Chapter 977 — Detonation Point
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 5
But it did not matter that he could not figure it out—the situation here had already been urgently relayed to the imperial capital, and the army at Changfeng Fortress had already completed its preparations and assembly according to contingency plans; even as the Iron Throne—Jörmungandr annihilated those Iron River Knights, the bulk of the First Legion was ready to mount a ferocious counterattack. Cecil's warriors had never relaxed; everyone was prepared for war, and now war had merely come a little inexplicably and a little suddenly—but since those Typhonites had come... then they would not be leaving.
Next, perhaps it would be Winterwolf Fortress's turn to shed some blood.
……
The Winterwolf Knights halted after crossing the boundary line at Covenant Fortress; the faster griffin scouts and several mechanized mage squads continued westward.
This was An Luo's arrangement—she had to prepare for the worst.
If the vanguard could catch up with the Iron River Knights, they could interpose themselves to delay, harass, and stall those knights who had already lost control, while the Winterwolf Knights in the rear could use the opportunity to charge and build up power and launch an attack on the rogue knights—this was the only means she could think of, after seeing those mutated War God priests, by which those out-of-control knights might be stopped. Though an ordinary knight order could not employ a legion attack on the scale of the "thermal cone," An Luo was still fully confident that, given numerical superiority and tactical coordination, she could intercept Count Mogelrock and his knights.
But if the vanguard failed to catch the target, if the target had already successfully carried out their terrible plan...
Then the Winterwolf Knights would have more time and space to withdraw swiftly back into Typhon territory, fill in along the Winterwolf Fortress defense line, and make ready.
Make ready to face the Cecilians' furious counterattack.
Of course, even now, a tiny sliver of hope still lingered in An Luo's heart—she hoped Count Mogelrock had not yet become as irredeemable as those mutated War God priests, hoped the warriors of the Iron River Knights could still be stopped by relatively gentle means, because unless absolutely necessary, she would never wish to point her sword at the Typhonites...
Suddenly, bright magical flares rose in the distance, cutting short all of An Luo's reflections.
Three red ones.
The young wolf general watched the magical flares climb into the sky, her expression grimmer than it had ever been.
This was no longer something that could be settled at a negotiating table.
In the next hundredth of a second, An Luo cast out every thought in her mind that was doomed never to come true, accepted the cold fact, turned, and raised her longsword—
"Back to Winterwolf Fortress!"
……
The urgent dispatch from the border raced through the relay nodes of the magic net, crossing mountains and rivers in the blink of an eye. By the time the terrifying torrent of the rainbow light cannon swept across the land, a special magic-net terminal in the Supreme Administrative Hall was already humming with insistent urgency.
As the passive party, the Cecil Empire's capital received the news even faster than the Typhonians who had "initiated the war."
The clerk in charge of this magic-net terminal was a young woman. She darted to the desk, connected the device, and within the next few seconds her face went slack with astonishment.
The girl had been transferred to this office less than a week ago and seemed not yet to have grasped what she was hearing, but the next moment Hetty, passing through the corridor nearby, had already pushed the door open.
"What's happened?" Hetty looked at the young clerk standing frozen beside the magic-net terminal. "Why do you look so dazed?"