Of course, this was only possible if he was a complete paladin who had been strengthened twice.
Normal people would not be able to withstand such a powerful infusion of power. In his imagination, a paladin of the church would need to be strengthened twice to become a complete paladin of the church. Currently, Alfonsol had only been strengthened once and had the physique and strength of a grand knight.
It was important to note that this division was based on combat skills. The paladins of the church had been strengthened through abnormal means, so their combat skills would definitely not be as good as those who had trained hard and experienced hundreds of battles. In a real fight, a paladin of the church who had just been promoted would be slightly inferior.
However, this was only for those who had just been promoted. If they had been promoted long enough and honed enough combat skills and experience, they would be stronger than those of the same level with better equipment.
A month later, the construction of the shrine in Fore village was completed. The statue of the God of Life and Wisdom that Lin Xiao had personally sculpted was also erected in the shrine.
On the day the statue was erected, the entire Fore village held a large-scale mass. He took out all the power of faith he had collected during this period of time and transferred it to the statue. The small amount of power of faith covered the statue with a faint layer of light. It was especially obvious in the early morning, like a miracle.
Lin Xiao took the opportunity to use the statue as a medium to cast a great blessing spell that affected all the believers. An actual angel descended on the shrine, and a miracle happened.
At this point, all the villagers of Fore village had become believers of the God of Life and Wisdom. They had witnessed the miracle with their own eyes and were affected by the great blessing spell. All the stubbornness and discomfort in the villagers were swept away. The influence of the actual miracle made them devout. Now, the lowest level of believers in the village were true believers, and a considerable number of them were devout believers.
Two months later, Lin Xiao, who had been waiting for Gould for a long time, received news that something big had happened in the Marston family on the other side of Baron Gibson's territory.
Bandits had taken advantage of the Marston family's internal gathering to sneak into the castle and kill most of the family members in one fell swoop. Just as the large family was about to fall apart, the eldest daughter of Count Atom, Lady Julia, and her husband stood out and defeated the other competitors at an extremely fast speed. They had successfully obtained Count Dyson's approval to inherit the viscount's title and become Lady Julia.
From the information he received, Lin Xiao recognized that the husband of the countess was definitely a Descended One. He just did not know if it was Gulda or another Descended One.
For three descenders to appear in such a small place, their luck was quite good.
Fortunately, this wasn't a big deal. As his strength grew stronger, he wasn't afraid of any descenders.
However, he wasn't going to wait forever. He couldn't just sit there and do nothing until Gulda showed up. In the third month after the completion of the shrine, Baron Herman, who had gone to the family's mine to inspect, was besieged by bandits and died. His son, Alphonso, quickly inherited the title of Baron. He immediately blamed the neighboring Baron Gordon, who often coveted the mine. He declared that he would avenge his father and declare war on Baron Gordon's family.
Naturally, the Galton family wouldn't admit to it. However, that didn't matter. Everyone knew about the conflict between the Gibbs family and the Galton family. Many small scale conflicts had occurred between the two families in the past. It was reasonable for them to push the blame to the Gibbs family this time.
After burying Baron Herman, Alphonso gathered his family's knights and soldiers. He also borrowed two paladins and ten paladins from Lin Xiao. Together with the troops from his territory, he had a total of 150 people.
Any paladin had the strength of an ordinary knight, not to mention the two paladins who were comparable to Grand Knights. This high-level military force was comparable to that of a count. Dealing with a Baron's family was a piece of cake.
In any case, he only waited for half a month. Two days later, he received news from the frontlines that Alphonso had breached the Gordon family's castle.
Following that, he defended the castle for an entire month and defeated several reinforcements from the Gordon family.
A month later, according to the unspoken rules between nobles, the Gibson family officially annexed the Gordon family, including their territory.
This was the function of being a noble. If it was a non-noble, even if they occupied a territory for a year, it would be useless. If the nobles didn't acknowledge you, as long as you left, other lords would send troops to take over your territory.
Even if you were strong enough, the other lords wouldn't acknowledge you even if you couldn't. You couldn't just keep defending like this.
Moreover, if you occupied too much territory without a proper reason, it would arouse the vigilance of the nobles. At that time, there would be large nobles who would send troops to attack you.
Conquering Baron Gordon's territory was only a small interlude. After the two territories were merged, Lin Xiao sent paladins to the villages of Baron Gordon's territory to preach.
He didn't dare to go to the towns yet, but the villages were no problem.
In any case, the Holy Church didn't care about the villages at all. They might not even go there once a year.
In the past few months, he had already sent people to the villages of Baron Gordon's territory to preach. He had already achieved significant results. He had accumulated eight to nine hundred shallow believers and the same number of followers.
This was only the beginning. Preaching was something that should be done slowly. As long as he could find an opportunity to perform a few miracles, these shallow believers would easily become true believers or devout believers.
It was worth mentioning that after conquering Baron Gordon's territory, Alphonso didn't find any traces of Gulda. He asked the locals and found that they hadn't heard of any large scale bandits for several months.
With all this information, Lin Xiao guessed that the husband of Viscount Julia of Makedon's territory was most likely Gulda.
He didn't know if it was the Son of Nightmares or the Son of Souls who was too vigilant. He felt that the situation wasn't good and directly gave up on revenge and left.
It was clear that Julia was only a puppet. The person in charge of Makedon's territory should be Gulda.
"This is a threat!"
Lin Xiao stroked his chin in deep thought. Although Alphonso had a good excuse for destroying Baron Gordon's territory, he still received a stern warning from Count Dyson. He couldn't continue this operation in the short term unless he had enough confidence to ignore Count Dyson.
However, the current strength of the Gibson family was far from being Count Dyson's opponent, even with the help of the Holy Church.
Counts were already the upper echelons of nobles in this plane. They were called great nobles along with marquises and dukes. Every one of them had a large territory and a powerful army. Normal small nobles could only raise a few dozen professional soldiers, while great nobles could raise hundreds. Their overall strength wasn't on the same level.
If Alphonso could undergo a second strengthening and become a true holy knight, then he could still fight. However, he had just undergone the first strengthening not long ago. It would take him a year or two to undergo the second strengthening.
In other words, he wouldn't be able to expand his territory in a year or two.
However, it didn't matter. It was a good time to settle down.
However, plans were always slower than changes.
He wanted to keep a low profile, but others might not want him to.
During a routine mass two months later, Alphonso found Lin Xiao and told him that Viscount Makedon's territory had recently annexed a nearby baron's territory. He had subdued that baron's territory, and his strength had increased rapidly.
Most importantly, he didn't know where Viscount Makedon's wife got her confidence from. She didn't take Count Dyson's warning to heart. Recently, she had been sending people to disturb the villages between the two territories. It seemed like she was planning to attack Baron Gibson's territory.
"Oh, how annoying!"
He said to Alphonso.
"Send a messenger to see Count Dyson. Tell him that if Viscount Makedon's wife continues to provoke him, it will be difficult for you to follow his orders."
He wasn't going to ask for help. He didn't need to. He was just informing the count.
However, before the messenger sent to Count Dyson returned, Lin Xiao received news that Viscount Makedon had declared war on Alphonso.
"So impatient!"
When he received the news, he was praying in front of a statue. After hearing the news, he laughed lightly and said to a paladin beside him.
"Gather the warriors of the Lord!"
Since you're so impatient, I'll send you out as soon as possible!
After his subordinates left, Lin Xiao reached out and grabbed at the statue. Streams of light gathered around him, forming an angel's sword and angel's wings.
Gibson Castle. This was the castle that had been passed down through the generations of Baron Gibson's family. It had a history of more than two hundred years. Wind and rain had not changed the castle much.
Lin Xiao stood on top of the castle and looked into the distance. In the distant wilderness, an army of two to three hundred people was slowly approaching.
There were no catapults or battering rams. There were more than thirty cavalrymen, but he didn't know how many of them were knights.
Catapults and battering rams already existed due to the limitations of the plane's civilisation, but they weren't widely used. Usually, attacking a city was done by lifting stones to smash the door. Powerful knights could lift large stones and smash them far away, or they could use their weapons to smash the thick wooden door.
The most common way to attack a city was to climb up the walls with simple ladders.
But this time, before the enemy even got close, the gates of the castle were opened. An army walked out of the castle and got into formation in front of the castle.
Lin Xiao stood on top of the castle and looked at the approaching enemy. His gaze fell on a knight in thick plate armour. His senses as a Descender confirmed that this was a Descender from the Nightmare Realm.
The two small armies slowly approached and faced each other. Lin Xiao slowly rode out of the crowd. Two paladins and four paladins protected him.
The Nightmare Child on the opposite side also came out of the crowd under the escort of his subordinates. He swept his gaze across Lin Xiao's subordinates and said:
"You're the one who stole my weapons and equipment?"
He smiled and nodded.
"You're the one who gave me weapons and equipment?"
The muscles on Gulda's forehead twitched as he said coldly:
"I just took advantage of you. Today, I'll make you pay me back with interest."
"Childish!"
Gulda was instantly enraged. He glared at Lin Xiao for a few seconds, but the anger on his face quickly disappeared. He slowly retreated and raised his sword high in his right hand.
Following his movements, the troops at the back began to charge. Dozens of knights pulled down their helmets and raised their spears.
At this moment, Lin Xiao pulled out the Angelic Sword from his waist and raised it high. The metal sword quickly lit up and spewed out white light. He pressed on the horse's back and soared into the sky. Two thick white lights spewed out from his back, one on the left and one on the right, turning into a pair of wings formed by light.
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