The Imperial City of Sassan, the Cathedral of Cousins.

"Four days ago, Empress Grace Clochir Frederick sent a message summoning the eldest princess Frederick back to Bloodwolf Castle to preside over the situation. Princess Freya Frederick refused Her Majesty's summons on the grounds that the war was tight. As far as I know, she is gathering knights and guards cavalry in her fiefdom and preparing to lead the army to support Duncan Fortress. ”

"The attitude of the five court marquis of the Blood Wolf Castle is ambiguous, and they are generally divided into three factions, the two marquis support the queen's opinion and ask Princess Freya to return to the imperial capital and accept the title of Grand Duke of the Empire; the two marquis remain neutral, they propose that this matter should be put on hold for the time being, and you must first consult your lordship, your opinion, and then make plans; the Marquis Dussus family is the matrilineal family of Princess Freya, and they firmly support Her Royal Highness the eldest princess, and the Marquis of Dussus simply moved to the fief of the eldest princess and personally assisted Princess Freya. ”

"According to the news below, the Dusers family secretly sent people to lobby the neutral Marquis family to win their support for Princess Freya. In addition, Empress Grace summoned two duchesses from the middle of the empire and the Grand Duchess of Teutoni to discuss the funeral of the emperor and the first duke. But she did not contact the western lords of the empire. ”

A middle-aged priest dressed in the white robe of a bishop respectfully reported to Patriarch Friedes about the recent changes in the royal capital of Sassan.

Friedes' face was as resolute as ever, but a wave of exhaustion welled up in his heart. When news of the fall of Emperor Frederick and the Grand Duke reached the Sassan Empire, he was saddened by this. The fall of the Golden Knight is a great loss to the human kingdom, but in the Orc War, the Golden Knight is duty-bound, especially since there are dozens of gold-level centaurs in the centaur tribe. Since the conflict between the two sides, 19 horses have been hunted and killed, and the Golden Knight and the high-ranking priests must also have the consciousness of sacrifice.

It's just that the simultaneous fall of the two highnesses of the Sasangian royal family has brought turmoil to the political situation of the empire. Friedes arranged some affairs of the eastern defense line and immediately returned to the imperial capital to stabilize the situation.

Sure enough, the internal contradictions of the Blood Wolf Family have become public.

Princess Frederick's mother, Tiffany Tuss, was Emperor Frederick's sworn knight and his favorite lover, and they stayed together for the rest of their lives until Tiffana's failed assault on the elemental sea and her fall. When Frederick was 15 years old, Tiffany was promoted to Silver Knight in advance in order to protect him. Like all transcendent female knights, Prince Frederick could not resist the charm of the silver female knight and fell under her pomegranate skirt. Tiffana, who was also a teacher and wife, had the most profound influence on Frederick. However, Emperor Frederick could only marry the noble daughter of the paladin family, and their love was destined to be nameless, but the two gave birth to a daughter, the eldest princess Freya.

According to the rules of the royal family, Freya was supposed to belong to the Dusers family, but Frederick doted on his daughter so much that he left her in the palace and raised her according to the specifications of the family's heirs. After the fall of Tiffana, Frederick found all kinds of excuses to delay his marriage to Grace until he was promoted to the Golden Knight, first canonized his beloved daughter Freya as the eldest princess of the royal family, and then married Grace Clochier as queen.

Loving her daughter and rebelling against fate may be a support for Frederick's assault on the elemental sea, and it is precisely because of this relationship that the ambitious eldest princess Freya has been created.

Influenced by her parents and family life, Freya made no secret of her coveting of the throne. Soon after Empress Grace gave birth to Crown Prince Zig, she resonated with the 33rd elemental position and became a high-ranking silver female knight. You know, she is 12 years older than Queen Grace and has never married. Everyone believed that Freya believed in being the Empress of Sassan, and that she could only prepare to attack the Golden Rank by ascending to the throne.

Crooked fingers tapped on the oak table, Patriarch Friedes raised his gray-green eyes, looked at his most proud student, pondered for a moment, and asked, "His Majesty Frederick has unfortunately fallen, Empress Grace and Princess Freya must be very sad, right?"

The middle-aged priest's voice was a little low and full of pity, and he replied, "As far as I know, Queen Grace wept all night, and when Princess Freya heard the bad news, she climbed to the top of the castle alone, looking to the east, and did not come down until noon the next day. ”

Patriarch Friedus nodded and sighed, "The grief of wives who have lost their husbands and daughters who have lost their fathers is understandable. His voice changed, and he said coldly: "By the next day, they are still the queens and eldest princesses of the Sasang Empire, and they have to do what they need to do and fight for the rights they should fight." Dicht, do you say that their feelings for Frederick are only so shallow?"

The middle-aged priest thought for a moment, stepped forward, and asked in a low voice, "My lord, what do you mean?"

"If Emperor Frederick and the Grand Duke had not fallen, the Great Centaur Khan gathered his tribal warriors and drove straight into the eastern provinces of the Sassangian Empire. What do you think His Majesty Frederick would do?"

Without waiting for the student to answer, Friedus continued, "Emperor Sassan must want to gather the cavalry of the various families to return to the eastern defense. Although he knew that the eastern defense line was very strong, as the monarch of the Sassan Empire, they had to come back to help. This is in line with the idea of the Great Khan of the Centaurs, but it conflicts with the strategy of our church. ”

"More than 10,000 centaurs without supplies, even if they can penetrate the eastern defenses, they will not be one in ten. The damage done by a thousand centaurs to the hinterland of the Sassanian Empire was limited. However, the empire is made up of large and small families, and no one family can parry the legendary centaur. If the Sassan royal family does not take the strongest stance, the legitimacy of the Blood Wolf Castle will be questioned by the Sassan lords, and the empire is at risk of collapsing. However, if the Emperor of Sassan mobilized a large army to return to the eastern defense line and let a large number of centaurs flee to the eastern part of the Sidon Khanate, then the efforts and sacrifices of our church would be in vain. ”

This is the contradiction between the Church and the Satsan lords. ”

"Our contradictions have been going on for a long time!"

The old patriarch waved his arms vigorously, got up from his chair, paced back and forth in the room, and after a pause, said in a deep voice: "Princess Freya Frederick is the representative of the contradictions between the two sides. ”

Seeing the coldness in Friedes' eyes, coupled with his understanding of the teacher, Pastor Dist was horrified in his heart, and couldn't help but say, "Teacher, you mean the five palace marquis of Blood Wolf Castle...... Do you want the five major families in the east that they represent behind them to all support Princess Freya to inherit the throne? But this is not in accordance with the rules, they ...... They are all ......."

"Including the Frederick royal family, they are all the bloodlines of the six major paladin families. ”

"For 700 years, they have forgotten the glory of their ancestors and reneged on their promise to protect the human kingdom. Especially with the improvement of the defense line in the eastern border, the six major families in the eastern part of Sassan are no longer willing to obey the dispatch of the Radiant Knights, let alone the lords of the central and western parts of Sassang?"

"Dister, have you read through the 700-plus years of war epics of the Knights of Radiance and understand the changes in the Sidon Centaur Khanate?" asked Friedus, returning to his seat, softening his expression.

Dister thought for a moment and tried to say, "The Sidon Centaurs used to have dozens of tribes, large and small. For several centuries, the secular lords of the Sarsanid Empire, along with the Knights of Radiance, continued to fight against the centaurs. As a result of the pressure exerted by the human kingdom, the Blackhoof Centaur tribe gradually rose up to rule over half of the Sidon Khanate. The centaurs in the eastern region of the Sidon Khanate gradually merged into six tribes due to the pressure of the Blackhoof tribe. ”

Friedus nodded and said, "The pressure has caused the free and loose centaur tribe to condense into several large tribes, and the pressure has also changed the lords of the Sarsanid Empire. Sadly, the less pressure they put on, the more dissatisfied they became with the Knights of Radiance and the Church. ”

The Radiant Knights vigorously supported the Sarsanid Empire, especially the Eastern Lords' families, and let the armies of the secular lords serve as auxiliaries for the Radiant Knights and the Templar Army to fight the centaurs in the northern wilderness. For hundreds of years, the Satsang lords did not go to war for a year, and they played an important role in relieving the pressure on the Radiant Knights and reducing the number of Templar casualties. The strategy of the Radiant Knights had worked well, but it was also true that the Satsang Lords, especially the Eastern Lords, died every year.

The grief of the families of the dead is reflected on the lord, but every time the Knights of Radiance go on a campaign, they will mobilize the lord's vassal soldiers and direct them to battle. In the eyes of the lords, their knights and vassal soldiers fell victim to the Knights of Radiance and the Templars, but the paladins and paladins believed that the growth of the eastern lords' families depended on the support of the Church, and that it was appropriate for their soldiers to be used as bait or after a break.

The dissatisfaction of the eastern lords of Sasang accumulated day by day, and the contradictions between the two sides gradually intensified.

Patriarch Friedus knew very well that there was no such thing as turning his back on his ancestors and being ungrateful. It's just that the strength of the eastern Sasang family has grown, and they naturally began to compete for the right to speak, and they are unwilling to continue to bow down in front of the Radiant Knights. If they are weak and poor, how dare they bargain with the church?

In the family, the son who was raised by his own hands dared to quarrel with his father on the table, but he was very well-behaved in front of his father when he was young. This is still the case for a small family, let alone the powerful lord of the Sasang Empire?

Pastor Fox asked, "Teacher, do the five families really dare to break the rules and support Princess Freya to ascend to the throne?

"They're just a test, a statement. Pastor Friedus sneered, "These old foxes, betting on both sides, secretly agree. Even if Zieg ascends to the throne and Freya becomes the Grand Duchess of Bloodwolf Castle, they will fully support Freya, override Zig and the future Queen of Sassan, and confront the Church. ”

"What are we going to do?" said Dister, bowing his head for advice, in a humble manner.

Friedus was silent for a long time, and said lightly: "His Majesty Frederick has a half-sister who entered our monastery since she was a child and became a priestess serving the Most High Lord. She later married His Majesty Nakhtigarh and gave birth to a daughter. The child's name was Elisabeth Frederick, and she had been raised by the Testier family, whose adoptive father was Grand Master Still. ”

"Elizabeth is 24 years old and a female knight. Her mother gave birth to the offspring of the legendary Paladin, who has returned to the Lord's arms. However, Elizabeth received the right to inherit the throne of Sassan from her mother, in the 17th place, and the instrument of succession was signed by the previous emperor of the Sassan Empire and registered by the church and legally valid. ”

Dister's heart set off a monstrous wave, Elizabeth has the ancient blood of Testir and Nachtigar, although her mother is weak and her father is strong, no one can deny that she is a member of the royal family of the Sassan Empire, and she also has the legal right to inherit the throne, and there is a high probability that she will be promoted to the Golden Knight smoothly. Elizabeth's adoptive father was Grand Master Testier, so her maternal grandmother was supposed to be the priestess of the Testiers, who returned to the El Church when she was pregnant with the flesh and blood of the Emperor Sassan and gave birth to the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor of Sarsang, and only the church could forge the handwritten documents of the Emperor Tessan and give an illegitimate daughter the right to inherit the throne. Judging by the time, as early as 80 years ago, the Knights of Radiance began to lay out and used unimaginable resources in exchange for the noble bloodline of His Majesty Nakhtigar.

Eighty years ago, Friedes was a student of the previous generation of Patriarchs, and he intends to use Elizabeth as a pawn today...... A new Sassang emperor?

Why did Mr. Friedes tell me about such a secret, such a big thing?

A flash of inspiration flashed through Reverend Dister's mind, and his hands trembled slightly with irrepressible excitement and ecstasy, and he heard Patriarch Friedes say:

"Dister, I want you to go to the Church of El and quietly pick up Princess Elizabeth Frederick. ”

Pastor Dist bowed deeply and said solemnly, "As you wish, Lord Friedes. ”