The extreme northern wasteland used to be a vast snow field, but now it is an ice-free black sea.
The temperature was terribly low, and the witches had to cast spells on themselves to prevent the hot air from their mouths and noses from freezing on their faces, but the sea water did not freeze at all. The black sea water surged and made a rushing sound, wrapping people in it. The broken white waves of the waves become the only embellishment of this eerie Black Sea.
The sea is surging endlessly, and the ebb and flow are irregular.
The witches rode their brooms, pulled up the distance, and looked down from the sky.
In the sky, they finally found the suspicion, the sea water seemed to be flowing in one direction, and the spray was scattered like a huge whirlpool. Following the direction of the wave arc, they flew forward, and the sound of the sea became louder and louder, and finally became rumbling like a continuous thunder.
Here, the whole world is nothing but sea water.
A large whirlpool of thousands of meters, from which the sea water continues to fall, like falling into a dark and bottomless abyss. The wind blew upwards from the center of the vortex with water vapor, creating an inaccessible tornado. The rules of nature have no effect here.
The witches drew their wands, and light emanated from the tip of the wand, forming a hexagram in mid-air. The witch patriarch stood up from the broom, stepped on the lines of the hexagram, and walked in the void above the whirlpool, the wind blowing her black robe. The witch patriarch held the ice ball with the black snake in his left hand and an ink bottle carved from a keel in his right.
She stepped forward, the tornado separated by an invisible force in front of her.
When they reached the center of the whirlpool, the ice ball held by the witch patriarch's left hand floated upwards and quickly grew larger in the wind. The black snake that was sealed in it began to dissipate, and it turned into a law that was imprisoned in it. It was written in ancient divine script, and it was densely packed.
The witch patriarch opened the keel ink bottle, which was thick and sticky. I don't know whose blood flew from it and penetrated into the crystal ball. The blood gathered and twisted like snakes, forming one new letter after another, writing a new decree after the mutilated decree.
After the last word of the decree was formed, the witches could no longer maintain the formation, the light was interrupted, and the witch patriarch fell toward the abyss in the center of the vortex. A witch flew over quickly on a broom, grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the whirlpool with difficulty.
The circling wind column collapsed and disintegrated in an instant, and the violent wind swept in all directions.
The witches were blown away so far by the storm that it was almost impossible to see the whirlpools on the sea.
The light rose from the sea, and the witches wore special glasses to look in the direction of the whirlpool. The witch patriarch saw that the ice ball that the king handed her had grown so huge, like the moon falling from the sky to the sea. And this moon just fell on the whirlpool on the sea surface, filling the entire whirlpool.
White light spreads in all directions from the center of the vortex filled with ice balls, the black sea is covered with ice at an alarming rate, and snow begins to fall from the sky. Vaguely, the chaotic and violent forces that filled the northernmost point of this world are being quickly quelled.
The witch patriarch finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The new ordinance is exerting its power.
Since then, the last door connecting the dusty kingdom of the gods and the human world has been completely sealed.
…
The crow, carrying the letter, arrived at Jolin City with the dampness of the sea.
The long-awaited king stretched out his hand and took from the crow's leg the letter from the vast icefield on the other side of the Abyss Strait. After a quick glance at the letter from the witch patriarch, the king folded it and threw it into the fireplace.
"Let's go."
The king stood up and said to the chief of the house who was waiting on the side.
According to the plan, the king will now visit the wounded soldiers in person.
At this time the genius had just dawned, and people in the city could hear the sound of the boulders thrown by the trebuchets hitting the towers and walls. The king was roaring, without horse or carriage, walking through the streets of Jolin. Early risers and patrolling soldiers met him and saluted him, and he responded with a nod.
With the encouragement of her mother, a girl ran across the street and ran to the king, holding up a small flower basket full of roses and delivering it to the king.
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
The girl looked up at the king, who was about the same age as her brother.
"Kings bless Legrand."
"Kings bless Legrand."
The king said that he took a rose with morning dew from the basket and pinned it to his collar.
"Go and divide it among them, good girl."
The patrolling guards passed by in armor, and when they saw the king, they stopped and raised their swords in respect. The girl looked at the king, then at her mother, who was smiling at her, and ran towards the guards with the basket of flowers. Between heaven and earth, the morning light was faint, and the patrolling guards hurriedly took the flowers handed by the girl, and solemnly pinned it to their armor.
As if it was not just a rose, but a badge of honor.
"Let's go."
said the king to the chief of the interior.
It doesn't get any better than this.
The house chief looked at this scene, and vaguely understood the king's intention to choose to walk.
The roar and artillery fire were all too familiar to the people of Jolin City during this time. The Holy Land Holy Army led by Siold himself and the Frontier Holy Army that came up through the Doma River spread out from the east and west, and surrounded the city of Jolin. This is the largest siege it has encountered since the city of Jolim was built.
Relying on the king's early preparations, the establishment of a food distribution system in advance, and the daily broadcast of good news from the southeast, the atmosphere in Jolin City, which was blocked by the army, was not bad.
In the bar, the clown with canola on his face composes a cheerful song, throwing colorful balls and singing, in the song "complimenting" the Holy Army for being so worthy of Jolin, making it the center of the world, This is the crowning glory of Jolin City... and so on, some are the work of the clowns and the scoundrels themselves, and some are hard to say without the king's handwriting behind them.
In any case, with the blessing of the kings, the people of Jolin City are still optimistic and optimistic in the face of nearly 100,000 troops.
The opposite is the atmosphere of the Holy Army outside the city.
In wars, sieges have always been a matter of time and patience. If the besieged castle is strong enough and the fortifications are strong enough, the siege side often can only wait for the defending side to run out of food before winning. Sometimes it is not uncommon for a siege to last a year or two.
Unfortunately for the Holy Army, Jolin City was such a military fortress.
I don't know where Legrand got the neurotic architect, and they armed the castle to the teeth in a frenzy. The towers on the city wall are in tricky positions, and the archery holes are precisely calculated, and the firepower that overturns from the city wall is like a torrential rain, with no gaps. Legrand was not at all worthy of the "heretic" name that the Holy Court had placed on them. They did not know when they built a batch of crossbows that were banned by the Holy Court.
It was a veritable nightmare when soldiers armed with crossbows fired sharp arrows at siege soldiers from those archery holes that corresponded to each other.
When the soldiers of the Holy Army were hiding in the siege tower and approaching the city head, Legrand's people proposed buckets of green liquid to pour under the city wall. At first, the soldiers of the Holy Army were relieved to see that the oil was not boiling, but soon they found that the green liquid that the Legrands fell down was terribly corrosive. As soon as the wooden siege tower got on it, they immediately It fell apart. The soldiers fell from mid-air into the moat full of sharp gravel, bloody and unrecognizable.
Because of this "green liquid" like a secret weapon, the Holy Army firmly believed that Legrand really took refuge in evil and darkness.
The Holy Army officer sent someone to collect some green liquid at the risk of death, and identified it in the command post for a long time, but still could not tell what these things were.
In fact, this must be attributed to a group of people who were also in Jolim at this time.
They were from Legrand's First Pathological Research Department - "The Madman's Hospital" for short.
"It doesn't feel right. Who wants to come over and do another test?"
"Try the two together."
"No, the corrosiveness is too high for ordinary materials to withstand..."
…
In a hospital temporarily converted from a monastery, researchers in white robes moved quickly with various strange experimental subjects. In the hospital yard, buckets of dark green liquid were neatly lined up. People from the city guard came and went, carefully transporting the items from the hospital on carts.
Even if it wasn't the first time, when the house chief accompanied the king to step into the territory of these lunatics, he still subconsciously felt his scalp tingling, feeling that he was being surrounded by a group of neurotics.
The original Legrand No. 1 Pathological Research Department was set up on an uninhabited island not too far from the port of Cossoaia. After the fall of Cossoa, the king immediately ordered them to withdraw from the southeast coast as quickly as possible. The Pathology Research Department has gathered almost all of Legrand's current elite biomedical talents. Each of these people is important to Legrand. wealth.
It is worth mentioning that the researchers of the madman hospital regarded their research results and various experimental subjects as treasures, and almost failed to retreat because they were reluctant to bear these samples and data. Thanks to the new witches who joined the research department, they solved the problem with their witchcraft and flying brooms.
Under the protection of the witches, some researchers withdrew experimental samples, materials, etc. to Metzl City, where the Rose Palace was located, while others came to Jolin City with other things. A good pharmacist often It can also play another role, and the knowledge that has been ignored in the past will be revealed on the battlefield this time.
The green liquid that the officers of the Holy Army could not identify was the work of this group of researchers.
After the king and the devil killed the lord of "greed and ill-gotten wealth", the gold coins guarded by the lord were sent to the royal family's warehouse. The gold coins were covered with green, highly corrosive, unknown liquid. Adhering to the principle of "making the best use of everything", the king asked people to collect those green liquids uniformly when cleaning the gold coins.
After the establishment of the First Pathological Institute of Legrand, the king sent some of those liquids to the institute.
The researchers at the madmen's hospital really lived up to their expectations and came up with some results. Using the unique corrosive slime from the hell lords as raw materials, they formulated a new liquid weapon that is highly targeted to siege equipment, and named it "greedy saliva".
In addition to this part of the work that is not so obvious, the madman's hospital with the "Pathology Research Department" signboard is also a serious hospital. In this era when military doctors on the battlefield generally acted as priests, this is undoubtedly a very rare favorable condition.
Although the defense of the city was successful, there were still many wounded soldiers.
Some suffered broken legs because of the boulder hitting the city wall, and some were injured while repelling the enemies who climbed the city. The wounded soldiers in the garrison were replaced immediately and brought to this gloomy-looking hospital.
The lobby of the monastery has been modified and filled with beds.
"Gentlemen, please stay calm. Anyone who wants to sneak out before the injury is healed will just wait for me to throw them into the bucket." The head of the pathological research department of Legrand No. 1 in a white robe is serious about cleanliness. The pharmacist Duna led a disgraced young man and walked in quickly.
In addition to the somewhat unusual research field, the medical skills of the members of the Pathology Research Department themselves are undoubtedly excellent. Under the strict requirements of their cleanliness minister, the cleanliness of the hospital is ten blocks away from ordinary clinics. The kind of ointment made from newborn puppies and laurel earthworms[1] has no place here.
However, the fact that the death rate of the wounded is so low is related to other people besides the madness hospital's emphasis on disinfection and sterilization. That's the witches. Some very serious injuries were rescued with witch potions.
The wounded soldiers were surprised to find that their wounds recovered much more smoothly than expected here, and the suicide note they wrote was almost useless. The only thing I'm not used to is that the people in this hospital are a bit overly clean and weird from top to bottom.
If possible, everyone is eager to get out of here early.
Seeing the young man who failed to "escape", the other wounded lying in the lobby couldn't help laughing happily.
The young soldier who was ridiculed had a bitter face, and he couldn't say a word under the pharmacist's torrential scolding.
Soon, however, he was happy again, almost too happy, so to speak.
Because the king came in from the entrance of the hall - their majesty actually came to visit the wounded soldiers in person.
Everyone's laughter stopped in an instant, and the wounded couldn't believe their eyes. Near the door, a soldier was so excited that he forgot his injuries, rolled over and got off the bed, wanting to salute the king.
"Lie down, sir."
The king pressed his shoulders and spoke in a half-joking tone.
"I don't want to see my soldiers lose their lives for an innocuous salute without being taken by enemy arrows."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The soldier answered excitedly.
The pharmacist stepped forward and led the king past the hospital bed, while telling the king about the cause of the wounded, the current level of treatment, the level of recovery, and the possible sequelae. The king listened patiently, occasionally asking the soldiers by name.
"Recover well, Legrand will remember you."
After walking around, the king looked around and raised his voice.
"For the glory of Legrand!"
The wounded answered in unison.
…
Time passed between the offense and defense of both sides, the chill of autumn became more and more divine, and winter seemed to come at any time.
The war is in a stalemate.
The Holy Army cut off all connections between Jorin and the outside world, and Jorin's weapons and food were rapidly decreasing. But the Holy Army was not able to gain further victory, and once they succeeded in digging down a tower of Jolin Castle. But when they woke up the next day, they found that the Legrands had repaired the tower overnight.
As time passed, Legrand's soldiers were encouraged by the good news from the southeast, and morale did not drop. Some of the wounded wanted to fight back on the city walls before they fully recovered—if the researchers at the madmen's hospital were not too strong, they might have done so.
Unlike them, the morale of the Holy Army outside the city was sluggish at this time.
The wells near the garrison were poisoned by the Legrands, so they had to go to great lengths to bring fresh water from the Doma River. In addition, the surrounding food and materials have been transported away by the Legrand people in advance, and it is simply impossible to supply the army of so many people with the food scavenged from the countryside. Previously, the arrival of the Frontier Sacred Army was equivalent to opening a grain transportation road for the Sacred Army from the Doma River. The food was transported from the port on the east coast of the Abyss Strait through the fleet of the Border Sacred Army, temporarily relieving the pressure of the Sacred Army. .
The problem is that after Ferry III rebuilt Blasey, he took back control of their grain shipping ports, completely cutting off their grain shipping routes at the source.
Food is the life of an army. Blaise returned to the country and the news of the port being seized spread to the Holy Army, causing a great uproar. Except for the Knights Templar, which belonged directly to Pope Theold himself, the other commanding officers who participated in the Holy Army movement cared far more about supplies than the siege of Colin City itself.
- The current situation is really not optimistic for them.
They desperately need food.
According to Siold's order, the Holy Army of the Sea from the southeast and north of Legrand was the most dissatisfied. They believed that Siold's decision made the Holy Army lose all its victories. Their sacrifices in the Southeast were rendered meaningless, and the gains they had achieved were in vain.
The Holy Land Holy Army, which is directly commanded by the Pope, does not seem to be doing much better.
In the Holy Army of the Holy Land, apart from the main force of the old nobles of Blaise who was destroyed in the Battle of Douro City, there are also some small nobles and wandering knights who tried to climb the big tree of the Holy Court. They followed the Temple Knights from the very beginning. group action. After landing from the port of Putao, crossing the Maison Hills and over the Kava Mountains along the way, I was exhausted from the long journey. Fortunately, the knights who did not damage their horses on the journey had to reluctantly slaughter their war horses as food.
Legrand almost chopped down the nearby wood early, and the only small amount of wood was confiscated in order to make engineering equipment. Lack of firewood made it difficult for soldiers to cook raw meat and soften dry food. Ordinary infantrymen were treated even worse, and they had to catch some mice and wild dogs in the fields and feed themselves on wild grass.
In this case, soldiers began to sneak away at night. But food shortages and desertion are not the most serious problems for the Holy Army.
- Right now, the most troublesome thing is the sudden conflict between the Holy Land Holy Army, the Sea Holy Army, and the Frontier Holy Army.
The Holy Frontier Army was responsible for blocking the waterways of Jorin City, and also assumed the responsibility of transporting food from the port of Hrid City to Jorin City. When Ferry III recaptured the Holy Empire's grain port, the Holy Army's sea lifeline was cut off. The situation of the Frontier Holy Army is better than that of the Holy Land Holy Army, and they still have their own food.
Seeing that the Alliance can still have bread to eat, I have to eat raw horse meat and even mice that are hard to swallow. The Holy Land Holy Army and the Sea Holy Army are getting more and more anxious day by day, and many knights with violent personalities accuse the Frontier Holy Army of intercepting. Food that should have belonged to them. Faced with the accusation that came out of nowhere, the Frontier Holy Army, who had been a transporter for a while, was to be suspected.
If time drags on like this, the desertion of soldiers brought by hunger will become a small problem, and what is more serious is that it is likely to cause the alliance to break down, and everyone will turn against each other.
When Theolde was examining the finally completed defensive structure diagram of Jolin City in the main account, Sisien lifted the curtain and walked in with a worried expression.
"They fought."
Siseon reports.
Siold marked one place on the map, without looking up, as if he wasn't worried about it at all. During this period of time, Siold had paid no attention to the commotion of the soldiers below. Sisien didn't know exactly what he was planning.
"Several Blasey knights and border knights fought, and it has been stopped." Scythian was obviously very anxious, "but... Your Majesty, food is a problem. And... "
"Come on, what's the bad news."
Siold asked peacefully, standing upright, examining the drawings.
"There are rumors that the Holy Spirit Bay was captured by the Nujin Empire."
Sisian carefully organizes his words.
The news came from the Legrands, and it was written on strips of cloth and tied to those sharp arrows that the Legrands shot. After learning about this, Xisian quickly sent someone to destroy the cloth banners and strictly prohibited the spread of rumors. But what made him suspicious was that if this was true, the Holy Army should have known about it before Legrand.
unless…
In the Holy Army, someone blocked the news.
And in the Holy Army, only one person can do this.
That's Siold.