XVI

From the construction of the temporary camp, it can be seen that there is a serious generation gap between the magical combat power of the Imperial Army and the Free Army. Also a temporary camp that had only been built for less than two months, the bluestone cement fortress of the Imperial Volunteers looked much stronger than the artillery batteries and soldiers' quarters of the Halberd Division. Not only do they have a well-developed long-range detection system, but even the sturdy trapezoidal parapet wall more than two meters high is embedded with a simple protective circle painted with cheap magic paint. This kind of magic circle is not used for physical protection, but to make it more difficult for the city wall to collapse and shatter, and not to let the cement fragments hurt their own people who are defending on the wall. The gap in magic skills between the North and the South is not only the essential gap in high-level magic, but also the gap in these low-level magic skills.

Seeing this fortress camp, Naimon felt that the chances of his plan succeeding seemed to be a little lower. But soldiers can't wait until they are 100 percent sure to fight.

The Imperial Army that came to the south was almost all so-called "elites", and the total number was very limited, and it was estimated that there would be no more than 500 people who could stay as reserves; in contrast, there were now more than 1,500 troops in the hands of the Bright Naimon.

At the earnest request of Second Lieutenant Sefir, nine of the twelve companies that had entered the city were willing to submit to the command of his troublesome officer, and only three companies were to rush back to support the division headquarters. Considering that this would attract the attention of the Imperial Army, Naimon did not insist that she bring everyone over. Now, the rest of the company remained out of view of the fortress watchtower, waiting for the signal from the assault company, and only the assault company itself was to carry out this plan.

He took a deep breath, pulled out his black revolver, and examined the bullets in each barrel. It didn't mean much, but it calmed his mind. He revisited his team, and after making sure that none of the flags were revealing their identities, he gave orders to his lieutenant.

"Let's go, Annie. Do as planned. ”

"Okay, Lieutenant Soleton. Anne replied politely as usual. Naimon often felt that she was too polite: she would never call him by his first name. However, no matter how much he reminded him, this rough-witted girl still couldn't change, and he had to give up.

He coughed, straightened his face, and walked at the front of the line with Anne. As they approached the fortress, a squad of defenders had already rushed out and waited in front of the fortress gate to "meet" them.

"May I ask what your army is doing?" asked an Imperial soldier in an Imperial accent.

"We are under the command of Major Edith Magnum of the Mertbusi Division, and we have come to ask for help!" replied Anne according to the draft that had already been prepared, "the enemy in the south is quite numerous, and they have concentrated nearly thirty companies in an attempt to interfere with the movement of our troops!"

"Thirty companies! That's more than seventy percent of their strength!" exclaimed the soldier, turning to report. Naimon noticed that he knew the Halberd Division's troop numbers inside out.

At this moment, a shrill trumpet suddenly sounded from the watchtower of the fortress.

"Enemy attack! enemy attack!" More than one monitoring mage observed the approaching enemy, "There are about ten companies, the Battle Halberd Banner, it's the Southern Army!"

"Ten companies!" the squad leader who rushed to the scene was shocked, "It seems that we have no time to reinforce them! We only have two companies in total, please hurry into the camp to ensure safety!"

"But is this good? Isn't it a violation of the agreement......" Naimon pretended to pretend. Hearing that the other party only had two companies, his confidence was much greater.

"It's so urgent, please hurry!" the squad leader urged. Naimon didn't say anything more, and immediately ordered the entire assault company to follow the other party into the camp.

However, this army of Kerman volunteers was almost always outstanding aristocratic officers, and it soon became felt that something was wrong. As the team passed through the main gate of the camp, a knight on guard at the city gate suddenly asked, "Wait a minute. Can you tell us your number, name, and rank?"

Naemon stopped, walked over to the knight, who was still wearing the shining chest armor under his overcoat and exposed his family crest, and replied with a smile, "Oh, we are the 3rd Assault Company under the headquarters of the Metbysie Division......"

"Is there three assault companies in that division?" the knight looked down with confusion as he recalled the information he had read a few days ago, "how come I haven't heard of ......"

His memories didn't go on. Taking advantage of his stunned moment, Naimon quickly pulled out his pistol and pulled the trigger almost against his chestplate.

Piercing gunshots rang out, bullets piercing through his chestplates. With a stunned look on his face, the officer collapsed against the wall. Naimon felt a little unbearable in his heart, but the current situation had no time to give him sentimentality.

"Do it, take all the gun positions!"

Anne didn't hesitate to use her magic, weaving her way through the squad with dexterity, knocking them out one by one with close-range magic and grappling skills. The commanders of the platoons mounted their bayonets and rushed to the key positions according to their own judgment. The entire assault company was like a sharp knife, cutting off the communication between the various departments of the Imperial Army Reserve in an instant. Despite its well-developed external defenses, the Imperial camp was barely prepared for street fighting: perhaps in the eyes of the designers, a breached fortress was of no value to continue defending.

The battle ended sooner than the Free Army officers had imagined. The defenders had no idea that such a force would surprise the city at a time of chaos, and the organized resistance did not last long. About seven or eight mages and priests with a platoon of guards organized an unsuccessful but heroic defense near the headquarters, and almost all of them were killed or seriously wounded, leaving Naimon with almost two squads of men. When these people also lost their combat effectiveness, there was no one to resist anymore. By the time the follow-up brigade rushed in, only the finishing touches remained in the entire camp. The company commanders went to claim their own credit, and Namen paced into the Imperial Army's staff.

"The troops left here are too weak. There were only two or three middle-level mages and priests, and there was not even one of the high-ranking nobles and officers. They are all junior staff officers of the same class as me...... I should really thank the division headquarters for luring the enemy away. ”

More than a dozen dejected Imperial Army staff officers passed by him, and several soldiers in charge of the place saluted him. He nodded and walked into the enemy's staff.

On the wall here hangs a map of the city of Kengrad like their staff headquarters, and with all sorts of strange and indecipherable markings. Naimon smiled wryly and sat down in the leather swivel chair that was supposed to belong to the Chief Staff Officer of the Imperial Army. After a moment's sitting, he got up again, sat down in the chair of the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, and examined the huge round table and the scattered documents on it. There were several piles of ashes, and it was clear that they had destroyed quite a few documents temporarily......

Suddenly sensing something was wrong, he jerked the table, bounced off his chair and took three steps back. An inaccurate dagger was nailed to his thigh, bleeding profusely—and in the position of this dagger, if he was a little more accurate, he would have suffered greatly.

"Who is it?!come out!"

Naimon ignored the pain and shouted at the table. Anne and several other soldiers heard his roar and hurried into the house.

They had expected to see an Imperial soldier of high rank—but in reality, emerging from under the table was a young brunette woman in a low-cut blue cloak. She raised her hands and bit her lip tightly, her chin deliberately high. Just glancing at his face, she turned her head disdainfully and looked at the ceiling. Naimon felt that her appearance was a little familiar, but he didn't expect that he had actually had a relationship with this woman a few months ago.

"Dear Madam Pastor, can you tell me your name and identity?" Anne rushed in, and was equally stunned at the sight of Reif's familiar face. She couldn't remember where she had seen the black-haired priestess.

“...... Reve Namlock. The Holy Emperor's sister replied haughtily, "Priest." ”

"Anne, pick a good one from the residences of the Imperial nobles and give it to this priest lady. There should be quite a few scrolls to set up anti-magic arrays, set them up in all the captives' houses, and you can decide to lift the password. Naimon endured the pain and pulled out the dagger, stiffened up without screaming, and cleaned the wound with a healing potion to stop the bleeding.

"Understood. Anne turned to leave, but Naimon quickly stopped the adjutant who was sometimes short of heels.

"And ...... Can you get another priest for me? I can't walk......"

Neither he nor she could expect how much trouble the seemingly ordinary female captive in front of them would cause them and Danika.

*** ***

"So, the head of the front line of the Southern Army is a bold guy?"

"It's my subordinate when I was in Fortiburg as an inside lineman, a small person. Edith uneasily scratched her fingers on the table with meaningless symbols, "and then he returned to Lennie's side and got a job as a staff officer. ”

"Little man, can you let him take all the politicians first, then take our camp, and finally take Her Royal Highness the princess hostage?! In return, we only captured one member of the Broken Republic? There are at least two hundred of them, and if they are all killed, another two hundred can be elected, and there is only one princess! The best agent of the empire in the south, the youngest professor in the history of the High Arcane Academy, the chief holy knight of the Knights of the Guard, and one of the twelve cardinals who hold the supreme power of the Holy See...... How could such a mistake be made by so many outstanding talents! If all command authority had been handed over to the Royal Security Department, such a thing would never have happened! I would not have missed anything in the final report!"

The speaker took a breath, picked up the porcelain teacup from the table, and took a sip of tea to moisten his throat. Those who were able to attend this occasion were the elites deployed in the south by the Holy Coman Empire, and when they heard this reprimand, everyone's faces were not quite right.

“...... If Lord Sid had arrived here now, he would have said so. What do you think? When this passage reached the ears of the Minister of War, we all had to go to the Permafrost Plains to hunt snowmen. ”

Vlasol Rasta, who is currently the commander of the Imperial Volunteers, pressed his hands on the table and looked around. With the exception of Pike, who is directly subordinate to the Royal Department of Security, who is on a special mission near Lenny, everyone else who knows the whereabouts of Olya Hugh Cockman is here to discuss countermeasures.

"I'm sorry, it's my responsibility. Agent Edith Magnum, codenamed "Mist Hawk," stood up and apologized, "I didn't give Denica the right orders. ”

"If you want to talk about responsibility, I, the knight of the guard who should be responsible for protecting His Highness, have more responsibility. Now is not the time to hold him accountable, the key question is how to rescue His Highness before Sid shows up. Huran Dimatel seemed to be the most anxious one, "There is probably only one way." ”

"With the help of our combat power beyond them, we will directly capture His Highness back. That's all there is to it. Cardinal Jett Newton, who looked like an ordinary uncle, picked up the topic, "We can raid and destroy the other party's chain of command - or, at least, rescue Lord Olya." ”

"Leave this operation to me and Jett. Isaac Newton cupped his glasses, "All the magic power of the rest of you here probably can't catch up with the two of us, so it's decided, right? This matter must be kept secret, no one knew that Her Royal Highness the Princess was here, and now no one should let anyone know about Her Royal Highness the Princess's fall into the hands of the enemy. ”

Everyone nodded, no one wanted to leave the matter until the arrival of Sid, the Secretary of State for Security. Of course, no one can say with certainty that he doesn't know what's going on here - almost every Kerman has a tingling scalp when they hear the name, and no one dares to underestimate his abilities.

*** ***

As night fell, the parapet of the camp cast a long shadow on the ground, and more than a dozen halberd flags hung low. As the temperature gradually dropped, the blue army coats walked around with flintlock pistols on their backs, guarding every entrance to the camp, ready to meet the counterattack that could come at any moment.

Surprisingly, the Imperial and Oversees did not react to the fighting here for the entire day, as if they were unaware of it. The officers with the ability to cast spells are all busy, scouring the fortress of this magically advanced nation for resources at their disposal: they disarm the hidden dangerous magic, sketch the entire camp, mark the terrain and traps that can be used, and try to turn it into their own fortifications as quickly as possible. Anne spent the afternoon busy arranging the defense zones of the companies, luring, seducing, persuading, and intimidating the proud lieutenants. Soleton's resume was unconvincing, but in such a situation where the enemy could be overwhelmed at any time, everyone felt that it would be better to have someone who was willing to take on the drudgery—or to sacrifice him as a shield at any time, so they tentatively agreed with him as a temporary commander.

As for Namen himself, he spent the whole afternoon recuperating in the room where Thuran Dimatel had lived, avoiding bargaining and socializing with his colleagues, with only the siblings Anne and Pluto taking the time to visit him. In the evening, he asked the guards for a modest Imperial war ration for dinner. Freshly baked rye bread has the taste of artificial flour made by food manufacturing, and it tastes astringent, not as good as the bread baked by the Fifth National Master himself. After eating, he felt that his leg injury had basically healed with the help of healing magic, so he got up and went out to patrol the camp.

The evening breeze brought the sound of the organ, and it was the eldest lady of the Croso brothers who was practicing her piano skills. In this camp there was a decent Orthodox church, with a small but good organ: less than a hundred years of division was not enough to make a difference between the instruments of the North and the South. Naimon followed the long, mournful sound of the organ and found that the officers and soldiers, who had nothing to do after eating, had filled the church.

He sighed, dismissed the idea of squeezing into the crowd to see the performance, and bypassed the church. Behind the church is a makeshift cemetery where the bodies of soldiers on both sides who died during the day's fighting are now placed for burial. During the day's battle, the assault company had lost nearly twenty men, their coffins stacked in four neat stacks in the open air, and the coffin boards were hastily thrown aside, the iron-colored coat of arms of the Empire still unpainted. The number of dead in the Imperial Army was twice that number, and the coffins of these people were already occupied, and the bodies could only be hastily wrapped in white linen.

The weather in early spring was still very cold, and the corpses had not yet decomposed, and there was no smell of the disgusting smell of corpses. Naimon walked around the heavy coffins, only to find his female adjutant standing behind them. He didn't expect to see her in such a remote place, and he was stunned for a moment, hesitating what words to use.

"Anne, it's been a hard afternoon. Well, you're mourning the victims? Are there ...... people in these people that you are familiar with?"

"Yes, yes, of course. But, I'm not mourning them. His adjutant turned his head with a calm smile on his face that was different from the usual day. Now she looks like another person. "I can't do anything if I want to mourn everyone who has died because of me. To be honest, I'm just here to look at the stars. ”

Hearing this unexpected answer, Naimon was stunned. "What do you mean?"

"Do you believe in astrology?" said Anne, looking up at the stars, "It is a doctrine that uses the position of the stars to predict the major events of the world, the direction of life, and the success or failure of actions. They say that the actions of the great men correspond to the movement of the stars, and that it is more smooth to follow the movements of the stars. ”

"Astrology, are you an astrologer?" Nemen chuckled, "that's superstition, isn't it? The stars are moving worlds, and the light from these stars is projected on our rotating planets, forming the so-called celestial spheres. This kind of thing looks different in every corner of the world, how can it determine success or failure? Everyone who uses magic should know what the great magicians of the last century, Galileo and Kepler, did in this regard, right? Only the uneducated and uneducated imperial aristocracy would believe in astrology. ”

Anne shook her head slightly: "There is indeed no theoretical basis for astrology, but the world believes that astrology also has a reason. Don't you think the stars are as unpredictable as life, and do you know how long it takes for the light of these stars to be cast onto our heavenly vault, Soleton?"

Naimon recalled the books he had read before and replied, "Those star worlds are very far away from us, probably a few months to a few years. ”

"Far more than that. The light emitted by the vast majority of the stars twinkling in the sky will take hundreds or even tens of thousands of years to reach our world. The stars we see now are at least hundreds of thousands of years ago. They emit light for thousands of years, just so that we can see it here. ”

"Can't say that. Naimon objected, "These lights are supposed to be coming out, but we just happen to see them here." They don't shine light for us to see......"

He suddenly understood the metaphor in Anne's words. The corpses in front of him had gone through decades of life, with their own lives and rich memories. They must also have families, parents, friends, lovers, hard magical training, great ambitions or amazing ambitions. But eventually, like the light of hundreds of years ago, they reached their end and burned out together. Again, they were not born here for the purpose of dying.

Anne crouched down next to a corpse wrapped in white cloth, using her fingertips to gently draw magical symbols on it. "They can't even be considered meteors in the sky, because meteors are burning themselves, and they just shine quietly and mundanely in the night sky, unnoticed, unheeded, until they are drowned out by history. So, I'm not going to mourn the dead. You can only mourn the people you know, and it's so unfair to all the people who die because of me who have had their fates changed. These Imperial soldiers also had their own lives. ”

Naimon was speechless for a moment. Instead of the usual lively smile, Anne's face was a cruel calm.

"Even if you die, I won't mourn, Soleton. I will only come to the side of the dead and inform them of my goals. I will make life better for those who are still alive, and as a way to comfort all those who have died directly or indirectly because of me. This is my responsibility. Noticing his blank gaze, she turned her back and continued, "I know it's meaningless to the dead and the living, just as an astrologer's analysis is meaningless to the stars and to others...... But it makes sense to myself. ”

"Anne ......"

Naimon wanted to reproach her for being cold-blooded, but now that thought had long since vanished. In front of her, he was so small that he only thought about his own interests, and his guilt and apologies were so false. He could not speak comforting words, nor sweet words, and now he only wanted an excuse to get out of here, because he knew he could not face that dazzling expression of calm.

He also witnessed...... Or rather, these dead, or even more dead, were created. Is he equally responsible?

Just when Naimon wanted an excuse, the excuse appeared.

The sound of a loud explosion came from the direction of the fortress battery, which was deafening, even drowning out the music of the organ. The girl's playing stopped, and the church suddenly became noisy.

"Enemy attack!" Naimon stepped forward and grabbed Anne's shoulder, "I'll leave the attack to you, Second Lieutenant Shalfe." Now we shouldn't be immersed in sentimentality, pick yourself up and go into battle!"

"Thank you. Anne's smile returned, "Just leave it to me." Luthor had set a trap, and they would not be able to please if they attacked the fort. By the way, he had already rushed to Vodkagrad for help, and he had some previous friendship with Chief of Staff Hull. ”

"Great! Knowing that reinforcements will be coming, we are more certain. Naimon let go of her shoulders and turned to walk away briskly in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going, Lieutenant?" Anne tried to stop him, "it's not in the direction of the battery!"

"I'm going to a prisoner of war camp! I'm afraid they'll take advantage of the riots. With that, Naimon fled the cemetery as quickly as he could—he didn't want Anne to see through the chaos in his heart.

What he didn't expect was that his whimsical judgment accurately stood in the way of the Imperial Army's sneak attack plan.

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Welcome the majority of book friends to come and read, the latest, fastest, the hottest serialized works are all here!