Like most of the other city-states of classical times, the overall structure of the ancient city of Catigali is based on the simple and efficient structure of the quadrilateral. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

If it weren't for the large amount of thick green vegetation covering the surface, it would look like a large square with a small square on top of it when viewed from the air. Of course, the shape is not so standard, but it is probably composed of such a structure.

The large square was the outer wall, and each of its four sides had a gate. The small square, which occupies the largest area in the center, is usually the central hub of the city-state, which serves as the residence of the lords, nobles, parliamentarians, and other dignitaries, and integrates the courtroom and the city hall.

With it as the center, the surrounding buildings will spread out in a ripple pattern based on their importance.

The headquarters of the city-state garrison was usually not too far from the castle lord's mansion, and on the other side of it was either the sacrificial temple of religion or the seat of the chamber of commerce. A further circle is the relatively important backbone of the city-state, the living area of the middle class with a certain status in the local area.

Further out were the markets, artisans' workshops, and the dwellings of the common people, while the garrison barracks, stables, and inns were arranged in the corners, bordering them and distinguishing them from the quarters where the nobles lived.

As for the poor and beggars, they could only enter the city to beg for food or work, and their settlements were usually located in simple stone huts and wooden huts outside the city that were unprotected.

By the standards of the city-states of classical times, Catigali was the largest city in the world.

A city-state that can accommodate 2,000 people, Henry and his party will probably spend a considerable amount of time if they want to explore it comprehensively. Coupled with the huge vegetation that covered the city walls and all kinds of old houses, and lifted the broken stone slabs, blocking the sunlight and blocking the way, anyone with a discerning eye could tell that it would not be easy to investigate deeply.

In fact, if it weren't for the encounter with the Earth Dragon, they didn't plan to enter the city-state in the first place. Although the city walls can provide some protection, anything can happen in 2,000 years. If you can't beat the enemy outside, you can at least find a way to evacuate, be surrounded by the city wall and don't know where it might collapse, and if something goes wrong, I'm afraid that I don't even know how I died.

But now that it has entered it, even if the earth dragon leaves temporarily due to heavy damage, no one can tell if it will return.

If the dragon hadn't been infected, the sage might have been able to judge by some actions and knowledge, and even avoid falling into such a costly situation in the first place. But there is no ifs in this world, and the actions of the earth dragons that have been eroded by the toxins are irregular, so after considering it left and right, staying in Katigali now is the most conservative decision.

But what are they going to do if they stay?---Before the question was raised, there were voices in the area covered by all sorts of stout vines, near the entrance to the East Gate, where they were, and clearly did not belong to them.

However, this may not be a bad thing for knights and mercenaries.

Mercenaries and noble knights, as well as most commoners and merchants, had simple thoughts and ideas.

They are so tired.

The bumps and disasters they have experienced along the way have been so many that they have little time or energy to think about what to do next. And like many soldiers on the battlefield, when you are tired and numb, the best and easiest way to do it is to lose yourself and follow orders.

You don't need to think for yourself, you don't need to make your own decisions.

The responsibility is borne by the person who gives the order from above, and the decision is also made by the person from above, and all you need to do is to follow their instructions.

This is the real point that distinguishes the leader from the led, and it is true that martial arts and talent also occupy equal weight, but what really determines the difference in starting point is the independence of thinking and the awareness of taking responsibility, as well as the ability to find the way forward in the midst of difficulties.

The situation was very difficult and difficult, but when there was a suspicious threat in the city of Katigali, the knights and mercenaries felt a sense of relief and relief.

On other battlefields, this is also a common picture.

Kill the red eye, and give up thinking in exhaustion.

There is no right or wrong, no good or evil in their eyes, and they have forgotten what they fought for in the first place, and they just divide everything into simple friend and foe, and they don't need to think about the next way out, and they don't need to think about the overwhelming pressure of the problem.

Just pick up the sword, kill, or be killed.

It sounds like a group of bloodthirsty and ferocious fighters, but in fact the more unprofessional the team, the more prone it is to this.

The strength of the Earth Dragons is overwhelming, and their logistics forces have been completely wiped out before, coupled with the threat of witches, even the hard-hearted Imperial knights will inevitably be shaken by repeated setbacks.

Under such circumstances, they inevitably fell into the same psychological situation as the group of highlander thugs before Ronor.

They urgently need to find the value of their existence, the meaning of their existence, and to make themselves feel better through something else.

The mob chose to inflict their pain on others when their lives were threatened, and the knights and mercenaries, though better than that, also chose to give up thinking when they were almost desperate.

It's just a matter of dividing friend and foe and then fighting them.

"Stop!" Constantine, a man of great talent, noticed the sign despite the confusion and troubles. Because of the abandonment of Rono and his party, coupled with the slight friction between the merchants' wagons and the war horses, the ranks already had faint signs of splitting into two groups, the nobles and the commoners, and in this case, if they were allowed to continue this mental inertia of dividing between friend and foe and then fighting, it would inevitably split in an extremely bloody and violent way.

"Calm down!"

The personal prestige that had been cultivated for a long time played an extraordinary role in this situation, and the moment Konstantin appeared, the noble knights who had already begun to explore the past within, withdrew.

And the mercenaries were already under a little less psychological pressure because they didn't have direct contact with the earth dragon, and at this moment, when they saw that no one took the lead after they stopped, they had to silently put away their weapons.

"We can't afford to lose more personnel, it's too risky to explore, and we're setting up perimeter defenses. Konstantin said as he reached for the straps of his leg and shoulder armor. No matter how good Padrosi's plate armor style is, it is only designed to fight humanoid creatures after all, and when facing a multi-ton earth dragon, even if he wears limb armor, he can't resist it at all, and most of the time along the way is a supply problem that cannot make ends meet, so only the armor of the torso part is left to protect other places and temporarily take off to reduce the burden.

Even if the knights are already quite elite, there are only a few extreme cases where they can only move in full-body armor for a long time. Most of the time they only wear them when they go into battle, and the rest of the time they only wear regular clothes and simple armed clothes.

The weight of more than 20 kilograms is enough for people with slightly poor nutritional conditions and physical fitness to lie down in a few hours, but even such an elite is a little unbearable at this point.

Therefore, under the leadership of Konstantin, quite a few people removed the parts of the armor and lightened the burden.

You don't need to be a sage to enumerate how stupid what they're doing so far, they're in a newly bloodbathed Warcraft territory, and they've only fought off a terrifying Earth Dragon just a dozen minutes ago. And how many structures in this ancient city are unreliable and may collapse at any time, not to mention, there is obviously something other than their group of people is active.

If a young Patrosi nobleman who thinks of himself as exaggerated and rhetorical on paper were here, he would probably caricature Constantine's decisions as useless.

But if you ask him what to do at this time, he will inevitably become speechless, and he will not be able to spit out a single byte for a long time.

Without supplies, the men and horses are exhausted. It has just experienced a bloody battle, and there are many minor and serious injuries and casualties. But these are not the biggest troubles, the biggest ones are.

They couldn't find the way down.

"Set up a perimeter defensive line, take local materials, and others take care of the wounded. Your Excellency Instructor. Konstantin turned his head to look at Ferruccio: "Please lead some of the mercenaries and merchants who are more physically fit to go out to check the whereabouts of the horses and knights, if there are still those who are alive, they must not give up." ”

The chief knight said this, and the old butler nodded, and turned back and walked with Filippo towards Mario and Moro.

The gap between the sophisticated and mature true commander and the young nobles who only talk and accuse others is evident at this moment, as our sages often do, and Constantine, when confronted with a problem, does not know how to raise it and blame others, but quickly arranges it, and remains calm in a desperate situation, and mediates the command.

With him and Henry in their presence, the team would not fall into complete chaos and disorder.

But even so, the problem of the road is something that our Sage Sage cannot solve.

Admittedly, they must get out of here as soon as possible.

However, the ancient city of Katigali is a city-state of 2,000 years ago, and even if it was a glorious city in that era, the Baka Ancient Road has been dilapidated by the invasion of time.

After the earth dragon left, Henry went out to explore while the mercenaries and merchants were trembling to clean up the mess, but the only feasible path in front of him was the place where the earth dragon went down the mountain, and the path taken by the earth dragon with its strong limbs and sharp claws down the mountain was obviously not something that could be driven by a carriage pulling hundreds of kilograms of heavy goods.

Convincing the merchants to give up their goods was not an easy task, and the common people's distrust of the nobility in Padrosi led to the stubborn denial, and even the opposite effect, to protect their goods even if Constantine or Marguerite offered the condition of "discarding the goods and paying them all in money when they arrived in town".

If a businessman abandons Rono as an argument during the negotiations, then even if the two sides do not completely fall out, I am afraid that the atmosphere will be very embarrassing.

This is a point that is best not to be touched lightly. Even friends who have different views on politics, religion, or even life may fall out like this. Not to mention that there were already faint signs of a split in their ranks, and if at such a time they had taken out the things that the merchants relied on for their livelihood as the main point of negotiation, the contradictions, which had already faintly shown signs of eruption, would be completely unfolded.

It is often said that there is no single thing in disaster, and this is largely due to the disparity in thinking and character between individual human beings.

When everything is perfectly balanced and can go smoothly without any twists and turns, people from all walks of life can live in harmony. But when people start to suffer because of certain problems, and they can't smoothly achieve what they want and get what they need, conflicts arise due to a series of factors such as dissatisfaction and psychological imbalance.

Although a kind person like Miela always expects everyone to work together to overcome difficulties, in fact, when they encounter difficulties, they start to blame each other and shirk their responsibilities, which is what is common in this world.

It was an ironic sight - Henry looked back at the busy nobles and commoners, and he couldn't help but sigh despite having seen similar scenes countless times.

The reason why the conflict did not break out is not because the two sides are still forbearing, but precisely because there is a power that the civilians hate the most is suppressing.

Mercenaries and merchants did not dare to make the conflict public, because they were afraid of the force of the noble knights. The noble knights suppressed their dissatisfaction with the merchants' refusal to give up their wagons, relying solely on the prestige of Konstantin alone.

If the Knight Commander is a cowardly and incompetent character, or if the Knights' numbers and combat effectiveness further detract from the fact that the mercenaries and merchants believe that they have the same voice as them, then this kind of rapprochement, which can barely be maintained, will come to an end once and for all.

There are many, many more problems ahead.

But the most important thing is to address the wounded and supplies, as well as the most pressing security issues.

After 2,000 years, even if the stone structure had not completely collapsed, it would have been impossible for Katigali to retain the gate.

The Earth Dragons don't know if they'll return, and the threat of ghouls remains, along with the walking dead who have come back from the dead. While they don't pose much of a threat when they're well equipped, even these guys can be the straw that breaks the camel's back when they're already battered.

After examining Mira's injuries again and confirming that she was only a little faint and had not really suffered any fatal injuries, the Sage and Konstantin continued to plan their defenses.

After thinking about it, the chief knight decided to use the horse that the earth dragon had bitten to death for cooking.

It was a very humiliating decision for the knights, for the horses were reliable comrades and trusted companions to them, and it was useless to cook the horses of their fallen comrades and to eat their own corpses, but they were at the end of their rope.

Those monster horses have been eaten by ghouls, who knows if the toxins in them can be wiped out after a while, and the only ones that can be used for dining are the war horses of their own people who were beaten to death by the earth dragon.

When all of the above was taken care of, they sat by the campfire, and everyone tore at the horse meat, which was not very tasty.

"Hiccup—it's been a long time since I've eaten so full!" the vulgar mercenary who couldn't read the atmosphere laughed and said the words that made many knights look at him with hatred, but they clenched their fists, even if they tasted like chewing wax, they could only continue to eat in order to conserve their strength and continue to survive.

The starlight casts through the vines and the branches of the trees that dot the walls and houses of Katigali, and although no one has the heart to enjoy it, the beauty is still silent.

"Heh—" After lying all afternoon and most of the night, Mira and Mikhail finally woke up one after the other.

In addition to them, two knights with more serious injuries were still alive, one of whom was the knight whose right thigh had been broken by the Earth Dragon. But the two of them were too badly injured to survive in such a wilderness.

"Are you alright?" asked Henry with concern, like the knight lieutenant, Mira had woken up feeling her head swollen and sore, she was still a little confused, but fortunately it was the only place where she was hurt. In contrast, Mikhail, who was protected by a helmet, regained consciousness more quickly, but he was unable to join the battle for a short time due to the massive recoil force of the spear hitting the Earth Dragon, and his right arm, which caused muscle tears and bone contusions.

The situation is extremely tragic, and in this situation, he has lost his ability to fight and has become a drag oil bottle.

This caused Mikhail to fall silent after waking up and observing his surroundings for a while, but this inner hurdle could only be overcome by himself.

Everyone has their own minds, and there are many things that need to be dealt with and resolved.

But what attracted the sage's attention the most was that the white-haired girl suddenly looked into the interior of the ancient city of Katigali, which was lush and dark blue in the moonlight, after waking up for a while, and finally whispered a sentence that only the two of them could hear.

"Something seems to be calling to me. ”