Badge in Azure

It was a pity no matter how outstanding Bifano was, he was not even a tenth of Lex. Lex was the one who wanted to take down the castle, but now it became Bifano who was pleading with her.

One must know that when Lex returned, she would need to cross the Chishui River. That was the fastest route and there were many uncertainties downstream. Destroying the stone statue castle, she would be able to obtain the alchemy mould in it. She could clear the obstacles and make Bifano pay for it.

No matter how one thought of it, this deal was a win.

The warehouse in the two cities would have a large number of rations. Once a war broke out, they would be hard to buy. It was still alright in Bitter Water Prefecture, it was in a remote area and the war would not reach there. It could count on the surrounding land to feed itself. Metatrin City, however, could not. It was a deserted land all around and to grow suitable crops, one would need to take two or three years.

“Give me fifty slain warriors.” Lex looked at the drawing and made a request of Bifano. He did not hesitate and nodded in agreement.

“Let the war horses and soldiers change into heavy armor. When I break open the castle gates, they will charge in. These fifty slain warriors will protect the chariot and attack from here.” Lex pointed at the center of the stone statue castle. There was a great structure there and all the mages and stone statue ghosts were gathered there. Even though it was not a grade-6 mage level yet. Lex did not know how many stone statue ghosts were there and she needed the slain warriors to pave a way for her mages.

Only by killing the mage that were controlling these ghosts could one make them stop. This structure was Lex’s goal and there was a tunnel under it that led to the old castle. The alchemy laboratory was underneath it.

Bifano knew what Lex wanted the slain warriors for, he immediately transferred fifty warriors holding shields. Lex took out the armor and let them change into it. These were the armors that she had gotten from Dragon Tooth Town. They had been soaked in dragon’s blood and they could be considered a magic armor. Their defensive abilities were shocking.

Every one of them took one of the machetes that Saleen had fashioned. They had saw like teeth on them and were the best weapon to deal with mages. The shields that they were carrying were changed too as Lex handed over a rectangle shield to all of them. When they touched the ground, only the head of the soldier could be seen. When a dozen of them joined together, they could seal off a narrow street.

The castle was hard to take down, but its weakness was too obvious; the wooden castle gates…

After arranging the slain warriors and getting them familiar with the equipment, Lex started taking out materials from the Gods Ring and assembling a giant chariot.

This chariot was like a low-grade magic beast, it had a sharp tip and its entire body was a steel shell. It had eight wheels that were incredibly wide. It was thick and heavy with a small sealed cabin. Only one person was concealed inside; Wild Bear.

This chariot was meant to take down city gates, but it was meant for small towns. Big cities would not have a castle with a wooden gate. Wrapping steel around the city gates was something all the countries on the mainland were used to doing. A steel wrapped-wooden door could prevent enemies from attacking with fire and even a magic attack would be severely limited.

“My people will take down the door while yours will rush in, clearing the area in front of the castle gates. Many war chariot will then enter and take down the ghosts. They do not have any high-grade mages any way, it will be easier.

Lex’s words left Bifano dejected. If he had a suitable equipment, he would only need two-thousand people to take down this castle. He did not have anything and the infantry troops were stuck from advancing there, however. He had no choice but to count on Lex for help.

Lex had learnt this plan from Daniel. Even though it was brutal, it was effective. The defence troops in the castle were not united at all. Besides the one-thousand men from the duke, the remaining five regiments all leaned towards the Agares family.

If the castle gates did not fall, these five-thousand people were their enemies. Once it fell, they would immediately lose their will to fight. Lex was very clear on how the wealthy controlled their army. Even though Titan Duchy was not a match for Cloudflow, if Emperor Jupiter wanted to control everything, he would still need a long time and this was why she dared to stay there.

Of course, Lex had not finished setting up, she took out a large number of weapons and asked Bifano to hand them down. They were used to destroy the archer towers and the trebuchets. The trebuchets were still alright. Once they rushed into the castle, they would not be a threat to Bifano’s army, but the archer towers could fire from any angle. It was a killer force that might hamper Bifano’s army.

At last, Lex took out two fully constructed puppets and said to Saleen; “You shall command theses two. The archer towers won’t be chopped down that easily, let the force of the puppets do the job.”

Saleen nodded, the bottom of the archer towers only had a little metal on them. In actual fact, Sika could go up and push it down. That was a risk and Saleen had no intention of taking, however.

Seeing Lex’s chariot and equipped puppets, Bifano was incredibly jealous. Titan had war horses while the Qin Empire had mages. Looking at his magic equipment against Lex’s, he would never be able to compare with her.

The equipment and scrolls were passed down and Bifano finally could heave a sigh of relief. Lex had invested heavily and such a chariot was incredibly sharp, it would definitely knock down the wooden gate. It was not only meant to attack the gates, it had many other uses too. Once it took down a city, it could not be used any longer.

Lex gave the mages over a hundred scrolls, giving Bifano much confidence. He was worried about the stone statue ghosts at first, but seeing Lex giving out that many scrolls, he knew they would not struggle too much unless there was a sorcerer hidden in the castle.

Making use of the remaining sunlight, Bifano commanded his army to follow behind Lex’s chariot.

The chariot was dragged by four horses and it went straight along the road, moving towards the castle. There was a watchtower there and when they were two miles away, the enemies came within their sight.

The quality of an alchemy telescope varied and even though that one could see up to five miles away, the image was blurry. Only when they were a mile apart could they make out what it was.

Titan Duchy did not have such a thing, the chariot was made from a lot of metal and it was stunningly heavy. Without a high-grade Alchemy spell, it could not be fashioned out. Even if it did, a war horse could not pull it.

It started charging when it was eight-hundred meters away. The four war horses pulled along the war chariot that weighed hundreds of tons and charged towards the gate. Before this they had already started accelerating from a mile away for it to reach its top speed.

The magic array within it revolved in a stable manner and the magic nucleus inlaid in it was quickly used up. Without the magic array, the four war horses would not be able to pull such a heavy load.

Wearing an eye patch, the war horses that had been powered by magic knocked against the city gate. With a loud boom, the chariot behind crushed the castle gate and the four horses into pieces. The six-meter-long chariot hit into the castle gates and the whole building vibrated.

From acceleration to striking against the castle gate, the chariot only took a little over a minute. The trebuchets in the castle did not even have time to react. Before the castle gate was destroyed and Bifano’s cavalry appeared within their sight, the castle gates were already in pieces.

A shrill metal noise sounded and filled the entire castle. The chariot split from the center as the magic array spun according to how it was programmed. The body that had split apart wanted to roll from both sides to form a metal bridge that was four meters wide. The wheels had long been flung apart and now, even Wild Bear could not pull it away from the city gate.

Its design had long taken such things into consideration. The modified chariot would become a wide and steady metal bridge into the castle.

There was another door within the castle, but it was much weaker. Wild Bear jumped out from within the chariot, a hammer in his hand. He looked up before noticing that there was not any Broken Dragon Stone within. He immediately brought the metal hammer and raced towards the second door.

The castle was thrown into disarray as the five regiments within the defence group realized the one who attacked the castle was a small duke. How would they have any will to fight? As the castle gate was blown apart, they immediately dispersed, no one cared about the second door.

The hammer in Wild Bear hands flew out with a metal chain attached to it. It smashed into the hinges of the second door.

Such a wooden door did not have any magic added to it and for Wild Bear, it was no different than paper. The giant hammer smashed the hinges apart and Wild Bear went forward to give it a push and the entire door fell inwards.

He threw the hammer into the castle as he grabbed a giant shield and machete from behind his back, then he leapt forward.

If there were a large number of soldiers in front of the door, Wild Bear would be in for a tough battle. There were only a handful of them then and they were the personal soldiers of the earl. Half of them flew away after being struck by his shield. At a distance of two-hundred meters, Wild Bear took less than twenty seconds to make his way to below the archer tower.

He used his machete and started hacking at it. It was made from giant wood and as there was no one nearby distracting him, his knife worked hard at it and he chopped off a pillar. The remaining soldiers did not dare approach and took out their bows to prepare to shoot.

He placed his shield behind him and without even looking at the few soldiers, he continued dealing with the second pillar. The few soldiers had nowhere to aim and only a few arrows landed on his shield and ricocheted aside.

The city gates had fallen and Bifano’s cavalry stepped over the metal bridge that was transformed from the chariot. They rushed into the castle.

The earl’s henchmen were all controlling the trebuchet and archer towers, most of the defence troops had dispersed. Some of the remaining ones had even took down their badge and thrown it to the ground. Following behind Bifano’s cavalry, they rushed to the center of the castle.

Saleen’s magic chariot followed them. Upon seeing this scene, he finally understood why the emperor wanted to deal with the Agares family.

They were too influential to the local people. Just like the Phoenix family, the emperor could not allow such a family to be around when he was gathering all his forces.

These huge duchies were a deformed property. If the four empires had not signed a contract at the start, they would not be able to survive for thousands of years. When these huge duchies disappeared, it would be the start of a full on war between the four empires.