the meeting, listening to matters that theoretically should be decided by him.
A gray-haired old knight put his hands on the table. He was short in stature, but extremely strong. Although he was not young, his eyes still burned with the aura of a young man. With a bright light, he looked at the other knight lords and royal nobles around him, and said in a deep and powerful voice: "The battle to retake Thorinburg has failed. Everyone, we must face this fact - although the number of rebels in the East is small, But we are at a disadvantage."
"The good news is that we have dragged the rebels into the hills around Solinburg," a noble said. "We have our backs against the Holy Spirit Plains. , the land is wider, the number of people is larger, and a protracted war will be beneficial to us."
The old knight couldn't help but knock on the table: "Don't be too optimistic, Earl of Bahrain, the premise of a protracted war is that we can really do it. To maintain this situation for a long time - the Laurent family has been in confrontation with the Typhons for many years. Their soldiers are more tenacious and more able to withstand pressure, while the morale of our army is declining every day. If we can no longer achieve any results, even if we lose food and soldiers It’s enough, we can only be the first to be unable to hold on..."
Duchess Victoria, who was sitting at the head of the long table, suddenly interrupted the old knight: "Mr. Cromwell, don't Excited."
Welsh Morn glanced sideways at the Duchess Regent beside him, then withdrew his gaze and looked at Cromwell White Mountain across the table - he knew this person who looked like him. The elderly knight lord, the special surname "White Mountain" is not common in Ansu, but it is a typical dwarf surname. This is because the ancestor of Cromwell Baishan was indeed a dwarf: in seven hundred years In the previous pioneering journey, elves were not the only alien races that fought side by side with humans. Some dwarves also became builders of human kingdoms during the great pioneering process. Some of them eventually chose to integrate into human society and even became Anzu nobles. One of them, Cromwell Baishan's family, came from this.
Perhaps due to the influence of his ancestral bloodline, this knight lord’s temperament seems too upright among many nobles who pay attention to elegance and etiquette, butWales Moen knew that what Cromwell said was exactly the truth, but...since the Duchess of Victoria had already spoken, he did not need to speak again.
"I'm sorry, Grand Duchess, but we have to admit the facts." Although Cromwell White Mountain apologized, he still spoke with great momentum. "The rebellion in the East is not what we imagined. It's easy to deal with. We didn't drive them out from the Holy Spirit Plains before the end of the Fire Moon. They have already taken root in Thorinburg - the Harvest Moon has arrived, and the rebels will use the food we have grown for half a year to feed themselves. Archduchess Wilder, Duke Franklin, and His Royal Highness the Prince, I am willing to lead the knights on an expedition to help Count Thorin retake the fortress. We cannot let the rebels spend the harvest festival in the Holy Spirit Plains..."
< p> "I never thought that the rebels in the east were easy to deal with," Victoria Wilder said lightly, "but the knights in the royal capital cannot move, Earl Crowell, our rear is not safe."The old knight stared, while several other knight lords and martial nobles next to him exchanged glances with each other and talked in low voices.
Duke Baldwin Franklin, who was sitting on the right side of Welsh Morn, stood up at this moment: "Let me tell you, this news has just reached Saint Sunil - the fall of Rock Fortress ”
The entire military hall fell silent instantly.
What the Duke of the West said was very clear, and there was no ambiguity in the short sentence. However, maybe the amount of information in this sentence was too amazing, or maybe the news was too much beyond everyone's expectations. , every noble who heard this sentence did not react. Finally, the Earl of Baring, who was sitting next to Cromwell, was the first to speak and break the silence: "Your Excellency, you are talking about the one in the southern part of the Holy Spirit Plain. ...Rock Fortress?"
"Does Ansu have a second Rock Fortress?" Baldwin Franklin glanced at the slightly fat Earl of Bahrain.
A royal noble couldn’t help but murmur to himself in astonishment: “It’s so far away from the east, and separated by the southern mountains of the Holy Spirit Plain. How could the rebels take it there? ..."
Perhaps the rebellion in the Eastern Territory has occupied this nobleman's thoughts, or perhaps the thought that "all the rural lords in the Southern Territory are not worth mentioning" is still lingering in his mind. This gentleman actually thought that the Eastern Territory rebels invaded the Southern Territory through some way and attacked the Rock Fortress unexpectedly. He never imagined that there was another sleeping giant beast in the vast and remote land in the South.
But others had already reacted. After a brief moment of astonishment, Cromwell was the first to read a glimmer of information from the gloomy and serious expressions of the two regents. He asked in disbelief. : "Is it...Cecil?"
"That's right, it's not the Eastern Rebels, it's the Cecil family," Baldwin Franklin said calmly, "The founding Duke Gawain? Cecil destroyed the defenses of the Rock Fortress fifteen days ago, on the 58th of Fire Moon, occupied the fortress, and seized all the people in the fortress.Military and civilian. "
Cromwell White Mountain's beard was trembling, and he seemed to want to speak, but Grand Duchess Victoria Wild followed Duke Franklin and spoke: "I know what you want to ask - —But all intelligence is currently blacked out. Cecil's army captured the fortress in a very short period of time. It is said that it only took a few days. Then they blocked the entire fortress, and the fortress defenders had no time to send out any useful intelligence.
“Only two gryphon messengers who risked their lives to break through sent the situation on the day the fortress fell to the royal capital. The information we can now grasp is that Duke Gawain Cecil used some unknown method to create He produced a large number of extraordinary weapons with astonishing power, and established an army with extremely powerful combat effectiveness in a short period of time...
"The life and death of the knight lord Maryland Onal who guarded the fortress is unknown, and he fell in the fortress. Before that, Sir Maryland led the last knights out of the city to fight, but then the barrier of the fortress was destroyed by the Cecil people's magic.
"The Earl of Pompeii also sent a magical message, confirming the news of the fall of the fortress."
After the Duchess of Victoria finished telling all the known information, Cromway Er Baishan finally found the opportunity to speak. The knight lord with part of the dwarf blood frowned: "Cecil... Could it be that the Cecil family is the same as the Eastern Territory..."
" At present, Cecil's army has not continued to move north. After occupying the Rock Fortress, they closed the north gate of the fortress and seemed to intend to hold on." Duke Franklin Baldwin said, "According to the news from Count Pompeii, They didn't even pay attention to the easily accessible granaries and manors outside the northern wall of the fortress, nor did they plunder any undefended border villages."
They occupied the fortress but did not plunder the villages and manors around the fortress. It was obviously a very abnormal situation, and the nobles at the scene couldn't help but chat in low voices. Cromwell Baishan couldn't help coughing when he saw this: "Ahem, just because they don't go north now doesn't mean they will never. Will go north."
"This is what we are worried about," Baldwin Franklin said, "The Cecil family...their current head is Gawain Cecil."
p>The nobles at the scene fell silent again. They exchanged glances, and at the same time, they finally recalled in their minds the several urgent letters sent by Sir Maryland who guarded the fortress long before the fall of the Rock Fortress——
More than forty families in the southern border jointly launched an army to conquer Cecil, and were quickly wiped out...
This shocking news also caused waves among them, and caused another A military meeting, but at that time no one thought that the Cecil family would move so quickly, let alone that the Rock Fortress would fall so easily.
They thought it would take more than a year until the situation in the south developed to the point where they had to face it seriously.
Welsh Morn, who never spoke, sighed softly.
Did he rememberHe still remembered the warning Veronica gave him a long time ago. Veronica warned him at that time that Gawain Cecil was releasing a ferocious beast. However, it seems now... the nobles of the royal capital may have lost the ability to control this beast. The last chance for the beast to be put back in the cage.
“We once thought that what happened in the southern border was just a civil war among the lords, and it was the lords other than the Cecil family who actively provoked the war. But now it seems that everything that happened in the southern border was our fault. It is under the control of the founding hero - he has been planning for a long time," said Duke Baldwin Franklin. "Now the fall of Rock Fortress has become a fact, no matter how Cecil's army did it in such a short time They have captured a fortress and are ready to defend it. Earl Cromwell, do you think we have the ability to take the fortress back?"
Cromwell? Without thinking, Bai Shan shook his head and said: "Impossible - unless we withdraw at least half of the army on the east side of the Holy Spirit Plain, and even if we withdraw half of the army, we may not be able to defeat the Rock Fortress. I know Sir Maryland Onal, He is a very powerful knight lord. His army is no worse than the knights in the capital. Even he is no match for Duke Gawain Cecil. The strength of the Cecil people can be imagined."
< p>After speaking, the old knight lord shook his head: "What I am most curious about now is how the founding hero built such an army... In less than two years, less than two years! He Can you actually knock down the Rock Fortress?""Every ancient family hides secrets, not to mention this ancient family has an ancestor who has come back from the dead," Baldwin Franklin joked. He said in a tone of voice, "Perhaps as early as seven hundred years ago, Duke Gawain Cecil buried an undead army from the Gondor era in the mountains of the south?"
Cromway Er Baishan shook his head and said gruffly: "This is not funny at all..."
"Ladies and gentlemen, let's think about countermeasures now," Baldwin Franklin suppressed his smile. , tapped the table lightly with his finger, "This is probably as dangerous a situation as the rebellion in the East - the ancestors are on top, this time the ancestors are really here."