Grand Guardian Saint George

With the Grand Guardian's escort, Lily quickly pushed her wheelchair to Iver.

After exchanging pleasantries, he gladly accepted the Grand Guardian's invitation.

"I happen to have something else to say to you."

Iver said this.

The Grand Guardian glanced at the Flame Butterfly that was quietly perched on Iver's shoulder and nodded slightly.

He observed Iver carefully.

Although he looked a little unwell... he was clearly in good health and looked well. This meant that Aleister had at least not neglected Iver's diet.

In that case, perhaps my guess is correct...

Unlike Lily, Iver immediately recognized the Grand Guardian of Avalon, "Saint George".

—It wasn't because he later joined the game or became some kind of boss.

It's not because he's in the game's opening cinematic, but because he's in the game's opening cutscene.

If you wait a little longer on the game's loading screen, the trailer will start playing automatically. This could be because you're AFK (away from keyboard), or you might be updating or verifying files.

The content of the cutscenes is intelligent and consistent with the player's previous main storyline progress—it uses a concise summary to recount all the major events you've experienced so far, up to the current main storyline. Then, if it's not finished updating, it goes back and retells the story.

Starting with Version 2.0, he was the first cutscene in the CG animation.

As the final event of the "Cruel Autumn" that marked the fall of Avalon, its iconic cinematic features the Grand Guardian riding his griffin, facing a sky full of Armored Gargoyle under a sky full of dark clouds.

The Star Armored Gargoyle is a formidable air force unit and a representative of Star Antimony technology.

Unlike elite Sky Knight, the Armored Gargoyle are characterized by mass production.

Gargoyles are essentially a type of familiar, using curses to drive stone statues, similar in principle to Demon Dog, but with more advanced technology... at least they can fly.

Gargoyles possess strong spell resistance, capable of deflecting low-level spells and effectively countering novice-level Law Spell. Furthermore, with the alchemists' enhancements, these mass-produced gargoyles have had their arms modified into machine guns and carry two ammunition belts. Their bodies are covered with a layer of flesh armor to resist dispelling curses, further protected by an outer layer of iron shell.

A few individual Armored Gargoyle can be easily dealt with by the Sky Knight. But the problem is that there are too many of them—and once they swarm together, the griffon riders are unable to launch an effective charge, and the Overseers lack flexible anti-air capabilities.

The priests could have easily dispelled them in large numbers, but their dispelling light was blocked and absorbed by the custom-made fleshy shells—because those shells were alive. The materials were derived from sinners and prisoners, and through processing by necromancers, minimal amounts of brains and organs were preserved, allowing the flesh to survive for a short period.

Only powerful Law Mage could effectively freeze them and shatter them from the air... but under the relentless attacks of gargoyles, it was difficult to protect these vulnerable rear guards.

But Avalon did have means of resistance at the time.

If the Sky Knight summons lightning, the lightning strikes can kill the flesh inside the iron shell. This would allow the priests' dispels to take effect.

Similarly, the Golem, which is constantly being killed and shattered but always draws on the earth's power to regenerate, can also be dealt with. The secret to the Golem's regeneration lies in the runes on its head; simply adding a stroke before the runes will cause the golem to collapse and die instantly.

However, these secrets were only revealed much later. At the time, Star Antimony launched a surprise attack... The gargoyles, which were almost impossible to fight by any means, and the indestructible Golem, brought immense fear, causing the army to collapse directly.

The Queen was dead, and the Round Table Hall was in chaos. The soldiers had no idea who they were fighting for.

Their morale was already low, and when faced with a powerful enemy charging straight at them, they almost collapsed at the first touch.

After the army collapsed, the Grand Guardian, as the supreme commander, ordered the soldiers to surrender.

But he himself did not surrender—he instructed the other Sky Knight to try to survive and to take care of their griffin companions.

Then, he led his griffins in a final charge.

That was the final charge in this war.

In the CG, after the Grand Guardian charge forward, the scene zooms out to reveal several towering, colossal golems on the ground. The orderly advancing Stibium Army contrasts sharply with the Avalon army, which retreats like a swarm of ants. As the golems march, their single eyes fire thick laser beams, carving deep trenches into the ground, causing the forest to blaze.

After the Grand Guardian countered, the Golem fired massive red rays at a tiny, barely visible dot in the sky. The rays converged, unleashing a tremendous burst of light from the center.

After lasting a few seconds, a howling tornado erupted. The storm then spread wildly, engulfing the gargoyles and briefly collapsing the formation on the ground. Even the dark clouds in the sky were momentarily torn open.

But that's all.

The Grand Guardian was powerless to reverse the situation; he could only choose a glorious death.

Iver didn't even really recognize the other powerful figures whose names started with "Great," such as the Grand Adjudicator —he didn't even know what the other looked like or whether he was male or female. But he knew the Grand Guardian very well.

After all, if you just pour yourself a cup of tea when you enter the game, you can see your opponent launching a desperate charge to a tragic and magnificent background music. Then, a slow and deliberate Chinese voiceover, like that of Zhao Zhongxiang, begins. "1899, the Cruel Autumn Incident, marked the fall of the Avalon Kingdom..."

Alternatively, when you log into the game to update or verify files, you can usually see the tornado swirling around the gargoyles—this cutscene lasts about ten seconds. As for cutscenes after version 2.0, you basically can't see them, since Iver's network is pretty good... If you log in every day, you can only see them for a little longer during major version updates.

This has led to the Grand Guardian becoming extremely well-known among players, with a meme even circulating that goes something like, "Luckily my internet speed is fast enough, the Grand Guardian didn't die," or "My internet is so bad today, I keep getting disconnected, and the Grand Guardian has already charged back and forth eight times." Some people have even made parody videos of the Grand Guardian or added other voiceovers.

Therefore, although Iver never played through this main storyline—after all, he skipped directly to the 3.0 start after defeating the Paradox Flame Butterfly —he still had a good impression of the Grand Guardian.

—It's a feeling of warmth and familiarity when you see someone you know in a foreign land.

But at the same time, this also served as a reminder of the future crises Iver... after all, so much time had passed. Iver had almost forgotten the threat of Star Antimony... after all, he had lived for another eighteen years as Iver.

Although the memories of her Previous Life have only recently been revived, and she can still remember them relatively clearly, she can't help but have the wishful thinking that "that's a long time from now, at least a year or so away."

Upon seeing the Grand Guardian again, Iver suddenly realized that the future was not far off.

He truly felt the sense of crisis coming from the future. This made his spine tighten, and his expression became slightly serious.

Iver knew that this was a good man.

Loyal to the Queen, loyal to the country, upright, brave, devout, humble... he is almost synonymous with knight, and the most "knightly" knight in modern Avalon.

And that's why he died. Because he couldn't tolerate his own betrayal.

I have to think of a way to save him. Good people should live longer.

Iver thought to himself.

—Although he didn't know why, the Grand Guardian could clearly sense that... Iver had a good impression of him.

This made him very happy.

The Grand Guardian had never properly met Iver before. This was their first meeting... Although, as the Founding Family, they should theoretically be in the same social circle, the Moriarty Family rarely held banquets—only one person could inherit the Moriarty name, and when a new patriarch ascended the throne, the other siblings would lose their own name and inheritance rights.

This is why the way we interact with the Moriarty Family is different from that of other families.

Until the next Moriarty is certain, any interaction is essentially pointless. So generally, they'll choose to wait and see... Unless the previous Moriarty has already made a name for himself, everyone will generally be polite and distant.

This is also to avoid accusations of "influencing or manipulating the succession of other families".

Another reason is that many other Founding Family did not actually recognize the Moriarty Family. After all, the Moriarty were all adopted sons, and had long since lost the original Mordred bloodline... not to mention that Mordred's son had long since betrayed Avalon. Without the Moriarty, the lineage of this family would have been eradicated.

Barton was not among them, of course, but that was the way things were. He could only remain silent.

Of the professor's adopted children, the most famous was probably Iver, who had a reputation for womanizing. Before meeting him, he also thought Iver was a playboy.

However, the Grand Guardian only glanced at him, and his intuition told him: Iver is a good boy.

Perfect, let him talk to David.

This would also save David from constantly talking about his "Mr. Aleister" —Iver was the role model he should learn from.

The Grand Guardian thought so.