September 16, 358 Pander, sunny.

Shield Wind Fortress.

The forces of the Serpent Cult were destroyed.

But the main force in this battle was not me, nor the Bacchus troops led by General Ivaylo, but Wendy's reserve left here and the Phoenix Knights.

Or rather, this is a reserve that the two Majesties deliberately left in the territory.

I didn't expect that His Majesty Amy, who was far away in Lion City, would be able to mobilize the Phoenix Knights.

I didn't expect that the one who led the Phoenix Knights to stop the large army of the Snake Worship Sect was Anson, who was not very good at fighting!

In the southern part of the Shield Wind Fortress, I got my first glimpse of the true combat power of the Phoenix Knights, which was nothing like what they looked like when they were stationed in Karon Deer Castle.

When facing the Snake Cult, the Phoenix Knight looked more fierce and crazy than the Snake Cultists.

They rushed back and forth in the army of the Serpent Cult, rushing wherever there were many enemies, as if they all believed that they could be reborn like immortal birds.

This style of combat was very costly, but it was also very effective, and before I even had time to enter the battle, the army of the Snake Cult was crushed to pieces.

Wendy left over two hundred young rangers at the Shieldwind Fortress, and these rangers held back the scattered Serpent Cultists and prevented them from escaping into the forest.

By the time I arrived at the battlefield, there was no need for any hard fighting, just the removal of all the scattered Serpent worshippers.

It's just that after I took out the Snake Cult troops, I received several bad news.

Lord Harry Ward, who had remained in the north, died.

At the same time, the Gatu marched south again.

In order to resist the Catus, the two lords, Ardalian and Israndil, gave up their duel and ran together to the northern battlefield, where their fate is now uncertain.

—From The Battlefield Diary of New Pande, by Risardiran Aino.

——

In late September, General Ivaylo returned to the port of Dilin with a large army of the Bacchus Empire.

He was accompanied by the Order of the Phoenix and hundreds of half-crippled Maritine captives.

Having met the Maritins who had been lured north by Sigismund, Ivailo learned of the attack on the port of Tilin, and after maiming the 1,000 Maritinians, he marched back to the port of Tilin.

Caspars left Imperial Harbor with a dozen or so old and dilapidated warships that had been hastily overhauled, and more than a thousand remnants of soldiers who were still willing to follow him.

He's going back to Maritin.

Leon and Alina did not detain any of the Maritines, leaving behind only a letter of allegiance written by Caspars himself.

Coming with great ambition, but returning to China after just a few days on the continent of Pande, it may have allowed Caspars to really grow - he finally figured out that returning to Marittin as his vice emperor was the most reliable.

Of course, when you return to Maritin, you may have to confront the emperor...... But at least it was a confrontation within the rules of the nobility, and it should be a little easier to deal with than these insidious liars in the Pander Continent, at least there was an entire family to rely on.

The Phoenix Knights will return to the continent of Amara with Caspers, as the snake worshippers in the Pander continent have basically been wiped out, and their mission has been completed.

Calm gradually returned to the Imperial Harbor, and Alina and Leon began to prepare for the funeral of Emperor Marius.

It looks like everything is going well...... It's just that Justes is more difficult.

The father who protects his daughter is difficult to deal with, and now Justes is fierce, aggressive and aggressive.

And the father thought that Leon had eaten and wiped his daughter clean......

"Luciana, what the hell are you going to do? After the funeral, you will be crowned empress, do you want to become Leon's concubine as empress?! ”

Justes is now educating his daughter.

"Can't I just not get married? Besides, Leon and I are only in a master-apprentice relationship...... And I'm Alina now, and Luciana isn't the heir to His Majesty Marius. ”

Alina sighed helplessly.

"Master and apprentice? Are there any masters and apprentices who sleep together?! That's what I saw with my own eyes...... It doesn't matter how you young people play, but I don't want you to be pointed at for the rest of your life! ”

Justes said angrily.

"We didn't sleep together...... No, we're not the kind of sleep you think you are! What you see is just a misunderstanding! ”

Alina became more and more helpless - there were many masters and apprentices who slept together, and Leon and his two wives were in a master-apprentice relationship......

"Misunderstanding? Hum...... Leon, this bastard is irresponsible, and you actually help him cover it up?! ”

Justes' face was full of hatred for iron, and he turned his head and left: "Hmph...... I'm going to find Queen Wendy! I've got to teach that bastard a lesson...... It's better to force him to divorce those two queens! ”

"Hey...... Father ......"

Alina screamed twice and didn't stop, frowning and confused.

……

"Tell me clearly, what the hell is going on with you and Alina?"

Wendy is educating her husband in her room.

"It's just a misunderstanding...... Look at my injury, how can this injury do bad things? ”

Leon replied with a wincing face.

Justes actually told Wendy about this, it seems that this old guy is trying to stir up discord between his husband and wife?

Sure enough, it is much more difficult to deal with family affairs than state affairs......

"Hmph, then who knows, you didn't hurt the lower half of your body...... No wonder your law allows you to marry three...... If you really like her, it doesn't matter, but you didn't admit it when you did something bad?! ”

Wendy obviously didn't believe that this was a misunderstanding, and in her opinion, this little injury might not necessarily affect Leon to do bad things.

Moreover, this bastard Li Ang obviously has some misunderstanding of the master-apprentice relationship - the apprentices he accepted are all beautiful girls, and he should have noticed it a long time ago!

Leon sighed and didn't know how to explain it.

I really didn't do anything......

Do you want to say, 'Alina sneaked into my bed in the middle of the night'?

Although this is indeed true, if it is true, it is estimated that the consequences will be more troublesome.

"Knock knock!"

Just when Leon was anxious, there was a knock on the door.

"Wendy, can you come out for a while, I want to talk to you......"

Alina's voice appeared outside the door.

Wendy glared at Leon angrily and walked out the door.

She doesn't lose her temper with Alina, and they've always had a good relationship.

I don't know what Alina said to Wendy, anyway, Wendy has lived in Alina's room since then, and Leon's ears are a lot cleaner.

……

September 26, 358 Pander.

The two generals, Creon and Valerius, had also arrived at Imperial Harbor, and all the members of the Senate had arrived.

This day is the fifty-ninth birthday of Emperor Marius.

It was also the day of the burial of Emperor Marius.

According to Emperor Marius's own wishes, he was to be buried on a cliff about ten miles east of the Imperial Harbor - the cliff behind the reef that could be seen from the Imperial Governor's Palace.

Perhaps, Emperor Marius wanted to see the true homeland of the Bacchus from the top of the mountain, across the endless sea.

The sky was blue and clean.

The streets of the port are also very clean, the wind and rain of the past few days have diluted the bloodstains brought by the war, and the war-torn port has been rewashed into a neat and peaceful appearance.

The streets were crowded with men, women, and children, and there were so many people, more than the people who had been mobilized by the Knights of Radiance to defend the city a few days ago, and they couldn't see their heads to the east.

These were all civilians who spontaneously came to see off Emperor Marius.

Crowns made of ears of wheat and cinnamon branches were held in their hands, and a procession of winding lines stretched east from the gate of the Imperial Harbor to the east.

This is exactly the time when the wheat is ripe, and the rings of yellow ears of wheat look exactly like the crown on the head of Emperor Marius.

Everyone's eyes were on the direction in which Emperor Marius's coffin was coming.

Dressed in the armor of the Immortals, wearing the Immortal helmet of Emperor Marius, and leading the way with the sword of the Eloquent—a tradition of Bacchus, Emperor Marius was a lifelong leader of the horses, and his heirs were to see him off in the same uniform he had used.

Alina was a girl, with a thin waist and narrow shoulders, and it didn't fit well in the armor of Emperor Marius. She had to tie her shoulder pads with a harness to keep them from slipping, and then draped a red cloak of Marius over the outside to hide her loose appearance.

It didn't look imposing at all, but no one was going to laugh at her at this point.

Marius's two sons walked silently behind Alina, although the eldest son Gaius had the same name as Emperor Marius himself, he did not compete for the identity of the heir, but only inherited the private property of Emperor Marius himself, that is, some manor villas and land in the area of Siyuan City.

Marius's own name was Gaius, and Marius was a family name, which was the usual naming method of the Bacchus, and the eldest son was often exactly the same as his father's name.

And Marlius's second son, Yunes, took over some business from his brother Gaius, and then left the army and became a wealthy landowner.

Both brothers showed respect and recognition for Alina, and voluntarily relinquished their already meager power, leaving no chance for any careerist to use it.

This was apparently warned by Emperor Marius in advance.

At the same time, all the members of the Senate who were still alive only nominated Alina as a candidate for emperor.

In other words, there is no longer a parliamentary vote in the elections, and there is only one candidate.

Emperor Marius did not allow his posthumous affairs to turn into a bloody struggle for power, and this kind of peaceful transition was actually very rare in this era.

Alina had already become an empress at this time.

The funeral was still going on, there were a lot of people, but it was quiet, there were no gongs and drums, and there was no crying.

Maybe everyone didn't want to disturb the emperor in the coffin, or maybe everyone knew that His Majesty would be watching them from the high cliff.

Emperor Marius was buried on a cliff at the top of a hill, to the south of which had been smoothed by the waves for thousands of years.

As a relative and friend of Marius, Leon walked first behind Marius's coffin.

And, at his own expense, Leon built a lighthouse next to Marius's cemetery.

This lighthouse was named "Marius's Light" by him.

He felt that this should be what Emperor Marius wanted—to be able to do something really useful for Bacchus even if he died.

Beneath the cliff is a large reef area, where a lighthouse is built to warn passing ships to be cautious and reduce accidents.

At the same time, the ever-bright lighthouse can also let Emperor Marius see how lush and prosperous Bacchus will become in the future.

……

Shortly after the funeral of Emperor Marius, before Alina could return to Siyuan City to be officially crowned, a series of news came from Risardiran.

The good news is that the large army of the Snake Worship Sect has been strangled near the Shield Wind Fortress, and not a single one has escaped.

The bad news is that Earl Herbard has died of illness at Fort Shield.

There was no conspiracy in the fact that Herry Ward died of a sudden illness at an old age, but the death of the experienced and respected Hereward led to a series of problems.

First of all, Ralph and the members of the Horn Summoning Ranger gathered at Fort Shield to hold a funeral for Hereward, intending to prevent the Cato from taking advantage of the opportunity to move south.

But what they didn't expect was that the Gatu did move south, but instead of passing through Fort Yongdun, they crossed the northern part of the Noldor Forest diagonally from the northwest, and appeared directly near Fort White Deer.

Aldarion's tribe had been stationed in the northern part of the forest, but this time his troops were transferred to fight the Serpent Cult, and the northern part of the Noldor Forest had few troops, and the Gatu took advantage of it.

Risadilan had already rushed to Castle White Hart with the Noldor elves.

"According to Risadiran, the Gatu army was very large, larger than it had been in previous decades. But I'm sorry, Your Majesty Leon, we have just returned from the north, and it will be difficult to organize a large army to support the north again. And for the time being, it's not easy for us to enter the Noldor Forest or Fort White Hart...... I almost had a problem when I was chasing with Risa Dilan before. ”

Ivaylo apologized to Leon and said that he could not lead his troops north again to support.

Leon understands this, the Bacchus people really can't enter the core sphere of influence of the Noldor elves at will in a short time, otherwise it is difficult to predict whether the other Noldor elves will clash with the Bacchus warriors, after all, it was the Bacchus who burned the forest before.

However, White Deer Fort is a bit empty now, and it happens to be the harvest season, so Leon is really worried.

At this time, the Gatu people must have sent troops on a large scale to grab food, that is to say, their range of action will be very scattered, and the target will never be fixed in the area of White Deer Fort, and the entire eastern region will be in danger.

In fact, the necessary garrison deployment had already been done before the dispatch of troops to the Imperial Harbor - Ralph and the Horn Summoning Ranger Regiment in Long River City, Leofrick in Cullen Deer Castle, the Owl Knights in Troubrun, Charles in Fletcher......

Coupled with the fact that Risa Dilan went to White Deer Fort with nearly two thousand Noldor troops, the entire eastern part of the country was actually very abundant.

It's just that the Cato people unexpectedly crossed the Noldor Forest, which made Leon always feel a little dangerous.

But Li Ang was far away in Dilingang, and there were only less than 300 guards around him, so no matter how worried he was, he couldn't save the fire from far water.

Although Li Ang left immediately, it would take a week to rush back from Dilingang.

Now we can only hope that Ralph and Risadilan will react quickly, and not let the Gatuls take advantage of anything.

(End of chapter)