Badge in Azure

After the pirate had departed, Lex ordered all the mages to undergo rehabilitative meditation in preparation for the night’s battle. This time around, she had brought along many mages. Two grade-5 mages, about twenty grade-4 mages and about one-hundred mages below grade-3. There were also more than three-hundred magic disciples.

These mages were not to be used for battles, but to be brought to Saleen’s city to help expand its power. Since a battle was imminent, they were roped in to assist the soldiers. At any point in time, no matter how strong an army was, there would definitely be casualties in the sieging process. Without the presence of mages, the death-injury ratio would be greater, severely damaging morale.

The moment Saleen was faced with a battle, he would be restrained. He would have to rest his brain for an idea, but he would still have to rely on the three kings in the end. On the other hand, once Lex made her decision, she would have a bank of talents to draw on.

Lex had been accumulating her army for dozens of years after all. She also received the private handsel from Emperor Chanake. She neither lacked manpower nor money. Equipment-wise, although Lex and Saleen had robbed Dragon’s Tooth Town and acquired a similar quantity of weapons and armor, all of Lex’s loot was soaked in dragon’s blood.

The dragon’s blood was such a precious item, one would not even know where to begin looking for it.

Lex’s letter was shot into the city with an arrow. A soldier went to pick up and delivered it to Nash, the city’s commander. Nash’s father was a noble in the Upper House, so he should be on intimate terms with Lex. After Emperor Chanake’s passing, the Upper House became leaderless, while the emperor himself did not have much capability either. Even though the Upper House did not really take orders from Prince Safilos, they had washed their hands of Lex’s issue.

Everyone might not have believed Master Merlin’s prophecy in the past, but after Emperor Chanake died, the nobles in the Upper House wavered. As long as Safilos did not give the order to kill Lex, everyone else would simply acquiesce in the prince’s oppression of the Bitter Water County.

Be that as it may, Lex was still Emperor Chanake’s daughter. Legally, she actually had the right to ascend to the throne, so the Upper House was in a fix too.

Safilos’ plan was really sinister. By obstructing Lex without attacking her, he was forcing Lex to attack the empire’s cities. By doing so, Lex would be at fault. There were only two routes from the empire through Phoenix. Even if Lex chose the other route, she would still run into a huge obstacle.

In the past, Lex could still travel using sea means, since the nobles in Lianyun City were not under Safilos’ control. Lianyun City was currently occupied by the enemy however. As a result, Lex could only pass through Phoenix, there was no other alternative.

No matter how meticulous Safilos was, he would never expect Lex to dare assault Fort Strand. Even if he knew that Lex would take action, he would not be able to deploy any more troops. At the moment, the north was in utter chaos. Hundreds of nobles in the vicinity of Lianyun City had died in the war. The nobles were actually pretty mighty, but because they were invaded abruptly, they had no time to unite. Consequently, the invaders managed to seize thousands of miles of land.

A few cities in the central region of the empire had assembled their armies, forming an arc-shaped defense line, thus containing the invaders in the northern sea. It was not sufficient to just contain the invaders, Safilos had to gather even more troops to conduct an offensive. Once the invaders had adequate rest, such a loose defense line would be easily destroyed otherwise.

Following the upheaval in the north, Loulan also sank into disorder. Of the troops involved in the campaign, ten percent of them were nobles from the north. Their homes were already in peril or were already lost, hence these soldiers did not even have the will to fight. When this ten percent backed out, the remaining troops also were affected. The land seized from Loulan was not yet acknowledged by the Upper House and the Lower House after all. That way the nobles had no choice but to abandon the things at hand and retreat to Qin.

Fortunately, the Tanggulasi Empire had met with some trouble, thus it could not ride on the momentum. The Qin army would have met with yet another massive failure otherwise.

In order to stabilize Loulan, Safilos had to deploy the empire’s elites – the imperial swordsman’s camp. These troops were the foundation of the empire, they were not affected by anything else. A certain number of troops had to be stationed in Holy Rock City, while a portion was sent to Loulan. Some troops needed to be dispatched to deal with the Eastern Sea Allied Army also. All in all, Safilos really did not have any more manpower to dispatch to Phoenix at that time.

It was only at this point in time that Safilos realized the difficulty of running an empire. He also realized how much stronger his brother, Emperor Chanake, had been. Safilos could only control Holy Rock City. Beyond Holy Rock City, his sphere of influence was definitely not more than one-thousand miles.

For example Pompeii City, which was in cahoots with the Cloudflow Empire. Safilos knew about this matter, but he could do nothing other than be anxious about it. If the empire was in peace, he could simply write a letter to berate the Grand Duke of Pompeii. If the grand duke refused to adhere, he could simply send troops to mount an offensive. At this point in time, Safilos could only watch the southern nobles mess around though. The tax revenue received in the past two years had been on a straight decline, some nobles had even stopped paying taxes to Holy Rock City.

The man named Nash who was assigned to Fort Strand was an inflexible blockhead. Safilos had sent him mail using a magic array. He told him to guard this place, and never to let Lex pass the border no matter what happened. That was why Nash defended Fort Strand vigilantly, standing ready for battle anytime.

When the soldier handed the letter to Nash, Nash simply tore it without even looking. That action caused the letter to give off a ray of magic light, burning in his hands. It made Nash so appalled that he threw it away at once.

“Lex! She wants to stab me in the back!” Nash was enraged.

A mage, standing beside Nash quickly advised, “General, that was magic feedback. This letter had been replicated by Lex using the magic images. Lex already knows about your action.”

“So what!” Even though Nash responded in this manner, he tolerated the incident. Then he suddenly remembered that if he went to fight with Lex, he might not be able to quash her swordsman’s camp.

Since a long time ago, Nash had already heard of the twenty-thousand elites serving Lex. Even though he was skeptical about a woman’s ability to manage an army, the number of mages in that army was several times that of a normal one.

He had seen Lex’s camp compound before. There were at least ten-thousand elites, with an equal number of support troops. If he really needed to go out of the city to start a war, he had no confidence. Although Nash had a grade-6 mage beside him, he heard that Lex herself was already a grade-6 mage. She had many subordinates who were mages too.

Even if Lex stood outside the city cursing Nash’s family, Nash would have no choice but to bear with it. It was currently winter, and Lex’s camp would definitely have a higher level of depletion as compared to his ny way. In order to prevent the soldiers from freezing, the magic materials providing warmth would consume thousands of gold coins daily.

Qin was also known as the magic empire, its army was way mightier than that of the other three empires. It was precisely because its army had many mages, that was why it consumed a great deal of magic materials too. The winter in the north would inevitably cause frostbite to some of the marching soldiers. During encampment, the source of warmth for the soldiers was magic powder.

If a battle was in the south, magic materials for killing pests, preventing high tides, and lowering the temperature were also provided. One could say that the Qin army would be able to unleash their usual offensive power in any kind of environment. The only concern was that these materials were very expensive.

“Mage Soron, tell me, do you think Lex will attack the city?” When Nash realized that his enemy was stronger than him, he suddenly became distraught. At first, he thought that Lex would not attack the city, but that letter reminded him. If Lex did not attack the city, would she return to the Bitter Water Prefecture? This time round, Lex had brought more than twenty-thousand people along, of which ten-thousand were elites while the others consisted of support troops and smiths. The cost of traveling from the Bitter Water Prefecture to this location was already an astronomical figure. Lex could not possibly tolerate this.

The gray-robed mage sighed, then said, “I am a mage. I don’t intend to understand the affairs of the nobles.”

Nash was no idiot either. Even though he was inflexible, he could understand what the mage meant. Be that as it may, he could not defy Prince Safilos’ orders. Whether Lex was determined to attack the city or not, he could only defend it until his last breath. He could not allow Lex to pass through.

“General!” A soldier entered Nash’s room hastily.

“Yes?”

“We have lost a team of scouts.”

Nash was stunned, then he recovered immediately after. He did not deploy any scouts to the west. The eastern side was in trouble.

“Who did it?”

“General, the scouts never returned the flying puppet. We don’t know what happened.”

“Send two brigades of cavalrymen… and another two brigades of infantrymen to go take a look.” Nash became unnerved because of Lex’s letter. He gave an order which he would undoubtedly later regret.

Four brigades contained a grand total of eight-hundred men. Nash only had five-thousand men with him. If it was for the current situation, there was no big deal making this move. These eight-hundred men might not be able to return anymore however.

In Qin’s army formation, a camp had ten emblem groups while an emblem group had five brigades, each brigade contained two-hundred people. Each brigade was further split into five teams, with each team having forty people. Forty scouts would be separated into five groups to conduct patrols. A flying puppet would be assigned to a forty man team. If there were any unforeseen circumstances, the flying puppet would be released back to the city or the main camp to report the intelligence.

These scouts possessed the best warhorses and proficient archery skills. The leader of the scouts was at least an intermediate grade swordmaster. The disappearance of these five groups of scouts was obviously due to them running into Saleen’s army.

The five-hundred men deployed by Saleen were all riding on skeletal warhorses. The barbarians wielded hard bows while the pirates wielded soft bows. Traveling in a magic chariot, Daniel disseminated his commands to the soldiers. It was impossible for those scouts to escape a death mage’s surveillance. In less than half an hour, the battle had ended.

Saleen’s soldiers were injured by a few arrows, but they had received treatment already. Of the forty scouts, only two were kept alive and the remaining shot dead. The scouts were not useless, it was just that they did not wear any armor. In that barrage of arrows, they were basically walking to their doom. On the other hand, Saleen’s soldiers were all clad in magic armor. They also had been blessed by magic before the battle, making them resistant to arrows. What caused the scouts to be really astounded was that the warhorses of their enemies were not even afraid of arrows.

Two prisoners were brought to Daniel. Daniel’s Death Flames levitated behind him, giving off an eerie green glow. With just a sentence, the scouts surrendered.

“There are dozens of mages here who can cast the Detection Magic. If you do not reply, or choose to lie when answering my questions, I will extract your souls and check it myself.”