In the wee hours of the morning, it was still a long time before the sun had risen, and even the hazy sky had not yet appeared over the eastern hills, and the starry sky, which was slightly dimmer than before, covered the land of the frontier region, and the night was low, and the dark blue sky spread from the towering walls of Winterwolf Castle to the Cecil fortress of the Long Wind.

The knights in black armor and black armor gathered neatly in the night, their swords sheathed, their banners retracted, and the horses that had been trained and controlled by potions and tranquilizers stood silently as if they were one with the knights, without making a sound—the cold wind blew across the earth, and the plains seemed to be filled with thousands of sculptures made of steel, silent and solemn.

A tall figure on a warhorse circled half the back of the procession and returned to the front of the Knights, his black steel armor growing deeper and heavier in the starlight, and from the face armor came a low and majestic voice—

Alas, not the language of man.

It was a vague, strange sound that seemed to be the cooing of countless people overlapping each other at the same time, and it sounded creepy, but with a solemn rhythm like a prayer.

The black-armored commander raised his arms in front of the Knights, his muffled voice seemed to inspire the whole group, and the knights raised their arms in the same way, but none of them shouted—they expressed their fighting intentions to the commander in a way that was clearly quite satisfying.

He nodded, turned his horse's head, and waved his sword towards the dark and deep plains in the distance, and the knights began to march in rows, and the whole team began to accelerate into the distance like a sudden wave of wheat, and in the process, the flag-bearers in the front, middle, and side and back of the team also suddenly raised the flags in their hands—

The banner of the Knights of the Iron River flew high on the plain at night.

……

Andesa had a dream.

In her dreams, she seemed to fall into a bottomless whirlpool, surrounded by countless shadowy, misty black cyclones, which were boundless, obscuring Andessa's vision and perception, and she continued to fall in this huge cyclone. She wanted to wake up, and under normal circumstances, this feeling of falling should have made her wake up immediately, but some powerful force was pulling her in the depths of the whirlpool, keeping her from the real world with an invisible barrier - she could almost feel the touch of the futon and hear the wind outside the window, but her spirit was like being trapped in a dream, and she could never return to the real world.

Andesa struggled to keep her eyes open in the swirling cyclone, trying to see what was in the shadowy mist, and then suddenly, something condensed in the mist—she saw faces, many familiar and unfamiliar faces, she saw her grandfather, she saw the soldiers she knew best, she saw people who knew her best in the imperial capital......

Finally, she suddenly saw her father, the face of Bud Wendell emerging from the depths of the whirlpool, and then reached out and pushed her hard.

Andesa woke up suddenly, gasping violently in the darkness, she felt her heart pounding, some kind of "sequelae" like drowning made her extremely uncomfortable, and the cold sweat was already soaking her body.

"General, General! Wake up, General! ”

A hurried knock on the door and the shouts of her subordinates finally reached her ears - was this sound just there? Or have you been calling yourself out for a while?

Andesa quickly got up, casually pulled a regular clothes on her body, and answered at the same time: "Come in!" ”

The door of the room was pushed open, and a close subordinate appeared at the door, and the young adjutant stepped forward, gave a military salute, and said quickly with an anxious expression on his face: "General, there is a situation, there is a riot in the residential area of the god of war priest, and a group of battle officers and soldiers on duty have clashed, and it has ...... There were many casualties. ”

"What do you say? Riot? Andesa was taken aback, and then immediately went to get her saber and the coat she wore when she went out—despite hearing an unbelievable piece of news, she was well aware of the abilities and judgment of her close men, and such news could not have been made up out of thin air, "What is the situation now?" Who is on site? Is the situation under control? ”

As she spoke, she temporarily handed the saber to the lieutenant as she put on her clothes and walked out briskly.

"The Knight Captain Brewer was already in control of the situation - because it was a sudden loss of control, the soldiers did not react at first, resulting in the death of seven people and the wounding of thirty to forty people, at least fifteen of whom were seriously wounded. Knights and battle mages patrolling nearby quickly arrived, blocking and separating the priests who looked a little delirious," the young lieutenant said quickly as he followed, "Other areas have been patrolled and monitored, and there is no sign of chaos for the time being. ”

Looks delirious......

Andessa's heart sank, and her steps suddenly quickened again.

As soon as he approached the camp in Winterwolf Castle, which was used to house some of the priests, a pungent smell of blood rushed towards him.

The knights have taken control of the entire scene, a large number of heavily armed soldiers are guarding all the entrances and exits of the area, the battle mages are constantly scanning all the magic fluctuations in the camp with detection spells, ready to deal with the loss of control and resistance of the transcendents, several patrol knights with nervous expressions noticed Andelsa's arrival, and immediately stopped and saluted.

Andesa waved her hand and went straight over the human wall and into the camp.

The wounded had been transferred, the corpses were still lying on the ground, the blood that had spurted had cooled down on this cold winter night, and the remnants of the waste energy from the intensive release of spells and magic were still accumulating nearby, taking on a foggy state in Andessa's magical vision. She frowned at the corpses of the soldiers in Imperial armor—they had all been killed by scorching magical swords or divine arts, and there wasn't much blood that flowed out, and the bloody aura here came more from the priests who had been killed by the sword.

The bodies of the priests lay around, along with the soldiers they had killed.

Suppressing the fierce emotions in her heart, Andesa came to the corpse of one of the God of War priests, crouched down without caring about the blood around her, and reached out to flip the remains.

The priest's body was turned over, and his hollow eyes were staring at Andessa, or at the dark sky, and there seemed to be some confusion and fanaticism in those eyes, which looked particularly uncomfortable.

But Andelsa's attention quickly turned away from those eyes—she looked at the priest's wound.

A fatal wound slashed through the entire chest from near the neck, and the enchanted blade sliced through the weakly defended cloth and cotton robes, and underneath it was torn flesh - the blood was no longer flowing, and many ...... could be seen on both sides of the wound Strange stuff.

It was a sprout that grew out of flesh and blood, and it looked strange and disturbing, and Andesa was sure that such things should never grow in human wounds, and as for what they do...... The granulations seemed to be an attempt to heal the wound, but the complete severance of the body's vitality caused the attempt to fail, and now all the granulations shrunk down and fit together with the flesh, which was extremely disgusting.

A knight with blood stained on his armor approached Andessa.

"Brewer," Andesa didn't look up, she already sensed the familiarity in her breath, "have you noticed these wounds?" ”

"Yes, General," replied the knightly officer in a deep voice, "I've checked it once before, and it's not the effect of healing spells or alchemical potions, nor is it normal God of War magic. But one thing is for sure, these ...... The anomaly has given the priests here a greater vitality, and many of our soldiers have suffered a lot because of this - no one could have imagined that the enemy who had been cut down would fight back as if nothing happened, and many soldiers were seriously injured or even lost their lives by surprise. ”

Andesa nodded slightly, the knightly officer's statement confirming her suspicions and explaining why the chaos had resulted in so many casualties.

The Ares Priests who were placed here were all disarmed, and in the absence of a magic weapon augmentation or weapon, a bare-handed Priest - even a Ares Priest - should not inflict so much damage on a heavily armed and collective regular army, even if it was a sneak attack.

After all, the soldiers of the Empire have a wealth of extraordinary combat experience, even not to mention the extremely high proportion of mass-produced knights and mass-produced mages in the army, even as ordinary soldiers, they have enchanted equipment and have undergone targeted training.

But...... If they were dealing with a fallen priest who had transformed from a human to a monster, it would be hard to say.

Andessa's face was gloomy - as much as she didn't want to, at the moment she had to classify those runaway God of War priests as "fallen priests".

"Where are the other God of War priests?" She stood up and asked in a deep voice.

"All are under control, placed in the two adjacent camps, and have been guarded three times," replied the Knight Captain Brewer at once, "most of them were nervous, and a few were agitated, but at least they didn't...... Variation. ”

An irritability welled up in Andessa's heart: "...... That's all we can do with them. ”

"Yes, that's all we can do with them," the chief knight looked similarly unpleasant, "this chaos is clearly caused by some kind of 'madness', and we can't do anything to a sober ordinary priest - but I'm afraid the soldiers don't necessarily think so." ”

Andelsa's brow furrowed, she was about to give an order, but soon noticed other details from the priest's body.

She bent down, her fingers touching a thin chain around the priest's neck, and with a tug of her hand, she pulled out a bloodstained triangular iron talisman along the chain.

"War Sigil ......," the knight captain next to him exclaimed in a low voice, "I didn't notice this just now!" ”

Instead of speaking, Andesa tore open the cleric's sleeve with a serious expression, and under the bright magic crystal light nearby, she immediately saw the same triangular emblem painted with red paint on the inside of the other man's arm.

"Wearing an iron war sigil with the God of War insignia drawn on the inside of your arm...... the Knight Chief subconsciously whispered, "It means holding a sword in the name of the god - it is a sign of entering a state of war!" ”

"These priests are not crazy, at least not all of them, they have done these things according to the teachings, this is not a riot...... "This is a sacrifice to the god of war to show that the camp to which they are loyal has entered a state of war. ”

"State of war!?" Her adjutant came from the side, his face stunned, "Where is the war!?" Are these people going to start a rebellion against the Empire? ”

"You can't wear a sigil in a war of renunciation, it's not a rebellion ......"

Andessa's words are only halfway there.

She quickly recalled the various news that had come back from the country in the recent past, and quickly sorted out the anomalous situation of the Church of the God of War and the balance of the situation in the border area in the recent period - she knew very little information, but some kind of wolf intuition had begun to ring alarm bells in her mind.

She suddenly came up with a terrible, terrible guess.

There is a problem with the God of War Church, there is a problem with the gods of these priests, and the believers who have fallen into a state of anxiety and frenzy because of this want to do the most at this time...... It should be a god who pleases himself.

But how can these disarmed priests, who are under house arrest in the camps under the name of Protective Observation, please their gods?

It's hard for them to do it...... But they are not the only believers in the God of War!

Andesa looked up suddenly, but almost at the same time, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a mage in the distance speeding towards her in the night sky.

It was as if it was specifically designed to confirm her bad guesses.

Andesa felt a sense of urgency, a feeling that she had caught the key but couldn't turn things around, and she remembered the last time she had that feeling - it was a rainy night in the Palamel Heights.

The messenger descended in front of her.

"General!" The mage gasped with horror on his face, "The Knights of the Iron River have no order, their camp is empty—the last witnesses saw them assemble on the plains far from the fortress, heading in the direction of the Long Wind Line!" ”

Fall.

Andesa felt like she was falling into a whirlpool.

……

The Changfeng Fortress Group is a composite defense line with the Changfeng Fortress as the center and a series of pillboxes, outposts, railway nodes and military stations as the skeleton.

Since the day of its completion, it has not yet been tested by war.

It was the eve of dawn, the stars in the sky were even more faint and blurred, and a hazy glow was emerging over the distant eastern hills, indicating that the cold night was coming to an end.

The Knights, marching at night, had reached the end of the "Junction of Kamanda", the edge of the Cecil's defensive line.

Under the pitch-black armor, a pair of dark red eyes were looking at the dark horizon in the distance, looking in the direction of the Changfeng Defense Line.

Behind this commander, the huge knights had formed a legion formation, and the surging magic filled the entire resonance field.

After a few minutes, the magic resonance peaks.

The commander raised his sword high, and the moment the sword was swung down, the entire knight order had begun to slowly accelerate in waves, like a heavy and slow wave at first, then swift and rushing towards the distant horizon.

The gods need everything to get back on track.

The war of blood and fire is on track.

The servants of the Lord don't care who wins, they don't care if they are wiped out, they don't even care what the point of this war is.

At this moment, war itself is meaning.

The "Thermal Cone", a highly compressed confined plasma containing a terrifying energy reaction, began to take shape over the Knights.