Chapter 786

"By the end of last month, the number of conflicts along the border between the Black Stone Plain and Yellow Earth Land had risen to 101."

In the conference hall of Lakeheart Town, Paul and a group of military and civil officials were listening to the latest developments concerning the orcs across the border.

"The number of refugees fleeing across the border is increasing. So far, we have taken in more than thirteen thousand people. Judging by the trend, in the foreseeable future..."

An intelligence officer who had returned from the Black Stone Plain was reading from the report.

"Young man, allow me to interrupt!" A sudden voice cut him off.

"Yes, General. What are your orders?" The young intelligence officer straightened up and sat rigidly, waiting to hear what the speaker had to say.

A serious-looking knight nearing fifty said, "The boundary between the Black Stone Plain and Yellow Earth Land has never been our border. Our border is Watchman Fortress."

The knight's facial features looked as though they had been carved from granite with a battle-axe. Sunlight gilded them with a flowing rim of gold. In the shadows beneath his heavy brows, his gray-blue pupils resembled a frozen lake. Three parallel scars slashed diagonally from his right forehead across the bridge of his nose. Steel-gray stubble ran neatly along his hairline, like a snowline tracing a mountain ridge.

He was Earl Hall Duke, deputy commander of the Watchers Legion.

The army had not been destroyed.

After the orcs launched their invasion of Aldo, the Watchers Legion soon found itself trapped in a desperate situation, attacked from both front and rear because of the Bradley Family's betrayal. Duke Morton, the legion's commander, died heroically, and Earl Duke took over command. In the end, however, the fortress was still engulfed