After Becoming The Tyrant CH 174 Knights Of The World
They finally returned to Bubas, the city they had abandoned.
Pope Theolde ordered the Holy Army of the Sea to go north for support. The invaders who plundered and ravaged the southeast of Legrand mobilized most of their troops, leaving fewer manpower to garrison the captured city.
On an evening with the same bloody setting sun, the Iron Rose Cavalry and Kriyan Archers arrived in Bubas together.
The Holy Army did not expect that Legrand's counterattack would come so quickly and so fiercely. The Holy Army who was left to garrison here barely resisted the attack for less than half a day, when a city gate in the southwest corner was opened from the inside by the citizens who had been waiting for a long time, allowing the Iron Rose Cavalry to gallop in through the open city gates without much of a fight.
A silent massacre between soldiers and civilians broke out. Every section of the city wall, every tower, every forcefully occupied house... corpses with lingering fear on their countenances lay in a pool of blood.
The Holy Army soldiers who had lost all their courage failed to escape and were surrounded in an alley. They knelt on the ground and prayed for life. They were willing to be prisoners or slaves. But the citizens who chased them like hungry dogs raised stones, swarmed them, and smashed them to death. There was no forgiveness, no mercy, however much pain they had endured, was now returned twice-fold.
The whole city was shrouded in the scent of blood.
It had always been shrouded in the scent of blood. From the moment the Iron Rose Cavalry were forced to evacuate, too many people died on this abandoned land. Death and destruction shattered the city's bones, then reshaped it with hatred. Everyone who survived held something that looked like ice and fire hidden in their eyes.
"We shouldn't have come here."
The person responsible for garrisoning this city was a noble from the Abyss Strait Alliance. He stood in the Bubas City Hall and watched the armored knights pouring in.
"Yes, you all shouldn't have come here."
Saul, once General Sheehan's retinue and now General of the Iron Rose Cavalry, said as he pierced the noble's throat with his sword.
The autumn wind roared in the city, passing through broken stone walls and arches stained with blood, and blowing over corpses filled with fear and regret. Fresh blood washed over the city that had regained its dignity. Until nightfall, the sound of fighting finally stopped, and the skinny old man, the haggard woman, and the man with fresh blood on his hands all gathered in the public square of Bubas.
In the past few months, in order to suppress the resistance in the city, the Holy Army hanged all those who offended them, and their bodies were all hung in this square.
People held torches high, the fire blazing.
The corpses were removed one by one. Some of them were husbands who died to protect their wives from rape, some were young girls who fought back in resistance, and some were elderly who wanted to protect their children... Some corpses had weathered, and some corpses were still fresh. The family members of the deceased knelt beside the dead ones and burst into tears. Some of the deceased had no family members, their family members hung along with them on the wooden frame. They were placed together and everyone wept over them.
Finally, all the corpses were neatly placed in the square, and the survivors surrounded all the people who died unfortunately, raising the torches in their hands high, as if they were candles lighting the way to the next life.
A Kriyan archer plucked the strings of a lute and sang a sad funeral song.
That was the oldest funeral song that belonged to Legrand herself. It was the funeral song that people sang for the knights who first established Legrand when they died.
This was a funeral.
There was no priest.
They didn’t need priests, they didn't need gods.
The mourners followed the bard and sang funeral songs in low voices. The voices gathered together, and the city, which had been sharpened by hatred and anger, showed its scars in the dark night. The funeral song was carried by the evening wind and blew all the way to the city gate.
Saul stood outside the city gate, holding a torch as he listened to the faint funeral song coming from the city.
The light from the torch was limited, and only a vague outline of the head hanging on the city gate could be seen. After the Holy Army captured Bubas City, they did not take it down. They seemed to think that hanging it here would be more conducive to attacking Legrand's morale.
Saul wanted to move forward.
Someone held his shoulders.
"I knew you would come here."
The leader of the Kriyan Archers raised his head and looked at the head hanging on the city gate.
Saul wanted to say something, but he interrupted him.
"Don't do anything to make his sacrifice be in vain." The leader's voice was low. He handed something in his hand to Saul, "They said it was his."
Saul subconsciously took it, and the firelight clearly illuminated what the leader had given him——a sword.
He was very familiar with this sword.
It touched the shoulder of the blond knight, and from then on it accompanied the knight on the battlefield. Until finally someone used it to cut off the knight's head.
Saul almost wanted to throw it away, and at the same time hug it tightly.
He stood there, the wind passed through the cold and sad dark night, and the leader of Kriya walked away alone in the night.
The sun rose the next day, shining on the city that had walked through the night. The Iron Rose Cavalry set out from the city gate to recapture the second city. The first ray of morning light fell on the pale skeleton of the city gate. Nails penetrated the skull's forehead, and the skull's eye sockets were dark, staring at the leaving knights.
Saul, we have to be…
The knight who protects the world.
…………………………………………
"The forces of the Holy Army of the Sea in the southeast are tightening, and they are beginning to retreat." The Head of the Households reported to the King the news conveyed by the crows, "The Iron Rose Cavalry and the Kriyan Archers, together they have regained the lost ground even faster than we originally expected. The Holy Army remaining in the southeast seems to intend to only stick to Koszoya."
While the King was reading the reports on various military affairs sent by the officers below, he listened to the report of the Head of the Households and asked a few questions from time to time.
"This can be considered good news."
The Head of the Households hoped that the victory report coming from the southeast would make the King feel a little more relaxed.
The King briefly wrote down a few requirements in a report on the deployment of defending the city, and then raised his head: "This is indeed good news."
But you don’t seem to look any less relaxed.
The Head of the Households thought.
The King glanced at him and seemed to know what he was thinking: "We won because the pain of this country is carried by too many people... This was not an easy victory."
Sunlight filtered in from the window and fell on the King's crown, which cast a shadow on his hair. The outline of his profile was blurred in the light, and dust danced in the beam. The King sat there like a bronze statue washed away by the long river of time. The weight of the entire empire rested on his shoulders, from past to present to future.
Fate was too cruel to the child he watched grow up.
The heavy responsibility and mission started from the first second of his birth and followed him until his death. It could never be easy. The monarch walked on a road full of thorns, and the knights around him were sacrificed one by one. Only he alone could never be freed.
Because he was born to be the king.
“Have our soldiers get ready, they will soon besiege the city."
The King said.
He asked General Johan to cut off the main grain transportation route from Porto Port to Collin County. The food reserves in Collin County and the plundering of nearby towns and villages alone could not sustain the Knights Templar for too long. After gathering with the elite of the Holy Army of the Sea, Theolde would not stay in Collin County for too long and would instead turn around and besiege Yoringshire County.
Although the situation was vaguely beginning to move in a direction favorable to Legrand, it also placed new problems in front of the King.
After Theolde gathered the scattered forces in the southeast, though Legrand was able to regain the lost territory, the location of Legrand's real main military force would also usher in an unprecedented siege. Once Yoringshire County was captured and the royal army was defeated, the situation would turn again.
For the royal army, the war had entered a defensive stage.
But this time, what they would face was the siege of the Holy Army, which was close to 100,000 troops.
While the King's military designers, led by James, were trying their best to arm Yoringshire's military castle to the teeth, a white eagle took off from the warship on the Abyss Strait and flew towards the location of the Knights Templar.
On the Abyss Strait where the chill was gradually rising, a fleet arrived at the Swan Port of Herid City, which had been turned into ruins due to divine punishment. This was the mouth of Legrand's most important river, the Doma River.
Three holy armies, the Holy Army of the Sea, the Holy Army of the Holy Land, and the Holy Army of the Border.
The first two holy armies had already joined the battlefield, but the Holy Army of the Border had not arrived due to the long distance. However, it seemed that it was the true blessing of the Holy Lord that the Holy Army of the Border finally arrived in Legrand before the arrival of winter, before the ocean currents and winds in the Abyss Strait turned.
The warships did not make any further stops at Swan Port, but sailed directly from the mouth of the sea and moved forward along the tributaries of the Doma River. Unlike the warships of the Holy Army of the Sea and the Holy Army of the Holy Land, the bows of the Holy Army of the Border's warships were not that tall and the ship shape was more convenient. Each ship was loaded with soldiers and some supplies.
The alchemist knights had been destroyed together with the Throne of God, and Legrand no longer had the power to block this water passage at the entrance of the Doma River.
This was exactly what Theolde was waiting for.
The tide surged, and the Holy Army of the Border had now joined the battlefield.
……………………
Outside Yoringshire City.
Eleanor reigned in her horse and looked up at the castle, which was armed and on defense in advance. She looked at the royal flag with the rose heraldry fluttering fiercely on the city wall.
The city gate opened and the King rode out of the city quickly.
"Aren't you going to stay?”
The King looked at Eleanor and asked in a low voice.
Her child was not good at asking for things, just like his father.
Eleanor thought, smiling.
"I am the queen of Kriya. I haven't gone back for so many years, so I should go and see them." She said gently, looking at the King's increasingly mature face, which was still a little youthful, but the King's majesty covered this fact up.
She moved her hands, subconsciously wanting to reach out and touch his face, but then restrained herself.
"Don't worry, I still want to see you become the king of the world."
Eleanor smiled, raised her right hand which wore an iron glove, and patted the King on the shoulder.
"You will, won't you?"
"There will be a day."
The King promised.
The queen laughed, turned the horse's head, and with the Kriyan scholar, headed southeast.
She wore armor that wrapped around her tightly, she didn't even dare to get close to the King, for fear that he would notice the scent of blood suppressed by perfume.
The King stood silently outside the city gate, watching his mother ride into the distance.