The departure of a heroic force did not shake Tibbest's determination to launch an attack on Shadowfang Castle. The day after Norman left with his soldiers, Tibest, who learned that the Expeditionary Force's vanguard had seen Shadowfang Castle, rejected Raphael's suggestion to fix the situation and decided to immediately organize soldiers to attack the werewolves hiding in the castle.

"That's not your style, Tibest!" Watching Raphael leave the tent a little lonely, Tadelal, who had been silent until now, spoke, "I also think that kid is right. Since entering the Silver Pine Forest, the soldiers have been fighting continuously for nearly ten days, and they are in great need of a good rest. ”

In order to maintain Tibest's authority, Tadelar did not oppose Tibest's determination in the face of Raphael, but this does not mean that the high priest has no objection to this. On the contrary, if Tibest doesn't have a good reason, then he will do everything in his power to stop Tibbest's decision.

And he was very puzzled that Tibest couldn't wait so much. Although one of the two is a priest and the other is a paladin, their personal relationship is very good and can be called close friends. Tadrar believed that Tibste, a veteran paladin, was not the kind of person who disregarded the lives of his soldiers.

Tibest smiled bitterly and shook his head helplessly: "If I can, I am even willing to let those damn werewolves starve to death in the castle by means of encirclement." But the situation has changed a lot, Tadelal, I had to make this decision! This is also what His Majesty the Pope means. ”

Tadrar, who has been busy treating the wounded for the past few days, has a surprised expression on his face: "What happened? ”

"Three days ago, Speaker Antonidas of Dalaran unleashed a major war magic with his own hands, destroying almost all the undead entrenched in Radre's Castle. Her Majesty the Queen of the Almerian Empire ordered the troops on the border to join the war, and now the Lich named Maltan is now being hunted down in the border area. ”

"That's good news!" Tadelar smiled, and Dalaran was able to take action to eliminate this cancer that threatened the kingdom of Virgil, which was undoubtedly a very encouraging sign.

"Yes, that should be good news! If it weren't for the tragedy that happened in the province of Baria before this! Tibbest's face was filled with sorrow.

"Tragedy?"

"An evil organization known as the Cult of the Curse has spread a large number of undead plagues and poisons throughout the province of Barya, and as of yesterday, more than two million civilians have been infected, and at least nearly half of them will lose their lives and become members of the undead. As for the other half, even if they can be treated, they will probably never be able to leave the hospital bed again. ”

Tardellar could barely hold the teacup in his hand. Million! What this number represents, the archpriest knows very well! This means that the Kingdom of Virgil has lost nearly one-tenth of its population in just a few days, and in order to eliminate those undead and save those civilians, this weak kingdom does not know how much it will cost.

However, the bad news is not all, Tibbest continued in a mournful tone, "Although Dalaran intervened in time to defeat the Lich Maltan, the Cursed Sect, an evil organization that has never been heard of, has forced the rulers of other human kingdoms to be extremely vigilant. Soon, a fierce wind will blow within the kingdoms to identify cultists. ”

"For this reason, those kings need to gather as many troops as possible and be ready to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Kingdom of Virgil in the process!" Tadelar wasn't stupid, and he quickly realized how this would affect the expeditionary force, "And now almost all of these soldiers who are part of the expeditionary force are from all kingdoms, and they have to take orders in the face of a call from the kingdom!" ”

"That's right! The current situation has forced us to move forward in such a slow and slow way. Before the soldiers receive orders from the kingdom to return home, the bane in the Shadowfang Castle must be removed! "Otherwise, once the situation in the Kingdom of Virgil begins to spread within the expeditionary force, the soldiers will inevitably worry about their homeland, and when the morale plummets, there will be no need to fight this battle!" ”

Tadelar had to agree.

If we go through the twelve kingdoms of mankind today, we can see that the current situation is not optimistic.

Needless to say, the Kingdom of Virgil and the Duchy of Giraldine, the former can now be regarded as crippled, and the latter also needs to spend a lot of energy to deal with the poison caused by the city of Andorjar, I am afraid that the Grand Duke of Giraldine will not be able to sleep at night, for fear of opening his eyes and finding which city has become a paradise for the undead again.

The Kingdom of Minas, the Dukedom of Nasol and the Dominion of Karasimis are not much better, these three kingdoms are not very populous in the first place, and they can be said to be useless except that the Kingdom of Minas also has a good army. It's nice that they can manage their territory well.

Then there are Saddarin and Oberline, most of the armies of these two kingdoms are now helping the elves in the Whispering Forest against the monsters that are wreaking havoc everywhere, and in the face of the Cursed Sect that does not know where it lurks, I am afraid that the kings of these two kingdoms will be the first to ask their soldiers to retreat from the Silver Pines Forest.

It would be good if the Almerian Empire didn't make trouble, and counting on the selflessness of Her Majesty the Queen, Tadelal might as well count on which god to descend to earth in person.

After all, perhaps only His Majesty of the Armas Empire has the courage and strength to continue to support the military operations of the expeditionary force, but the problem is that the strength of the Armas Empire alone is completely insufficient. Nor would the nobles have agreed to His Majesty's continued increase in the Expeditionary Force.

In this way, Tadelar found that he really had to be like Tibest, taking advantage of the fact that the soldiers had not yet been recalled by the various kingdoms, to launch a final attack in advance.

"But that's not all that makes you do this, is it? Tibest! ”

"Old friend, I really can't hide it from you!" In the face of Tadraral's questioning, Tibest had to nod and admit, "In addition to what I just said, His Majesty the Pope and His Majesty Irenus are worried about another matter. ”

"Let me guess!" Tadelar pondered for a moment and said, "Is Your Majesty worried that Dalaran will continue to attack?" ”

Tibest let out a long sigh, "We don't know what benefits the Kingdom of Virgil has given to Dalaran, but His Majesty the Pope and His Majesty Irenus are worried that this will cause a split between the Twelve Kingdoms. We have always had a common purpose with the kingdoms, and that is to get Dalaran to relinquish his authority over the mage. His Majesty and His Majesty Irenus feared that if Dalaran replicated that terrible war magic in the Silver Pines Forest, the impact would be a great blow to the determination of the kingdoms, and they would lose the opportunity to persecute Dalaran this time. ”

"The loss of the Book of your and the emergence of the Werewolf Plague, right? In order to force Dalaran to give up his management of the mage through this incident, Dalaran must not occupy a major position in this war in the Silver Pine Forest! ”

"That's right! That's why His Majesty has asked me to end this war as soon as possible, and if it continues to drag on, it is likely that Dalaran will seize the opportunity. ”

Tibest's face was full of helplessness, as a paladin, he very much wanted every battle he fought to be pure, but unfortunately, in fact, there are many political factors behind every war that affect all this. As the supreme commander of the expeditionary force, he had to carry these burdens.

"Besides, I'm afraid those nobles are also putting pressure on their backs, right?" Tadelar finally understood Tibest's plight, "That's why you vetoed Raphael's proposal, lest that little guy become the target of the nobles' resentment!" It's hard for you! ”

"After this war is over, I'm afraid I'll have to bear the title of incompetence, no matter what the outcome is, but I don't want it to affect that child! She is the hope of the Holy See, and I must protect her! ”

"Well, you convinced me! So what are your plans? ”

Talking about the battle that was about to begin, Tibest finally cheered up: "According to the latest information, our forward has advanced to less than ten kilometers from Shadowfang Castle, and has begun to set up improvised camps there. I've decided to move forward at full speed tomorrow with my main force, trying to encircle the entire Shadowfang Castle within two days, and start a full-scale assault. ”

Tibest's plan took Tadrar by surprise, as it meant that the entire expeditionary force would have to fight far from the camp. According to Raphael's previous plan, the final camp of the expeditionary force will be set up less than three kilometers away from Shadowfang Castle, so that the logistical pressure will be reduced to an acceptable level, and the logistics line of the expeditionary force can be better protected by relying on the various camps scattered throughout the forest.

"It's so risky! So far, we've only roughly cleared the enemy in our path, and we don't know how many werewolves are lurking in the forest. In the event of a full-scale attack, it is necessary to draw soldiers from the various camps for defense, which will put our logistics line at great risk! ”

The expeditionary force has now penetrated hundreds of kilometers into the Silver Pine Forest, and the long logistics line has almost become a nightmare in Tadelal's mind, and the news of the supply team being attacked by werewolves will come every moment. To do this, Raphael had to reduce the distance between each camp to three to five kilometers, and he had to leave a number of soldiers in the camp to escort the supply teams. Relying on this method of relay transportation, the material loss rate of the expeditionary force was reduced to an acceptable level.

You know, even with real-world technology, what a huge challenge it is to travel through hundreds of kilometers of forest and supply more than 200,000 troops. While the world of Entagre has something as unscientific as magic, it doesn't completely solve the problems faced by the expeditionary force.

For every kilogram of food transported to the front, the expeditionary force had to endure losses of more than five kilograms of food, including consumption along the way, as well as losses from attacks at sea and on land.

This is why Tibest believes that a few kingdoms alone will not be able to support the expeditionary force. Because no kingdom would do such a foolish thing and throw a large amount of supplies into the water in vain. If it weren't for the fact that the Kingdom of Ashwood had borne a large part of it, I am afraid that the other kingdoms would have been extremely dissatisfied with it a long time ago.

"I know! The rest of the supplies are quite sufficient, but the food and medicine have been in a state of making ends meet, and if it weren't for the fact that there are still a lot of prey in the forest to replenish it, I'm afraid that a third of the people will go hungry! Of course, Tibest was aware of the expeditionary force's current dire logistical supply situation, "so we need to fight quickly, and if we continue to delay, this noose will only shrink day by day." ”

In fact, this situation is not unsolvable, according to the plan set by Yu Bin for Raphael, as long as the expeditionary force opens the passage from the hills of Hillsbrad to the Shadow Fang Castle, relying on the camps set up along the way, as well as the sufficient manpower of the expeditionary force, and then spend enough time to slowly clear the werewolves in the forest, it will take three months at most, the loss rate of logistics materials can be reduced to a very low level, if only the consumption of transportation is considered, the logistics supply of the expeditionary force will increase by two to three times, enough for Tibest to launch an overwhelming assault on Shadowfang Castle.

However, if Tibest wants to launch an attack at this time, the low level of material reserves will undoubtedly have a great impact on the entire campaign.

"In order to reduce the pressure on materials, this campaign will only allow soldiers above the third rank to participate, and I have calculated that among the nearly 120,000 people in the entire expeditionary force, there are less than 20,000 soldiers who meet this requirement."

Tadelar frowned: "With only 20,000 people, you can't defeat those werewolves at all!" According to Kudran's investigation, the number of werewolves in Shadowfang Castle definitely exceeds 30,000, and many of them are Shadow Werewolves! Those are fourth-order or even fifth-order strength! ”

The current situation is the opposite of that of the South Sea Town Defensive War, and the average strength of the expeditionary force on the attacking side is lower than that of the werewolves, which puts them in an extremely disadvantageous situation when attacking the city walls. The disparity in individual strength will force Tibest to accept a large loss of men and materials.

"Of course I know that! But don't forget, we still have a force to be reckoned with! ”

"You mean the civilians?" Tadelar refers to those players.

There are definitely over 200,000 players active in the Silverpine Forest today, and there is little need for logistical help from the Expeditionary Force, as those who die in battle will be resurrected in Southsea Town, from where they will re-carry their equipment and supplies, and then follow the supply team to the Silverpine Forest to join the battle again. This approach not only increases the security of the supply team, but also reduces the logistical pressure on the expeditionary force.

"Their sacrifice will not be in vain! I'll raise the rewards for the civilians again, I just need them to help me lay down the walls! "Tibest looks very confident in the quality of those players.

If Yu Bin was here, he would definitely tell this paladin that he should never trust the character of the players!

Soon, Tibest would have swallowed the first bitter fruit.