The creation of the Grey Knight recruits had already begun when Laing was just an Earl.
The Church of the Lake Nymph would search for boys with magical talent all over Brittany, and then they would enter the cultivation cabins set up by the Emperor and the Royal Guard to start the training. The whole process was long and boring, and whether the boys could survive or not depended on whether their spirit was strong enough to survive Laing's psionic attack.
These powerful Grey Knights were created by the Emperor's supreme power, Laing's pure blood, and Marcador's tenacious will. The holy faith made their mission intertwined. In order to fight against the devil's creation, the Grey Knights used their own will to coexist with the psionic energy of the subspace. Each of these five recruits was not only an excellent knight, but also a psionicist. Each of them had completed many tests and had a preliminary understanding of psionic energy.
The five Grey Knights had learned two of the most basic skills of the Grey Knights. The first was Psionic Light. This skill allowed the Grey Knight recruits to be shrouded in a pure light during battle. This light could block the enemy's vision and protect the Grey Knights against the enemy's magic and long-range attacks.
The second skill was Dispel. The Grey Knights' psionic energy could dispel all magic, including wind magic. Of course, it depended on the opponent's magic strength and the Grey Knight's own psionic strength.
In addition to these two basic skills, the Grey Knight named Peyton had even mastered a third special ability — Thunder Strike (also known as Thunder Palm). Peyton had learned how to use his powerful psionic energy to gain the ability to tear the world apart. He could ignore armor and directly tear the opponent's flesh and blood with his psionic energy. He could also increase the speed of all allies nearby.
It had to be said that the recruits grew very quickly with the original body. They had never felt such great power and such high honor. When these recruits returned to their hometown, they were regarded as the gifts of the goddess and the messengers of the gods. The villagers and even their own parents kowtowed to the goddess and the king for their gifts.
But for Peyton and the others, everything they knew had undergone a huge change. In the many years of training in the cultivation cabins, they had been instilled with a huge amount of knowledge and understood the meaning of their lives.
More than ten thousand years had passed. There had been too many sacrifices and too much pain.
The five new recruits stood in front of the original body. The Grey Knight recruit, Petain, stood in front of the original body. He looked at the original body in front of him. Ryan Macado had achieved countless miracles and victories. His glory was world-renowned. His strength was unparalleled in the world. He had resisted several invasions and allowed the civilians of the Knight Kingdom to live and work in peace. His great expeditions plowed through the courts and swept through the caves. Time and time again, he had brought destruction to the darkness and glory back to Brittania.
Sacrifice was the cornerstone of mankind. Fresh blood was the fertile soil for growth. Perhaps the battle would never come to an end. The vault of heaven would always be pitch-black, but there was still hope. The dawn had never been extinguished. The Holy Throne of the Lord of Mankind was burning fiercely. The five recruits swore that they would fight for the survival of mankind until the very last moment, until their souls returned to the embrace of the Emperor.
That was their highest pursuit and the meaning of life.
"How's the situation in the Grey Mountains and the Arden Forest?" Laing asked his five sons, who were sitting behind his seat.
"The situation isn't good, Lord," Petain said to Laing. The Grey Knight recruit had just returned home to see his parents. Ten years had passed, and his parents were old. It was a pleasant surprise to see their son come home. Petain also brought home a lot of food and cloth. At the same time, he softly told his parents that he had been chosen by the Goddess and had become the legendary son of Brittany.
The ignorant serfs knew very little. They only knew that in Brittany, the Lady of the Lake was the eternal Goddess. The serfs were ecstatic to have a child serving the Goddess.
To be honest, Petain felt sad about this scene, but there was nothing he could do.
"Not good?" Laing frowned and said, "Speak clearly, Petain, Fuxu, and Xiafei. I want an answer, not an ambiguous answer. The poor harvest of the serfs can be said to be bad. The entire village has been completely wiped out from the horizon. That can be said to be bad."
"The Orc tribe in the Arden Forest is recovering, Your Majesty." Petain hesitated and said, "According to the reports from the serfs and outposts in the former Duke of Attawa's territory, the Orc activity is increasing. Many settlements in the east of the Arden Forest have been attacked by the Orcs on a small scale. Occasionally, some horned beasts appear in the west."
"It's starting again?" Laing nodded slowly. Unknowingly, it had been more than 20 years since he destroyed the Thousand Demons Cliff. It seemed that the Orcs were making a comeback. "Why didn't I hear any reports?"
"The Holy Grail Knight, Baron Claude, thinks that he can solve the problem himself," Petain said seriously. "In fact, the Baron has tried to encircle the Orcs several times, but the results weren't ideal. Compared to solving the Orc problem, another group of Orcs is considered a bigger problem and a worse situation."
"Another group of Orcs?" Laing asked curiously. As a Holy Grail Knight and a Baron, he could form his own army to solve the problem in his territory, so it was understandable that he didn't report it. However, it was strange that the other group of Orcs didn't report it.
"It's the legendary Masked Man, Your Majesty." Petain described the three factions in the Arden Forest in detail.
Besides the Holy Grail Knight, Baron Claude, and the revived Orcs, there was another faction in the Arden Forest. It was the Masked Man Army, which was made up of a large group of 'unregistered households'. There were about ten thousand of them, including the old, the sick, and the disabled.
There were Masked Men? Laing furrowed his eyebrows.
The Masked Men were all outlaws. They belonged to a group known as the Merry Folk, which originated from the famous Flaming Expedition. After the expedition, many of the serfs who followed the knights saw a different scenery. After seeing the relatively equal social structure of Araby, the freedom and equality advocated by the southern countries, and the rise in military merits of the Empire, the serfs sneered at the 'chivalry' of the knights and began to rebel. They wandered outside the laws set by the nobles, but they fought for justice by robbing the rich to help the poor and overthrowing the tyrannical nobles.
Since Laing came to Brittany, the number of Masked Men was much lower than before. After all, they could rely on farming and military merits to rise in ranks. Who would want to continue being a bandit when they could move freely under the sun? However, in the North, where reforms were not as strong and some remnants of the old nobles remained, the Masked Men still existed. The largest of them was the one in the Arden Forest. This group of people ruled the mountains in the depths of the forest and most of the knights couldn't be bothered to care about them.
It was worth mentioning that the Masked Men were not only made up of serfs. Many knights and nobles had also chosen to join the ranks of the Masked Men. Many of them were illegitimate children who had been kicked out of the house, free soldiers who had been defeated and were facing court martial, old knights who had committed grave sins, and some great nobles who wanted to correct their previous fatal mistakes.
In Brittany's history, there was even a Knight of the Holy Grail who joined the Masked Men just to make up for his mistake of mistakenly killing a devout noble couple as believers of Chaos. The Knight of the Holy Grail gave up his glorious status and identity and chose to join the Masked Men. He spent a few years raising the couple's three fugitive children before he left.
Of course, this time, the Masked Men received a considerable number of reinforcements. Laing's order to abolish the nobles' privileges had forced a large group of old nobles to go on expeditions, or had their noble titles revoked and their fiefs confiscated. Many of the nobles fled into the depths of the forest to plot revenge, and some deserted during their military service.
Laing did not care. On the one hand, it was a small problem. As long as the Masked Men lived in peace in the depths of the forest, there would be no trouble. On the other hand, Laing had been fighting wars every year since he succeeded the throne, so he basically did not have much time to care about these things.
"This Masked Men is called 'Free Brittany'. It is said that the leader of the Masked Men is nicknamed General Charles." Apparently, Petain was very disdainful of the leader. "Your Majesty, what should we do?"
"Summon an army immediately!" Laing's answer was simple and clear. "Pass down my order. Sixth Marshal Bertrand will be the commander-in-chief and Seventh Marshal Rokossovsky will be the vice-commander-in-chief. Summon three battalions of the Old Guard, the First Guards Lance Cavalry Regiment, and Mu Xilon's army to carry out military reconnaissance in the Arden Forest!"
"Your Majesty, is this necessary?" The five new recruits were very surprised.
"The army will be rusty if they don't fight for too long." Laing said calmly, "Let them clean up the Orcs. As for the Masked Men, tell Bertrand to try to persuade them to surrender, but if necessary, allow them to clean up the area. As for the five of you … go with them. You are responsible for cleaning up the corruption and checking if there are any believers of Chaos among the Masked Men."
"Yes!"
… I'm the dividing line for military reconnaissance …
Under Laing's command, a large army was assembled in Mu Xilon. It included several Mu Xilon Infantry Regiments, tens of fanatical Ranger Knights, several squads of Royal Knights, an Artillery Regiment, a Halberd Battalion, a Sword Battalion, a Musket Battalion, and the First Guards Lance Cavalry Regiment of the Old Guard. A total of 12,000 soldiers marched into the depths of the Arden Forest.
The Wood Elves' Forest Patrollers, the "Emerald Wind" team, had also arrived.
They crossed the valleys and glades of the Knight King's Kingdom, the magnificent river valleys, and the dense forests.
Bertrand, the marshal of Brittany and the commander of the old guards, was walking in the dense forest. The former leader of the Bergerac Bandits was filled with emotions. He said to Raymond, the commander of the halberd brigade, who was walking beside him, "It's been so many years. I feel like I'm back home, coming to the depths of the forest again."
"His Majesty's first battle in the Kingdom was against the Orcs in the Arden Forest. It was a Knight War," Raymond said casually. This Old Guard Battalion Commander was a true veteran. He said bluntly, "The Commander-in-Chief, Marquis Angci, was a good-for-nothing. The Knight Army was almost annihilated under his leadership. If His Majesty's Right Army hadn't made a prompt decision to attack the Demon Cliff, the entire Northern Kingdom would have been in danger for the next few years."
The orderly and dignified Old Guard walked in the middle of the formation with scouts on both sides. Rokossovsky was wearing the new Dwarven Master Rune Full Body Plate Armor. Marshal Kislöw didn't participate in the discussion. He only looked warily at the surroundings.
Berliat was interested in the topic. The Ugor had always regretted that he joined Laing's camp too late and didn't have enough experience. He was interested in the first battle after Laing's arrival in Brittany. "Lord Bertrand, it was said that the Right Army was almost ambushed by the Orcs. If a local Serf didn't risk his life to inform His Majesty of the Orcs' attack, the Right Army would have been in danger."
Who would have thought that when Belial said this, everyone would turn silent, especially those old soldiers of the Local Defense Army. Many of those old soldiers with thick beards couldn't help but sigh.
Belial immediately realized that he might have said something wrong and hurriedly apologized, "I didn't mean it."
"Deniz, from Bastogne." Bertrand sighed and said, "He was a brave young man. Good job. He was conferred the title of Sergeant because he reminded His Majesty in time. He followed His Majesty to many battles and made many contributions. When I first joined His Majesty, he had already served for several years. Later, he was selected to join the Old Guard. It's a pity that Deniz died in the Battle of the Valaya Gate."
"Almost all the soldiers who were in the same batch as Deniz died. Deniz and Amedei died in the Battle of the Valaya Gate, Tim died in the Battle of the Titan Gate, Steve died in the Battle of Herzig, and Didier died in the Battle of Wolffin." The most senior sergeant in the Old Guard, Rothschild, said. This veteran who had served for 25 years had scars all over his face. He looked so fierce that he could swallow people in one bite. "There are only a few of us left. But as long as I have a breath left, I will continue to fight for His Majesty."
Everyone fell silent. Yes, it was His Majesty Laing who had promoted these bumpkins from their humble beginnings. It was His Majesty Laing who had brought them higher status and glory. In return, they were willing to die for His Majesty.
A song sounded in the army. It was the Brittany's new popular bard song, "King of Laing."
"Laing, my King, recruiting soldiers."
"Knights and nobles, come on in order."
"Laing, my King, the order is loud and clear."
"Who will follow His Majesty to conquer the world?"
"Those who believe in His Majesty, rise to His Majesty."
"I swear to follow His Majesty."
"Those who are careful, think twice."
"Where does His Majesty plan to conquer?"
"Angerland, the Dwarf's Downfall."
"King of the Hammer, the Battle of the Eight Peaks."
"Chaos descends to the south, threatening the world."
"His Majesty's Command, the Spirit of Chivalry."
"Follow His Majesty to defend the nations of Mankind!"
"Evil retreats, blood for blood."
"Laing, my King, embarks on an expedition."
"Loyal subjects follow His Majesty to the battlefield."
"They go to the other side of the ocean."
"Return with glory, benefiting the world."
The song drifted across the entire Arden Forest. It was the beginning of winter. The sky was clear and there was no snow. The army marched into the depths of the forest, trying to contact Baron Claude, the Grail Knight.
However, after a few hours of marching, the five Grey Knight recruits were the first to notice something strange. "Something's wrong! The settlement in the depths of the forest is full of signs of decay! "
"What?!" Bertrand immediately ordered the army to speed up and rush to the settlement, where Baron Claude's castle was located.
The army was late. In the depths of Arden Forest, the castle and the nearby village had been completely razed to the ground.
The corpse of the Holy Grail Knight, Baron Claude, was hung at the entrance of the castle in the shape of a cross with an Orc spear nailed to it. His head had been decapitated and only his body was left.
Bertrand and Rokossovsky were shocked. They hurriedly sent people to search, and the five Grey Knight recruits immediately began to purify the decay.
After searching, Berliat told Bertrand a terrifying truth, "Marshals, apart from Baron Claude's corpse, we didn't find any other corpses in the village or the castle. There are only bloodstains and signs of battle."
"This means that there are too many mouths to fill." Bertrand's face darkened. "Tarr above!"
"It's him! It's him! " While Bertrand and the others were still discussing the situation, a scream came from the wood elves. Some of the rangers, including the captain, Dace, showed extreme fear after seeing a certain mark. "It's back!"
"The Shadow Spawn cursed by Kunos and Yisha has revived again!"
"Disaster will befall Esoloron again!"
"We have to inform the Eislay Forest Council immediately!"
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