Chapter 390 - 273: Hero Saves the Beauty

Dawn broke as the sky slowly shifted from darkness to light. The first rays of morning spilled across the land. All was silent, save for the sigh of the morning wind.

A hazy mist shrouded the land, making it nearly impossible to see. Such an environment was perfect for doing things best left unseen.

A small squad of a dozen or so riders on warhorses, their hooves muffled with cotton cloth, moved like ghosts through the white mist, heading north.

Fatir glanced behind her. White Bone Fortress and the Demon camp were growing more distant, the scenery on either side falling away behind them. The crisp wind lifted her golden hair, giving her a strikingly valiant air.

This breakout had been easier than she’d expected.

The combination of the natural environment and concealment Magic proved incredibly effective, allowing them to slip past the Demons besieging White Bone Fortress almost completely unnoticed.

But it was also thanks to Damon and Lancelot that they’d been able to find a gap and break through.

Still, for some reason, a sense of unease lingered in Fatir’s heart.

’Everything is going far too smoothly.’

The Demons weren’t without Casters of their own. Her Stealth Skill might fool the rank-and-file Demons, but it could never deceive the Succubi and Wizards who were masters of Magic.

She and Bodoff had predicted they would face at least some resistance along the way, yet so far, there had been none.

"Your Highness, we’ve broken through the Demon blockade," a Holy Knight said, pointing to the rolling hills in the distance. "We just need to cross Fertile Field’s Lonely Peak, and we’ll be on Tulip Avenue, which leads straight to the nearest castle."

This stretch of fertile land was vast and boundless under a sky as clear as if it had been washed clean, looking like nature’s most generous gift.

But in the far distance, a solitary peak rose up like a pillar holding up the heavens, seeming to cleave the earth in two and inspiring a sense of awe in all who saw it.

"Let’s go," Fatir said calmly.

The riders removed the cotton cloth from their horses’ hooves and pushed onward at full speed.

CAW!

The thunder of hooves startled birds in the distance, sending them flapping into the sky.

...

After the main army had endured a heavy downpour upon setting off southward, the days that followed were filled with clear skies and bright sunshine, which greatly increased their marching speed.

They even marched through the night under the bright moon, traveling nonstop to make up for lost time.

It seemed their luck had finally turned. Good news arrived one after another, starting with a dozen or so Griffin Knights acting as couriers, frequently flying back and forth.

They brought a personal letter from the King, who had decided to dispatch all the Griffin Knights as reinforcements. The Eastern Territory would also be sending suitable soldiers to support them.

Only the letter from the Western Territory stated that tensions along their border with the Holy Sith Kingdom were escalating, making it difficult to spare soldiers. They could only offer material support.

This, however, made the Northern Nobles breathe a collective sigh of relief. They even held a small celebration for it—their King hadn’t completely lost his mind to the Goblins yet.

After the meeting, Levi laid everything out for his subordinates from High Cliff Castle.

He didn’t expect these brutes to understand the deeper implications, but he wanted them to at least learn to follow his train of thought.

"Brother-in-law, won’t the Holy Sith Kingdom take this chance to attack Debei?" Mier, ever the worrywart, was concerned about other matters.

"What are you thinking? When it comes to a war between nations, things are never as simple as they seem on the surface," Levi said, shaking his head and taking a bite of a juicy apple. "Don’t be fooled by the posturing that makes it look like a fight could break out at any second. You have to remember, a dog that bites doesn’t bark. The more noise they make, the less likely they are to actually attack."

"Look at the real wars in history—weren’t they all sudden attacks? Have you read about the blitz on Sulan? A real war starts with a sudden blitzkrieg to dismantle the enemy’s defensive lines in the shortest possible time, seizing the advantage and the initiative."

In reality, although the Holy Sith Kingdom had experienced a commercial boom in recent years, growing rapidly from a small nation to even overshadowing Debei for a time, that wasn’t the whole story.

One had to remember that a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. While Debei’s annual military budget had been cut thanks to a King who neglected his duties, the same wasn’t true for everyone.

The other four established Dukes hadn’t reduced their military spending; on the contrary, they had grown even stronger.

After all, the saying "Dukes are forged of iron, while Kings are but a flowing stream" wasn’t just empty words.

Take the Martel Family in the Northern Territory, for instance. That ancient family had existed even longer than Debei itself and were deeply rooted nobles of the North.

"Unless something appears that both sides are willing to go to war over, a full-scale conflict won’t break out. Without an overwhelming advantage, war would only allow a third party to reap the spoils of victory," Levi added a moment later.

The Middle Ages Continent had seven kingdoms, and the Holy Sith Kingdom wasn’t the only one that bordered Debei.

All the kingdoms were watching one another. While they all tacitly abided by an agreement to never allow an eighth kingdom to emerge, if any one of them was getting beaten down, the others would be more than happy to join in. If asked why, the answer would simply be, "We’ve been waiting for a chance to take them down a peg."

"Enough about that." Levi suddenly realized that discussing grand strategy was too sophisticated a topic for this group of country bumpkins from High Cliff Castle. The utterly blank look on Zat’s face told him the man hadn’t absorbed a single word.

After all, their past experience was limited to village skirmishes involving a few hundred people. Although they were now witnessing much larger events, the concepts were still too abstract for them.

"Leiden, where are we?" Levi asked, standing on a high slope and raising a spyglass to his eye.