Chapter 644 — The King's Price
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"The meeting place is Mill Town—it's already a ruin," Victoria said, having ended her magical communication with Duke Baiyu and turned to look at Gao Dai. "Wilse and the inner-court nobles have already set out."
Gao Yan nodded. "Then we set out as well."
His calm demeanor stirred even Victoria to an indescribable dread; she could not help saying, "Aren't you worried it's a trap?"
"I am—which is why I'll bring a tank battalion along. But I doubt it will be needed. Wilse is a clever man, and Baiyu Franklin even more so."
Victoria was taken aback for a moment, then her gaze swept over the Dark Crow standing not far away.
This dreadful affair, unfolding there in the sunlight, had been accomplished through a single letter delivered by this royal shadow guard; at first Victoria had wondered why Baiyu had not contacted her directly by magical communication—after all, she had already reached the Saint Sunir region, within range of magical communication—but she had quickly understood: that Guardian of the Western Marches knew her well; Baiyu knew she would never consent to this bold, extreme "conspiracy," and that contacting her in advance would only let her act to stop it all from happening.
Duke Baiyu, who held Ansu's commerce in his grasp—perhaps his code of conduct was that of a merchant as well... precisely calculating the greatest benefit for this nation, then stopping at nothing to realize it... this was something Victoria, forever confined within Ansu's stale aristocratic fences, could probably never imitate.
Gao Yang had already strode out of the command post, and Victoria quickly composed herself and followed, but before getting into the vehicle, this Northern Duchess suddenly noticed that someone was missing from the scene: "Where has that Miss Amber gone?"
Gao Yang walked toward the magic-drive vehicle parked in the camp and said offhandedly, "She went to investigate a few things."
Deep within the camp, in a barracks tightly guarded by soldiers, a magic-web terminal hummed as it ran, and the printing device connected to it kept spitting out sheet after sheet of white paper, covered in vast quantities of text along with black-and-white images and meticulously hand-drawn insignia.
Amber sat beside the magic-web terminal, flipping through the printed sheets, a strange smile surfacing on her face—three parts satisfaction, seven parts mockery.
"There really are so many... and it's truly a marvel that Wilse could hold the city to this day with a pack like this dragging him down..."
...
The Cecil legion detached a guard unit and set out for the ruins of Mill Town outside Saint Frost Rest at the agreed time and place, and before they arrived, Wilse had already reached the spot.
This ruin, with little left but broken walls and rubble, was no longer worth seizing or repairing; the crystal-cluster giants' legion had trampled it flat, tearing down nearly all its buildings and walls, and it seemed the only proper way to deal with it was to raze it completely and rebuild.
The royal knightly order dispatched here had cleared the scattered monsters wandering near the ruins almost effortlessly, then planted the Ansu banner upon a heap of broken bricks and tiles.
When the rumble of cannon fire came from the direction of Crow Terrace, the knightly order encamped silently where it stood; they had already received their orders—no matter what happened, they must not leave this place—and if nothing happened at Crow Terrace...
...their task was to ambush and kill the returning nobles here.
The Ansu banner fluttered beside the town reduced to ruins; broken bricks and collapsed walls gave off an air of desolation in the sunlight, and a silent knightly order guarded this expanse of rubble, while Wilse Morm led the surviving nobles and soldiers loyal to him and stood outside the town, watching those ferocious, grotesque steel war machines roll into the open ground.