Shien through Emon's eyes
The wheels rolled over the icy mud, making a sickening cracking sound.
The Special Envoy Priest Emon, sat upright in the sheltered shade, his hands clasped together on his rough Ashwood Staff. His gaze passed over the gently swaying lantern and landed on the silver-haired boy opposite him.
It has been several days since I left the Tear Knight Governor's Residence.
As is customary, a young man who has grasped the overall command of half a Defense Zone at the age of fourteen will inevitably reveal his restlessness and arrogance once he is out of the sight of the supreme commander.
But the four days of wind and snow had gradually eroded the seasoned Church official's initial judgment.
The scenes of receiving those 20,000 Refugees along the way over the past few days resurfaced in Emon's mind.
Shien, mounted on horseback, coldly observed the group of poorly clothed criminals and Refugees, and immediately gave the order to disperse them.
The 20,000 men were scattered and reorganized on the spot during the march, and were quickly put into a simple but strict set of rules, becoming the cheapest scavengers on the front line.
The group of people dug out anything useful from the ruins of the old Defense Zone —broken bricks, half-rotted Magic Creature remains under the Frozen Tundra, rusty nails—and carried them on their shoulders.
The foreman didn't even have a whip; he only had a work point ledger that was directly tied to his rations. If he worked, he would get a bowl of hot wheat porridge; if he slacked off, he would be sent to the windy field to starve to death.
The Refugees were waiting to die by the roadside were forcibly crammed into an invisible set of gears, and the machine desperately moved forward.
In the mind of this Special Envoy Priest, the young man opposite him was definitely not an empty shell who could fool the Governor with a few pretty words.
He truly understood how to survive in this wasteland.
From the moment the carriage drove out of the city gate, the lord didn't say a single unnecessary word to him.
He laid a large sheepskin map of the Graymist Defense Zone flat on his lap.
The scratching sound of charcoal pencils rubbing against paper is crisp and steady.
Emon stared at the thick, dark lines Shien had drawn between the Seven Fiefs.
Those charcoal marks were definitely not just randomly drawn; the order and pressure applied were immediately apparent.
The carriage lurched violently, its axle running over a frozen rock buried under the snow.
A few pages of the supplementary manuscript slipped from Shien's lap, swirling and floating to Emon's boots. The Special Envoy Priest lowered his eyes and glanced at them.
Those were densely packed reports on material losses and food rations.
Every gram of wheat bran was used, every drop of Sacred Tallow was consumed, and even the possible extra losses along the way were calculated to an extremely fine degree, leaving no room for error.
Emon wanted to look away, but his gaze paused when it swept over the edge of the ledger pages.
In this bill that pushed every single item to its limit, Shien carved out a fixed share, with just a few words written next to it, "Disabled Veterans' Share".
The Cleric, who was responsible for monitoring, leaned back against the wooden plank and slowly closed his eyes.
The Governor's Mansion sent him here to be a sword hanging over his head.
But at this moment, the thoughts that arose in Emon's mind were somewhat different from when he left the city.
In Shien's vision, the Grace Value above Emon's head did indeed fluctuate slightly.
However, deliberately trying to win over Cleric who have been steeped in the infighting within the Church is both slow and not necessarily worthwhile.
The next Blood Moon Season will be the real threat, a knife to our throats. Rather than wasting our energy on an overseer who could turn on us at any moment, we should focus on making the most of the Seven Fiefs we've acquired.
Shien first drew the thickest and darkest black circle on the Blackpine Fief.
This is the main anchor point, the main warehouse, the main Workshop, the main dispatch center, and also the last stand when there is nowhere left to retreat.
Then the pen tip extended outwards, not touching those old plains territories with larger populations but leaky walls, but first connecting to White Fang Fief and Grasshawk Fief, which were closest to Blackpine Fief.
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Located on the north-facing windward side, White Fang Fief is situated at a high elevation, making it suitable as an early warning, outer-line delay, and scout forward extension point.
Grasshawk Fief is backed by Inland supply lines, with flat terrain, making it suitable for receiving supplies, changing horses, screening Refugees, and transferring manpower.
In Shien's eyes, the Seven Fiefs were never seven pieces laid out flat, but rather a satellite city system with Blackpine Fief as the core.
He chose to connect Whitefang and Grasshawk first because the linkage cost was the lowest; he planned to get the smallest loop running first.
After the triangular closed loop was initially formed, Shien's pen tip skipped over a large area of flat ground and landed in two other dangerous locations.
Several annotations were quickly added next to Ashen Fief and Iron Gleam Fief: checkpoint, ridge observation, relay signal, blocking canyon side leakage.
Only at the very end did Shien incorporate Shattered Stone Fief and Coldwater Fief into his territory.
The Shattered Stone Fief has an old mining area, but it cannot be converted into combat power in the short term; it can only serve as a backup blood supply.
As for the Coldwater Fief, Shien drew a clear cross on it.
He put down his charcoal pencil, pushed the sketch, filled with nodes, connections, and annotations, to the center of the table, and reviewed the entire drawing again in the dim light.
Blackpine Fief was compressed into the central hub, Whitefang was the probe, Grasshawk was the pivot, Ashen Fief and Iron Gleam Fief were the checkpoints, Shattered Stone Fief supplied blood, and Coldwater Fief was responsible for bleeding out blood.
The Seven Fiefs were fragmented, yet tightly interlocked, like a giant millstone that hadn't yet truly begun to turn.
Shien leaned against the car wall, his gaze fixed on the black lines between them, his mind going over the entire Graymist Defense Zone once more.
The outermost layer is not responsible for holding the line; their only task is to spot the enemy, mislead them, and force the Beast Tide in a predetermined direction.
The middle layer did not rush into a decisive battle. Instead, it used the terrain, lowlands, canyons, abandoned cities, and old mines to gradually narrow, lengthen, and disrupt the originally spreading black tide, depriving it of the space to continuously expand and charge head-on.
The innermost layer is where the real killing takes place.
Firepower, fortifications, explosives, Venom Mist, and Mobile Holy Knight are no longer evenly distributed, but are instead piled into a few strangulation basins that can determine the outcome of the battle.
Once the enemy is gradually tightened up by the preceding layers, use the shortest inner line to cut, press, and shred them.
But that's not enough. The blood shed at the front must be replenished immediately. The dead Magic Creature must be dismantled as quickly as possible for their Raw Blood, fuel, materials, and spare parts.
The collapsed fortifications must be rebuilt before the next Beast Tide arrives.
Supply, Workshop, transportation, and repairs must all operate in tandem with the defense line.
In this way, the Graymist Defense Zone will no longer be a border line that can only be passively attacked and is leaking blood everywhere.
It will become a living battlefield where you can lure, trap, and kill the enemy, and then rebuild yourself.
Blackpine Fief will no longer be an isolated city; it will become the central hub of the entire war zone.
Shien looked at the blueprints calmly.
The real victory or defeat lies in whether the entire Defense Zone can turn the enemy's free-flowing charges from all directions into waves of deaths, sent into a strangulation basin along predetermined routes and within predetermined areas.