(2-in-1 Chapter)

Twelve days later, Tirisfal Glades, Scarlet Monastery.

Dressed in silver armor, Arthas stood on a steep protruding stone wall, gazing out at the valley of the hearth to the east, trembling as he clutched a crumpled letterhead in his hand.

Ten days, it took him ten full days, clearing out the undead entrenched around the Scarlet Monastery.

After an altercation with Uther, Arthas left Steinbrad with Farrick, Marvion, and two hundred men to snipe the army of the undead north.

But that night, a cool breeze woke up the impulsive and reckless young prince - Arthas was not a fool, but the pride of the prince did not allow him to admit his mistakes.

It would be harder to get him to go back and apologize to Uther than to let him die.

So, after a sleepless night, he made the difficult decision to return to Lordaeron and clear the surrounding undead of the surrounding area to re-establish his stronghold.

Arthas's plan was very shrewd, because after Xue Huan defeated Lordaeron, in order to seize the time to attack Stratholme and march to Quel'Thalas, he did not arrange the Death Knight Lord who remained in Lordaeron, which also became an opportunity for Arthas.

The establishment of strongholds can also effectively get rid of the troubles of soldiers wandering around, recuperate their energy, and form an effective fighting force.

This was not an unreasonable consideration, but the two hundred or so Silver Hand cavalry led by Arthas were not enough to recover Lordaeron, so the prince chose the Scarlet Abbey, a once magnificent church, as his temporary base.

The Scarlet Abbey is located northeast of the ruins of Lordaeron, and to the south is the Tomb of Fao, where the founder of the Paladins, Alonsus Fao, was buried after his death.

Originally the pride of the kingdom of Lordaeron, a religious place of pilgrimage, the Tyrisfa's survivors and adventurers from afar often sought refuge here, paying homage to the ancestor whenever they passed by the tomb of Fao.

The abbot of the Scarlet Monastery was a fourth-order priest, about fifty years old, with gray hair and a firm and powerful look in his eyes. The news of the destruction of Lordaeron by the Scourge of the Dead spread across the continent, and the Scarlet Monastery, which was closer to Lordaeron, naturally received the news.

While commanding the priests and paladins of the monastery to defend against the Scourge legion, while grief-stricken, when he heard that Prince Arthas had led his troops to the Scarlet Monastery, the abbot did not say a word, but directly relinquished the command of the monastery.

Here, Arthas also stumbled upon the daughter of the former Generalissimo Alfred Abydis, a former member of the Order of the Silver Hand, Bridget Abydis.

It turned out that during this time, Bridget had been carrying out the tasks assigned by the Knights of the Silver Hand in the Scarlet Abbey, and when the natural disaster struck, Bridget was about to follow the higher-ups of the Silver Hand to reinforce Lordaeron, but suddenly received the bad news of the fall of the kingdom.

The grief-stricken Bridget had no choice but to wait for the follow-up news in the Scarlet Abbey, but what she didn't want to wait for was the wounded Prince Arthas.

At the same time, she also received the news of her father's death, and under several blows, Bridget resolutely chose to follow Arthas and devote herself to the cause of fighting the undead natural disaster.

With Bridget's help, things became much easier, and Arthas spent the next few days reorganizing his troops, sorting out his baggage, and preparing to fight Xue Huan to the death.

At the same time, the Scarlet Monastery, as a church, was not a military fortress, so it was able to accommodate very limited soldiers.

There are about 300 soldiers, more than 700 priests, and more than 500 paladins, adding up to only more than 1,500 warriors, which is compared to the 300,000 army of the Scourge Legion.

But I have to admit that this is already the limit of what this monastery can draw.

And just as Arthas was frowning about this, the arrival of a key figure brought hope and despair to the prince at the same time.

Alexandros Mograine, who escaped the Scourge Legion, took Ethan Leon, Whitemayne, Farrard, Duane and others, and... Uther's corpse, breaking through layers of danger, found Arthas.

When the young prince saw his former mentor lying on the plank, with a black bloody hole in his chest, his whole heart sank to the bottom.

The terrible news came one after another, first his father, then his sister, and now his mentor, and the pain was too great for Arthas to bear, and the truth that Alexandros told afterwards made the young prince fall into a rage again.

"You mean... The cause of this tragedy is... Is it Xue Huan?"

The prince's eyes widened, and Alexandros' shoulders clucked.

Xue Huan?

The name Prince couldn't be more familiar.

It carries too many lingering memories and pain.

In the heart of Arthas, he always felt that he owed Xue Huan, because he promised the latter fair treatment in the name of Crown Prince Lordaeron, but he was forced by his father to fulfill his promise.

You must know that if he hadn't given Xue Huan the "Gold Medal for Avoiding Death", I'm afraid he would not have spared no effort, even exposing his identity, to help Luo Danlun defend against foreign enemies.

Therefore, Arthas blamed himself for Xue Huan's "death".

The proud prince had been thinking about what he could do to make up for this mistake, but he knew nothing about the latter's situation except for Xue Huan's name, so there was no other way for Arthas to keep restraining his behavior and trying to appease the condemnation of his conscience by putting Enzebu as much as possible to the victims of the aftermath of the war.

In the history of Warcraft, Arthas is a guy who always strives for perfection, never admits mistakes, and never bows his head.

You could say that he was cowardly and did not dare to bear the consequences of a major decision, after all, he had done a lot of crazy things in an attempt to make amends for his mistakes and lessen the condemnation of his conscience.

And when the person he had always felt indebted to suddenly became the enemy of his father and country, the hatred in Arthas's chest surged wildly, unstoppable, and surging like a volcanic eruption.

It's a betrayal.

He betrayed his trust, betrayed his confession.

But a more important point was selectively ignored by the furious Arthas - deep in his heart, he was unwilling to admit that he "didn't know anyone", and even more unwilling to admit that the guy he was trying to protect at the beginning had really become a demon today.

He even thought: If he hadn't stopped Messecel from purifying Xue Huan, maybe all this tragedy wouldn't have happened...

At this moment, Arthas blamed himself for the death of his father and mentor, the disappearance of his sister, and the demise of Lordaeron.

The aura given from an early age caused Arthas to withstand defeat.

Just as he has been conscientiously helping the victims to rebuild their homes in an attempt to make up for his past mistakes, and now he just wants to kill Xue Huan with his own hands to prove that he has done nothing wrong, and he has lived up to the trust of his subjects.

"Now, what are you going to do?

Having seen the uncertainty of Arthas's face, Alexandros asked cautiously.

Without answering, Arthas took a deep breath and turned to another question, "What is the movement of the undead troops?"

Although he didn't know the meaning of this question, Alexandros also believed that Arthas would not choose to fight those undead scum at such a time, so he lowered his head and thought for a while, Alexandros said truthfully,

"After the fall of Stratholme, our army has completely lost control of its surroundings, and before I came here, the East Wall Tower, the Northland Tower, and the Shield of Light Tower had all fallen into the hands of the Undead Scourge, and the situation of the Chapel of the Light's Wish was unclear for the time being. ”

"Other than that, I think Xue Huan's target is still Quel'Thalas, plus Stratholme's... Those people, they probably have hundreds of thousands of troops now, if you want to fight them now, I'm afraid... Somewhat difficult. ”

In the end, Alexandros still said this worrying word.

You must know that since the defeat of the Battle of Stratholm and the death of Uther and Gavonrad, the more than 12,000 soldiers who had barely scraped together at the beginning, and less than 5,000 remained, most of them died in the Sick Wood Forest and became the lackeys of the undead natural disaster.

Arthas is not as calm and wise as Uther, so what the Great Lord fears most is that the prince impulsively leads these people to fight the undead, and then it is really all over.

Although Alsace was a prince, Alexandros was of his father's generation according to his age, so there were some things that were not easy for anyone but him to admonish.

After saying that, Alexandros looked up at Arthas's face, as if the latter was not as angry or angry as expected, but very calmly took the golden war hammer handed by Faric next to him, and looked down in thought.

After a series of events, Alsatian's thinking matured a little, and at least before starting a war, the prince learned... Estimate the strength of friend and foe.

The Scarlet Monastery had more than 1,500 warriors, and even with the remnants of Alexandros, there were only six or seven thousand warriors.

Even if they hate Xue Huan again, Arthas will not be stupid enough to use these six or seven thousand warriors to fight with hundreds of thousands of undead troops, this is not called fighting, but to send them to death, with the only strength they have at present, it is already very good to be able to defend the Scarlet Monastery.

And the next step...

"What do you think, how about we rescue the Hearthvale first?" was the only shred of sanity Alsace had.

Now that they desperately need to expand their sphere of influence, and Lordaeron is a forbidden area that cannot be touched for the time being, it is imperative to liberate the Valley of the Hearth.

This proposal was approved and approved by the Grand Lord Alexandros, and touching his chin, Alexandros expressed his opinion while looking at Arthas,

"That guy Tirio has been trapped for a long time, and if we can get him out, it won't just be as simple as one more reinforcement. Our territory, supplies, and troops will be replenished accordingly. ”

"Although Xue Huan himself is not in Lordaeron, there are still no less than 20,000 undead creatures wandering inside. Besides, those elves are not soft eggs, and I think we have at least three months or so to gather strength to recapture Lordaeron before he returns with an endless, more powerful army of the undead!!"

Moreover, after three months, an artifact that could shake the magic sword would also be born.

Thinking of this, Alexandros couldn't suppress his surging mood, he glanced at Arthas with a solemn expression, and then looked at the soldiers who were far away around him, stepped forward and whispered,

"Your Royal Highness the Prince, as early as ten days ago, Wu..."

Speaking of this, Alexandroston paused, he held back his grief, and continued: "As early as ten days ago, Uther and I secretly commissioned Magni Copperbeard to build an artifact, and it will take about two months to forge this artifact, if you can inherit this weapon by then, then we have one more hope of defeating the Scourge Legion." ”

Alexandros was not a selfish man, and in the critical moment of national crisis, he knew that perhaps only Arthas, known to the people as the "Child of Light", could burst out the true power of that artifact.

So he didn't hesitate to tell Alsace the secret.

And the news of the artifact also made Arthas's eyes, who had been staring into the distance and silent, light up.

The prince grabbed Alexandros' hand and looked excited, "An artifact? It... Will it really be able to help us defeat the Scourge Legion?"

Arthas knew that his strength was too small, a fifth-order paladin, and he could hardly bargain for anything in the battle against Xue Huan, not to mention that the latter still had an army of hundreds of thousands of undead under his command.

He was a little impatient...

Can't wait to get your hands on the power of the eternal Light.

"Don't worry, Your Highness. ”

While appeasing Arthas, who was eager for revenge, the High Lord told him the secret of the Ember Messenger in detail, and the bizarre twists and turns in the middle made Arthas's eyes straighten.

Ember Bringer...

For the first time, this sacred name fell into Arthas's ears, and it was like opening another door of fate for him to defeat the Scourge Legion, and his whole body boiled!!

Two days later, to the midst of a roar of cheers, Arthas ascended the podium specially forged for him.

Arthas looked at the calm soldiers, he could see the clenched fists of the soldiers, and he knew that the flame of vengeance had been ignited in their chests, so he would release it.

Under the watchful eye of Alexandros, Whitemayne, Ethan Lien, and thousands of soldiers of the old Lordaeron, Arthas, in the name of the crown prince, regrouped the force composed of the old army of Lordaeron and the remnants of the Silver Hand, and officially named it the Scarlet Crusade.

Under the leadership of the former Prince of Lordaeron and now the wartime King Arthas, they will always strive to eradicate all evil and seek to eradicate its roots.

Alexandros Mograini was appointed High Lord of the Scarlet Lord, responsible for recruiting soldiers, integrating troops, and assisting Arthas in handling official affairs, leading the entire Scarlet Crusade.

Whitemane was appointed Scarlet Procurator, responsible for overseeing the coordination of the entire Crusader Force.

Ethan Lion was appointed Archbishop of the Scarlet, in charge of the entire army of priests, and with the Holy Light to persuade the world to purify evil.

Bridget Abydis was appointed captain to assist Alexandros in managing the operations of the troops.

Arthas firmly believes that as long as he erects the banner of Lordaeron, then the civilians, warriors, and knights around him who have escaped death in the war of the dead will continue to join his team and devote themselves to the cause of fighting against the undead scourge.

They have only one purpose - to defeat Xue Huan and completely exterminate the Undead Catastrophe!!

But the young prince may not have imagined that the rise of the Scarlet Crusaders has made the entire continent more determined to fight against the undead than ever before, but it is also because of him that he single-handedly created the Knights of the Silver Hand, a sacred organization that has been divided and internalized for five years due to differences in philosophy...

[End of this volume]

(End of chapter)