Chapter 418 The Emperor's Lighthouse
September 16, 358 of the Pandeli calendar, sunny.
Shieldwind Fortress.
The Snake Cult's troops were destroyed.
But the main force of this battle is not me, nor the Bacchus troops led by General Ivaylo, but the reserve troops left here by Wendy and the Phoenix Knights.
In other words, this is the reserve force that the two Queens deliberately kept in the country.
I didn't expect that Her Majesty Amy, who was far away in Sarleon City, could mobilize the Phoenix Knights.
I also didn't expect that the one who led the Phoenix Knights to stop the Snake Cult's large army was Anson, who was not very good at fighting!
In the south of Shieldwind Fortress, I witnessed the true combat power of the Phoenix Knights for the first time, which was completely different from how they looked when they were stationed in Karen Deer Fortress.
When facing the Snake Cult, the Phoenix Knight seemed to be more fearless and crazier than the Snake Cultists.
They charged back and forth in the Snake Cult army, rushing to where there were more enemies, as if each of them firmly believed that they could be reborn like the phoenix.
This fighting style caused heavy losses, but was also very effective. I didn't even have a chance to join the battle before the Snake Cult army was shattered by them.
Wendy left more than two hundred young rangers in Shieldwind Fortress. These rangers blocked the scattered Snake Worshipers and prevented them from escaping into the forest.
When I arrived at the battlefield, there was no need to engage in any hard fighting. All I had to do was clean up all the scattered Snake Worshipers.
However, right after I defeated the Snake Cult's troops, I received some bad news.
Lord Hereward, who remained in the North, died.
At the same time, the Jatu people once again moved south in large numbers.
In order to resist the Jatu, the two lords Aldarian and Islandil gave up their duel and rushed to the northern battlefield together. Now their lives and deaths are unknown.
——Excerpt from "New Pendor Battle Diary", written by Lisadilan Aino.
…
In late September, General Ivaylo returned to Dilingang with the army of the Bacchus Empire.
Returning with him were the Phoenix Knights and several hundred half-crippled Maritim captives.
Because Ivaylo met the Maritim soldiers who were led to the north by Sigismund on the way, he learned the news of the attack on Diling Port. After crippling the thousand Maritim soldiers, he marched back to Diling Port in a hurry.
Caspers left the Imperial Port with a dozen old and dilapidated warships that had been hastily overhauled, as well as more than a thousand remnants of the army who were still willing to follow him.
He was going back to Maritim.
Leon and Alina did not detain any Maritim people, leaving only a letter of allegiance written by Kaspars himself.
He came here with great ambitions, but returned home sadly just a few days after setting foot on the continent of Pendor. This may have allowed Caspar to truly grow up - he finally figured it out and realized that returning to Maritim to be his own vice-emperor was the most reliable thing to do.
Of course, if I go back to Maritim, I might have to confront the emperor... but at least that's a confrontation within the rules of the nobility, which should be easier to deal with than those insidious scammers on the continent of Pendor. At least there's an entire family to rely on there.
The Phoenix Knights will return to the continent of Amara with Caspars, because the Snake Worshipers on the continent of Pendor have basically been eliminated and their mission has been completed.
Emperor Lingang gradually returned to peace, and Alina and Leon began to prepare for the funeral of Emperor Marius.
Everything seemed to be going well... except that Justus was a bit difficult.
A father who protects his daughter is difficult to deal with, and now Justus is fierce, aggressive and aggressive.
And this old man thought that Li Ang had eaten his daughter completely...
"Luciana, what are you going to do? You will be crowned as queen after the funeral. Are you going to become Leon's concubine as queen?!"
Justus is now educating his daughter.
"Can't I just not get married? Besides, Leon and I are just a master and apprentice relationship... and I am Alina now, and Luciana is not the heir of His Majesty Marius."
Alina sighed helplessly.
"Master and disciple? Are there any masters and disciples who sleep together?! I saw it with my own eyes... You young people can have fun however you want, but I don't want you to be criticized for your whole life!"
Justus said angrily.
"We didn't sleep together... No, we didn't sleep together the way you thought! What you saw was just a misunderstanding!"
Alina became more and more helpless - there were many masters and apprentices who slept together. Leon and his two wives were both master and apprentice...
"Misunderstanding? Humph...Leon is such an irresponsible bastard, and you actually helped him cover it up?!"
Justus looked so disappointed that he turned and left: "Humph... I'm going to find Queen Wendy! I have to teach that bastard a lesson... It would be best if I could force him to divorce those two queens!"
"Hey...Father..."
Alina called out twice but failed to stop, and she frowned, looking extremely conflicted.
…
"Tell me clearly, what is going on between you and Alina?"
Wendy was educating her husband in the room.
"It's just a misunderstanding... Look at my injuries. How can I do bad things with such injuries?"
Li Ang answered timidly.
Justus actually told Wendy about this. It seemed like the old guy wanted to sow discord between him and his wife?
As expected, handling family affairs is much more difficult than state affairs...
"Hehe, who knows? You didn't hurt your lower body... No wonder your law allows you to marry three... It would be fine if you really liked her, but you did something bad and you don't admit it?!"
Wendy obviously didn't believe this was a misunderstanding. In her opinion, this injury wouldn't necessarily affect Li Ang from doing bad things.
Moreover, this bastard Li Ang obviously had some misunderstanding about the master-disciple relationship - all his disciples were beautiful girls, he should have noticed it long ago!
Li Ang sighed, not knowing how to explain.
I really didn't do anything...
Should I say, "It was Alina who sneaked into my bed in the middle of the night"?
Although this is indeed true, if you really say it, the consequences will probably be more troublesome.
“Boom boom boom!”
Just when Li Ang was getting anxious, there was a knock on the door.
"Wendy, can you come out for a moment? I want to talk to you..."
Alina's voice appeared outside the door.
Wendy glared at Li Ang angrily and walked out.
She never lost her temper with Alina, they always had a good relationship.
I don’t know what Alina said to Wendy, but from then on Wendy moved into Alina’s room , and Li Ang felt a lot more at ease.
…
September 26, 358 Pendor.
Generals Cleon and Valerius also arrived at Imperial Port, and all members of the Senate were present.
This day was Emperor Marius’ fifty-ninth birthday.
It was also the day Emperor Marius was buried.
According to Emperor Marius' own wishes, he would be buried on a cliff about ten miles east of Dilingo - that is, the cliff behind the reef that can be seen from the Governor's Palace in Dilingo.
Perhaps, Emperor Marius wanted to stand on the top of the mountain and look across the endless sea to the true homeland of the Bacchus.
The sky is blue and clean.
The streets of Dilingang are also very clean. The wind and rain in the past few days have diluted the bloodstains brought by the war. The war-torn Dilingang has been washed back to a neat and peaceful appearance.
Both sides of the street were crowded with men, women, young and old. There were so many people, more than the people who had been mobilized by the Order of Glory to defend the city a few days ago, and there was no end in sight to the east.
These were all civilians who came spontaneously to see Emperor Marius off.
In their hands, people held crowns made of wheat ears and cassia twigs, and lined up in a winding procession on both sides of the road from the city gate of Dilingang all the way eastward.
It happened to be the season when wheat was ripe, and the ring woven from the yellow wheat ears looked exactly like the crown on Emperor Marius' head.
Everyone's eyes were looking in the direction where Emperor Marius' coffin would be coming.
Arina led the way in front, wearing the Immortal Armor, the Immortal Helmet of Emperor Marius, and holding the Sword of the Orator - this was the tradition of Bacchus. Emperor Marius was a leader who had spent his entire life in war, and his successor had to see him off in the military uniform he had used.
Arina was a girl with a waist too small and shoulders too narrow to fit into the Emperor Marius's armor. She had to tie the pauldrons with straps to keep them from sliding down, and then wear Marius's red cloak over them to hide the bagginess.
This didn't look impressive at all, but no one would laugh at her at this point.
Marius' two sons walked silently behind Arina. Although the eldest son Gaius had the same name as Emperor Marius himself, he did not compete for the status of heir, but only inherited Emperor Marius's private property, which was some manors, villas and land in the Siyuan City area.
Marius' own name was also Gaius. Marius was the clan name, which was the common naming method used by the Bacchus. The eldest son often had the same name as his father.
Marius' second son, Eunes, took over some business from his brother Gaius, then resigned from the army and also became a wealthy landowner.
Both brothers expressed their respect and recognition for Alina, and voluntarily gave up the already meager power in their hands, leaving no opportunity for any ambitious person to take advantage of them.
This was obviously something Emperor Marius had warned about in advance.
At the same time, all the surviving members of the Senate nominated only Alina as the candidate for emperor.
In other words, there is no need for parliament to vote in the election, and there is only one candidate.
Emperor Marius did not allow his death to turn into a bloody struggle for power. This kind of peaceful handover was actually very rare in that era.
Alina had already become the queen at this time.
The funeral was still going on with a lot of people, but it was very quiet, without any gongs or drums, or crying.
Perhaps no one wanted to disturb the emperor in the coffin, or perhaps everyone knew that His Majesty would be watching them from the high cliff.
Emperor Marius was buried on the cliff at the top of the mountain, with a cliff to the south that had been smoothed by the waves over thousands of years.
As a relative of Marius, Li Ang walked first behind Marius' coffin.
In addition, Leon personally funded the construction of a lighthouse next to Marius's tomb.
He named this lighthouse "Marius' Light".
He felt that this would be what Emperor Marius would want - even if he died, he could do something truly useful for Bacchus.
Below the cliff is a large reef area. Building a lighthouse here can warn passing ships to be cautious and reduce accidents.
At the same time, the ever-burning lighthouse also allowed Emperor Marius to see how prosperous Bacchus would become in the future.
…
Shortly after Emperor Marius's funeral, before Alina had time to return to Siyuan City for her official coronation, a series of news came from Lisadilan.
The good news is that the main force of the Snake Cult has been strangled near the Shield Wind Fortress, and not a single one escaped.
The bad news is that Lord Hereward died of illness in BraveShield.
Hereward died of a sudden illness at an old age. There was no conspiracy involved, but the death of the experienced and respected Hereward led to a series of problems.
First came Ralph and the members of the Horn Summoning Rangers. They gathered at BraveShield Castle to hold a funeral for Hereward, and at the same time they planned to guard against the Jatu people taking the opportunity to move south.
But what they did not expect was that the Jatu people did move south in large numbers, but they did not pass through Braveshield Fort. Instead, they crossed the northern part of the Noldor Forest diagonally from the northwest and appeared directly near White Hart Keep.
Aldarian's tribe had been stationed in the northern part of the forest, but this time his troops were transferred to fight the Snake Cult. There were not many and the Jatu took advantage of the situation and invaded.
Lisadiran had already led the Noldor elves to the White Hart Keep.
"According to Lisadilan, the scale of the Jatu people's military deployment this time is very large, larger than in the past few decades. But I'm sorry, Your Majesty Leon, we just came back from the north, and it's difficult for us to organize a large army to support the north again. And it's still not convenient for us to enter the Noldor Forest or White Hart Castle for the time being... We almost got into trouble when we were chasing together with Lisadilan before."
Ivaylo apologized to Leon and said he could not lead his troops north to provide support again.
Leon expressed his understanding of this. In the short term, the Bacchus could not enter the core sphere of influence of the Noldor elves at will. Otherwise, it would be difficult to predict whether other Noldor elves would conflict with the Bacchus warriors. After all, it was the Bacchus who burned the forest before.
However, White Deer Castle is a bit empty now, and it happens to be the harvest season, so Leon is really worried.
The Jatu people will definitely send out a large-scale attack to rob food at this time, which means that their range of action will be very scattered, and their targets will never be fixed in the White Deer Fort area. The entire eastern region will be in danger.
In fact, the necessary garrison deployments had already been made before the troops were sent to Dilingang—Ralph and the Horn Summoning Rangers were in Changhe City, Leofric was in Karen Deer Fort, the Owl Knights were in Trubrun, and Charles was in Fletcher...
In addition, with Lisadilan leading nearly two thousand Noldor troops to White Hart Keep, the entire eastern region actually has sufficient military strength.
However, the Jatu people unexpectedly crossed the Noldor Forest, which made Leon feel a little dangerous.
But Li Ang was far away in Dilingang, and he had less than 300 guards around him. No matter how worried he was, it would be of no use.
Although Li Ang left immediately, it would take at least a week to get back from Dilingang.
Now we can only hope that Ralph and Lisadiran react quickly and don't let the Jatu people take any advantage.
