After the refugees left the valley, they headed east. Without a fire, the long line of refugees was immersed in darkness as they moved forward.
Occasionally, the group would meander through the mountain stream. Looking at the dark peak of the mountain, it was the tip of the Abies. If it were not for the stars, it would be difficult for anyone to identify the direction in such an environment. The people at the back could only passively follow the group in front, one after another. The entire group was made up of ordinary citizens. Although they were more conscious due to fear, it was inevitable that they would make a ringing sound as they moved forward.
Under Brando's instructions, Freya divided the refugees into a few areas, and each area had two core members who were responsible for maintaining order. Freya told the citizens what to do, and Brando told them what to do if they did not do so. This was the only way to restrain the entire group.
However, the experienced captains were not too worried. Retto and Mano had rich battle experience, and they told Brando that the sound would not travel too far in the dense forest. At most, it would be like a whisper from an arrow's distance.
On the other hand, the White-Mane Swordsmen's Dragon Subduing Tower was listening to the wind. The rustling of the trees had long suppressed all other sounds, and Brando's hearing was not as effective as his sight in such an environment.
Brando listened to the sound of the wind from afar. It sounded like the rustling of pine trees, or the chirping of birds in the Abies forest. But when he listened carefully, there was a different feeling. It was light and long, as if a group of strange instruments were playing in the mountain wind. It also sounded like a mysterious whisper, as if an unknown existence in the forest was telling the world something.
In Grinoires, and even in the entire southern region of Erouine, people described the whispers in the forest as the witches' bewitching whispers. It was said that many people never returned from the forest because they fell into the witches' trap.
Of course, these legends were not credible, but at this moment, there was a strange sense of mystery.
Brando led the horse and walked at the side of the group. The other mercenaries followed behind him. Because everyone only had one horse, the riders tried their best to conserve the stamina of their horses in preparation for any possible battle. Although the warhorses in this world were abnormally strong and had about 20% more stamina than the average horse, in fact, the cavalry rarely used horses as mounts. This was because in the war here, they were too 'weak'.
They had already deviated from the valley by about ten miles to the east. In fact, they had already left the range of Silver Sparrow Mountain. This was not like a highly developed society where even the tiniest mountain had a code name. For example, Brando did not know what this mountain should be called.
It was supposed to be part of the south-eastern extension of the Stags Hills, but it was off the main road, and was uninhabited. It was only in the hunting season that the hunters passed through it, and their cottages could sometimes be seen in the hills.
Brendel had already released the gargoyle and had it move towards the southwest direction. At the same time, the cavalry scouts also retraced their steps.
About half an hour later, the news came back. The two seasoned mercenaries were pale when they saw Brando. They found skeletons half the distance between them and the mountains.
Brando could imagine the scene:
When you saw a sea of grayish-white, creepy skeletons slowly appear from the top of the mountain, then slowly spread over the forest, and then poured down the mountain, leaving only the sound of 'Hua Hua' in the mountains, it was really shocking.
So, while he gently comforted the two mercenaries to rest, he also told the others about the weakness of the skeletons so that they would not lose their fighting spirit because of the approaching danger.
He also sent out scouts to the north-west.
Brando knew Madara's habitual arrangement at this time of the year. It was progressive, and not only could it be mobilized flexibly, but the range of the scouts' control was also very large, and they could provide support from the front and back. This tactic was designed to make full use of the advantage of Madara's undead army. In fact, in the early days of the War of the Black Rose, the Dark Lords once carried this tactic forward with excellent mid-level and low-level commanders.
But it had a fatal flaw.
That was the eyes. Once the support of the ghosts was lost, there would be a huge gap between the squadrons, especially in such a mountainous area, where it was easy for the enemy to cut through. And another weakness was that if the commander was too weak, this arrangement could easily play the classic 'adding fuel to the fire' situation.
Of course, the reason why Madara dared to use this arrangement before the Second War of the Black Rose was that they were confident in themselves. They had too many outstanding talents at their disposal in this era.
On the other hand, there were not many ways to detect ghosts in this era.
It was just that Brando 'happened' to know one.
He could not help but look up at the hillside.
*****
Mano led the militia through the forest of Abies. The seasoned mercenary kept looking back at the beautiful white stag in the valley below. Brando told him that the stag would show them where the terrible undead were hiding.
Mano had his doubts. If he wanted to fight, he had to follow the rules and not be as secretive as the wizards. Just like at this moment, they had already left the group of refugees far behind them, almost a mile away, but that beast still didn't react at all.
But just as he was about to curse, he saw the elegant creature suddenly turn its head in a direction and put its hooves on the ground, showing an anxious look.
Over there!
Mano immediately pointed his curved sword forward and ordered the others to quickly rush over.
In that direction was the Forest of Abies, which was no different from other places. But just as they were about to flank it, a faint light emerged from the forest, like a pale shadow, and then gradually formed a halo of light in the shape of a human floating in the air.
'Isn't that a ghost, Martha above?'
It was not only the militia behind him, but even Mano himself stopped in his tracks. But the pale figure had already let out a shrill scream and pounced on the militia with bared fangs.
The ferocious scream made everyone's heart turn cold, but it also made the forest quiet down.
Mano felt that he had never fought such a strange battle in his life. For a moment, the face of the ghost looked like many of his comrades who had passed away, but he quickly shook his head and threw the thought out of his mind. Brando had warned him that all of this was an illusion, and he must not let it take advantage of him.
He did not dare to doubt the young man at all. The scene in front of him was too strange.
Mano tightened his grip on the curved sword in his hand.
The bright blade swung out, and the blade went through the ghost's body, but a layer of ice immediately formed on it. Mano knew it was not good. There was no physical impact, which meant that his attack had missed.
The ghost was between a spirit body and a physical body, so physical attacks had a 50% chance of missing.
Mano did not have time to make any big movements to dodge. The pale fingers of the ghost had already reached for his face. He tilted his head at the critical moment and let the slender fingers pass through his shoulder.
The veteran mercenary immediately felt a piercing cold on his shoulder, as if he had lost all feeling in his left arm.
"Attack, you bastards!" He took the opportunity to fall to the right, and then shouted at the stunned militia. Only then did the townsfolk react. They raised their spears and stabbed at the spirit.
Three spears directly pierced through the faintly discernible shadow, but the other two spears held the ghost up, causing it to let out a shrill cry.
Ma Nuo took advantage of the situation to jump up from the ground and stabbed at the pale figure. This time, he was lucky. The sword hit the ghost's soul. The strength of a Black Iron Swordsman burst out in an instant, and the ghost screamed and disappeared.
Everyone was relieved. They could not help but sit on the ground weakly. No one said a word. In fact, even Mano, the veteran mercenary, was a little worried.
But at that moment, there was only one thought in his mind: How did the young man know all this?
*****
The young man looked away. Mano and Batom did a good job. He could not help but feel lucky that he had these veteran mercenaries under him. Otherwise, it would be troublesome for him to deal with these mid-level undead.
However, the Soul Statue (White Deer) was actually a very common exorcism item, but it required a certain amount of imagination to relate it to military affairs. Brando could not help but look back at Freya. This method was actually invented by the Goddess of War.
Did he plagiarize?
But in any case, Madara had lost these ghosts as their eyes, and they must be feeling uncomfortable tonight. Perhaps the necromancers who controlled them would soon find that the ghosts they sent out had all disappeared in a certain direction, but this did not mean anything. They still needed to verify and wait for news again.
One or two hours was enough for him to do a lot of things.
The gargoyle continued to fly to the southwest. Brando finally saw a skeleton cavalry passing through the forest. He did not know if he had missed anything before, but he guessed that this should be the front line of a column of scouts.
Thus, three minutes later, he found another group of Skeleton Cavalry.
At the same time, Madara's tactics during this period coincided with what he had imagined. He let the gargoyle cross a few mountain streams tangential to the ridge, and soon he saw an army of black skeleton soldiers in the valley.
There were about two hundred of them, a squadron.
The gargoyle continued to move forward along the valley, exactly as he had imagined. Brando immediately found another two squadrons. Although he could not see which column they belonged to, the commanders of Madara's columns in this period were not to be trifled with.
He thought that the 'White Knight' Ebdon and Wesar should not be so far behind, but it should be either Diren, Gulob, or the 'Blood Wizard' Ladios.
Two main generals, five columns, and a scale of nearly ten thousand undead, concentrated in the hills that were only twenty to thirty miles wide. The undead army began to move in large numbers under the night sky.
Time was running out.
Brando still wanted to see how deep the area between the second and third layer of Madara was, and where the other column was, but the gargoyle had already reached its maximum flying range. Of course, although he had previously lied to Marden and Bretton that the gargoyle had scouted the entire Bucce region in a day, the truth was that the gargoyle was not omnipotent.
1: 05 AM.
News came from the northwest. Just as Taron had predicted, a large number of zombies had appeared in that direction. The elite troops of the 'Death Maggot' had indeed arrived from the Valley of Sharp Rocks.
When the news spread among the mercenaries, everyone's face was solemn. They had a glimmer of hope, but they did not expect the situation to develop towards the worst.
As a result, the group of refugees was surrounded. Of course, unless they could speed up and break out of the encirclement before it closed in on them.
But the mercenaries looked at the refugees, then looked at Freya and Brando, and knew that this was not possible.
For a moment, everyone was silent.
Freya nervously grabbed the reins and subconsciously looked at Brando.
Only Brando took a look at his pocket watch and then mounted his horse, as if he did not care about the atmosphere around him.
He pulled out his sword and said to the mercenaries, "Listen up, everyone."
The young man's voice was sonorous and powerful.
"There are two squadrons southwest of us, two to three miles away from us, and another squadron further away. There are four undead cavalry scouts coming from those directions. What I want to tell you is that we need to kill two of them, and attack one of the squadrons to open up an opening. "
"We also need to go behind the 'Death Maggot', just as we planned."
"We have two hours to complete all of this. After two hours, we will start playing hide-and-seek with the undead army of Madara." Brando raised his sword and pulled the reins to make the horse turn in front of everyone with a mocking expression.
"What, are you afraid?"
There was a complete silence.
At this moment, everyone was stunned. How did this young man know all of this? He could not be speaking without thinking, right?
But although Brando surprised everyone every time, most of them knew that he never spoke without thinking. Especially when he stood upright on his horse and raised his sword to point to the southwest. Every word he said was spoken with certainty, just like when he led them to charge in the first place.
It was as if the direction his sword pointed was the path to a miracle. No matter how difficult and dangerous it was, it would eventually open up a path.
It was a path of blood left behind after the thorns parted.
Brando looked at these people without saying a word, just like when he led those like-minded people to charge into Madara. Someone once said that he was the most qualified leader of the attack because once he made a decision, he would press forward.
No one spoke.
But all the mercenaries got on their horses, and there was a sound of metal scraping.
"Everything is for victory."
"Long live Erouine!"
(Author's Note: Today's First Update. Seeing a friend in the book review section saying that they want to exchange their tickets for updates, I feel a little sad.
I've always felt that the number of votes should be more than the number of votes. That way, everyone's relationship wouldn't be like friends anymore. It would become a naked transaction. I feel a little uncomfortable.
Speaking of the issue of updating, everyone can see how hard I work. I don't have a stockpile of manuscripts, and I'm doing my best to write every day. Especially for the explosiveness of the past few days, I've squeezed out almost all of my free time.
That's all. Don't mind it, everyone. Just treat it as if I'm talking nonsense.)
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
