The Situation

After Count Ian finished dealing with his necessary tasks, it had been more than a month since he left White Flower Territory.

Only then was Count Ian able to spare the time to return to the two territories where the incident had initially occurred: White Flower Territory and River Valley Territory.

He originally wanted to resolve the issues in those two places as soon as possible, because once those issues were resolved, he could advance to the second tier in a few days.

He believed that the reason these two places had slipped out of his control was simply because he had taken too many knights, leaving only the lord behind.

The other attacking knights must have used some means to temporarily detach these two territories.

However, although Ian wanted to resolve the issue of these two territories first, Theodore and many of his knights clearly disagreed.

These two territories are quite remote, and the probing from other countries obviously wouldn't only take place in Antir's territory, in areas far from the Royal Capital.

Ian and Theodore treated each territory equally, and almost every lord of any territory had suffered countless harassments in the past month.

To deal with this situation, Theodore had to send many of Count Ian's knights back to their own territories to organize defenses, while others remained behind.

Then let Ian lead a force to roam all over Antir and repel any knights who want to attack.

Duke Theodore's move was very effective. Ian was, after all, a lord who was about to reach the second rank, which was far superior to many knights who barely reached the lord position.

Moreover, most of those who came to harass us this time were led by First Order knights. They were just trying their luck and had no intention of welcoming Ian's massive army.

So they all suffered losses and paid a price before they were able to withdraw from Antir.

Ian stopped and came to the familiar intersection. If he remembered correctly, the three-way intersection in front of him was the dividing line between White Flower Territory and other places.

If you continue northward, you will feel the Territory Resonance of White Flower Territory, like an unclaimed flower waiting for a knight to pluck it.

Of course, that was a long time ago. When Ian left White Flower Territory last time, he could feel that the territory was already satisfied and had its own lord.

He himself also receives Territory Blessing, because he has always been Finley's lord, which was the case when Finley surrendered and came to his knightly order as a knight.

But what he was feeling now made him furrow his brow.

Because he could still sense that the territory 'White Flower Territory was still there, exactly the same as what he had sensed last time, only with a bit more vitality.

This situation only occurs with the same lord. The Territory Resonance obtained by a lord is almost unchanged, but the Territory Resonance obtained by two different lords will mostly have different manifestations.

This almost confirms a fact that Ian finds extremely unacceptable: Finley is still in the position of lord.

However, aside from those special circumstances, the Territory Blessing did not come to him in the slightest.

The most likely explanation is that Finley changed his lord, which is quite normal. Although a lord has to pay a price to change his lord, it's just that—a price.

Moreover, Ian has brought with him the greatest possible price Finley could pay.

He turned his head to look at the knight beside him, a knight who had become a knight by virtue of the territory of the White Flower Territory.

After losing the territorial blessing of White Flower Territory, the opponent's knight Order almost dropped. Fortunately, Darian eliminated a group of knights and made one of them take their place, thus preventing the opponent's Order from falling.

As for why the lord of White Flower Territory is still alive, but this knight's Order is about to drop, we need to talk about the kingdom's king system.

The king not only provides additional power, but also serves as a symbol.

Finley changed his lord, presumably by making him the lord of another territory, which is most likely belonging to another kingdom.

The territories between the various kingdoms were clearly divided, and the situation where a lord was killed but the knights within his territory remained unchanged only occurred in wars between minor lords.

Between kingdoms, every piece of land has the highest priority of ownership. If a knight holds a knighthood title that is not from his own kingdom, the territory will not provide any buffs.

This is another major reason why Ian suspected Finley's betrayal: a knight's Order cannot be faked, and he took all the knights of the White Flower Territory with him.

This conveniently allowed Finley to switch lords almost without any loss, since all his knights had just left, and these knights were the biggest opposition force to the change of territory.

At this point, Ian had no intention of showing any leniency towards Finley; he now only wanted to storm White Flower City and reclaim his territory as quickly as possible.

But at the same time, there was a small knot in his heart, which was the River Valley Territory.

The River Valley Territory's territorial blessing is still there, but its appearance has changed, making it almost certain that Morris is no longer the lord of River Valley Territory.

But here's the problem: for a new lord to be born, the fastest way is through bloodline inheritance, and the only other way is through the inheritance of Territory Token.

However, becoming a lord through Territory Token would never take less than a month; it would take at least a month and a half. Finley was like that; he only became a true lord after having the title of lord himself.

According to Count Ian's memory, the conferment of the River Valley Territory territory was completed about half a month ago, and a new lord has been appointed to it.

Ian was quite certain, and even asked two knights transferred from the River Valley Territory, that Morris only had a six-year-old son.

Even though Morris himself is only 27 years old, and his wife had a child when she was 15, his eldest son is probably only 12 years old now.

Although Ian had heard of people who inherited the position of lord at the age of twelve, who were those people? They were either princes of great empires who inherited the position through some extreme means, or they were born with extraordinary talent...

Normally, a person should be around fifteen years old to inherit the position of lord, but Morris himself was 23 years old when he inherited the position of lord.

This whole situation is strange. Without a bloodline successor, how did the River Valley Territory gain a new lord within half a month?

For a new lord to succeed through bloodline, only the offspring of the current lord are eligible; siblings are not.

Count Ian could only speculate that perhaps Moss himself was rather peculiar, having encountered an experienced woman when he was thirteen, and through some maneuvering, no one knew he had such an illegitimate son.

That child is now only fourteen years old, barely meeting the criteria for inheriting the territory, which has led to the current situation.

But Count Ian understood that the probability was extremely small. In this era, if lords had lovers or illegitimate children, it was common knowledge and impossible to hide it.

Those servants couldn't keep any secrets under special circumstances, and even if they were willing to, the nobles wouldn't be able to keep them even if they paid them.

After pausing briefly to clear his mind, Count Ian coughed lightly.

Let's go.

After him, all the knights and their squires followed Ian toward the White Flower Territory.

Ian treated his trip to White Flower Territory as an attempt to conquer territory, so his men were already prepared.

This is why he prepared for so long before coming to these two lands; he knew that they might encounter resistance when they arrived.

There was another, more important reason: not a single messenger came out from either of the two territories, and the three messengers they sent in also disappeared without a trace.

Without knowing the specifics, Ian could only postpone the matter of the two plots of land for a while.

The group quickly arrived at the foot of White Flower City. At this time, the White Flower City gates were tightly closed, and there were many people wearing gray robes on the city walls, as well as two people wearing white robes.

At the same time, Ian also saw Lord Finley, his former subordinate, directly above the city gate.

This time, his heart finally died. It wasn't because Finley betrayed him that his heart died; Finley was nobody to him anyway.

What he truly cared about was this territory; it would take another month and a half before White Flower Territory could return to Antir's embrace.

This is a significant blow to Antir's current situation. He will absolutely not keep a lord who has repeatedly rebelled, even at such a crucial time.

Finley remained calm and collected. He had long ago sensed through his territory that a large group was heading towards White Flower City, and that the group contained far too many First Order Profession.

He had already informed Fran, Fran was at the nearby Base Camp and would arrive soon. The reason he wasn't nervous at all before Fran's arrival was...

There are two reasons for this. First, Fran is a Second Order Profession User, while Count Ian is only a First Order after Fran turned against him. In addition, Fran is a mage in the Alliance, so he doesn't believe Ian would dare to continue to make a move.

Secondly, there was what Fran had given him: a large batch of muskets and ammunition that Fran had given him, which could greatly enhance the combat power of ordinary people. It could be said that with this stuff, a team of ordinary people could reliably take down a Knight Attendant.

But this only applies to apprentice-level Profession. What truly gave Finley confidence were those enormous machines that traveled with the steam train... I think that's what they were called.

He glanced at the nine cannons mounted on the city wall, all of which were loaded and ready to fire.

With these things, Finley was sure he could hold out until Fran arrived.