Dense hoofbeats tore through the suffocating curtain of rain as two squadrons of mounted rangers came galloping in. These rangers were the newly formed "Rapid Response Cavalry" after Blackbeard took office. Though, like Berely's Dragon Cavalry, they fell under the Dragon Mountain Empire's public security departments, their equipment and mounts had been prepared to the standards of heavily armored field cavalry.
The two squadrons of rangers rode one-horned savage steeds from the far north of the continent, beasts with Magic Beast blood in their veins. They wore alloy plate armor weighing two hundred pounds and were issued heavy horse-chopping swords and three-meter lances. Though they were merely a mobile force maintaining everyday order in the city, every one of their soldiers possessed the strength of an Earthly Knight, while both squadron commanders already had one foot in the Heavenly realm.
As this elite force rode into the dock district, the faces of the Church warriors aboard the merchant ship immediately turned exceedingly ugly.
They had only just joined the Church army, and Taimus did not have a single copper coin in hand. The churches large and small throughout the Dragon Mountain Empire had done their utmost, yet they had only barely managed to provide every newly recruited soldier with a sword. Their uniforms merely distinguished their identities; they offered no real defensive power.
Against heavily armored cavalry clad in heavy armor and wielding fine rune greatswords and rune lances, a single charge from these two squadrons—over two hundred heavy cavalrymen—could scatter the Church army made up of the hooligans and scoundrels led by Matt into ashes and smoke.
"Hey, have you made this clear? We're clergy of the Dawn Temple!" Matt looked at the heavy cavalry standing motionless on horseback in the storm, their grim, killing gazes fixed firmly on