Chapter 150. Hegemon of the South (2)
“What do you think of this?”
Schumacher, taking the letter handed to him by Frederick, the King of Felix, quietly read what was written on it.
“I spoiled him, and now he has forgotten his place and dares to speak of starting a civil war in my kingdom. What should I do with Count Blanc?”
“…”
The letter Schumacher had received was a request for the opening of hostilities sent by Blanc to King Frederick.
In the letter, along with his just cause for being attacked first, was a report that Count Lacie had moved with beings stained by Evil.
Blanc’s request to open hostilities to strike his enemy, the Lacie family, through these justifications had no problem in terms of form and cause, but there was no way King Frederick would approve of this war, which brought him no benefit whatsoever.
Schumacher, without saying a word, handed the letter he was holding to a nearby attendant.
“I asked you to answer, Sir Schumacher.”
Horst, standing next to Frederick, pressured Schumacher with a threatening tone.
But Schumacher was not a knight who would yield to such pressure.
“...I have nothing to say about Count Blanc’s desired opening of hostilities against Bigrove. That is a matter that only Your Majesty, the master of this land, can decide.”
Schumacher was not far from stepping down from his position as Vice-Commander of the Royal Knights.
He was actually in the process of handing over his duties to the second son of the Pernamo Family, the next Vice-Commander, but the end of his service in the knight order was being spent in difficult days, caught between the royal family and Blanc.
However, Bartomyu had placed Schumacher in the position of Vice-Commander in the first place to prepare for such a situation.
Schumacher began to exercise his remaining influence to speak for Tolome and Cadmus.
“However, I believe you must deeply consider the report that it is related to the Evil that Count Cadmus speaks of.”
“First the incident in Norington, and then the one in the capital last time. It seems that wherever Count Blanc goes, Evil follows.”
Schumacher quietly looked at Horst, who was sneering next to Frederick.
It was a statement that was tantamount to suspecting Blanc, but such a provocation was far from enough to move the great iceberg that was Schumacher.
“Count Blanc is the Seeker of the Blue Star appointed by the Order and a Demon-breaking Knight of the Torch Knights. It is only natural that the corpses of Evil pile up next to him, who unhesitatingly charges in to illuminate the darkness.”
Schumacher flawlessly countered Horst’s remark.
Horst could only send a cold smile to Schumacher, who had defended Blanc by borrowing the authority of the Order and the Torch Knights.
“Even so, I cannot recklessly permit a full-scale war between Bigrove and Norington. The claim that they attacked first is also only Count Blanc’s one-sided assertion. I must hear both sides.”
King Frederick spoke while stroking his beard as if in thought, but Schumacher already knew that he would not approve the request for hostilities sent by Blanc.
What the Felix royal family wanted was a situation where the two southern lords would endlessly bite at each other and self-destruct.
But the current situation was one where the young and ambitious lord of Norington was about to swallow up Bigrove as well.
If they could not stop his advance here, the Felix royal family would see the birth of a lord with immense power that they could not control.
“Therefore, I will hold a three-party meeting between Count Blanc and the Lacie family here in Baltimere. It is my duty as the king of this country to resolve the misunderstanding between them and prevent the shedding of the innocent blood of the Felix Kingdom.”
To someone who did not know the situation, it was a flawless statement, but in the end, King Frederick’s intention was to block Blanc’s growth at this point.
“…”
Schumacher sensed that the royal family’s checks on Blanc would intensify from now on.
But by the time that came, he would be the head of the Tolome family, not the Vice-Commander of the Royal Knights.
“Your judgment is sound.”
From then on, Blanc would have to make his own way.
Because Blanc and the Cadmus family had grown too large for the Tolome family to embrace any longer.
Behind Schumacher, who was bowing his head to King Frederick, the door to the drawing room quietly opened.
However, contrary to the quiet opening of the door, the person entering with a slip of paper was in a great hurry.
“Your Majesty, an urgent message has arrived from Bigrove.”
Frederick and Horst looked puzzled at the messenger, who was gasping for breath as if he had been running.
However, at the messenger’s following words, their expressions hardened.
“They say Count Cadmus has begun his attack on Bigrove.”
“What... did you say?”
Blanc had already started his move, even though he had not yet been granted permission to open hostilities against Bigrove.
Frederick and Horst, who had not expected him to move so recklessly, could not hide their hardened expressions.
“…”
Schumacher, who was just as surprised as the two of them, quickly bowed his head to hide his agitation.
He was quietly thinking with his head down.
‘It seems it wasn't just the Tolome family that couldn't contain Cadmus.’
The black wolf that had burned the three barons of Gartaria, absorbed the southern lords into its sphere of influence, and was now growling to tear apart the corpse of the remaining giant snake.
In the south of the Felix Kingdom, a new Hegemon of the South was slowly raising its head.
***
“There must be a thousand of them. And reinforcements are still arriving one after another.”
“There are already close to 100 knights alone.”
Blanc, hearing the reports from Hansen and Ulvent, nodded and looked at the gate in front.
The soldiers of Bigrove were displaying their will to resist, holding the banner of the Lacie family.
And in front of them, Blanc’s soldiers were formed up, preparing for a siege.
Blanc had requested the cooperation of the southern lords to strike Bigrove.
The lords, who remembered the nightmare of that terrible day, began to support him with troops one after another, driven by their anger towards Count Lacie, who had endangered them as well, and their desire to make their presence known to Blanc, who had now grown too powerful to defy.
Although the southern lords, unlike the allied families of Cadmus, did not always have troops ready and could not immediately raise an army, they quickly dispatched their core forces, the knights.
Therefore, the force Blanc was leading now had such a disproportionate ratio of knights to soldiers that it could be called abnormal.
“Listen, Count Blanc, who is not satisfied with killing my father and now covets the land of Bigrove!”
Someone was shouting from the walls of Bigrove, looking down at Blanc’s gathering forces.
It was Galicus, Count Lacie’s son and now the temporary head of the family.
“With the false pretext you are using, you will not be able to cross the firmly standing walls of the Lacie family!”
Galicus was not unaware that his father had joined hands with Prince Aleid, but what he needed now was time.
Even if Blanc were to send the corpses of the void-stained beings to Moirai and prove the attack on the birthday banquet based on the testimony of the southern lords, he would still need the official recognition and permission of the Felix royal family to use it as a full justification for war.
During that time, Galicus intended to try to negotiate with the Felix royal family, if not the Order, under the table.
Although he would have to give up a lot, it would be better than Blanc, who had come to burn everything they had before their eyes.
At the end of Galicus' words, the soldiers of Bigrove shouted loudly and waved their weapons, but they looked somewhat pitiful.
“It was good to pressure Bigrove quickly, but we are severely lacking in the siege weapons to break down their gate.”
Hansen looked at the ballista next to him with a worried expression.
Next to Hansen was only a single ballista.
And that was something Blanc had practically snatched from Duven, who had strongly advised against it, saying it was not yet complete.
“Get ready, Duven.”
“B-but, my lord.”
Duven, the master of mechanical devices, replied to Blanc with an unconfident expression.
“This is an unfinished item. Whether it will perform its function properly...”
“One cannot always face every coming hardship in a state of perfect readiness, Duven.”
Blanc said, looking at the gate of Bigrove.
“There are times when you must simply challenge with what you have in your hands.”
Feeling a strange pressure from Blanc’s words, Duven unknowingly swallowed hard.
“Now is that time.”
Blanc gave a signal to the sappers around him with a nod.
“It won’t be able to blow away the gate.”
“Just creating a small gap is enough.”
A giant arrow, so large that it took four sturdy sappers to move it while grunting, began to be loaded onto the ballista.
The tip of the giant arrow was made of a mineral like transparent glass, and within it was a sloshing, ominous liquid.
Franz, watching the liquid from behind Blanc, could not hide his tense expression.
“It’s loaded.”
At the sapper’s report, Blanc looked forward and quietly nodded.
“Prepare the knights.”
At Blanc’s command, the knights holding shields behind the ballista began to reform their ranks.
As the string of the ballista was drawn, bustling movements began to be seen on the walls of Bigrove.
“We have to stop that! Stop it!”
As Galicus urged the family mages he had hurriedly brought out, magic spells came flying from the walls of Bigrove, aiming for the ballista.
“It’s done!”
Galicus shouted, clenching his fist as he saw the magic, completed at the last second, fly off.
But Blanc’s formation also had a mage.
“That’s not enough.”
Franz, who had completed a magic circle while blocking the front of the ballista.
SHATTER-.
As he threw a potion into the magic circle as a finishing touch, the constructed magic circle began to become even clearer.
“Dispel!”
The sharp winds aimed at the ballista reached the magic circle created by Franz and dissipated into a faint breeze.
“Fire.”
Blanc, confirming that the opponent’s magic had been nullified, waved his hand grandly and gave a signal to the sappers.
“Fire!”
BOOM-!
Along with Duven’s shout, a giant arrow soared high into the sky with a small explosion, unlike conventional ballistas.
“It’s coming!”
As Galicus said, the giant arrow that had soared high into the sky passed its peak and slowly began to fall towards the gate of Bigrove.
At the same time, the arrowhead of the ballista in the air gradually turned red.
Something was not right.
“Will it work?”
Franz clenched his fists and watched the giant arrow falling towards the gate.
The ballista was Duven’s creation, but the arrowhead was the work of the explosion mage, Franz.
As they watched the arrow slowly fall towards the gate, the thoughts of everyone on the battlefield were intricately intertwined.
And at that moment the giant arrow finally reached its target.
“-----!”
For a moment, it felt as if the air was being sucked in, and everything went silent.
“It works---!”
At that moment when Franz’s hand was stretched high into the sky.
A giant vortex of light, so intense that even a seasoned regressor who had been through thick and thin would find it hard to watch, began to manifest.
“What the hell is that light-!”
“Uwaaah!”
Despite it being broad daylight, the giant beam of light that erupted endlessly was so intense that it was visible even to the reinforcements now approaching the battlefield.
In an instant, the intense beam of light engulfed everything on the battlefield.
“Ugh... ugh...”
As time passed and the beam of light that had spread with a scorching heat began to slowly subside, Franz forced his eyes open and began to examine the gate.
Small wisps of steam were rising from the red-hot gate of Bigrove.
“...It failed.”
Duven, seeing the seemingly intact gate, felt his energy drain and his shoulders slumped.
The ballista’s arrow had flown true and hit the gate with perfect aim, but the explosive power of the crucial arrowhead had fallen short of expectations.
“The energy manifestation was all concentrated on the light instead of the explosive force.”
Franz muttered incomprehensible words as he mulled over his failure.
It was a dazzling light, but compared to that, Duven’s invention had been so ineffective that he had no excuse.
However, it was not entirely ineffective.
“It’s, it’s been breached.”
“Good.”
Blanc signaled to the knights who were preparing at Rakshar’s report.
From the beginning, Blanc had not expected that unfinished invention to completely blow away the gate.
“Knights, prepare!”
In moments of crisis and hardship, what is most needed is a small gap seen at the right time and place.
“The gate of Bigrove has been breached! Knights, charge!”
All Blanc wanted was that small gap.
Duven’s ballista could be said to be a complete failure compared to the time and money invested, but it had succeeded in punching a small gap in the gate of Bigrove.
That gap was just enough for exactly one person to pass through.
“All units, charge!”
And here, there were over 100 knights who could make up for Duven’s failure and break through that gap.
“Block it! Block the hole!”
At Galicus' scream-like command, the sappers of Bigrove quickly tried to patch up the gap in the gate with wooden planks, but.
“Charge!”
They could not keep up with the speed of the knights charging at full speed, even cloaked in Aura.
“Fire!”
A rain of arrows poured down from the walls of Bigrove to stop them.
However, most of the arrows, failing to predict the knights’ speed, tended to fly behind the knights who had already charged in, and the arrows that barely reached the knights bounced off their Aura-cloaked shields and fell powerlessly.
“Out of the way, you bastards-!”
There was a giant hammer that forcefully struck the wooden plank the soldiers had barely managed to patch up.
KABOOM--!
A warhammer, swung with such tremendous force that it made the gate roar, pierced and tore apart the wooden plank the soldiers had just managed to patch up.
“Breaking through here today is the reason I am here!”
As Bauer, who boasted the greatest strength in the Tolome Knights, broke through the small gap with a rough shout, knights poured in behind him without a break.
“Block them! Block them!”
“Form up!”
A small hole had been punched in the dike called Bigrove.
And through that hole, a violent wave of knights began to surge in.
“Open the gate first!”
And that wave was constantly widening the hole they had entered through.
A fatal crack was slowly spreading across the solid dike of Bigrove.