Chapter 285: A War Without Justice (Part 2)
The commander entrusted with the important task by the Odysseus family was called Franklin Victor, a Rhine native from the National Guard. He was a knight of the kingdom officially conferred by the royal family, a lifetime honorary academician of the Rhine Officer Academy, and had the rank of colonel.
The reason why he is a colonel instead of a general is because Victor's background is not very glorious... He is also an illegitimate child from a noble family.
Of course, the origin of an illegitimate child is much better than that of a foreigner like Wagner Pitt who will never be able to make a name for himself in his life. Colonel Victor not only has the official title of a knight of the kingdom and a fiefdom, but after completing his service in the National Garrison, he can also be employed by a great noble as a military adviser. The "appearance fee" is much more generous than the pension that Wagner Pitt can save after serving the Bartles family for a lifetime.
This battle of revenge, which the Odysseus family attached great importance to, was the first "private job" that Colonel Victor took after his retirement.
And now, before the battle even started, Colonel Victor had a vague feeling of being out of control...
——What happened to those undead?!
The "most cost-effective undead mercenary" that was promised is just this? ?
Colonel Victor used all his years of training to force himself to ignore those undead who disregarded battlefield discipline, were disorganized and undisciplined, and ran away without a trace in the blink of an eye. He continued to mobilize his troops calmly.
After finally arranging the officers of each unit and letting officers at all levels lead the troops to set off, Colonel Victor looked at his employer, Odysseus and his daughter, with a questioning look.
There was a hint of confusion on Count Odysseus's tense face. He met Colonel Victor's inquiring gaze and subconsciously turned his gaze to his daughter.
Miss Phoenix was much calmer than her father. She could even laugh. She comforted the two men softly, "Please don't worry. The undead have their own way of fighting. Although their behavior is always confusing , the facts tell us that they are just using their own way to achieve the goal that everyone expects."
She was not blindly confident. The backlog of incidents in Moses Port that were efficiently resolved by the undead were irrefutable proof . Since the goal was the same, why should she care about the logic of the undead's actions?
Of course, Colonel Victor also knew that these Tarantan undead did possess the qualities of mercenaries to some extent, and he had learned about the affairs of Moses Port, otherwise he would not have dared to rashly take on the important task of commanding the undead.
The problem is - that group of undead left the main force and went to work on their own right from the start!
Colonel Victor felt a little bitter in his heart, but it was inconvenient for him to complain to his employer who expressed his trust in the undead, so he could only nod reluctantly, climb on his horse, and set off with the heavy cavalry.
After watching the commander leave, Odysseus and his daughter did not return to the main tent, but moved to the stone house at the rear of the camp with their entourage.
This stone house, which was built half a month in advance, is equipped with six mirrors, each of which shows the battlefield scene from a different angle; a middle-aged spellcaster with a slightly fat body sits in the mirror array, and a magic circle formed by a faint light on the compacted yellow earth ground under his feet is slowly rotating.
The spellcaster saw Odysseus and his daughter enter and pointed to the two chairs prepared outside the mirror array and said, "Sit over there."
"Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Upton." Both Odysseus and his daughter bowed slightly politely before taking their seats .
Illusionist Upton is a spellcaster who was once supported by the ancestors of the Odysseus family.
He became famous earlier than the black magician Yang, but he is younger than Yang. The magician tower was built in the northern part of the Odysseus territory and has guarded the northern gate for the Odysseus family for a hundred years.
"It's okay. I haven't been out for a long time." Upton nodded slightly, his eyes not leaving the battlefield scene in the mirror. "The spellcaster from the Principality of Lionel is here too. Look, that's the opponent's Mage's Eye."
The expressions of Odysseus and his daughter suddenly became solemn.
The wars in this world cannot be separated from spellcasters. Whether it is deploying the Mage's Eye before the battle or protecting one's own generals from being beheaded, high-level spellcasters are needed to take charge.
Small local forces like the Territory of Odysseus or the Principality of Lionel cannot afford to send spellcasters to the battlefield to fight each other... but having spellcasters to help can save a lot of trouble.
"The good news is that the spellcaster on the opposite side should still be an elemental mage." Illusionist Upton said calmly.
There is also a chain of contempt among spellcasters...
For example, elemental mages look down on all non-elemental spellcasters, illusionists look down on all non-illusionists, black mages look down on all non-black mages, all spellcasters look down on alchemists... and so on.
Odysseus and his daughter couldn't accept this.
Illusionists have almost no rivals in the same rank except for space spellcasters, so Upton is certainly qualified to despise Lionel's spellcasters; but the problem is that even elemental mages who are despised by illusionists can cause massive casualties to the army that the Odysseus family has emptied out its wealth to build.
"Phoenix is very flexible to think of hiring the undead to blunt the enemy's front." Illusionist Upton said to Phoenix approvingly, "But forget about the monks of the Prosperity Church. Don't be impulsive and invite that black magician to your home. It's best for you to stay away from him. We spellcasters are not willing to deal with that guy."
"I remember that, Mr. Upton." Phoenix nodded quickly.
"You are a smart and good girl. It's a pity that when you were still young, I thought I could pass on my magic tower to you." Upton sighed, "After this war, the time limit agreed between me and the ancestors of the Odysseus family will expire. I will bring my disciples here so that you can choose one person to continue guarding the tower. I will take the others away."
Odysseus and his daughter both said yes, unable to hide their regret on their faces.
Spellcasters will not serve a certain royal family or clan forever. Spellcasters who receive funding from a large family will often only sign a contract with the head of the family and serve the family within the term of the contract.
Illusionist Upton had been funded by the ancestors of the Odysseus family and had worked diligently for the family for nearly a hundred years. Now that his contract had expired and he was leaving, he had not forgotten to leave behind a successor whom he had carefully trained. He had already done his best.
At this critical moment, Odysseus and his daughter were very reluctant to lose this high-level illusionist, but their family did not have much power to retain him... Rushing to end this war before Upton left was the best effort the Odysseus family could make at the moment.
"Mr. Upton, will you come back?" Phoenix asked with a glimmer of hope.
"I won't be coming back." Upton said with a smile, "I will take my disciples to the outer continent. When my life span comes to an end, my disciples will bury my body there."
Both Odysseus and his daughter looked sad.
The theoretical lifespan limit for a high-level spellcaster is four hundred years.
If you have ever used forbidden magic under extreme conditions, or if you have suffered serious mental damage, your life span will be shortened.
Unfortunately, Upton, who was brave and aggressive in his youth, was convicted of both crimes... Before he was three hundred years old, he could already feel that his life was coming to an end.
"Don't be sad for me. I was able to fulfill the promise I made to Count Odysseus before my death. I also had time to go to the outer continent that I wanted to go to for many years but never could. I have no regrets in my life." Upton looked kindly at the father and daughter who he had watched grow up. "I heard about 'that thing'. You don't have to be too obsessed with it. No matter how prosperous a family is, it will always rise and fall. Even if you lose everything, you will always have the opportunity to start over again."
Odysseus and his daughter could only smile bitterly. They really couldn't be as open-minded as the spellcaster who had lived for hundreds of years.
Upton was about to give some advice to Phoenix, whom he had high hopes for, when he suddenly saw a ghost appear in the mirror out of the corner of his eye.
"Has it already started—huh?" Illusionist Upton paused.
According to the picture sent back by the Mage's Eye placed above their own camp, the heavy armored infantry of the Odysseus army had not yet walked out of the camp gate.
The image of the undead appearing was transmitted back by the Mage's Eye above the battlefield.
Upton: “……?”
Before Upton could figure out the rhythm of the battle, the illusionist was shocked to find that the Tarantan Undead, who had been separated from the main friendly forces and had arrived on the battlefield ahead of time, had no intention of stopping.
Instead... continue forward, toward Lionel's camp to the east, and run as fast as you can...
A few minutes later, the Mage's Eye, which was placed high in the sky above the enemy camp, sent back a picture of the undead all over the mountains running towards the enemy camp...
Upton looked at Odysseus and his daughter dully.
Odysseus and his daughter stared blankly at the picture in the mirror.
The place of the agreed battle was nominally the border of the Principality of Lionel's territory, but in reality it was the land that Grand Duke Lionel had snatched from the Odysseus family many years ago; Grand Duke Lionel hoped to find gold mines on this land, and although he moved some people here, he did not manage it seriously and only built a few sparsely built settlements the size of camps.
The declaration of war issued by the Odysseus family only gave three days. The Principality of Lionel only had time to hastily transfer the border guards and troops in nearby cities. Because there was no time to conscript civilians, the camp was set up in a hurry.
But even though it was caught off guard by the Odysseus family's tricks, the Principality of Lionel was, after all, a country with a population of tens of millions, and its national strength was much stronger than a mere earldom; only the border guards and the garrisons of the two cities were mobilized, which already had a strength of more than 14,000 people, not much inferior to the troops that the Odysseus family had worked so hard to assemble.
There were no cities to defend in the sparsely populated eastern part, so Grand Duke Lionel sent two spellcasters supported by the Grand Duke's Palace and asked his eldest son to personally take an airship to the front line to provide support - this was a good opportunity to gain political capital for his beloved eldest son, and the Grand Duke was not willing to give it to a local noble.
The day of the occupation has arrived. While the soldiers of both sides are preparing for battle, His Royal Highness the Prince and two assistant mages also descend from the airship hovering above the military camp.
While Zhao Zhenzhen was openly eavesdropping on the secrets of Odysseus's family, His Royal Highness the Prince of the Principality was encouraging the officers to fight bravely.
As the undead rushed out of the camp like huskies out of a cage, His Royal Highness the Prince of the Principality, riding on a mighty dragon-blood horse, was inspecting the military formation in high spirits under the protection of two spellcasters and a large group of guards.
A distance of four kilometers is just a matter of minutes for players who can generally run 100 meters in six seconds (after all, they are light in weight, and their skeleton bodies are from strong warriors from ancient times with long arms and legs).
The Lionel Army Camp is about five kilometers away from the agreed battlefield, which means players only need to run a few more minutes.
Running about nine kilometers in one breath will not make the players who control the skeleton body feel tired, but it will definitely make the players impatient.
When the players at the front saw the huge enemy camp from afar, they felt neither the excitement of seeing the enemy nor the fear of being frightened by tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. Instead, they started to curse:
"Finally I saw a monster!"
"Is it poisonous? It takes so long to fight a battlefield. Can't the monsters be spawned closer?"
