The twilight light poured onto the watchtower of Silver Creek Mines, illuminating the exquisite pipe seized by Count Albert.
He gently stroked the pipe’s patterns, gazing beyond the tower eaves, toward the mine’s plaza below.
Two armies were transitioning their defenses.
One was the legion ford from the fusion of the Red Tide and Northern Army, their black uniforms appearing like the Death God in the sunset.
Albert watched this scene, a feeling he couldn’t quite describe surged within him.
A few months ago, he worried that the rigid nature of the Red Tide would grind away the fighting spirit of the Northern n.
But as they fought through battles, what he saw was not a tad beast, but a pack of wolves that understood discipline.
This change brought him comfort, yet it also involuntarily reminded him of that rainy night ten days ago, their first battle.
Only then he realized the true strength of Louis’s team.
Rain fell like a waterfall, crashing down from the sky.
When lightning illuminated the sky, Albert rembered standing in the mud outside Black Pine Fortress, looking skeptically at Lambert beside him.
Louis letting a naive youngster command? Too reckless.
The terrain of Black Pine Fortress couldn’t be captured without sacrificing lives, let alone achieving zero combat losses.
He had even decided that if Lambert commanded improperly, he would imdiately take over and lead the charge.
Yet, Lambert didn’t give him that chance.
The young man rely glanced at the letter written by Louis himself in his hand, then raised his hand and pointed at an inconspicuous section of the northwest wall of Black Pine Fortress.
Soon, a few knights, like shadows conjured up in the night, silently climbed the wall.
Albert rembered clearly, only a few dull crossbow thuds were heard, followed by a thunder-covered "boom."
As the flas lit up, that section of the wall was already cracked, stones rolling down.
At that mont, he was stunned.
It was as if Louis had disassembled the fortress beforehand, knowing which section of the stone was of the poorest quality, and which guards would slack off on a rainy night.
Albert had a near absurd thought: "If it were defending the city, I wouldn’t even know how I died."
More shocking than breaking the fortress were the actions of the Red Tide Army after the breach.
The treasury door was blasted open, the wage boxes scattered everywhere, a golden spectacle.
The Northern knights instinctively rushed to snatch money.
He didn’t find it wrong, after all, in the harsh Northern Territory, exchanging life for money was not disgraceful.
However, he would never forget Lambert’s silhouette.
Before a mountain of wealth, the young legion commander, without any hesitation, simply raised his hand.
The Red Tide Knights walked past them; no one reached out to touch even a single coin.
Albert was stunned in place at the ti, his chest felt like it was struck by a blunt object.
What he believed was Northern pride, at that mont, felt like peeling away the skin of disguise.
What Louis trained was a different kind of army that could remain calm in the face of a mountain of gold, though he later learned of the treatnt of the Red Tide Knights, and wasn’t so surprised.
He opened the Gray Rock map, a quarter of the Gray Rock Province had already been washed with the color of the Red Tide Legion.
A chill crawled up his spine.
He imagined an extrely dangerous hypothesis: "If I were Raymond’s vassal... or if there were a civil war in the Northern Territory, and I chose the opposing side of Louis..."
Scenes flickered in his mind:
He knew very well what it would be like once he stood on the opposite side, intelligence couldn’t be hidden at all, all deploynts laid out like paper on the opponent’s table.
Those hidden tactics wouldn’t hold for long before being exposed.
The city walls couldn’t even sustain the first alarm against the Magic Explosion Bullet, and as for those knights of his, they probably wouldn’t have ti to react before being crushed by the iron tide.
Albert’s throat tightened, coming to an undeniable conclusion: "Wouldn’t hold for a day. No... wouldn’t hold for half a day. My head would hang on the flagpole."
The tobacco in the pipe burned his fingertips unknowingly, making Albert shiver and co back from his mories.
"Count," Lambert pushed the door open, carrying the sll of smoke, "Silver Creek Mines have been cleaned up. As usual, the porridge tent has been set up, and the tyrannical mine owners are under public trial. Your knight order... did a very good job this ti."
Albert couldn’t help but smile, surprised that he’d be so happy to be complinted by soone of humble origin and half his age.
Suppressing the chill in his heart, he said to Lambert, "Lambert, where’s the next target? Is it Red Leaf Town ahead, or White River Crossing? My knight order requests to take the lead."
Lambert didn’t directly deny, but walked to the map, picked up a red pen, and lightly marked crosses next to several frontline strongholds.
His tone was steady and polite: "Count, if it were customary tis, I’d surely support you leading the charge. But Lord Louis reminded that the current situation has changed."
Albert frowned: "Several towns around are as empty as the bottom of a barrel. My n can randomly pick one to charge and directly occupy it."
"Precisely because of this, the enemy won’t be careless anymore." Lambert pointed at the densely packed red dots on the map. "Previous victories were based on intelligence blockades. They didn’t know where we ca from, nor where the next blow would fall. That’s different now."
He traced down the main road of Gray Rock Province: "According to Lord Louis, our entry information into Gray Rock Province has already returned to Gray Rock Castle.
Kael Remont’s reaction must be very quick; all vassals are converging toward the center. They burn grain, shut gates, drive laborers into the fortress, and turn those peripheral outposts into hollow shells but filled with traps."
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