"Look up." De Jong was worried about Robin, but suddenly heard Robin's indifferent voice.

"What?" De Jong looked up and saw Robin standing in front of him; On the lower lip of this former comrade-in-arms, there are two obvious blood holes.

"Bump!" With a muffled sound, De Jong's face was punched hard by Robin, even if he noticed Robin's steps forward and raised his hand in advance, De Jong still took a solid blow, he was hit back again and again by this huge momentum, and Robin also rarely dragged the stump leg with limited mobility to follow up violently, grabbing De Jong's collar.

"Why close the gates! Why can't you inform the residents outside the city? Robin's voice was completely out of voice, and the question he uttered was like cutting fresh leather with a saw blade with serrated teeth that had almost been smoothed, a little harsh to the ear, but piercing De Jong's heart even sharper.

Why weren't residents outside the city notified? - De Jong didn't want to justify himself - after hearing the news that the orc army was approaching Riptide Castle, the only reaction in his mind was to immediately seal Riptide Castle and hurry to inform the king to flee from here. Both the military mobilization order and martial law were issued in consideration of the safety of His Majesty the King and the safety of civilians...... To tell the truth, he had not taken this into account at all - he had been captain of the palace guard for many years, not the captain of the sheriff.

But that is not an excuse for De Jong's own mistakes. There was no excuse - at that moment, De Jong admitted that he had not thought about the inhabitants of the city at all. From the little soldier of the year. Step by step, he climbed to the position of the captain of the red court guard in front of His Majesty the King, De Jong has been in the upper aristocratic circle of Riptide Castle for a long time, and he is no longer the hairy boy De Jong of the year. Like Robin, his parents died early, but he has already broken away from his original background and become a real nobleman.

De Jong didn't feel that there was anything wrong with this—the king had given him the right thing to do, and he naturally wanted to put the king's safety first—and even not so long ago, De Jong felt that it was a terrible mistake for not informing the outhabitants of the city that the orcs were attacking, and waiting for them to retreat into the city and then seal the city gates.

However, De Jong now knows he was wrong. It was so wrong that he wanted to kill himself - the trolls outside the city ended the lives of those inhabitants in a brutal and brutal way. desecrated/desecrated their bodies; De Jong didn't know if their souls would return to the Light, and he wasn't even sure if the Light existed - but he knew that the dead bodies of the inhabitants could no longer return to the dirt of their homeland - the trolls, who had so vividly interpreted the definition of barbarism, were broken into corpses. Cannibalism.

What's more. While the inhabitants were slaughtered and devoured, there was nothing he could do - De Jong could neither go out with his warriors and fulfill his mission to protect the civilians; There's no way to shoot them with a bow and arrow and end their suffering early - the trolls aren't stupid, they're far out of range.

With a "bang", Robin's right hand touched his waist, and pulled out half of the two-handed sword that had followed him for many years; In the light of the torches on the city walls. Robin's face was cloudy, and the shiny blade of the sword shimmered with a cold glow. The aura of death gripped De Jong.

"Let's do it." De Jong murmured, not wanting to resist. He resented his misjudgment and omissions for leading to the tragic deaths of innocent people, and he was also ashamed of the harm his actions had caused to his comrade-in-arms Robin. If killing yourself with your own hands can make Robin's heart feel a little more happy, then ......

"You owe me my life, De Jong." Robin jerked the greatsword back into its sheath, loosened De Jong's collar, and stared at him intently, the hatred in his gaze that could not be dissipated, but added something else.

"One?" De Jong was puzzled and wanted to smile wryly - how could there be only one, Tess's family...... He owes Robin four lives; The inhabitants who died and were devoured by trolls...... I owe dozens of lives to the people of Fort Riptide, how can there be only one?

"You owe me my life, De Jong. But for now, I will first collect Tess's debt from the trolls and orcs, and you can be confident and bold to continue to serve your Majesty the King as the captain of the guard; But, De Jong, you remember, wait until this battle is over...... No matter what the outcome is, as long as I am alive and you are still alive, I will ask you for this life. Robin spoke word for word, his slightly crude Arathi Highlands country accent, but to De Jong, who was accustomed to hearing the accent of Riptide Castle used by the nobles—he seemed to have returned to a dozen years ago, when he was only a small recruit, but he was young and strong, and he had a friend to fight with his back......

"I'll wait, Robin. If you and I can survive this battle, I will pay you my life, to Tess......" De Jong coughed with difficulty, then spat a mouthful of blood on the ground; On his face, a fist-shaped blood mark loomed - it was the mark of Robin's fist - because the skin on the joints had long since worn out from the previous struggle, and the blood dripped down Robin's fingertips to the ground, and he didn't know it.

"Prepare to defend the city." King Solas, who had been silent, spoke suddenly. His Majesty's voice was full of decadence, and it seemed that the tragic death of those inhabitants had hit him quite hard.

"Yes, His Majesty." De Jong nodded slightly, then looked around; Blood was dripping from the lips of every palace guard as far as the eye could see—no one, not least the soldiers of Fort Riptide, could hold back from biting their own lip after witnessing such brutal mistreatment of their compatriots.

Taking a long breath of iron-smelling air, De Jong bred up his spirits and began to lay out the fortifications on the walls - Riptide Castle was built on top of a hill, and the height of the walls and hills was much higher than the flat ground outside the city, so there was only one way for the orcs to take the city wall - and that was to storm the gates.

With nearly 2,000 palace guards in place in the battle area near the city gates, de Jong began to plan the use of the temporarily mobilized reserve of wounded veterans; The entire castle of Riptide was filled with the sound of the soldiers' footsteps coming and going, and the crisp sound of armor hitting the scabbard.

Trying to rely on a few thousand soldiers to resist the onslaught of the orcs, although there is a fortified city to rely on, it is almost wishful thinking, not to mention, a small number of sentinels must be sent to surround the walls of Riptide Castle to guard, in case there are really orcs from other places to climb the walls; The security in the city was temporarily handed over to a few respected nobles and their servants to maintain, so as to save some troops.

Despite knowing that this might be their last battle, each of the palace guards just quietly checked that their equipment was ready; Some of the guards drawn from the nobles' homes were better equipped, and they were checking the crossbows their masters had assembled for themselves - and everyone, including King Solas, was waiting for the orc attack, for what might be the last moment. (To be continued......)