Badge in Azure

The eunuchs in Cloudflow did not have much rank. This eunuch looked arrogant, if Bifano wanted to kill him directly, he could. Bifano waved his hand as a bodyguard rushed forward and brought the eunuch on the horse in front of Bifano.

One of them took out a short sword and placed it at the eunuch’s neck.

“I ask, you answer. If you don’t, I will kill you. If you answer too slow, I will kill you. If you answer wrong, I will kill you. If you lie, I will kill you. If I think you are lying, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

The eunuch struggled a little, but there was no fear. He laughed coldly and said, “Do you think people like me are afraid of death?”

“What happened to my father?” Bifano did not care what the eunuch had to say as he started questioning.

“He escaped. The emperor was mad and had sent people into Titan Duchy. Do not think you are much, I am no different from you now, we will both die soon.”

Bifano knew that this eunuch was stubborn but he did not want to die, so he continued asking, “How many people have come to Cloudflow?”

“When I left, the emperor had already sent two vanguard forces.”

“Vanguard forces? They actually used the royal swordsmen?!” Bifano was shocked. There were soldiers stationed at Titan Duchy. To take down the Agares family, one could just use these soldiers. The royal swordsmen were one of the few strong infantry troops in Cloudflow, the other elites were at sea.

Once the vanguard forces were deployed, there would be at least thirty-thousand people going after. There were less than ten-thousand elites in the capital. Sending out half of them at once, were they not afraid that the local warlord would do something wicked?

There were twelve camps worth of soldiers in Cloudflow Empire and there were one-hundred and twenty-thousand people in the main forces. Among them, twenty-thousand took turns to station outside. Each rotation was three years and it maintained their combat powers. There were less back up troops in Cloudflow and the capital counted on the royal swordsmen’s camp soldiers to protect them. Even though there were twenty-four other camps worth of soldiers, they were stationed in other counties near the capital. If something were to really happen, they would take half a month to all assemble.

There were certain risks as to what the Emperor of the Cloudflow Empire had done.

“Bifano, the Gauss family has been toppled by the emperor. He has prepped and assembled an army of two-hundred-thousand people. Do you think you can still hold on to Titan Duchy?”

“The Gauss family has fallen?!” Only now did Bifano’s face turn pale. The Gauss family was the strongest force in the empire and even the capital could not do much to them. After the new emperor had ascended the throne, over the decades, he had been trying to fix down policies. The Gauss family had conquered two large counties near the sea and were said to even have a secret island in the sea to nurture slain warriors.

Whether it was wealth, power, or the connections with the wealthy from other places; they were not necessarily any weaker than the royal palace.

Since Emperor Jupiter had ascended the throne, he had always given off an incompetent look. Who knew it was all a show? To be able to topple the Gauss family, Emperor Jupiter might have started planning even before he ascended the throne.

Bifano looked at the stone statue castle from afar, it was so tall that it went high up into the clouds. Its peak was right within a cloud of mist and could not be seen.

The emperor knew his tracks and even the Pink Army knew where he was too! Bifano started suspecting himself in the moment, would he still have a chance to make it? Were the bodyguard around him spies of Emperor Jupiter too?

Impossible! The bodyguards from the Agares family were chosen from the most loyal people. They had been following the Agares family for many generations. No matter how special Emperor Jupiter was, he could not make these bodyguards betray him.

“Kill him.” As Bifano gave his command, the short sword of one of the bodyguards had entered the eunuch’s neck. With a squeeze, fresh blood spurted onto the ground.

There was another forty man team behind the eunuch. They were the defenders of the stone statue castle. Seeing Bifano killing the follower of the emperor, they were sent into a flutter as they started escaping towards the stone statue palace.

It was over a mile away from the stone statue palace and Bifano made a sign. Immediately, another small team of his bodyguards started chasing them on the horses. Releasing arrows, they shot down the soldiers one by one from their horses.

Bifano rode his horse beside Lex’s chariot and said softly, “Viscountess.”

Lex was in the chariot and she saw everything clearly. It was impossible to hoodwink their way into the stone statue palace now. Bifano had come to ask for help,

“Saleen, what do you think?”

“If you are confident then let’s take action, if not we will go around it.”

Lex considered carefully before saying to Bifano outside, “Let’s retreat a few miles first and let me calculate.”

Bifano’s team retreated by five miles and started setting up a defensive camp. This was too close to the stone statue palace and the palace might send out their calvary to attack.

There was a huge stone house by the roadside, but its ceiling was made from wood with tree bark and ropes on the top. There were a few coats of paint on it and it was meant to be a resting place for the soldiers. As they knew Bifano’s team might come across it, the soldiers had long taken it down.

Lex came down from the magic chariot this time and entered the house. She used a Cleaning spell to get rid of the rotten smell within the rooms and set up a table. Bifano went to produce the stone statue castle’s blueprints and map and handed them to Lex.

Saleen caught up with them and looked over the two drawings with Lex.

The stone statue was along the Chishui River, it was in the east-west direction and eventually flowed into the Hantze. It was a huge inner lake that was between the borders of Titan Duchy and the Qin Empire. The Chishui River made three curves around the stone statue castle and there was an incredibly wide steel bridge at the top. To cross the iron bridge, one had to take down the outer structures of the stone statue castle.

It was still considered relatively flat there and the chariot could run along it. Near the stone statue castle, the terrain was uneven and at some places, even reached over one-hundred meters high. This protected the castle incredibly well.

Because of these formations, it would require a huge amount of forces to attack the stone statue castle. They could only attack from two narrow roads. The stone statue castle was sixty to seventy meters above the water and it was impossible to make use of the Chishui River.

Looking at the drawing of the castle again, the castle was an irregular hexagonal shape and it took up over two square miles. It could hold a lot of people, even up to one-hundred-thousand people. The Cloudflow’s force were not that big and there were only five-thousand people inside. These peasant soldiers would not fight with their best abilities. The Agares family had spent a long time on this plot of land and the Cloudflow royals could not control them after all.

“There are at least six-thousand enemies inside.” Bifano cut the crap. When it came to combat, he did not have the flaws of a wealthy. He instead acted like a general that had fought in hundreds of battles.

“How many elites?”

“Earl Wynner has over five-hundred elites, he should have another five-hundred private soldiers with him. They might not be good at combat, but they are incredibly loyal. The five-hundred soldiers are sent by the Cloudflow Empire on paper, but they have actually been transferred from Titan Duchy. They are much more skilled than the peasant soldiers but they aren’t as strong-willed.”

Bifano told Lex whatever he had analyzed as directly as he could. He did not have a mage and had no choice but to ask Lex for help, this was something unavoidable. As he was in a hurry to push his group along, he only had some simple equipment in histen chariots, he could bring trebuchets though.

The drawing was very detailed, the Agares family would definitely strengthen the defences in a place like the stone statue castle. They had long ago sent a spy to replicate the original drawing and mark up any changes made yearly.

As there were only two roads into the castle, the defences were concentrated at the east and west. Even though the drawing was not a three-dimensional magic image, it had marked up every facility in a detailed fashion, including the six trebuchets near the east entrance. They were six fixed trebuchets and had a giant metal structure protecting it normally, only when there was a war would they be removed.

Lex let Bifano retreat his team because of these six trebuchets. Such fixed trebuchets might be easily destroyed, but the could aim accurately and every one of them controlled a fixed radius outside the east entrance. The coordination was long completed and so long as any familiar magic disciple controlled it, it did not need any adjustments to be able to land rapidly and accurately.

When all six of them released at the same time, Bifano might lose twenty percent of his four-hundred strong bodyguard team at once.

They could only defend against a large ordnance such as an enemies’ war puppets and magic trebuchets. To deal with mages, it still required mages and archer towers.

There were over twenty archer towers at the east entrance and they had a middle-sized alchemy crossbow fixed on it. If a grade-6 mage wanted to fly into the castle, these alchemy crossbows would definitely start shooting.

The over twenty archer towers were to make up for the fact that there were not any magic towers. All of them had a middle-sized alchemy crossbow and over thirty small crossbows. Unless they were a grade-8 sorcerer, any mage’s defences would decrease while flying. It would be harder for them to control their magic too. Facing a rain of arrows, Saleen who was skilled at defence, was not confident in surviving either.

Of course, Saleen could use his cloud of mist to hide himself and the enemy could only shoot based on their luck. If Saleen wanted to dodge, it would be a game of luck. Even for a set of alchemy mould, Saleen did not need to risk his life.

Lex looked at the drawing and said to Bifano, “We can’t trick them to open the castle gates. If we want to attack it down, we need large-sized equipment. I did bring two trebuchets with me, but they cannot hold back against the six in the castle.

“How about the flying puppets?”

Lex smiled and said, “Those twenty archer towers aren’t decorations. A flying puppet might be fast, but it cannot hide from the alchemy crossbow. It would be shot down even before it reaches the trebuchets.”

“Viscountess, I will give you everything in the warehouse of the next city!” Bifano made a decision immediately, he did not believe that Lex did not have any way to attack down the stone statue castle. It was blocking them from reaching the steel bridge across the Chishui River. The water level was at a maximum level besides the bridge. They would need to swim upstream for five-hundred miles to cross the river.

“Two cities!” Lex negotiated on the spot. She needed to put in many resources to take down this castle. The warehouse from a single city might not be enough to cover the cost or she might gain nothing from it.

“Deal!”

Seeing Bifano making such a quick decision, Saleen changed his impression of him. He was exceptional in some areas and was not just an incompetent wealthy.