“I wonder if things are going smoothly at sea. Did my prediction hit the mark?”
Inside the carriage, Luo Li gazed toward the south.
At the horizon where the sky met the earth, a mass of dark, oppressive clouds was faintly gathering.
It looked like a typhoon was forming; the heavy, black clouds occupied almost the entire span of the horizon.
God only knew how massive this typhoon would be.
Recalling the letter she had written to the Pope, Luo Li felt a twinge of anxiety.
In truth, she did not know if her prediction would come true.
None of her deductions were backed by direct evidence; she had simply strung together the details she had noticed and inferred this possibility.
The demon race... likely already anticipated that the allied forces would intercept them at sea.
First of all, the movement of the Kingdom of the Moon was too massive to hide.
Deploying eighty thousand knights, along with the combined forces of four nations, was impossible to keep secret as long as the demons' spies within their ranks weren't completely incapacitated.
The news would definitely be sent back to the demon race.
And the Demon Emperor seemed to have been calculating the timing all along, feigning a retreat.
That tentacle was likely a sacrifice intentionally offered by the Demon Emperor.
He feigned a retreat to hunker down in the Demon King's Castle while making two sets of preparations.
One was for the possibility of us attacking the Demon King's Castle directly, in which case he would surely have another hidden card.
The other was for the possibility of us refusing to retreat and pressing closer to the Demon King's Castle.
The current result was the latter.
The demon army had blocked the retreat path from the strait and forced them toward the extraction point.
They likely intended to corner and devour this portion of the army.
Because here, there were two Saintesses.
Judging by the blockade of the strait and the Demon Emperor's complete lack of intention to reinforce the sea, he had surely laid the groundwork there as well.
Inferred from various pieces of information... the best choice would be to attack the naval forces directly from the coastline.
Since the demon race was almost incapable of naval warfare, their only option was to attack from the shore.
It was basically certain that demons were still lurking within the aristocratic circles of the Kingdom of the Moon.
With the wealth accumulated by the nobility over centuries, it wasn't impossible for them to cause a major disturbance.
And the most powerful weapon she could think of for facing a fleet from the coast was likely a mana cannon.
Casually brewing a pot of tea for herself, Luo Li sipped it while sitting by the window, observing the distant sky.
Of course, all of the above were mere speculations.
Luo Li was just taking a gamble; after all, she had no evidence in hand right now.
Furthermore... the battlefield changed in the blink of an eye, and by the time evidence was secured, the outcome of the war might already be decided.
She recalled the letters sent to Lola and Augus.
She had written all of her suspicions in those letters.
With their abilities, they should be able to follow the trail and find the demons lurking within the Kingdom of the Moon.
And the final key point.
In these three letters, she had written a second message to the other two, excluding only Lola.
The message the Pope received was...
If an accident were to happen to her, she requested the Pope use his name to stabilize the internal affairs of the Kingdom of the Moon in the short term.
And to hand over authority to Lola, allowing her to serve as the acting Saintess.
If Luo Li did not return within three months, then the Kingdom of the Moon... would be left to his discretion.
By then, she would already be dead, and she wouldn't be able to worry about what happened to the Kingdom of the Moon anyway.
And in the letter to Augus... she had also written a will.
If she met with an accident and did not return within three months.
Then Augus was to find a way to control Lola and lead the entire nation to defect to the Pope in exchange for a chance at survival for the two of them.
During the two months since her transmigration.
The suppression of the nobility had never ceased, and the nobles feared the might of the Holy Church.
Toward her, the Saintess.
They could only curse her in their hearts while maintaining a smiling face.
They tripped her up in the shadows but did not dare to truly raise the banner of rebellion.
But once she was gone, her confidants like Lola and Augus would surely be suppressed by the nobility with everything they had.
At that time, without her acting as the great tree, she, the Saintess.
No matter how joyfully those two little monkeys beneath the tree hopped about.
They would never be a match for the nobles who had been entrenched in the Kingdom of the Moon for a thousand years.
Therefore, what she could do was protect the two of them as much as possible.
As for that old fellow Audis.
Although he had defected to her side, Luo Li did not believe he lacked a contingency plan.
Even a wily rabbit knows to have three burrows, let alone an old fox who had lived for so long.
She had done everything she could.
The rest was in the hands of fate.
All the back paths had been prepared.
The rest depended on the will of heaven.
Thinking of this, Luo Li looked up at the distant sky, a faint sense of unease rising in her heart.
Typhoons often carried immense energy, and once the ice floes entered the sea.
This massive amount of rainwater would surely accelerate the melting of the ice.
Coupled with the howling winds, the time the ice floes could exist would become even more precarious.
This was not good news.
But she truly had no other options left.
“Your Highness... what you requested has been done.”
Dominica's voice came from outside the carriage.
Luo Li subconsciously looked back at the carriage door and saw Dominica standing there.
“Why are you... crying?”
Luo Li was stunned for a moment, somewhat dazed, but when she heard many people outside crying out loudly.
She understood what was happening in her heart.
Killing the horses... this was truly too cruel for a knight.
As knights, the horses beneath them were their second pair of legs, their second lives.
“Dominica, you know this was a matter of necessity.”
Dominica bit her lip and nodded.
“I know, but, but...”
“Alright, don't cry. At least it is the horses that died, not the knights.”
A faint scent of blood wafted from outside the Saint's Carriage.
This Saint's Carriage had a self-cleaning function, which applied to the air as well.
If the scent of blood from outside could reach the interior of the carriage, it was enough to prove that blood was already flowing like a river outside.
Killing five thousand horses all at once produced enough blood to form a small stream.
“Notify the entire army to begin retreating immediately. Move back ten li and start the fires to cook.”
“Yes!”
The carriage door closed again, and the Saint's Carriage slowly started moving.
Countless knights were wailing outside the carriage.
Yet they could only watch helplessly as those horses were killed.
Blood flowed like a river.
The knights removed their armor and quickly used the horse bones to prop up the general shape of the suits.
At the same time, using the movement of the entire army's retreat, they began a large-scale withdrawal.
The knights who had lost their horses were the first to be sent out of the central command.
Subsequently, the army stopped at a position five kilometers back.
They set up pots and started fires to stew the horse meat.
This was a way of... feigning weakness.
Even if the Demon Emperor was a fool, he should know how much knights cherished their horses.
Therefore, by doing this, the Demon Emperor would likely think they were currently out of food.
And could only kill their horses to endure.
This laid a psychological foundation for the upcoming surprise attack.
After all, starting a battle for no reason would inevitably bring a certain level of suspicion.
So, she would give him a reason.
The reason was... insufficient food.
She wanted this Demon Emperor to believe that ‘there is insufficient food in the army, and they can only fight a battle to reduce their numbers and ensure there is enough food’.
On the demon island, it was almost impossible to gather food normally.
Because everything had been corrupted by demonic energy and could no longer serve as food for normal races.
And all the food on the airships had been discarded.
This meant a food crisis had already appeared in the army.
The Demon Emperor surely knew this in his heart.
The reason he was pressing close without attacking might be precisely because of this.
He wanted to wait until the food in the allied forces was too scarce to sustain them before annihilating them.
Adding this slaughter of horses was enough to erase the suspicion in the Demon Emperor's heart.
The next battle would be very logical.
‘The morale in the army is unstable and needs a war to sustain it’ and ‘insufficient food requires a reduction in personnel’.
Regardless of which condition the Demon Emperor believed, he would be even less likely to attack proactively afterward.
He would only press forward step by step.
He might even slow down the pace of his advance.
The rest depended on what this Demon Emperor thought.
Thinking of this, Luo Li breathed a long sigh of relief and looked toward the south once more.
She wondered if things at sea... would go as she expected.
Hopefully, no accidents would occur.
...
Time passed very quickly, and by now, the army had begun preparing for combat.
And the knights of the Snow Country had all mounted their horses and were quietly retreating into the distance.
At the same time, the demon side also seemed to have noticed some strange signs, and their pressing footsteps began to slow.
Griffins appeared in the sky, seemingly intending to learn the movements of the knight regiment's central command.
However, Luo Li had anticipated this long ago, so she had the Dragon Knight Corps patrolling the sky early on.
They were to ensure that not a single griffin could scout the situation of the central command.
The feathered serpent tribe confronted the dragons in the sky.
Even though there were only five feathered serpents, they kept dozens of dragons on high alert.
One could only imagine how powerful these feathered serpents were.
Luo Li hadn't had much chance to observe them closely before.
Looking at them now, these feathered serpents truly were like the attendants of gods in Earth's legends.
The wings on both sides of their bodies were like bird feathers, their forms were winding like snakes, yet their heads resembled lizards with pointed snouts and sharp fangs.
Along their backs, following the spine, a scythe-like exoskeleton over ten meters long appeared at intervals.
This exoskeleton looked extremely sharp on both its inner and outer edges.
Their backs were covered in long, deep black manes, while their bellies were covered in plates of scales.
They looked like dragons, like snakes, and carried features of boar manes and bird wings.
At the same time, on the front part of their bodies, two massive and sharp four-fingered claws grew.
It felt like several different animals had been stitched together.
In fact, the great dragons also looked like stitched monsters.
Most unique creatures in this world were like that.
In any case, they all followed the same general principles.
But it had to be said that the size of these feathered serpents was terrifying.
Their body length already exceeded that of the great dragons and was exceptionally thick.
Luo Li compared herself to them and felt that if she rushed up, she wouldn't even be qualified to be stuck between their teeth.
The knights were already fully equipped and ready.
This time, Luo Li did not intend to go onto the battlefield; instead, she prepared to provide support from the rear, maintaining a certain distance from the battle.
With the Dragon King and dozens of great dragons present, she had no need to take risks.
If she went to take risks now, it would be redundant and instead arouse suspicion.
It was better to quietly observe the changes on the battlefield from the rear.
If she reached level thirty, she could completely sit peacefully in the central command or even the rear guard and command the entire field.
At the same time, her skills should also be able to radiate across the entire battlefield.
Standing on the Saint's Carriage, she looked out into the distance.
The demon army had also long since prepared for battle.
The demons' equipment was very sophisticated; it definitely wasn't something the brainless demons could manufacture.
It must have been obtained from those infiltrators in the Kingdom of the Moon over the past centuries.
It was all weaponry made by humans.
Thinking about it was truly laughable.
Weapons forged by the human race had ultimately become the demons' tools to deal with the human race.
It was truly a case of shooting oneself in the foot.
“All troops... prepare!”
Luo Li held her banner high.
In the next second, all the knights raised their lances.
And on those ten thousand horses that did not have riders, two sets of armor were propped up on each.
These armors were empty, all supported by horse bones.
Once they set out, the rest could only be left to fate.
In the deep of the night, whether it was the demons or the humans, they actually couldn't see much.
Therefore, this was the best time; in a little while, once day broke, it would be impossible to continue.
“Protect the Brilliant Night with My Moon Banner!”
Luo Li held the Moon Banner high with both hands and chanted loudly.
“O Holy One! Please protect me and my people!”
Boom!
A full moon appeared in the originally dim sky.
At the same time, the Guardian Knight at the very front, Robert, let out a roar:
“Full army, charge!”
Boom, boom, boom...
Ten thousand horses galloped across the wilderness; no matter how many times one saw this sight, it was still shocking.
Luo Li watched her knights, watching those knights charge into the demon army regardless of their own safety.
With the protection of her first skill, the knights successfully broke through the encirclement in the first wave of the charge.
Immediately after, they turned around and charged again.
Among them, the figure of the Demon Emperor could be vaguely seen within the griffin units in the sky.
Great, the Demon Emperor really wasn't in the ground forces!
This meant that even if the armor in the ground forces was fake, it would be very difficult for them to discover it.
She had really gambled correctly.
In the sky, the Dragon King's gaze was fixed on the Demon Emperor at all times.
And at this moment, the feathered serpents finally began their attack.
One of the feathered serpents suddenly raised its head and opened its massive mouth as dark element energy gathered frantically.
At the same time, the dragons in the sky also began to take counter-measures.
Three dragons simultaneously raised their heads to condense their Dragon Breath.
And two dragons immediately cast magic defenses.
“Roar!”
The feathered serpent's roar was accompanied by a massive black beam of light, heading straight for the dragons.
And the Dragon Breath condensed by the dragons also sprayed out instantly.
In an instant, the two turbulent flows of energy crashed together.
The massive air current even pushed both sides back hundreds of meters.
The battle immediately fell into a stalemate.
At this moment, Knight Robert was leading the charge. In the rear, countless white horses let out tragic neighs as they were devoured by numerous demons.
Despite knowing this was only the Saintess's strategy, he was still heartbroken.
Thinking of his comrades who could only lose their mounts in vain, the anger in Robert's heart grew even stronger!
“Knights! Charge!”
“Kill!”
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