The Amber Sword

Four Nautical knights are still persuading Count Jean.

Count Gian obviously did not believe in the claim of the invasion of Jorgendigan, just as Rogers and others who persuaded him would not have believed, had they not seen it with their own eyes, that the underground army of Jorgendigan would suddenly appear on the surface. After all, the world beneath the beehive was too far away for them, and the cavemen, the Minotaurs in the maze, were all terrible creatures in bedside stories. Although he could not explain why his allies had disappeared, he could only assume that it was a secret plot by Brando, although he could not see through the other party's intentions.

But whether he wants it or not, Brando's so-called 'persuasion' is more of a threat than a recommendation, and eventually he has to reluctantly surrender command.

At sunset, the sunset sank into the western mountains, the whole hill area seemed to be in a strange silence, the light of Vargas could no longer be seen in the silver valley in the north, the sky was dark, the hills quiet, silent, creepy.

Four Nautical knights walked silently on the edge of the Red Pine Forest, and after a while, Natha the Knight finally couldn't help but say: “Perhaps Count Keane was right, the situation wasn't so bad, maybe it just appeared to be a liquor colt from Jorgendigan, something like that often happened, didn't it? ”

Rogers frowned tightly and did not answer.

“The strange columns of light that we saw last night and the meteors that crossed the sky, and the interruption of Queen's subpoena magic, were premeditated attacks," Trevor shook his head: “Count Jean was just reluctant to bow his head to the Elouins, and you and I both know that noble lords in these places have always been stubborn and good faces. ”

Natha was silent for a moment, as if she wanted to find a rebuttable reason but could not convince herself. Finally, she asked with some concern, "How bad would it be for the Empire if Jorgentina did invade us? ”

“It depends on the magnitude of the invasion in Jorgendigan.” Rogers replied silently.

“How massive do you think this invasion is going to be, and can they really threaten the defences of the Empire in the south?” Natha asked incredibly.

Nobody seems to be able to answer this question, and they feel more or less that Brando is listening, but Rogers and Trevor are not familiar with the forgotten country underground, and in fact very few people in general recognize the entire underground ethnic group. Rogers and Trevor suddenly thought of something, and they looked at the brunette in the robe.

Quietly replied: "Jorgendigan is a little different from us, they have no unified kingdom, and the dark underground only exists large and small lords, with the only exception of the Dark Elves. ”

“Quinn, what strength can the greatest lord have?” Natha asked.

“It is roughly equivalent to a kingdom of medium strength on the surface. ”

“Are there many such lords? ”

Qui shook his head: “In addition to the three black dragons most commonly known to the Dragons, the famous Minotaur King Gerrard, Medusa's later Pertana, is known as the King of the Underground World. ”

“Is such a lord strong enough to threaten the empire's southern defences?” Natha asked again.

“It may be enough to do everything in their power, but the wars in the underground world rarely do everything in their power to guard against dark enemies. Together, the two lords are more reliable speculations, but such lords are one of the foremost in Jorgendigan, and they rarely come to the same surface world that is unknown to them, and if not for these underground kings, ordinary lords would probably need ten or even twenty to join forces to wage wars of this magnitude. ”

“Quinn, how likely do you think that is?” Trevor asked back.

“To be exact, the underground world is a world of dark laws, where fraud is the norm in the dark, and they rarely trust each other, let alone form alliances.” Quinn replied.

Nasha looked at her companion with some admiration: "Are they likely to form an alliance in exceptional circumstances? ”

“Perhaps," Quinn replied, "but I don't know, perhaps the Count of Tonigal knows more about these underground people. ”

“Why do you say that? Maybe he's just a scarecrow?” The knight is obviously not happy to hear him say that.

And the brunette replied, "I can't do that because he and the knight around him are quick and confident about the movement of the Jorgendigan army. ”

Trevor felt that his companion's statement was somewhat overstated. In fact, he shook his head. Although he had a genius mind, he was a little worse off in the world. He was well aware of the tricks in it, and the Eluynes could totally fake it. He listened to Natha's previous questions, and his heart was shaking. Can Jorgentina really pull out an army of more than a dozen lords to find empire trouble? The Empire is indestructible in the hearts of its people, and it may encounter bad luck for a while, but it can never happen to be the worst, and Trevor cannot even imagine that the Rococci - Swordbroken Mountains Fortress herd would be threatened, not by a fortress or two, but by a defensive line that runs nearly a hundred miles deep and is well equipped.

He concealed some agreement with the female knights, perhaps the enemy in front of him was nothing more than an autumnal army from the underground world, perhaps composed of an army of one or two lords, benefiting the Lions of Tokenin, coming to disrupt the Empire, distracting the Imperial Army and taking advantage of the looting.

That's what he was thinking, but Rogers next to him suddenly asked, "Quinn, how strong is the power of the whole Jorgendigan coalition? ”

The dark-haired teenager suddenly raised his head and looked at this companion who had always frowned for the first time, revealing an unknown divine colour on his face.

“That's impossible.” He replied.

……

While both Trevor and Nasha wanted Jorgendigan's invasion of the Empire to be nothing more than a private personal act by two or two lords, south of Rusself, at the end of the Rococci Heights, what was happening was clearly against their will. Once a magnificent fortress at the narrow edge of the mountains, but now there are only rubble and rubble, the entire fortress seems to have been hit from the front by terrible forces, the original intact city wall breaks a huge threshold, the gap bathes in the moonlight, the whole section is like burned by fire, even the masonry shows the color of black after carburization, the rubble sparkles, that is the gravel after crystallization. Such scenes are scattered throughout the fortress, besides the dead, there are also burnt and distorted carcasses, animals - cows, horses, donkeys, even huge, almost skeleton-burned dragons, empty ground next to a house that is also burned into a frame structure, it has no signs of struggle, it is reminiscent that when death comes, the extreme heat instantly completely turns the head from the flesh to the soul into ash.

But not only animals, but human bodies are also everywhere, and some of them are wearing armor —— but they have long since melted and re-solidified metallic solutions -- some are just civilians, but men and women, old people and children, men and women, have become an unrecognizable piece of coke, scattered throughout the streets, and they are in a position to show what they were hiding from before they were born, but time has stopped at this last moment.

The entire fortress seemed to have been plowed through the middle, and the streets and buildings in those areas had become shattered, but the rest of the neighborhoods remained intact, except that the streets and the hillsides on both sides were filled with a sharp wooden stake on which countless human bodies had been inserted, and the bodies looked hollow at the dark, sunken sky, clouds in the sky, and their eyes had long lost their anger.

The shattered fortress became a city of death, with no Krutz, no enemies, as if death had passed from here and taken all life silently.

Such a scene is not the only example of the entire Rokozy Heights, east of the Broken Sword Mountains, but simultaneously in many places. This is the Fortress of Passilian, the Imperial Rococci - the Fortress of the Broken Sword Mountains, which, although made up of thousands of fortresses, levels and fortresses large and small, is the only three fortresses that are the true core of this line of defense. The other fortresses are built around them to protect them. The Fortress of Passilian is the last level of this line of defense in the direction of the Empire, and it has never been attacked or even attacked in the millennium of history, but today an army that the Cruz have never dealt with has rewritten this history.

When Frith woke up from the ruins, he still could not forget the most unforgettable scene of his life he had seen before, when he remembered that the fortress had been attacked by a group of hawkish witches who did not know where it had come from, that the Supreme Commander of the fortress had determined that it was a monstrous attack and that perhaps a new lair had been created somewhere near the fortress, something that often happened in the border area, and that the deserted Rokozy Heights were once a wandering place for monsters, and that the Imperial soldiers had not been surprised to join the fighting. Frith is an imperial crossbowman who naturally participates in the battle, but he is relatively safe in the shooting room with others - although the noise above the walls of the city is intolerable, the squeaking noise of the militia's heavy weapon pushed through the slide to the back of the stack is also teething, as he did in his training when he put a good string on the winch of the heavy crossbow, placed the crossbow arrow, and walked to the perforation to look out.

And then at that instant--

He seemed to hear an awesome scream coming from above the walls of the city. The sound was like falling from the sky and crying like a ghost at midnight. A whistle made him feel cold and upright. Then he saw through the perforating hole a huge, cold, emotionless eye, like an ink black cast iron ball, that eye, just one glance away, made him fall like an abyss. The total cold seemed to rise from his feet and freeze him there. Although he wanted to scream, he did not make a sound at all.

He heard colleagues screaming in horror over the walls, screaming and buzzing as if describing a monster that frightened them all.

But Frith didn't have time to hear what it was, and then he swayed the mountain, and he saw the walls of the shooting room collapse towards him, and after emptying his feet, the world fell into darkness.

Frith was awake again before realizing that it was those crumbling bricks that saved his life.

He lay in the dark, not knowing how long it had taken him to regain a little strength, and then he couldn't help but feel the soreness and bite his teeth off a passage from the rubble. As if it were a miracle, he found himself not too badly injured. Except for the hidden pain in breathing, which led to the suspicion that one or two ribs had been broken, his hands and feet were very convenient, only scratches, his hands and feet had climbed out of the rubble. The next moment, the bleak tragedy in the fortress reflected in his eyes, and Frith snapped his teeth shut for a moment. In front of him all this seemed to have appeared in his dreams. He could not help but tremble.

He looked up at the direction of the narrow mouth of the mountains, the direction of the disappearance of the great army of monsters, from which was the path leading to the Fortress Cui Claw, followed by the heartland of the Rokozy - Broken Sword Mountains Fortress. His heart was freezing and he realized that it was not a monster attack at all, but a premeditated raid.

That eye...

Frith shuddered back to the scene he had seen, and he seemed to try to convince himself that it was just a hallucination, hidden in his heart in true fear, but reminded him what it was.

That's a dragon--

A black dragon.

……

Cruz has a saying: Every day of the empire is calm and every day of the empire is cloudy. This phrase may be inappropriate to describe the entire Cruz Empire, but it is more appropriate to describe the Emperor Dulusta.

Starting three days ago, Rose Blanc was surrounded by an atmosphere of repression and death in the Palazzo San Cantipe, as if everyone who walked in would have had bad luck. In the past, this has often represented a change in the mood of Her Majesty. Usually, there are many factors that make Her Majesty angry - for example, the annoyance or disappointment of another nobleman, for example, the temple of flame, which offends the dignity of this supreme one, and the fact that the temple of flame and Her Majesty often offend each other, which is well known, but in addition to the two most important reasons mentioned above, there are some bypass events, such as the killing of the Empire's tax officials by mountaineers, Anzelutas or some other savage, or the sending of Grand Dukes married to the royal family to a feast of Her Majesty or something - the poor relationship between the Silver Queen and the rest of these empires, which is recognized by the Empire as a whole.

In fact, there have been a number of new names lately, such as an Earl from Eluin, who is said to have become a stab in the eye of Her Majesty the Queen, and rumors about the female Earl of Mountains, who is said to be in a bad mood every time His Majesty summons her.

This time, however, there was no trouble caused by nobility and the Temple of Fire was safe. Although last month Prince Seven accidentally fell into a cliff on his wagon on his way back to Imperial City, he was seriously injured, but the mountain people were also extremely submissive to it. They even dispatched an envoy to explain the matter specifically. This envoy was to arrive in Imperial City at first sight. This attitude was clearly intended to completely surrender to the highest of the Empire, and it did not seem necessary for one of Her Majesty's queens to be furious about the matter.

On the other hand, the leaf collar and Ludwig did not seem to have received much news, and the rumor of the Count of the Toniguer had sunk in the sea over the past few days. According to information coming from his servant's daughter, His Majesty had not summoned a female Count in recent times.

The only thing that counts as news is that a few days ago, Bankel, the Valley of Violet and other regions reported a rare artifact reaction, but these artifact resonances occur independently only in a very small number of regions, but no one has observed them in the wider area, and the magicians of the Tower of the Stars and Moon have yet come to the conclusion whether this is a fantasy or a reality.

But in fact, only a handful of well-informed people throughout the higher-ranking aristocracy of the Empire understood that since that day, the Empire had lost information about the area south of Anzlova. The news here, referring to the secret reports of the Royal Knights of the Inner Court, originally once a day, starting three days ago, from Vargas to the Bear Lake area, to Rusself, and even the entire area south of the Rokozy Fortress, seems to have disappeared from the map and lost its message.

If it were a weekday, the delay of these two days would be nothing, but just before that, the eyes of almost the entire empire were still concentrated in the area, and the nobles of the empire were waiting indefinitely for the outcome of the last battle between the nobles of Brando and Anzeluta, but suddenly the area was silent. Whether it's private or royal agents, it's like the world is evaporating and never returning.

Everyone at first thought it was the Count of Tonigal.

But the news that followed left the entire empire in a state of silence.

The third morning.

Constance summoned two of her knight captains to the Rose Garden...

At this moment, before the Queen, the head of the Royal Knights, Mr. Travis, and the head of the Cavalry of Didulong, Mr. Kevin, are vigorously wiping cold sweat on their foreheads with a handkerchief, one from the Paloot family and the other from a noble family in a place that Her Majesty trusts, apparently the heads of the two forbidden armies at Constance's disposal, but as long as they have lived in Rusta for some time, they have in fact been secretly in charge of the foreign affairs of the Knights of the Nettings.

……