Chapter 436: The Royal’s Stratagem (Part 2)

Lex was unlike Saleen, she was the Queen of a country. Tens of thousands of people had to rely on her to live. Her every movement and every decision would be responsible for all those people. Gurney could take the risk for wealth, but Lex could not.

She stayed in Fort Strand for three days. She looked as though she was looting the storehouse, but in actual fact, she was observing the army nearby.

Fort Strand was just a small city. At the bigger cities nearby, there would be teleportation portal that was connected to Holy Rock city. It might not be able to transport a human, but it would not be a problem to transport items and sound. Three days time was more than enough for Holy Rock city to respond.

The very next day after Lex attacked Fort Strand, Holy Rock city received the news.

Safilos looked worried in the prince’s residence, but he was not in violent rage like how the others predicted. He was not stupid, he knew that Lex’s move implied that she broke off with him and she would even start a war.

The Grukos family had never had such an incident before. From how Safilos looked at it, Lex who was smart should know to back off. Safilos had made a mistake, not only did Lex not back off, but she took down Fort Strand directly. Nash’s situation was unknown.

Safilos stayed in the residence for the entire day, without managing any official duty until the second night. He sent an order to the chief commander in Guderian city, to allow him to pass.

Safilos understood Bitter Water Prefecture’s capability. Lex’s soldiers were not any weaker compared to the swordsmen in Holy Rock city. If they were to launch a siege forcibly, Phoenix would collapse. They had yet to settle the fighting with the Eastern Sea Allied Army, Safilos could not let the north have any more incidents.

Three days later, Lex received the news. There were about fifteen regiments that set off for Solar city to attack the last fortress in Phoenix.

Solar city actually was already surrounded by more than five swordsmen’s camps. Half of the swordsmen’s camp went over and it was only an embellishment to what was happening. Lex then relaxed, Solar city would not be able to defend themselves because the nobles in Phoenix did not keep the mages in Solar city and all of mages had left.

The army in Guderian city did not attack ferociously because they did not want to damage Solar city. Holy Rock city conquered Phoenix, not because of hatred, but to take the manor in. Solar city was a thousand year old city, the value was high. If it was ruined by fire, the loss would outweigh the gain.

Lex understood Holy Rock city was retreating to let her pass.

Lex did not hesitate, but immediately sent down orders of advancing. She brought ten-thousand soldiers and ten-thousand auxiliary soldiers with a few thousand immigrants. Now there were another four-thousand captives. Thirty-thousand people set out to the north of Phoenix in mighty contingents.

Then, something Lex did not expect happened. Along the way, there were many Phoenix nobles that came to seek refuge. Some of those nobles did not resist Holy Rock city, some had yet to lose any manor. Holy Rock city would not kill all of the nobles in Phoenix as they had to rope in some of them.

Those nobles decided to seek refuge from Lex and they even brought their own armies and some loyal residents.

Although the lordlings only had a few hundred soldiers, putting them together, there were also five-thousand soldiers. Accompanied with residents, Lex’s troop grew to fifty thousand and more.

The residents that the nobles brought along were not one that had free meals. Most of them were carpenters. If they could follow the nobles to leave, the nobles must have at least taken care of dozens of generations of the carpenter families. They must have exquisite craftsmanship.

Even the farmers that followed the nobles looked very familiar to Lex. Specifically a kind of farmers that were alike to magic apprentices that mastered some agriculture skill that allow the soil to grow more food.

Lex’s troop was getting bigger. When she arrived at the border of Phoenix, there were a hundred-thousand people. If she did not prepare countless amounts of goods and materials, she would not be able to handle so many people because mages were ten times the number of a normal army.

It was already March, but the north of Phoenix was still snowing. If these people did not have high level military tents. Many of them would freeze to death.

Lex’s expenses expanded by a few folds. Fortunately, the nobles that left Phoenix helped Lex to bring along the food that was saved over the years.

Lex would not be considered as taking a loss. She got a huge amount of crop seeds, magic fertilizer that was hoarded by the nobles, and metal ingots that were in the storehouse. There were even some nobles that told their underlinings to dismantle their houses and bring everything that they could bring along.

Lex could not feel happy at all. These nobles had given up their hope towards Holy Rock city entirely, but they knew that they could not resist so they decided to seek refuge from her. In actual fact, the empire was starting to break apart. It started in Phoenix and due to her appearance it increased in intensity.

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Merlin’s prediction was being realized gradually.

On the sea at east-north, the battle ended in less than five minutes. Four grade-6 mages flew towards the dragon warship. On the bow of the dragon warship, there was a sudden gray light that shot out of the dragon’s mouth. A grade-6 mage’s shield was broken that instant and he fall into the sea.

That was the way a dragon warship fought against an enemy’s huge warship. After shooting the first time, it required another six hours’ time to shoot the second time. In other words, it could only be used once in one battle. Such a magic ray with strong penetrative force would not have any attributes, or it could be said it had mixed elemental attributes. Igniting such magic rays did not require any magic nuclei with special attributes, but the number of magic nuclei required was huge.

It was originally discovered when the cast technique of a magic cannon was lost to the world. It was a pity that there was no any actual fighting meaning. It could only be shot once in a battle after all, it was close to meaningless.

It would not be useful if the attack power was any stronger, it was a mono attack.

It could not be said that the magic array was useless to use on the sea. Such attacks from the dragon warship only needed to be used against the warship with the strongest defence, or any flagship would do.

With one attack, it could win against the biggest threat.

The four grade-6 mages were considered unlucky as they gathered to fly towards the dragon warship’s attack route. Such a magic ray did not have any aiming power, it was used for big targets. A target that was worth activating the magic array was basically any huge thing that was bigger than a hundred meters. The four mages flew forward side by side, supporting a magic shield that could defend against a crossbow, which was about twenty meters wide.

Jade skeletons decided that the danger that the four grade-6 mages posed would be parallel to a huge warship, so they activated the magic array immediately. The spirits of the dead would not be worried about money. The one shot was like killing mosquitoes with a magic cannon. It shot right one of the grade-6 mages. The power of life in the mage’s body was suddenly replaced by messy elements and he was dead over and over again.

The rest of the three mages did not know that was a one-time attack and dispersed out of fear immediately. They flew twards the dragon warship in three different directions.

The ferocious looking dragon warship was covered in huge green scales and rode the waves with swift current as though it was a mutated giant dragon.

One of the mages landed on the front deck only a dozen meters away from Saleen. He flew into the air and his elements were unstable so he did not release magic from above. The young mage on the deck was not any higher than grade-5, so he did not mind finishing the battle with close magic.

The mage was experienced and he could tell straight away that Sika was not a swordsman and she did not train any sword aura. He thought he need not to worry about a mage that was only grade-5 either.

Empiricist would cost their life. The moment the gray robed mage landed on the deck, Saleen released the water current from his calabash. A six meter long dark green water current suddenly weaved into a dark colored water ball in front of him. The water ball flew towards the mage and after the water ball, Sika leaped forward.

The magic shield that the grade-6 mage used was the rarely seen Stone Dust spell. That was the only intermediate defence magic that could compare favorably with ice plate armor. The only downfall was it was a level higher than ice plate armor, which was ten times the expense. To a grade-6 mage, it was not considered as a heavy expense.

Theoretically, current cutter that just got to grade-4 could not break the defence of the Stone Dust spell, but Saleen’s water current was alive and could be manipulated at his convenience and it would not use up his magic chords. The mutated water ball knocked onto the magic shield and turned into four snake head like spikes and poked through the black dust.

The dark green water current was suddenly cut short while the black dust was in total disintegration. Sika waved her cudgel and leapt forward. The grade-6 mage suddenly released a Wind Blade spell and added an ice plate armor for himself. In his hand, he immediately had an extra magic staff too.

The young mage opposite broke his Stone Dust spell that instant and he got serious. The wind blade was to kill the female warrior and the magic staff was to fight against Saleen. This magic staff had a grade-7 magic stored within it and it was sufficient to kill a grand mage.

He belittled Sika. He wanted to kill a warrior priestess with a level three Wind Blade spell, that must be a joke. Sika was wearing the armor that was made with the water flame by Saleen. Even if it was a combat fight, she could resist it. That was not something for a normal soldier to wear, Saleen made it with the best material he had.

Sika did not want to take the risk, her left arm suddenly appeared with a water shield to block the attack of the wind blade. Then, her cudgel broke the grade-6 mage’s ice plate armor.

When the cudgel hit the ice plate armor, there were ten spikes that popped up at the tip and the ice plate armor shattered.

Sika broke the mage’s waist with one hit. Sika’s cudgel continuously broke dozens of Saleen’s water shields, an intermediate magic would not be able to withstand it.

To fight against Sika, either be like a swordsman and fight hand to hand ,or be like archer and dodge it. To fight hard, the consequences were certain. In Sika’s cudgel, there was not only material from the giant dragon, the main material was Faerun’s set of metal cubes. That mysterious metal was melted into Sika’s weapon, and just the material alone was not inferior to a semi godly item.

Faerun straightaway promoted to grade-7 sorcerer from a grade-6 mage because of the weapons he made. Anyone who belittled the cudgel died, there were no exceptions.