Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 422 - 274: Red Tide’s Strategic Forge_2
Chapter 422: Chapter 274: Red Tide’s Strategic Forge_2
Each wagon was loaded full with heavy grain sacks, tightly sealed at the mouth, and the marked cloth strips fluttered gently in the wind.
The coachman held a long whip, eyes fixed on the road ahead, as the wheels rolled over the stone-paved road, making a dull, rumbling sound.
The knight at the front raised his whip high and shouted: “Keep moving, no delays!”
The voice pierced through the valley, and the coachmen responded in unison, the convoy slightly accelerated, snaking its way to the end of the main road, slowly advancing towards Red Tide Territory.
……
The night wind grew stiff, and the chill deepened in the valley.
In the forest by the roadside, a squad of Barbarian scouts crept closer.
They were the vanguard of a certain Barbarian Race from the Northern Territory, about fifty of them, riding short-legged war horses with shaggy fur, faces smeared with black mud, wielding short bows and axes and spears, moving with the stealth of a wolf pack.
Seeing the vast convoy in the valley, they crouched behind rocks, their eyes glinting with greed like hungry wolves staring at a pile of meat.
“What’s happening… just the grain wagons alone are nearly a hundred!”
“Tsk, look at those sacks, all dried and processed grains. Snatching one wagon would be a huge haul.”
“But there sure are a lot of knights…” The leading Barbarian chief frowned.
He wasn’t foolish, he could see at a glance that the escort knights for the grain convoy were very disciplined, though not many in number.
But every ten wagons had a unit of Elite Knights; a direct attack would easily lead to total annihilation.
However, greed had already set their hearts ablaze.
It was a real mountain of gold and grain; one wagon could save a tribe through winter.
“Rushing in directly is unrealistic.” He licked his dry lips, eyes turning cold, “But no matter how many they have, there are blind spots at night. We won’t hit the whole team, just tear a gap, grab what we can and go.”
His gaze swept over a segment of slope below the mountain path, where the terrain was relatively gentle, only two hundred paces from the edge of the convoy, with the sentry spacing somewhat distant.
Beyond that were a few slower-moving rear wagons.
“Go down from there, take advantage of the night, attack when they change posts, quickly and neatly snatch two wagons.”
“Raiding complete, scatter, retreat into the forest in three separate routes, don’t linger.”
He gestured with a few signs, instructing the troops to divide into three: one to assault the convoy, another to distract the outer knights, and the last to ambush in the mountain forest for support.
“Just need one charge, hack open a small gap when they’re not paying attention, drag the wagons off immediately. Fight fast—don’t dawdle.”
His men nodded in agreement, gripping their weapons tightly, eyes eager for action.
Some even quietly tightened the hemp rope on their war axe handles, ready for a reckoning.
As long as the raid succeeded, it would be worth it.
Winter was coming, who wouldn’t want to stock up a few sacks of grain, a few barrels of flour? More valuable than anything.
Their shadows, like phantoms, slowly surrounded down the mountain forest from three sides, brewing murderous intent in the night wind, silently approaching the Red Tide grain convoy.
The night was their most familiar ally, with black mud on their faces and animal skins on their bodies, they almost blended into the rock wall, even the wind didn’t notice their approach.
But, suddenly—”Boom!!”
A Magic Explosion Bullet suddenly blasted, light as bright as day appeared abruptly, the deafening roar seemed to tear apart the night sky.
The five or six Barbarians at the forefront were instantly blown away by the blast, their bodies rolling in the air, shattered when hitting the rocks, flesh and broken stone mixed into a mass.
The aftershock of the explosion gently shook the entire mountain forest, scattered frightened birds, their cries raining down.
“There’s a trap!!”
“Retreat—retreat—!”
Hardly had they turned back when the second wave of fire broke from both sides.
The Red Tide Cavalry had long been lurking within the valley walls, and at this moment, using the firelight to illuminate the enemy’s shadow, charged down from above!
They were clad in red and black armor, red Fighting Energy burst along the armor’s contours, like war deities descending.
Lances and swords streaked blood in the night, giving the Barbarians no chance to breathe.
“Kill!”
The cavalry surrounded from three sides, iron hooves thundered like lightning, the war horses neighed, piercing through the rear formation of the Barbarian’s second scout route.
A Barbarian warrior had just drawn his axe when a lance pierced through his chest, sending him flying backward.
“Don’t let a single one live,” Lambert shouted, it was Louis’s order.
And Louis still sat atop the lead wagon, the vehicle steady as a rock.
He was glancing down at some recent Empire news, as if this battle was just the insects chirping at night, unrelated to him.
In fact, all this was under his control from the start.
Earlier that morning, the Daily Intelligence System had informed Louis of the Barbarian’s plan to intercept the grain convoy.
Thus, the Barbarian’s fate was sealed even before they encountered the convoy.
The battle lasted less than a quarter-hour, the last Barbarian scout attempting to climb the cliff was sliced in two from behind by a Red Tide Knight.
The bodies were quickly dragged to a mountain hollow for concentrated incineration, doused with pine oil and scrap cloth, ignited into a heap of charcoal ashes.
The Red Tide Cavalry quickly reformed, returning to the escort formation, the convoy as if never separated.
After this small episode, the wagon wheels pressed again onto the valley road, rolling over the scorched ground, where dust and ashes mixed rising up.
…
On the return grain route, Louis temporarily changed his itinerary.
Before the convoy reached Red Tide Territory, he personally led a small team, detoured to a rarely mentioned location—the Ancient Tomb of Shadow.
It was a special facility he meticulously planned and secretly remodeled.
Now it had a new name: Shadow Trial Arena, more precisely, it was the core base of Red Tide Territory’s internal code “Mental Forge.”
“Let’s go see the progress over there.” He said briefly, without much explanation.
To outsiders, it was no more than an abandoned ancient tomb in the north.
But in Louis’s heart, it was the furnace for hundreds of knights to rise, the crucible he would use to forge the true elite of the Red Tide.
