Chapter 271: Risky Moves

The rolling dark clouds, accompanied by the torrent of souls that pierced the sky like pulses, slowly dissipated, revealing the real sky.

The rays of dawn were spreading over every corner of Fenleytown, and the streets and alleys were bathed in the glow of life again.

The ghosts wandering in the shadows screamed, as if suppressed by some invisible force, and fled into the depths of the earth in fear.

The sun's rays were like a majestic king, dispelling the netherworld laws that did not belong to this land.

The square in the upper city, the market in the lower city, the barracks in the outer city, and the cruel battlefield in the hills in the suburbs. The sea of ​​ghouls began to recede.

As if escaping from the sunlight that was projected back onto the earth, thousands of zombies lost the constraints of the upper undead and the altar, and instinctively followed the inertia imprinted in their souls, followed the bells that still echoed in the hearts of the dead, and fled towards other remaining altars in the distance.

The exciting cheers of the victors resounded through the sky in the city and the suburbs.

In the suburbs, Baron Balf knew that the battle was over as he looked at the endless sea of ​​corpses retreating. He raised his sword and issued a deafening order.

The allied soldiers who stopped shouting reorganized their forces and marched towards the city of Finlaytown, which had returned to the hands of the living, facing the light gradually projected from the distant sky.

After successfully destroying the secondary altar in the city, the Knights of Avalon and Ilaril did not pursue the battle after getting rid of the siege of the sea of ​​corpses. The two armies arrived at the square of the upper city of Finlaytown one after another and joined the knights of Kantardar who had experienced a hard battle.

Azerien, Lohak, Corvis, as well as Irem, Greenthorne and others rushed to the bell tower surrounded by the wind.

They looked up and found in confusion that although the sound of the undead bells that summoned souls had stopped, the pendulum bell was not destroyed immediately.

Lohak was a little anxious, and he led several guards into the building worriedly.

They walked quickly to the top floor, and saw the knight girl standing with a sword guarding the staircase door.

"Where is Leon? Is he up there?" Lohak asked loudly, listening to the whistling wind on the top of the tower.

"Don't worry, he's fine." The girl answered loudly.

"But don't disturb him yet, Leon is breaking the enemy's magic."

Lohak glanced at the movement behind Olivia, and then he felt relieved.

Watching the big man turn around and go down to reorganize the soldiers, Olivia turned around and looked at the staircase door behind her

The rolling magic wind kept whistling at the top of the tower where the bell was located, and the bright red cloak behind Leon's back armor was blown.

With his hands trembling, Leon resisted the powerful energy repulsion, and his palms were forced against the surface of the soul-summoning bell.

The dark green magic light under his feet had been replaced by dazzling white flames. The corpse offerings on the hexagon of the altar and the bloody remains on the ground had long been burned to ashes in the flames of magic.

The extraordinary huge magic power around him did not come from him, nor from the weak Laura spirit, but from the countless dead souls that should have been guided to other altars by the great magic.

At this moment, Leon was just struggling to maintain the magic channel connecting this altar, using himself as a medium for Laura in his body to try to invade the altar.

The complex magic patterns engraved on the surface of the bell were changing, and the runes that were either strange or familiar changed according to Laura's will, reconnecting the formations on it.

Finally, as the terrifying screams from the soul torrent in the sky hit his heart, Leon felt as if a huge pressure came from the top of his head.

The knights under the tower looked up in surprise, looking at the spectacular green light column in the sky like a flood flowing back. The upward pulsed ghosts poured back to the bell tower that had just rushed out. With a roar, the visible air waves shook and gradually disappeared.

The top of the tower finally returned to calm.

After a while, Olivia heard footsteps and saw Leon leaving the top of the tower.

Nodding his head, Leon went down the tower with her, thinking about Laura's treatment of the altar.

Although she stopped the operation of the soul-summoning bell, she did not destroy the altar. Instead, she reversed the altar formation and intercepted a small part of the soul torrent in this place in this large magic circulation system to try to interfere with other altar nodes that were still connected.

The first to bear the brunt was the soul-summoning altar in Ashford Harbor, the largest core node recently.

If the bell tower in the city could be paralyzed before the army attacked the river port city, the battle would definitely be more secure than the surprise attack tactics implemented this time.

Thinking about the next action plan, Leon walked out of the tower building.

The soldiers on the square were guarding the streets and intersections on all sides, while Corvis and the priests of the Holy Lake were treating the wounded.

The two Kantadar wizards holding the holy lamp looked at the undead bell on the tower with a look of amazement, as if they wanted to go up and find out.

Leon was not at ease letting these two unfamiliar southern wizards touch the altar that was sealing a large number of souls. In order to prevent any unexpected events, he still found Captain Irem to send a team of elite knights to strictly guard the entrance of the bell tower.

Not long after, the army led by Balf also arrived in the city of Finleytown.

The army reunited, and Leon ordered all troops to check the city defense and repair the suspension bridge in the north of the city, and then divide some of the elite troops who still had spare strength to clean up the remaining undead in the city.

He led the generals to a relatively clean room near the square in the upper city to hold a military meeting.

After counting and statistics, the Thorn Flower Army led by Baron Balf, the support troops of the Baldim family, and the Shatai Griffin Regiment suffered a total of more than 800 casualties in this battle.

Among the elite troops that raided Fenleytown, the 700 heavy cavalry of Kantadar and the army of the Knights of Avalon suffered more than 100 casualties in total.

None of the elite knights of the Ranger Knights and the Knights of the Holy Lake were killed, and only a dozen were slightly injured.

The entire army suffered nearly 1,000 casualties, and the most serious loss was the main camp of the coalition forces responsible for delaying the sea of ​​​​undead corpses.

However, considering that nearly 10,000 corpses were annihilated in one fell swoop, the war loss was close to 1:10, which was enough to be called a great victory. At the same time, tens of thousands of undeads entrenched in this big city were defeated, and the expressions of the people at the military meeting were not too heavy.

Not long after the meeting, the knights who checked the granaries in various parts of the city hurried over and reported another good news to Leon.

Perhaps because the city of Fenleytown is different from the port of Ashford where the warehouse area is concentrated, the granary houses in the city are extremely scattered.

The corpse lord only found and destroyed some granaries in the upper city and near the military camp.

In the lower city, warehouses near various markets have survived to this day, and the grain stored in each warehouse together is at least 10,000 gallons.

After Azerien and other knights left, he thought for a while and reminded Leon: "I heard that there were about 10,000 households in Finleytown before the war. The city was lost very quickly at the beginning. Now there may be a considerable amount of grain in the houses in the city that can be collected."

"Well." Leon said after hearing this: "Arrange the soldiers to look for it immediately."

There are no living people in the city. He has no psychological barriers to looting ownerless things. Now it is more important than anything else to ensure that the living soldiers have food to eat.

Azerien received the order and immediately went to execute the order, but after walking two steps, he turned back and asked: "Not only food, but now the ownerless property in the whole city is probably also a very astonishing amount of spoils. Do you want to collect them together?"

"Of course." Leon nodded.

Although the social and economic system in the east of Kantadar has long collapsed, these money and goods can still play their original value in the rear far away from the war zone, in the west of Kantadar and even in Orland.

"Pull Lord Irem and Lord Balf's troops to concentrate and store the resources of the whole city as soon as possible." Leon was not polite.

Although in theory, this is the territory of the Baldim family, and it is a bit unkind for an outsider like him to take advantage of the other party's land, but at this time of war, since he is the commander of the coalition forces, it is reasonable for him to consider the continued combat capability of his army, not to mention that he is still helping the other party to regain the territory in a sense.

Besides, he can return the private property of Count Runaf's family, but other unowned things in the city must be used as military supplies for the coalition forces to continue fighting.

In fact, Leon does not plan to lead his army back to the north bank of the Great River to rest the army. Before the end of the war, he decided to temporarily station in Finleytown as a base for commanding the army's operations.

Baron Ivan and Knight Ron's Shatai Griffin Regiment would definitely be willing to fight under his command. In this way, excluding the reinforcements from Runaf, he could directly command no less than 5,000 troops.

Now with this batch of food in the city, Leon found that he had accidentally acquired the capital to lead the army independently without relying on the Baldim family.

He did not intend to separate from those eastern nobles and face the undead alone, but now that he had food in his hands, Leon felt much more confident. At least the safety of his army would not depend on anyone's face for a period of time.

No mistakes, one sentence, one post, one content, one 6, one 9, one book, one bar, take a look!

The next day.

After resting and recovering in the city of Finleytown, Corvis, under Leon's order, took off on a eagle to the north bank to deliver the victory report.

The army that cleaned up the battlefield inside and outside the city also made a preliminary conclusion of the gains of this battle that afternoon.

In addition to the 10,000 gallons of food in the granary, at least more than 3,000 gallons of food were collected from various places in the city.

This food is enough for 5,000 troops, including men and horses, to eat for nearly two months.

As for the collected wealth, not counting those goods that are difficult to price, the easily measurable gold, silver, copper and various coins and jewelry alone are estimated to be worth no less than 8,000 gold crowns.

Of course, the only problem is how to exchange this wealth, which is difficult to convert into corresponding values ​​in the east of Kantadar, for the military equipment and supplies needed by the coalition.

After thinking about it, Leon felt that he had to send a messenger to ask for help from the feudal lord far away in Glade County.

Finleytown is too far away from the rear, and he is simply unable to digest this wealth on his own.

In addition to food and grass, and the wealth that can only be used temporarily to motivate the soldiers, the weapons and armor stripped from the remains of thousands of corpses are really useful.

Although most of them are damaged, even those that can still be used are completely unmaintained and rusty, but it is better than nothing.

Of course, the Ilarial Knights, who are luxuriously equipped, will definitely not use these rags.

Needless to say, the Rangers Knights.

Although the Avalon Knights are small in size, they can still be of great use except for a few sets of damaged plate armor stripped from the Ghoul Knights. The simple armor seized from the Undead Soldiers is also of little value to the Avalon soldiers who are fully armored.

Leon simply found Baron Ivan, who was commanding the mercenaries to repair the suspension bridge in the north of the city, and told him about the decision to hand over hundreds of scattered chain mail, cloth armor, swords and spears to the Shatai Griffin Corps.

"It is difficult for the Orland Army under my command to recruit soldiers on the land of Kantadar, but you are the local lord of Kantadar. These armaments are given to you. You can find someone to repair and polish them, and they can be used to expand the source of troops and supplement the losses in the future."

Ivan was slightly surprised to hear this, but then he looked a little embarrassed.

".Thank you very much for your kindness, Lord Leon, but to be honest, it is very difficult for a Cantadar noble like me to recruit soldiers on the north bank now. No one among the people has the courage to cross the river to face the undead."

Understanding his difficulties, Leon comforted him a little: "Although this is the case now, when I lead the army to recover the land south of the river bank and let this land see the light of day again, as long as you local lords are generous enough and willing to make promises, there will always be desperate people who will see hope and opportunity in the land that is in ruins and join the army to fight for their lives."

"Do you have a plan for the next step?" Ivan was immediately excited when he saw that the other party was so confident in recovering the lost land.

Within four days, at such a low cost, two important strongholds on the south bank were successively recaptured. The more Ivan looked at the Baron of Avalon who saved Shatai, the more he felt that he was really like what his soldiers said, the chosen one sent by the gods to save the people.

You know, among the veterans of the Griffin Corps who had experienced the bloody battle of Shatai, many were still spreading the legend that the gods and the Valkyries descended from the sky and defeated the army of the undead.

Ivan could even imagine that after this battle, the mercenaries would probably worship Baron Avalon, who had created miracles again, even more exaggeratedly.

"There is a preliminary plan." Leon nodded, not stingy in giving the other party confidence.

Of course, strictly speaking, the one who proposed this battle plan was not himself, but Laura.

He pointed to the north: "I will gather all the large sailing ships in your Eastern Alliance, lead a group of elite cavalry along the river, directly sail through the land of clouds, go around to the heart of the undead army and land, and then go south to cut off the connection between the ritual altars of Ashford Port and the surrounding undead strongholds, and then turn back and gather the army to launch a general attack on the undead entrenched on the south bank."

". Take a boat north along the river?!" Ivan opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

The Outer Usato River extends northeastward, all the way to the border between the Kingdom of Kantadar and the Kingdom of Serian. The hundreds of thousands of undead that are now all over the land are swept from that direction.

"But even if you want to transport two or three thousand people, the big ship needs to go back and forth several times. If you go deep into the hinterland of the Cloud Realm alone, you will have no way to retreat once you are trapped in such a long distance! The risk is too high."

"How can every step be sure, but you can relax. If you are not sure, I will not joke with my life and the lives of my soldiers." Leon waved his hand helplessly and looked into the distance.

He also had to scout whether the undead army was as he and Laura had speculated, and there was no real navy.

Now, bypassing the front of the undead army and quickly cutting through Baldim County from the rear to the south is the fastest route to separate the towns along the river from the large undead altars in the east.

As long as the cutting is completed, when Laura flips the altar, the living army will be able to destroy the undead strongholds whose soul bells are "forced to mute" one by one.

Such a risky move is helpless.

After all, the number of troops available for combat is too small. If they face a large number of zombies head-on, every death of a living warrior is a heavy loss. Even if the loss ratio is 1 to 10, they can't afford it at all. It won't work even if the loss ratio doubles.

Moreover, such a loss is only against a sea of ​​corpses composed mostly of ordinary zombies.

When facing the real elite undead, ordinary soldiers can't achieve such an exchange ratio at all.