With the belated arrival of the main force of Byrne's army and the setting sun that dyed the red sky, the day's battle came to an end.

In order to raid the supply convoy of the centaur army, and without alarming the other side to the point of noticing, the battle mobilized only less than a thousand hussars and a half-flag regiment of "Duke's Guard", plus the five hundred silver-armored horsemen that Salika insisted on bringing with them.

Although her reasons for doing so are unquestionable, the end result proves that she made the right decision.

Dwarven warriors in their early thousands... They fought extremely stubbornly, and even after the front line was torn apart, they still resisted stubbornly, even the charge of the silver-armored horsemen failed to break their will to fight.

It can be said that without the charge of the silver-armored horsemen, the only thing Loren and Salika could do was to let the hussars and duke's guards attack again and again in the face of huge casualties.

In the end, it will definitely be them who will win, but if the raid is a tragic melee, it is no different from defeat.

And the dwarves, although they are still completely annihilated, have achieved the terrifying act of "fighting to the last soldier...... So much so that apart from twenty seriously wounded soldiers, they didn't even capture a single prisoner.

Even the Byrne Knights, the Imperial Legion, would never find any army that could do this - even the elite of Broken Mountain, unless there was a warlord or was cornered, more than half of the casualties should be dispersed.

This shocked Loren far more than any previous battle.

"This is the dwarf, this is the enemy who once ruled Byrne, fought with us for hundreds of years... Respectable and feared enemies. ”

In the tent, Eckert stood behind Loren, looked at the pile of bones next to the convoy in the distance, and said silently: "Even if they are declining now, they are still a very terrifying force. ”

"Stubborn, old-fashioned, strong self-esteem, discipline and obedience deep in the bones... No one wants to fight with such an enemy. ”

As if feeling that saying this was not enough to express himself, Eckert with a heavy expression repeated: "No one. ”

The sky was getting darker, and the soldiers outside the tent had basically cleaned up the battlefield and were ready to build a temporary camp for the night.

"So... How did we defeat them at the beginning?" Loren asked rhetorically, "How did the original Byrne people drive them out of Byrne and block them in the Yunling Kingdom between the mountains?"

"Iron and blood, will and faith, courage and determination. Eckert said lightly.

Loren was silent, chewing on the words.

"The first to raise the banner were the Byrnes from the north—but their resistance was soon defeated, and the rebels' armies were nothing more than dirty dogs in the face of the disciplined dwarven hoplites, and they could be crushed with a single charge. The Earl of Fort Fury spoke:

"Among them is your ancestor, the ancestor of the House of Turin. ”

Loren raised his eyebrows unnaturally, subconsciously avoiding his gaze.

"It was a crushing defeat, but it set off a wave of revolt, and led the rebels of the north to elect their own leader, your ancestor, Turin was one of them. Eckert sighed slightly:

During that battle, he realized the biggest difference between the rebels and the dwarven legions, discipline and obedience. ”

The black-haired wizard nodded: "After that, did he win?"

Eckert shook his head and replied in the negative.

"The ancestors of Turin... The great hero lived his entire life in the midst of crushing defeats and flights, and his history was almost one of Byrne's darkest years, with uprisings in which hundreds of thousands of Byrnes were slaughtered on the battlefield or elsewhere. ”

"But the turbulent Byrne colony has made the internal affairs of the dwarves very unstable... Exactly fifty years later, the second generation of Turin finally took advantage of the dwarven civil strife to capture a dwarven fortress and have its own chassis. ”

Loren showed a curious look: "Red Blood Castle?"

"It's Mountain Rock Fort. Eckert gave a direct answer:

"The castle was originally intended to defend itself against trolls, but it was abandoned by the dwarves when the civil war began—the second generation of Turin, who led an army of 20,000 rebels, took the fortress with only six hundred dwarves at the cost of thousands of dead and wounded. ”

"Because the fortress was well supplied and the various advanced dwarven facilities could provide weapons and equipment, the rebels, who had suffered heavy casualties, were equipped with armor and weapons forged of steel for the first time. ”

"The heavy armor makes the dwarven crossbow arrows no longer a nightmare of certain death;

Large, cumbersome two-handed swords, originally designed for trolls, but also a weapon capable of tearing the dwarven phalanx apart;

Heavy spears... With it equipped, it will no longer be able to equip a shield, but the charge of the spear phalanx can be devastating to both humans and dwarves. ”

"Finally... Although the hope was still slim, the Byrnes had a chance to compete fairly with the dwarves on the battlefield for the first time. ”

Loren listened attentively.

"I guess... He still hasn't been able to defeat the dwarves, has he?"

"Not only that, but the second generation of Turin also suffered a retaliatory blow for the successive capture of the dwarven fortress - with all its might, it was still completely destroyed. ”

According to legend, the dwarves killed all their captives, sparing only the youngest son of the second generation of Turin and a dozen other children to return home, spreading the fate of their father's rebellion throughout Byrne. Eckert sighed slightly:

Thirty-eight years later, although the third generation of Turin was still organizing an insurrectionary army, the rebellion had gradually disappeared - the land of Byrne was covered with blood, ten rooms and nine empty, and it was no longer able to fight. ”

"Until a Byrne, far from home, returned to the land with his people—Anton Varna. ”

"The head of the first generation of the Varna family returned to Byrne with the horseback people of the Great Green Sea, and the horses galloping across the land appeared on Byrne's land for the first time. ”

Loren bowed slightly, and hooked the corners of his mouth: "The fourth generation of Turin... That is, the first generation of knight kings?"

"It is also the earliest knight king whose name can be traced, Yusher. Ekter nodded, "Varna helped Turin train Byrne's first knights... Dressed in heavy armor and armed with spears and swords, the 'knights' became the core of the rebel army. ”

"According to rumors, Uther Turin was also the first Turin to be favored by the goddess of war, Brünnhilde... In her name, Uther rallied all the knights and swore allegiance to the goddess. ”

"Of course, it's hard to say if that's true - while the Boi people once worshipped the Valkyries just like we do, but... After all, it was just an ancient and primitive custom, and no one knew what it was like back then. ”

Looking at Eckert's expression of disbelief, Loren couldn't help but twitch the corners of his mouth, and subconsciously touched the feather left by the Valkyrie in his arms.

Well... If you have to say that, it's true.

"Discipline and obedience, weapons of steel, horses... Finally, the Byrnes have found a way to defeat the dwarves. Eckert raised his eyes, his gaze burning:

"If you want to defeat monsters, you have to learn monsters, and... Become stronger than them!"

Of course, the dawn of victory is still far away - the subsequent war with the dwarves lasted almost the entire Old Kingdom era of Byrne, and after more than a dozen knight kings, they were finally completely expelled from Byrne's land in the first generation of the Sakran Empire. ”

"Iron and blood, will and faith, courage and determination......" Eckert sighed:

"How did we defeat them, you asked?

We... That's what defeated them. ”

The cold wind of the night lifted the curtain of the tent, and Loren was silent.

"By the way, what about Lusen?" Loren changed the subject: "Duke's Guard... Haven't they come back yet?"

"Your guards have been pulled by Lord Lusen to clean up the battlefield, mainly for the supply of centaurs. Eckert frowned and said, "It is said that when I went to collect the centaur's baggage cart, I found something very strange. ”

Something weird?

Raising his eyebrows, before Loren could ask what it was, he saw a bouncing figure rush into the tent:

"Yo, Lord Duke of Byrne, look what this is? there is even wine in the supplies of these barbarians!"

An excited Salika chirped, completely oblivious to the expression of the black-haired wizard looking at the clear crystal bottle in her hand......

Creepy——!!!!