On Christmas Eve, when the snow was falling, Lord Nicholas Chegren, the captain of the 4th Cavalry Guard of the Austro-Hungarian Royal Guards Rifle Battalion, looked at the brilliant results in his eyes, but his heart was full of doubts.

Chegren was a commoner hunter and a former criminal, who got lost on a hunt and broke into a nobleman's private fiefdom and shot the marquis's hound. Under Imperial law, Chegren was arrested and sent to the quarries of Haijik to serve ten years of hard labor.

But everyone knew that the prisoners who entered the quarry were either exhausted and died in it, or they died of old age, and it was impossible to come out again. Because you can't complete the required work, you can only get more and more sentenced, and the sentence will only get longer and longer.

But Chegren came out because he had met a nobleman.

The Austro-Hungarian Grand Duke Karl Ludwig would hunt in the mountains, and some of the quarry prisoners would be called in to help keep the deer, roe deer, and perhaps wolves in check. Archduke Ludwig found a moose with its horns open like an umbrella, and the beautiful pair of antlers were snow-white. Such moose are very rare and are also called snow moose, and their horns are very dazzling ornaments that can decorate the walls of palaces.

Archduke Ludwig, who had missed three shotguns and failed to shoot the nimble snow moose, said to his retinue: "Whoever hits it without hurting the head and horns, I will give him a lord."

The retinue drew their guns one after another, but the snow elk was too cunning, and kept running through the cracks in the stone to escape, and they were afraid of breaking its head and horns.

Just when Archduke Ludwig was disappointed, the prisoner Chegren seized the opportunity, and he bravely knelt at the feet of the Grand Duke and pleaded for a try.

Chegren said that if he missed the shot, or injured the head and horns of the snow elk, he would rather be put to death for defrauding the royal family. If he succeeded in shooting Xue Elk, he did not dare to ask for a reward, and only hoped that the Grand Duke would pardon him and let him leave the quarry for hard labor.

Archduke Ludwig, the younger brother of the great Emperor Franz Joseph I, pardoned a prisoner with a gesture.

The Grand Duke agreed to Chegren's begging, and the life and death of a prisoner were no more important than even a fleur-de-lis in the garden. As a result, Chegren, who was born as a hunter for two generations, fired the three most important bullets of his life.

In the first, Chegren shot at the stone ridge in front of the snow elk's run, startling it to turn and flee the way it came; The second shot shot down the loose rocks above the snow elk's hiding route, causing it to leap into the air, revealing its fat belly.

The third shot, the snow elk crashed to the ground, and a bloody hole in the stomach.

So, the entourage carried the snow moose, and Chegren followed Archduke Ludwig and left the mountains and forests here, as well as the quarries where he had served hard labor for three years. If he didn't leave, he was sure that he would die there.

Upon his return to Vienna, Archduke Ludwig cleared Chegren's identity and became a member of the Archduke's personal guard. A year later, Chegren became a Knight of the Imperial Guards, following the Emperor and other noble generals to quell the rebellion.

Five years later, Chegren was knighted and captained of the 4th Horse Guards. Lord Chegren at this time, no one except Archduke Ludwig knew that he had been a prisoner, a pariah.

Archduke Ludwig was old, and by his orders, Lord Chegren became his son, Duke Ferdinand's confidant. Later, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Rudolph committed suicide by swallowing a gun, and Ferdinand was awarded the title of Grand Duke by the Emperor and became the crown prince of Austria-Hungary.

When Archduke Ferdinand approached Chegren with a military order with his royal insignia, he did not doubt the authenticity of it, for he was his benefactor, and because it was written that the rebels had secretly gathered their lair. Moreover, according to the military regulations of the Imperial Guard, Archduke Ferdinand, as the crown prince, had the power to mobilize a guard of no more than 60 people.

There were many rebels in those years, Italians, Prussians, Czechs, Serbs, and even Austrians and Hungarians, who were always dissatisfied with the rule of the Empire and the Emperor, and the Imperial Guards had exterminated countless rebels, with whom Lord Chegren was well acquainted.

The order reads - the traitor is extremely family, and there is no room for life!!

Such orders are also normal, Lord Chegren has dealt with them many times, those traitors should not have survived in the world, they betrayed the Emperor, and it is not a pity to die, and of course their families.

But on this blood-red Christmas Eve, Lord Chegren, who led the Guards to a successful battle, noticed that things were different. This time, the 'rebels' did not resist at all, there were no guns, not even knives and spears, and they were not afraid of death. When they were shot and burned, it seemed that they still did not know what had happened.

Having fought so many battles, Lord Chegren was sure on the spot that this was just a bunch of unarmed civilians, ants who posed no threat to the Empire and the Emperor.

A few days later, when the news broke that the family of the widow of the dead crown prince Rudolph had been attacked and destroyed, Lord Chegren understood. He wasn't a stupid martial artist, and a stupid man couldn't have made the decision to die a few years ago.

In his anxiety, when Archduke Ferdinand came to tell him: You missed, the most important person is not dead, you are responsible for gathering people to hunt down, and the ends of the earth must be cut down.

Lord Chegren, however, refused. He was loyal to Archduke Ferdinand, father and son, but even more loyal to His Majesty the Emperor and Empress. He was a glorious knight of the Imperial Guards who, like all other knights, had sworn eternal allegiance to His Majesty the great Emperor Franz Joseph I and the benevolent Empress Elisabeth Emmelia Eugenie.

Lord Chegren fled because Archduke Ferdinand wanted to kill him. He didn't dare to tell the emperor and empress the truth, because he had made a big mistake, and the emperor would definitely kill him, and Chegren was afraid of death. When he fled, Chegren took with him the military order that proved that he was only ordered to fight, and the order had the royal personal stamp of the Archduke Ferdinand.

Nicholas Chegren's only chance was to meet the Emperor's grandson, Hubert, and escort him back to the Emperor. He didn't know where the emperor and his mother had fled, but he knew that Archduke Ferdinand had arranged for the others to hunt them down, so the experienced Chegren spotted the pursuers and quietly embellished them.

The pursuers were outnumbered, and soon found the fugitive little grandchild, Hubert, and his poor mother. Thus, for more than a year, Lord Nicholas Chegren, who was bent on atonement, fought a brutal attack and counter-attack with his pursuers.