The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

Charge!

On the battlefield, two streams of ironclad torrents collided. It should have been an evenly matched scene, yet there emerged an unexpected turn of events. The Knight Order led by Liszt, like a sharp dagger, swiftly pierced through the knights whose formation had been destroyed by the Blizzard Beasts, defeating the opponent in one battle.

Then, turning direction, he charged towards another Knight Order.

Surrounded by Blizzard Beasts himself, with Douson clad in Firmstone Armor sweeping the front, no Earth Knight could stand in his way.

With unrestrained dominance, he inflicted a massive blow on the Scentcartleaf Stronghold's Knights, a blow that rippled throughout, causing a domino effect. The Knight Order he defeated was swiftly taken over by other Coral Island Knights, who madly sprinted in for the attack, preventing any new formation from being established.

From the beginning, the trend of the battle had been set.

Unless they were outnumbered by the Coral Island Knights, or had the aid of several Sky Knights, the Coral Island Knights with Blizzard Beasts were invincible among the Knight Orders of an Earl's territory.

Watching the battle from one side, Tasker Scentcartleaf trembled with rage as he saw his knights swept away: "Damn Intermediate Magical Beast! Destroying my walls, disrupting my formation, damn it!" He fiercely stimulated his Dou Qi, transforming into a flame that shot towards the sky.

Falling back down, he prepared to strike at the Blizzard Beast.

However, before he could land, a loud shout rang in his ears, "Tasker, have you asked my longsword?" accompanied by a flash of silvery sword light.

It was Li Weiliam launching a bold attack. The natural opponent for a Sky Knight was another Sky Knight—disengaging from the Earth Knights, they began their sword battle in the sky.

"Get out of my way!" Tasker swung his sword to block.

Boom!

Two bursts of Advanced Dou Qi exploded in mid-air, half flame and half steam. Li Weiliam burst forth from the steam, his momentum undiminished: "Big words, but your strength is too feeble!"

"Hmph!"

Tasker could not afford to speak further, focusing on his sword battle with Li Weiliam. But just as he was on guard, he caught sight of three arrows aiming at him from the corner of his eye. The trajectories of the arrows were erratic, their speed as fast as lightning, forcing him to retract his sword moves and twist his body to dodge.

Clang!

However, just before the arrows could graze past, they unexpectedly collided with each other, then changed direction, heading straight for his body.

The longsword returned, swiftly knocking away the strange arrows. Before Tasker could take a breath of relief, Li Weiliam's attack had already descended upon him. A sword strike blasted him forcibly from mid-air, causing him to plummet to the ground, tumbling several times before coming to a stop. Then, he had to face Li Weiliam's attacks, which came like relentless waves.

Not far away.

Liszt, who was commanding the Knight Order's charge, withdrew his Swift Shadow Bow, very satisfied with the power of his "Chain of Three Arrows" technique. Although he did not harm Tasker in the slightest, he successfully disrupted his momentum, putting him in a defensive position, proving that he had qualified to intervene in the Sky Knights' sword battle.

Long-term use of drugs, both the Auxiliary Medicine and Magic Potion, his Dou Qi grew at an astoundingly fast rate.

Moreover, with the "Breath Decay" slowing down the loss, he was progressing every moment, his cultivation in the Elite Earth Knight phase far surpassing anyone's.

If it weren't for a Magic Fire Seed in his heart competing for nutrients, he even doubted if, in this half a month of cultivation, he would be reaching the limits of an Elite Earth Knight, preparing to burst through the barrier to the next level of Dou Qi, to transform quantitatively and qualitatively, and advance to a Sky Knight.

"Soon! Chris, before I set out, extracted all the harvested Auxiliary Medicine Dragon Mallow into Dragon Kui Auxiliary Medicine, and, in combination with the Flame Magic Potion and Thorn Magic Potion, it's enough for me to last a month on the battlefield... A month's time, let's see if I can make a breakthrough. If I fail, I'll wait until I get back to try again."

His thoughts converged back.

He had to focus on commanding the Knight Order's charge.

...

Twenty minutes later.

The battle ended, and the Knight Order of Scentcartleaf Stronghold crumbled in defeat. The Scorching Sword Saint Tasker could not best the Sea Wave Sword Saint Li Weiliam and, leading the few hundred knights that remained, fled back to Scentcartleaf Stronghold. Without hesitation, they then abandoned the stronghold and fled into the distance without looking back.

A glorious victory.

The casualties of the Coral Island Knights were less than one-tenth, but they captured a whole three hundred Earth Knights. Without a doubt, at least half of these Earth Knights would accept allegiance reformation and replenish the losses of the Coral Island Knights.

The reformation process that followed indeed went as such.

The Peregrine Count had already fled, and although assets including elves and other valuables had been taken from the stronghold, a considerable amount of supplies remained within the castle. This meant the Peregrine Count suffered heavy losses and might be unable to pay the ransom for the captured Earth Knights. Those knights without funds could only accept reformation.

One hundred and sixteen Earth Knights chose to pay ransom.

Two hundred and forty-two Earth Knights chose to accept reformation.

Liszt added seven Elite Earth Knights and twenty-seven Earth Knights to his ranks. Along with the three Elite Earth Knights and sixteen Earth Knights he had previously recruited. Not long after receiving the Pioneer Mandate, he had already replenished ten Elite Earth Knights and forty-three Common Earth Knights under his command.

The Knight Squad of Fresh Flower Town currently had no losses in battle, with twelve fully staffed members, and his territory also had seven Earth Knights who had pledged allegiance.

Thus.

He now had a total of twelve Elite Earth Knights and sixty Common Earth Knights under him, enough to form six Knight Squads, and was not far from forming a full Knight Order. However, he did not plan to recruit any further, for the expense of a Knight Order was too great for his territory to support at the moment.

"You may immediately write letters to your families, and I will dispatch knights to bring them over to settle in my Territory Black Horse Island. You shall stay to assist me and continue the campaign of the Pioneer Mandate," said Liszt solemnly to the newly reformed knights.

The best way to control them was to bring over their families as well.

It was difficult to leave their homeland, but having been defeated and sworn new allegiance to their landlord, the knights could only write letters to fetch their families.

Fetching people, reformation, and tallying the spoils took time.

The Coral Island Knights were temporarily stationed in Scentcartleaf Stronghold and did not plan to continue attacking other nobles' territories in the short term. For there was still a great city—Falconseen City—to plunder.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"This is a tremendous gain. In past Pioneer Mandates, we might have gone thousands of kilometers in depth, or even further, to plunder all manner of materials from the land. But conquering large strongholds and cities rarely happened... Liszt, your Blizzard Beast played the biggest role." The Earl raised his glass towards Liszt at the banquet with satisfaction.

Liszt smiled, "Father, I merely did what I needed to do."

"I'm proud of you, my son," Li Weiliam declared, draining the glass of fine wine in one go. The food and beverages were all supplies from the castle's stockpile.

Liszt likewise drained his glass in one go.

The battlefield victory was splendid, and his military achievements were undoubtedly second only to the Earl's, a tremendous feat indeed. Unfortunately, no metal ores were plundered—metal ores were the largest indicator of military achievements in the Pioneer Mandate.

The Earl put down his glass.

Looking around the circle, he raised his glass again, "The war is far from over, and danger could strike at any moment. Everyone is limited to this last glass only. Let us raise our glasses together to celebrate this splendid victory."

Everyone raised their glasses together, "Knight's glory favors us, honor belongs to the lord!"

The Earl nodded with satisfaction, "The honor belongs to me, and I stand with you all!"