XIV

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August 9, 1666 (MDay+130) Midnight in Lenny East District

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For a true magician, there are several things that can ruin his personality, fame, and self-confidence.

Being controlled by psychic magic is one of them.

A warrior is controlled by magic is nothing. It's nothing for a musketeer to be magically controlled. As for the use of magic to control ignorant and deceitful young people, although it is theoretically illegal, there are people in every corner of the civilized world who do so.

As long as the clever ones tell the anti-social or non-mainstream rhetoric that sounds plausible, or the poignant stories that bring tears to the eyes, the boys and girls will believe it and become loyal dogs or slaves to the magicians.

But if you've become a magician or a priest, a true spell user......

Don't let anyone know about it. Even if the mind control magic has been lifted, don't let anyone know about it.

At the root of magic is that "faith determines power".

In other words, only magicians in special situations, such as the dead, those with weak beliefs, or those who have collapsed, are forcibly controlled by psychic magic.

The average mage, even if he is controlled, will quickly use his willpower to get out of control, and this time should not normally exceed ten minutes.

It's a shame to be controlled for an action, and it's impossible to say it when you're affected by others, and it's implanted with deep commands...... For any confident magician, having a deep command implanted in his head is a great shame within a great shame.

Captain Naimon Soleton is now such a man whose faith has collapsed, a magician with no future.

He walked east along the street.

It's already a new day, but no one has noticed it.

Almost all of Lennie's bell towers had stopped ringing, and all the bell-ringers had either fled or gone into battle.

Whole streets, whole neighborhoods, whole cities are burning.

The citizens retreated in a panic to the southern district, which had not yet fallen, and some sealed the doors with wooden planks and prayed to the gods, hoping to wait until the next day's dawn to see what was going on before making a decision.

Many more houses have long since been empty, and most of their owners have fled to the safer lower south of Italy, or the twin islands of Interre.

A fire broke out in the East 3rd Ward to the east. It was a very important neighborhood for him, but he just looked at the fire there and thought about it, and then stopped.

"What are you waiting for? It looks like the third wall is about to break, and the main force of the Imperial army has already entered the inner city. Hurry up and surrender. ”

In Namen's ears, his own voice sounded, using his own thinking.

Under the deepest level of mind control, the recipient will feel the need and enthusiasm to carry out the commands that have been implanted in the mind. All mind control magic uses its master's knowledge, reason, and logic to destroy his master's will and beliefs with his master's own thinking.

"However, I need to find a decent POW camp to surrender. If you surrender casually, you may be killed by the rebels to receive merit, which is not the emperor's original intention. Naimon concentrated his energy, gritted his teeth, and said to himself.

He left the main road, walked into the trail, and continued along the trail to the east.

The further east you go, the more Free Army soldiers you encounter. Most of them wore the variegated uniforms of the National Army, and occasionally a few men in officer uniforms without ranks and caps rushed by.

"Defeated! All the walls to the east have been breached!"

"The headquarters has given an order for all formed troops to withdraw across the Metbysi River!"

"The order from the headquarters is that all troops hold on to the barricades to buy time for the United Council and the military headquarters to evacuate!"

"Stop talking nonsense! The Union Council won't leave Lenny even if it falls!"

All the people are spreading rumors, all of them are running for their lives. Naymen Soleton was the only one with a blushing face, biting his lower lip tightly and walking all the way to the east. Only this pain can remind him that he still has a chance to overcome mind control and not completely lose himself.

The vision is iridescent, as if the Excellence Chapter is still working.

When did it start again? Or did he not shut it down before?

To turn it off. You can't be humiliated in front of everyone with the badge of excellence.

Naimon also knew that no recipient of the Order of Excellence had ever been captured, let alone surrendered. That's what the enemy is for.

He bit off a piece of his lower lip so hard that blood slowly trickled down from the corner of his mouth.

But even this heart-piercing pain can't take back control of the body.

Because he understood that a large part of what the emperor said was right.

"I brought all the reserves together. It was I who made a desperate attempt to create a miracle, only to be swept away. It was my fault that I underestimated the Emperor. ”

In this world, faith determines power. People who are not strong enough in their beliefs are nothing.

"I'm too used to taking risks, I'm too contemptuous of the enemy. I'm too opportunistic. ”

And he has no faith. He didn't know what he wanted. He couldn't even use the third stage of magic, and his faith and strength weren't worth mentioning.

He knew that all along. And he always felt that this could make up for it, and that it didn't take so much power to achieve his ideals. What's wrong with being opportunistic, and what's wrong with relying on stratagem?

"Tell me it's a dream. Tell me that nothing I did before had happened. ”

But now Naimon Soleton knows for sure that he has no cards to play. And it's not the wrong hand, it's his mistake.

No one has ever pointed out the facts in front of him, like the Emperor, and smashed it all to pieces.

The improvisations that had brought him status and honor before were nothing to mention in the face of the brutal truth.

"I love my hometown. This is my hometown, my homeland, the city of my dreams. ”

"Surrender. You haven't even sworn to fight for this flag. You haven't officially enlisted in the military. ”

The demon's whisper repeated, controlling Naimon's mind and nerves in this way. He couldn't stop, he couldn't turn around. Not at all.

"You've been captured. Everyone saw it. No matter what you do, it's useless. All your efforts have only accelerated the fall of the city. ”

He kept walking, walking, walking. In the rout, blue and yellow regular army uniforms can already be seen. The regular army guarding the third wall, the 10th Free Division "Lenny", was composed of Juloks and Itaeans.

"Forget it. That's the end of it. ”

Although he had not seen it in person, he could surmise the sight of the third wall being breached by the emperor from behind.

This is the last day of Lennie, the city of freedom.

A city that has never fallen in such a long war, Lenny will eventually fall.

Headwinds have blown.

The history of free nations is coming to an end.

And it was all his fault.

He will also pay for this mistake.

He would witness all this, volunteering to enter the prisoner of war camp of the Imperial Army.

Naimon Soleton will go down in history as the first, and probably last, recipient of the Medal of Excellence in the history of the Free Army to surrender voluntarily in the presence of his former colleagues.

He would rather die an honorable death himself than be humiliated like this—

But his hand kept stiffening on his spear, and he couldn't pull it out.

"But then you can gain the full trust of the Empire. Isn't it?," the demonic voice repeated, "there's no better proof of loyalty. ”

But he didn't have any room for action. That command was so ingrained that it completely penetrated his mind, nerves, and consciousness.

If only that were the case. That way, just rip off the chapter of excellence on your chest, and everything will be gone.

"If I had one more chance......"

His life is full of factors that can be regretted. It seems that no matter where you make different choices, you will have a different path in life.

Maybe he can get citizenship.

Maybe he'll be able to open a magic shop that does well.

Maybe one day he'll have his own mage tower.

Perhaps he will eventually become the prime minister of the Holy Koman Empire.

Who knows. It seems that it is not up to him to decide what kind of person he can become, right?

"Captain, Captain, Captain Soleton!"

It was as if someone was calling his name, but he didn't have time to care.

Naimon just went against the fleeing rout, silently walking in the direction of the East Third District.

Then he also heard the bells.

Someone in the middle of the city, rang the bell of freedom.

One, two, three.

But he still couldn't turn back, and the magic of the orders he received wouldn't allow him to turn back.

"The Bell of Liberty represents the final summoning order. All citizens, soldiers, parliamentarians, should gather at the Bell of Liberty to fight until the last moment. ”

It's just that he doesn't know how striking his figure is in the defeated army traveling eastward alone.

The eastern third wall has been breached. More than 30,000 defenders there were running, regrouping, routing, surrendering.

The second eastern wall has long been breached, and the Iron Cross of the Empire flutters there, never falling.

Everyone was running to the west and south, and only Namen was heading east. Until now, he hadn't seen a single Imperial soldier, but he knew that the Imperial soldier would soon begin a brutal pursuit and sweeping operation.

Lenny, full of barricades, fortifications, and traps, should have been impregnable.

However, no matter how strong a city is, it needs defenders with a strong will to defend it. When the defenders of each section of the wall felt that they were already under attack, no fortifications or barricades were meaningless.

One after another regimental flags with glorious histories were thrown on the ground and trampled on, and even those parliamentarians who served as colonels and major generals of the National Army fled in confusion, and tens of thousands of soldiers fled along the streets and alleys towards the south of the city.

In the midst of this mess, only one man dragged his slow pace and the blood at the corners of his mouth with difficulty, and moved in the direction of the fiercest gunfire.

"How can there be such idiots in the world. Tell him to ignore it. ”

"No, I think he has answered us. ”

"Why didn't I hear that?"

"He's saying," the honors student licked his dry lips, looking a little breathless," he said...... Citizens, go back to the battlefield. He was saying, citizens, get armed and go to the front. ”

"That's right...... Did he choose a dead end himself. ”

"Probably. Because we all escaped, he chose to die alone. ”

"Damn bastards. These bastard-like staff officers, do they not take their own lives and other people's lives seriously! No wonder the officers and men on the front line hate the staff officers!"

The old mercenary scolded and picked up his gun, and took a step without hesitation.

Footsteps to the east.

"Wait a minute...... What do you want to do?"

"I suppose that if I run away here, I will never have any hope of earning back the thirty gold pounds I had paid for the bribe. So I chose to go with him. ”

"Damn. You've moved so fast that you've stolen all the limelight from me. I was also thinking that I probably won't have the chance to be an honor student for the second time in my life. ”

"Let's go, then. ”

Someone interjected in the back.

"Are you two going to reorganize your troops? Count me in. ”

The man who took the liberty of interjecting wore the rank of lieutenant on his shoulder: "The colonel-senator and lieutenant-colonel of our department have run to the inner city as soon as they have slipped away, and I have no choice but to try my luck here with my men." Without further pleasantries, I'm Lieutenant Rouge of the 10th 'Lenny' Free Division. Who are you two?"

The second lieutenant, who seemed to be an honor student, and the second lieutenant, who seemed to be a veteran, glanced at each other and exchanged a look of shame.

The honors student slurred and said where he belonged: "Uh, Second Lieutenant Garnier. The 7th 'Greatsword' National Guard Division belongs. ”

"Second Lieutenant Sparrowy. Ditto. ”

"It's just that we're not under the command of the Great Sword Master right now. Our direct command is that man. ”

Gagnier hurriedly pointed to the man not far away who was going against the rout, and added.

"So, we are now under the command of the Lenny detachment of the Western Army...... Yes, the first division. It was the first 'Republic' free division. ”

Lieutenant Lu Ge hurriedly picked up the conversation: "I was about to ask." That's your commander, ...... he?"

Sparian replied, "The operational staff officer of the General Army of the West, the hero of Fort Stille and Lennie, the youngest 'chapter of excellence' in history, Captain Naymen Soleton, our commander. ”

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August 9, 1666 (MDay+130) Midnight in the northern district of Lenny

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To the north of Lenny's city, there are scattered Imperial army companies and camps as far as the eye can see.

In other words, "Zeng" was a company battalion of the Imperial Army.

At its peak, more than 150,000 people, including auxiliary troops, were stationed here. The Battle of Jena had emptied half of the camp, and on the night of the harvest, the remaining half of the camp was empty.

The whole land was as if it had been trampled by a herd of elephants, leaving only patches of remnants.

Occasionally, a lone Imperial rider would swoop through the darkness with a torch. Most of them headed south, but occasionally one or two headed north to report to the Jena army.

At such a critical time, it is difficult to find someone willing to be a herald. Everyone is willing to go to the inner city of Lenny to fight for credit, rather than to be a herald of Rauschzi. The standard size of two people and four horses has been reduced again and again, and it has become one person and one horse. Even so, the person who was chosen was extremely dissatisfied.

So, when the herald saw a female officer on the side of the road brandishing an urgent call for help with a torch in her hand, he couldn't help but disobey the ordinance and slowed down his horse.

It wasn't until he approached the woman that the herald realized something was wrong with her military uniform under the Imperial Officer's cloak.

Underneath that gray cape was what appeared to be a red military uniform—and red meant the Free Army. The yellow light of the torches obscured the color, which he hadn't seen before.

But it was too late. A tremendous force slammed into his head and knocked him off his horse. He hadn't even been able to see the enemy's spell casting.

The red-clad female officer whistled, stuck her torch on the ground, mounted her horse, and turned around and ran south.

Before he passed out completely, the herald had only one memory left in his mind: the female officer seemed to have only one arm.

Her smile was beautiful, but her eyes seemed to be filled with despair. Although the desperation was hidden behind the purple iris caused by the detection of magic, everyone could see it.

"Be quick. And even faster. ”

Anne Seffir tightened her cloak, flicked her whip in her hand, and ran towards Lenny.

Through the magic eye, she could see the chaotic flow of magic in the city. In just a few hours, tens of thousands of spells were unleashed within the city, creating a vast number of wild magical areas and dangerous enchantment areas. In her current state, she couldn't see the situation there clearly.

"This shouldn't have happened, but did it happen?"

No foreign troops had captured Lenny before 1873. At least that's what she remembers.

She vividly remembers the newspaper headlines she saw as a child. Nearly every newspaper celebrated the capture of the city "not in three hundred years" by the Imperial Army. Throughout her history, Namen Hugh Corman gradually climbed to that supremacy in the midst of the struggle with the free nations.

What a long and arduous journey it has been. From Deland to Lenny, it spans time and space.

But if that's the end of the journey...... If the free state will cease to exist altogether......

"If history really gets more cruel, what's the point of me coming back? No, if this history has changed so much, then who am I? Why am I here?"

When she entered Lenny through the fifth gate, the question lingered in her mind.

What greeted her was chaos. The whole city is in a state of chaos.

Lenny wasn't the city she remembered it to be anymore. She passed through one open gate after another, and advanced in the stragglers of the Imperial army.

Everything around seems to say, "You're late."

After crossing the fourth gate, you can gradually see knights galloping towards the inner city. Torch-wielding, the cavalry weaved through the ruins, gathering scattered Imperial troops.

Annie tightened her cloak, pretending to be one of them, and made her way through the narrow passage between the ruins.

Every surviving Imperial soldier knew that Lenny was a fortified city full of deadly fortifications and traps, and that those who didn't know were dead.

So, there is only one way for them to deal with this situation: set fire to it. Burn all suspicious buildings and use fortifications to spell out all traps. Without hesitation, the mages and noble knights with black fire oil threw these accelerants and burned one house after another to ashes.

The North 4th and North 5th districts have long been burned to the ground, and Anne stopped to pay her respects when she passed by the "Blue Diamond" site. She knew that the entire Blue Diamond had been sold out, and that all the money she had earned had been used to fund her sister Bonnie's efforts to establish her own presence in the Western Army, and that the personnel had been transported to the Twin Isles of Intern under the auspices of Lesa through the fleet of the half-elf Leonard Kakkawi to rebuild. After that trial, the half-elves who survived the dead were promoted, and his river fleet was now a peripheral merchant fleet of the Great Red Fleet.

But seeing the signboard in the ashes, she couldn't help but feel a sense of desolation, and she was not at all happy that she had taken off the threatened assets in time.

"The dice are sometimes one, sometimes six. Destiny always changes, always changes, always changes. ”

After the prosperity of the times, only the wreckage remains.

After the butterfly's wings danced, the world changed, but in a worse direction.

Another gate. The third gate of the north wall has been completely blown up, and the bricks used to fill it behind it are scattered all over the street, and I don't know what kind of fierce offensive and defensive battles have passed.

Once in the inner city, there were fewer and fewer cavalry, but more and more corpses and burning flames, and it could be seen that the unorganized free soldiers had used the barricades to resist in twos and threes.

Anne suppressed her feelings, took out the skills of a combat staff officer, and estimated the casualties on the entire front: "There are only more than 20 corpses on a main road, and the entire North 3rd District will not exceed 1,000." ”

Considering Lennie's claim to have 100,000 defenders, this only says one thing: the Free Army has ceased organized resistance. No amount of barricades and traps is useless without a firm defender. The entire cadre hierarchy had collapsed, and the militia must have fled home.

Her home used to be in the North 3rd District. The striking mansion has also changed hands long ago, and is now on fire. Anne didn't even stop.

"You're selling too cleanly, aren't you, sister?"

It's no coincidence that Bonnie sold off all of Lennie's assets. She realized earlier than her sister that a powerful headwind called "History" was blowing.

"Is this a trick of fate, or is it a counterattack of history? As long as that place is still there, I can still salvage the situation!"

She hurried past the gates of the North 2nd District. Dressed in the red Interre Division uniform, she looked quite conspicuous in a gray-blue national army uniform.

More than one team tried to stop her. But both the remnants of the Free Army and the advance team of the Imperial Army were directly knocked to the ground by Anne.

The magic that overflowed from her body had already begun to attract the attention of the personnel of the Imperial Royal Security Department and Military Intelligence. Count Hugh Eaglewing, who commanded the vanguard, soon received the news and ordered an increase in the number of mages in charge of magical observations.

Soon, she arrived at her destination.

It was the General Headquarters of the Free Army, the Ring Fort. A circular three-storey building that stands nearly 100 years old in Lenny North 2.

For Anne, as long as the building remains, there is hope.

But what awaits there is nothing but despair.

The sign that reads "Supreme Command of the United Defense Forces of the Free States" is gone. The four-color cross that hung on the top of the Imperial Army's bayonet was supposed to be hung on the spire of the Free Army headquarters.

The ring fort has become an "arc fort". The intact circle had been shattered by a third of the engineering mage, and the remaining two-thirds were riddled with holes.

The smell of burnt paper after burning out floated in the air, and if an Oriental was there, he would have felt that it smelled like a cemetery during the Qingming Dynasty.

"Burned all the documents...... Have all the forts fallen?"

Anne fell off her horse with her knees limp. She didn't give up, she walked quickly into the main entrance of the collapsed ring fort, squatted down, and carefully searched for traces on the ground.

"Hopefully, the teleportation coordinates are still ...... Hopefully this is just a temporary retreat and not a final abandonment......"

She found it. The string of coordinates written in ciphertext, covered in a layer of strong acid, seemed to have its owner never returned. It was a general retreat order.

She knew it was all over.

"We have a plan, we have power, we have money! We even have knowledge beyond this era! What went wrong?!"

In the past, we were horrified by the change of history, and fled to speculation and delusion to hide ourselves.

After that, we were no longer afraid of the ravages of time, and we were determined to give up all tenderness and want to become new gods.

"We used to think that our knowledge of history was our greatest advantage. We also thought about being able to hide our identities and manipulate history behind the scenes......"

The wings of a butterfly are capable of setting off a storm.

But after the storm appeared, not even the primeval dragon could destroy it.

"I can't let history stay the way it is. I can't manipulate history, either. There is no predetermined fate; ”

If you can't do both, what's the use of having the magic to surpass this era by hundreds of years?

History has been freed from fate, and it is not in the hands of conspirators. It reacts to everything according to its own logic.

"It's like ...... History itself is against us. Does it think we're a distraction?"

When history itself is your enemy, all resistance seems so powerless.

Anne subconsciously pressed her hand on her injured abdomen, and retracted her hand as if she had been electrocuted.

From the surface of the magically created surrogate organs, you can feel a chill coming from your body. Every time you touch the crystal-like surface of those proxy organs, the brain creates bursts of excruciating pain. If she wasn't a high-level mage, she would have passed out in pain at this moment.

"At the end of the day...... Why am I here here?"

If the outcome does not change no matter where you go, there is no need for so-called faith.

I wanted to find a place to cry, but I didn't know where to start. There seemed to be only a numb smile on his face.

How many years has it been since I've done something like a normal girl?

At that moment, Anne Seiffel heard a bell.

The sound of a bell rang from the south. It's the first district.

"Bell of Freedom...... Has Anyone Rang the Bell of Freedom?" she said to herself, "Is there anyone who doesn't give up?"

Another bell rang.

Lonely she got on her horse and ran towards the bell.

Even if she was doomed, she wanted to see the last moment.

P.S.

Then it's Mid-Autumn Festival. There are also National Day. This chapter will probably end in October...... Probably.

Civilization 5 goes to ......

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