Lux's Farewell

As a great engineer, Kalya who performed the reconnaissance mission brought back much richer first-hand information than other scouts - not only did he mark the specific location of the fortress, but he also used gravel to vividly create a huge The model, like a real estate display, was placed in front of Lux and Ashe.

"This is the basic situation of the fortress." Kalya introduced with a smile, "I haven't gone deep into the underground part, so I don't know yet, but the above-ground buildings should be relatively accurate."

Following Kalya's words, Lux's eyes fell on the fortress model in front of her. She only took a brief glance and frowned.

The fortress reminded her of Owendale.

Since Kalya carefully marked the scale, Lacus could clearly judge that the height of the main body of the fortress wall should be more than twenty feet.

This height sounds very ordinary, but the problem is that the entire fortress itself is built on the ruins of Fort Diver, and Fort Diver was a former defensive town in the north of Noxus. Even if it was burned into ruins, Its basic height is still over ten feet.

(Kalja also noted this with different colored gravels.)

Combining the two means attacking the fortress from the outside. If the first goal is not to break the city wall, then you have to face a height difference of more than thirty feet in attacking from above. Under this height difference, even if you are good at shooting, The Avarosans are bound to be at a disadvantage with long-range firepower.

Moreover, judging from the structure of the fortress, it is an irregular fortress with multiple sections of walls. There are no more than five sections that can be attacked. As a rough estimate, even if the attack is launched from all five directions, it can be placed on the offensive position. There will be no more than a thousand soldiers.

With such a narrow offensive position, even if the Northern Expeditionary Army had some experience in siege warfare, Lux didn't have the slightest confidence.

"This is not a fortress that should be attacked head-on." After circling the model of the fortress twice, Lux shook her head helplessly and said, "Compared to this, I think it is easier to just break the city wall."

"But Lissandra will never sit back and watch us attack the city wall." Although Ashe has no attainments in siege command, this fortress does not require any attainments to see its difficulties. "If you directly If she attacks the city wall, then she should rely on the city wall for defense..."

"You guessed it right." Kalya nodded, "I also tried to get close to the city wall, but unfortunately, there are many dangerous spells on the city wall. Although I think I can get rid of it, that dragon may not be able to. So I didn’t have time to test it.”

It is natural that Kalya can get rid of the solidification spell on the city wall.

But these solidification spells can leave behind the elemental dragon... which means that any destruction method that is close to the city wall may not be effective.

Realizing this, Lux's frowned brows turned into a knot. This kind of heavily defended fortress, with Lissandra sitting in charge, and considering the surrounding terrain, she wanted to bite it off It’s simply unbelievable!

"Are there many people in the fortress?" Ashe stared at the sentry towers of the fortress model for a while, and suddenly seemed to find an idea. "Looking at the number of these sentry towers, it seems that there are not many sentries in the fortress?"

"It can only be said that there are not many sentries for the time being." Kalya nodded, "At least when I was riding around on that stupid dragon that couldn't hide its traces, it wasn't until I got within a hundred yards of the city wall that the opponent finally got something. From this perspective, maybe the number of people defending the city is not too large."

"And Lissandra's supply line must also be considered." Lux added, "Although I heard that the Frost Witch has accumulated countless frozen supplies in the Frost Guard Fortress, it is not easy to transport those things from the Frost Guard Fortress to the Iron Thorn Mountains. easy."

"Then, can we try to cut off their supply lines?" Ai Xi said inferences, "We have transportation difficulties, and they are the same. From here, the access to the mountains is limited. As long as these accesses are blocked, even Li Sandra can go without food or drink, so can the warriors and priests under her command?"

"This is a good idea." Kalya nodded, "But it cannot be used as the only reliance - remember what I said, there should be no problem with the information I collected about the situation on the ground, but the situation underground, even if it is me Don’t know anything either.”

"What do you mean?" Ai Xi was a little confused, "Underground?"

"The Dredge Fort is not only an important northern town of Noxus, but also their black iron smelting and manufacturing center." Kalya shrugged, "Under the Dredge Fort, mines extend in all directions, and no one knows where they will lead. place."

"In that case, maybe we can think of a solution from Noxus." Hearing what Kalya said, Lux's eyes suddenly lit up. "You see, although there are passages leading to the south in the above-ground part of the Diver Fort, , but the road is very winding and very unfavorable for transportation.”

"So?" Ash was a little confused, "What does this mean?"

"This means that if the Noxians are not all idiots, they should have prepared a secret passage leading directly to the outside of the mountain." Lux narrowed her eyes, "Look here, the southwest corner of the city, a distance of The straight-line distance in the plains outside the Iron Thorn Mountains is not too far. If I were the commander of Noxus, I would definitely ask Dredge Fort to lengthen it in this direction when digging underground mines."

Ashe seems to understand a little bit, but not completely - although she learned how to build cities after learning from Demacians, city construction and planning is a very complicated knowledge, and she is still stuck on "enclosing the settlements" "Dividing areas and establishing alerts later", as for further transportation and industrial connections, that has not been covered at all.

"I thought so too." Kalya nodded, "So I went to the south for a few rounds, but unfortunately, that passage didn't seem to be easy to find, and I didn't find anything."

"So we should contact the Noxians?" Lux stretched out her finger and tapped the table. "If they have a channel that was used to transport black iron products in the past, then maybe we can pass through this channel. Give Lissandra an unexpected surprise?"

"If it goes well, this is the best situation." Kalya nodded, "Of course, we have to consider that the Noxians really have no brains, so there is no such passage at all, or Lissandra knows The possibility of this passage.”

"At least we have a direction." Lux's lips finally raised slightly, "It's better to have a direction to work towards than to sigh in front of a towering ice wall!"

........................

Darius is having a hard time right now.

The defeat in the Black Forest destroyed more than one-third of Noxus' mobile forces and lost countless supplies and equipment.

The most terrible thing is that although Demacia and Noxus signed an armistice agreement after the war, the harshness of this armistice agreement was actually no less stringent than the surrender agreement.

Noxus has lost its sovereignty over the Black Forest region and its right to inherit the territory of the Noxus Empire. If the Demacians' hearts were not focused on the north, I am afraid Noxus would have to pay more for this. There are more.

The signing of this armistice agreement directly led to domestic turmoil in Noxus.

War, conquest and expansion are the "main plot" of Noxus. For a military empire, especially one with a complete military merit system and a talent flow that relies on military merit for promotion, failure in war will lead to internal collapse. .

Originally, there were old nobles in Noxus. Although they were decadent, when there was no war, the feuding among these nobles could at least keep Noxus from becoming a stagnant pool of stagnant water, and it could also provide opportunities for those who longed to climb up. A little hope. However, due to the successive sweeps of Swain and Darius, the old nobles of Noxus have long been physically eliminated. Noxus is now a purely militaristic country that cannot be more pure. .

And this militaristic country had just accumulated some strength when it was slapped into the quagmire...

It is no exaggeration to say that after the defeat in the Black Forest, the entire Noxus fell into confusion. Everyone seemed to have been stripped of their backbone and could not find the direction for the future.

The Noxians were eager to stay true to their past and resume their conquests.

But after successive failures, hesitation and hesitation inevitably grew in the hearts of many people.

In addition to the mental blow, the Noxians faced equally severe material problems - militaristic countries have a cycle of expansion.

Join the army, fight, and distribute victory items as rewards to encourage soldiers to continue fighting.

This is a snowballing cycle. When this cycle can roll smoothly, Noxus will become stronger and stronger.

But now, the cycle between battle and victory was severed, and the Noxians paid a heavy price but gained neither victory nor gain.

In this case, there will be no reward for the soldiers.

Without rewards...who would want to join the army?

In the past, Noxian soldiers would tuck their heads in their belts and charge against the enemies of the empire. Even if they died, they would be compensated. If they could win and perform meritorious service, they could rise to the top and become officers or even military nobles.

As long as Noxus wins the war, there will be enough seizures to fill the pockets of the soldiers who return from victory. Even if it is a tragic victory, there will still be countless people eager to join the army.

But now?

If you do the math, Noxus has experienced three large-scale defeats since the Ionian War.

Although the defeat in the Battle of Presidence was bad, it was not a traumatic event.

The failure of the Battle of Tobitsia left Noxus torn apart, but many people within the empire were still very unconvinced. Many people believed that if the shameful group of old nobles had not betrayed the empire, the outcome of the Battle of Tobitsia was still uncertain— —Especially after the establishment of New Demacia, many people even thought that "if Tobitsia wins, Demacia will be torn apart."

It is precisely because of this mentality that after Darius came to power, the fierce public opinion and the military group supported him in carrying out a physical purge of the old aristocracy.

The results of it?

When Noxus rebuilt Trifari with one heart and one mind, had a commanding bodyguard, and took the lead to ambush the Demacians, they were killed on their own territory and returned with a huge defeat!

The defeat of Black Forest was fatal to Noxus, especially after a few soldiers who escaped from the Western Front and had their will broken spread panic like a plague, and the entire Noxus seemed to be interrupted. The spine.

When Darius gritted his teeth and took some of the little savings left in the Immortal Fortress, intending to rebuild the Trifari Army again, what was before him was a situation that Noxus had never seen before: No one wants to join the army.

If time went back twenty years and someone told Darius that one day Noxus would be worried about the supply of soldiers, then he would definitely think that the other party was talking nonsense. Noxus didn't have much else and was eager to climb up through the army. There are definitely a lot of people!

But after three terrible defeats, the Noxians finally seemed to have run out of blood.

Even though Darius gritted his teeth and squeezed out the supplies of the New Trifari Chapter without any intention of deducting them, there were still very few people willing to join the army.

The Noxians lost.

What's more terrifying than failure is that they seem to be getting used to failure and seem to have a tendency not to believe in victory!

Even among the commanders, only people like Darius, who are over fifty and have experienced the most glorious era of Noxus, still have confidence in Noxus restoring its imperial posture-those young and native Young people who should be full of energy are more concerned about their relationship with Demacia and are more willing to devote their energy to business or animal husbandry...

The most terrible thing is that among the ruling class of Noxus, apart from old guys like Darius, the only ones left are the young people.

There are almost no people in the middle generation, which should be in their prime now.

At this time, Darius belatedly discovered that the Noxians had lost an entire generation in the wars and defeats.

Although Darius still insists on restoring the homeland of the Noxus Empire, neither Riel nor Seb are on his side on the Trifari Council.

Even though he was still the commander-in-chief, even though he was still the theoretical supreme ruler of Noxus, at this moment, Darius had to admit that he was about to be abandoned by the times.

Maybe Riel is heading in the right direction?

Just when Darius was worried and even confused, he received a diplomatic letter from Demacia.

The Demacians, who were competing with the Frostguard tribe in the Freljord, were so upset that they wanted to send a special envoy to the Immortal Fortress.

The specific reason was not stated in the official letter, but Laxana emphasized that the person leading the team was a "plenipotentiary", which forced Darius to brace himself to deal with this inexplicable mission. (End of chapter)