Crimson Knights

After picking off three unlucky fools in a row, the situation on the battlefield gradually began to change. The troops on both sides had become locked in a melee, and the scene was utter chaos.

The noble knights who had just been slaughtering enemies in every direction now found themselves in danger as well, trapped beneath layer upon layer of Rebel Army encirclement.

Even an elephant could be bitten to death by ants. No matter how powerful a knight's combat strength was, he could not withstand the Rebel Army's endless tide. After personally witnessing two noble knights being dragged from their horses, Hudson became even more determined to keep lying low.

Unable to keep picking on isolated enemies, Hudson hurriedly regrouped with his own men and harassed the enemy from the left flank.

"Charge in and relieve our allies?"

The thought had barely surfaced before Hudson decisively crushed it. The men under his command were no elite force. They could fight a winning battle from the sidelines and bully scattered enemies, but charging in for a decisive battle against the enemy would be suicide.

One only had to look at the noble private armies. Once their lords had taken the lead in charging, everyone else had blindly followed, only to become locked in a bitter struggle with the Rebel Army.

To turn the situation around now, they either had to wait for the troops inside the fortress to charge out or wait for other noble private armies to join the battlefield.

Today was the stipulated final deadline. Any ambitious noble private army would arrive on time. Time was on their side; theoretically, the longer they dragged things out, the more favorable it would be for the army suppressing the rebellion.

But theory was only theory. As time passed, the noble knights trapped in the encirclement found it increasingly difficult to hold on.

Crushing the Rebel Army with a single charge had ultimately been nothing more than a fantasy. The enemies before them seemed as though they had been injected with madness, fearlessly launching attacks without regard for death.

To make their attacks effective, many rebel soldiers did not even bother dodging the knights' counterattacks. They did not care if they injured their own men. Hudson personally saw one rebel soldier choose to take a spear thrust rather than give up throwing the weapon in his hand.

As long as there were enough of them, accuracy and hit rate did not matter. No matter how formidable a knight was, he could not defend himself from every direction without a blind spot.

Powerful knights being overwhelmed to death on the battlefield by serfs who had only just put down their hoes—it was truly a bitter irony.

For a time, Hudson even regretted setting up that alliance. If not for the alliance, would he not still be hiding in the back and watching the show?

Now that things had come to this, no matter how unwilling he was, he could only grit his teeth and join in. To make himself less conspicuous, Hudson was forced to dismount and blend into the infantry ranks.

Watching the comrades around him grow fewer and fewer, Knight Chels, who had been charging forward triumphantly, gradually realized the severity of the problem.

These enemies were clearly abnormal. Every one of them was bloodthirsty, completely indifferent to their own lives. They were not ordinary rebels at all.

"Break out!"

Chels shouted.

Now was not the time to show off. No matter how important military merit was, it could not compare to one's own life.

Poor military command ability did not mean his political wisdom was equally nonexistent. Quite a few nobles who had charged alongside him had already died. If this continued, he would not be able to answer for it.

Deep down, Chels had already cursed Count Pierce's ancestors for three generations. They had come all this way to help relieve his siege, and the battle had reached this point, yet he still would not send troops!

The knights under Chels's command were the standard-bearers of the battlefield. The moment they retreated, the morale of the Noble Allied Forces instantly collapsed.

The ones taking the lead in fleeing were, unsurprisingly, the elite troops of each house. Clearly, the elites who had survived "countless battles" were all masters of running away.

Without any surprise, Hudson also withdrew with his men. Since he had been moving along the edge of the battlefield all along and there was no one blocking his path behind him, the retreat went exceptionally smoothly.

Watching the Noble Allied Forces collapse, Count Pierce inside Ethel Fortress suddenly realized he had overplayed his hand again. He had to send troops. If the Rebel Army won a sweeping victory, there would be no reinforcements left.

The nobles were not fools. With this precedent, the nobles arriving later might very well turn around and leave. Even if the dispute reached the Royal Capital, Pierce would be the one in the wrong.

Thinking of this, Pierce was filled with rage. No matter what, he was supposed to be a man of outstanding strategy, yet something always went wrong whenever it came to actual execution.

He had originally intended to use the Rebel Army to weaken the nobles of Wright County, but he had underestimated the Skull Society's strength. As a result, the rebels ravaged two counties and sent the situation completely out of control.

He had just wanted to use the Rebel Army to weaken the noble lords, but he had not expected the Noble Allied Forces to be so useless. They had been defeated in less than two hours of fighting.

Weakening them too much turned it into an accident. Everything had its limits. Whether he wanted to or not, he now had to send troops to save the remnants of the Noble Allied Forces.

Otherwise, he would become the public enemy of the small and mid-sized nobles in the Southeast Province. From then on, his position as governor would be nothing but an empty shell, and no one would listen to his orders.

After gathering the fortress's elite troops, Count Pierce raised his knight's lance, mounted his Flame Lion, and swept his lance forward as he commanded, "The evil Skull Society has launched a rebellion, intending to overthrow the kingdom's sacred rule.

"For the stability of the kingdom, for the glory of the Lord of Dawn, for our honor—warriors of the Crimson Knights, follow me into battle!"

The magnificent fortress gates slowly opened. Sunlight spilled across the knight lances, casting cold gleams from their surfaces.

Count Pierce led the way atop his Flame Lion and leaped out of the fortress. More than two hundred knights followed close behind, with a thousand cavalrymen of the Crimson Knights behind them.

A thousand riders galloped forth, erupting with an earth-shaking momentum that struck fear into the heart.

Seeing the cavalry charge, the rebels besieging the city immediately took action. Spearmen moved to the front, while archers unleashed a barrage of arrows that blanketed the Knight Order.

Unfortunately, it was all futile. Count Pierce swept his lance, knocking aside the countless arrows in the sky and protecting both himself and his mount without a gap, continuing his charge.

As they neared the spearmen's formation, the Flame Lion suddenly spat out something like molten lava. The rebels who failed to evade it instantly turned into human torches. The surrounding soldiers fled in panic, and the scene descended into chaos.

Seizing the moment of confusion among the rebels, Count Pierce charged into their ranks and slaughtered in every direction alongside the Flame Lion.

Using the breach Count Pierce had opened, the other knights surged in madly as well, and the spear formation immediately collapsed.

Without their formation to rely on, the rebels suffered grievous losses under the slaughter of the cavalry.

However, Count Pierce clearly had no time to harvest ordinary soldiers. Ignoring the defeated fleeing troops entirely, he led his forces straight toward the enemy commander's banner.

Anyone with even a little military knowledge knew that Count Pierce was preparing to capture the king first.

As the cavalry drew closer and closer, the Grey-robed Elder watching from the high platform sneered. "The Crimson Knights truly deserve to be one of the Alpha Kingdom's ten great Knight Orders. They are indeed weapons of war!

"Rick, sound the Blood Moon Horn. Let the cannon fodder play slowly with these annoying cavalrymen first. Let us see just how many they can kill."