From Witcher to Lord of the Empire.

Chapter 253 Thank you for the information you brought over
The dazzling emerald-colored bright spots dazed the eyes of everyone present, but Svan Rij felt inexplicably relieved.

Sure enough, in the next second, a blond knight wielding a gleaming rune sword appeared.Rann's pale golden hair, dark golden eyes, Griffon armor and cloak, and Lake Maiden's long sword are all recognizable personal marks. Although the Nilfgaardians have never seen him, they are better than anyone else must be familiar with.

"It's Lannister! The lion of Cintra!" A sharp-eyed soldier in the Nilfgaardian team immediately responded.

They were ecstatic: "Kill him, and the portal of the northern border will be completely opened towards us, and the northern border will no longer have the power to resist the great His Majesty Emhyr!"

Lann paused for a moment, and quickly scanned the scene. The Nilfgaardians actually appeared in Skellige?

Thoughts collided in his mind, but Lann's reaction was extremely fast. After seeing the soldiers of the archipelago and the Black Sun fighters fighting together, he broke into the enemy's formation without hesitation, and his figure shuttled into the enemy's formation like lightning. The dazzling rune long sword revolved around his body continuously.

[Whirling Sword Dance]!
The golden arc brought blood gushing out, and the Skellige soldiers who were confronting the Nilfgaardians felt a blur before their eyes, and fell towards their hoarse enemy just now.

However, before Lan could continue showing his might in the crowd, he suddenly felt his hairs puffing up, and an astonishing "woo hoo" sound of breaking the wind came from his ears.

When he looked up, he saw huge stones passing over his head.

"Tabuchet?!"

It is not an ordinary trebuchet, but judging by the size and speed of the projectile, it is definitely the top-notch Nilfgaardian trebuchet!

Lan saw the small number of these Nilfgaardian soldiers just now, and thought they were just harassing troops or reconnaissance teams, but now that even such large siege equipment has come out, could it be that the Nilfgaardians are going to attack Skellige? Total attack?How did they quietly smuggle large troops ashore?

"Lan, be careful with the trebuchets! They attack regardless of their own people, and they are not afraid of death!" Sifan Riji shouted hastily.

Lan glanced at the Torgil Castle, which had been mostly collapsed, and then looked in the direction of the stone bullet.From a distance, you can see the reflection of the metal color in the sun, as well as the dust that was lifted up by the mechanical arm due to the release of the stone bullet.

The location is easy to find, but the distance is not close.The Nilfgaardians chose a condescending hillside, more than four hundred steps away from Ran and the others.

Thoughts collided like lightning in his brain a few times, and Lan decisively launched the [Teleportation] skill again.Seven bright spots appeared out of nowhere, and six of them quickly went out, revealing the Four Demon Hunters, Druid Fetov, and Lann's own mount Black Wind.

Stepping into the black wind, Lann pulled the rein and steered the excited horse towards the direction of the catapult, and the rest of the people were responsible for supporting Svan Rij against the Nilfgaardians.

The seven bright spots represent seven combat units.For a melee of hundreds of people, such a small number of people shouldn't be able to play a big role, but the extra huge bright spot that has not been extinguished at this moment has attracted everyone's attention.

No, it's not attractive—because people's eyes cannot avoid this huge light.

A blue-white giant with a height of more than ten meters appeared in the terrified eyes of the Nilfgaardian and the Skellig.He looked around, and uprooted a big tree surrounded by two people on the side of the road, and extended it into a giant stick more than ten meters in a burst of energy fluctuations that made the badges of the demon hunters tremble.

He waved his huge stick and roared to the sky: "My God!"

"Ice giant!" Svanrigi exclaimed, "Why did it appear here, Lann, you guys..."

Before the unidentified youth and other archipelago soldiers took a stance, they saw the ice giant turn its back on them, rushing into the enemy camp against the arrow rain shot by the screaming Nilfgaardians. .The bluish-white back is like a city wall at this moment, which actually gives people a sense of peace of mind.

Svanrigi and the guards around him were stunned for a while, and they seemed to have no need to join the battle.

Fetov recited a mantra behind everyone's back with peace of mind, and the portal opened immediately, and Yennefer, who was scented with cloves and gooseberries, came out first.Then the sorceress chanted the spell again, and cooperated with the druid to open the portal, and sent Lane's attendants and other soldiers still in the archipelago back as much as possible.

The demon hunters followed behind the ice giant, trying to draw their swords to kill the enemy, but found that their speed of approaching the enemy could not keep up with the speed of the ice giant's kill.

Only Gerd was disturbed at the moment, because he saw the collapsed castle.

"Svanrigi, where is Torgil? Where is he?"

Svanrigi took a deep breath and pointed to the ruins of the castle: "He was crushed under the city wall during the first round of catapult attacks... Wait, Mr. Ged!"

Before Svanrigi could finish speaking, the bear sent the demon hunters to rush towards the ruins of the castle.There are Nilfgaardian troops running across them, but Gerd's body is covered with a hard golden shield, and the Nilfgaardian's sword can only ripple on it; His steel sword is powerful and heavy, and can easily tear apart the armor of the enemy.

He was anxious about his lord and his best friend. At this moment, he really exploded the strength of a legendary demon hunter who can slay a dragon alone. Passed through the army formation and came to the edge of the ruins of Torgil Castle.

"Torgil..." Gerd looked at several guards who were buried in the gravel. Not long ago, he and some of them sang loudly at the banquet.For a moment, he was in a trance, but he forgot that he was on the battlefield.

"Ged, be careful!"

A scream came from behind the Xiongpai demon hunter, and immediately after that, he felt his vision suddenly go dark.

A new round of stone bullets was thrown towards the castle under the pressure of the trebuchet, and it was about to turn the building into a real ruin.

The ice giant jumped up suddenly, and swung a wooden stick more than ten meters away, hitting the stone bullets like a baseball.In the next second, the wooden stick and the rock shattered together in mid-air, and the body of the ice giant lost its balance in mid-air due to the huge impact, and fell hard to the ground, crushing several Nefers to death. Gad soldiers.

The Nilfgaardian soldiers surrounded them like ants and swung their swords, but they all bounced off the weapons until their palms were numb from the shock, and they felt that they had chopped on a leather-wrapped stone.On the other hand, the Ice Giant was completely enraged by the impact of the stone bullets and the sneak attack of the Nilfgaardians. He got up and waved his fists directly to crush these soldiers into deflated cans.

The ice giant only blocked one stone bullet.

More black shadows shattered the remaining walls and supports of the castle, and finally caused the huge building to collapse completely in a burst of shaking.

Gerd was still in it, and everyone saw only a protective cover of the Quin Seal propped up, and then the golden light shattered.

……

On the hillside not far away, the Nilfgaardian controlled the catapult and threw a total of three rounds of stone bombs, and then stopped.

Their ammunition is still sufficient, but no one is still thinking about attacking at this moment.At this moment, everyone was dumbfounded by what they saw and forgot to continue fighting.

"Ice giants..." The bearded officer was in charge of commanding at the forefront of the team. Before he came to Skellige, he read a lot of books about the archipelago for the purpose of collecting information. He knew the legend about the ice giants. of.

"The Skellige... no, it's the lion of Cintra!" The bearded officer began to tremble uncontrollably, "He has acquired this level of power, and can drive this prehistoric monster, if the giant Appearing on the battlefield..."

The officer was already dripping cold sweat uncontrollably, and then he ordered his subordinates loudly with red eyes: "Keep firing the trebuchet! Don't worry about the pirates' castle anymore, aim at the ice giant! Be sure to kill this monster!" Kill here!"

Soldiers in black sun armor are busy preparing to reload ammunition again.

However, in the next second, a golden light flashed in front of their eyes, and then a long sword drew an arc to occupy all their sights.

Just when the Nilfgaardian was in a daze, Black Wind had already driven Lann to approach the Nilfgaardian position, bringing them into the range of Lann's [Flash] skill.

"It's Lannister!"

Lane's way of appearance made everyone unexpected, and Lane had never used this skill in their intelligence.Regarding Lann's description of his combat effectiveness, Nilfgaard's information was still limited to the time when he had just become a demon hunter.

The number of people in Nilfgaard is very small, but more than thirty people, just enough to operate the trebuchet.This number of human soldiers was not a problem for Lann who had just become a demon hunter, and it was even less of a threat now.

The Cintra lion rushed into the crowd wielding a long sword, the golden blade brought a bloody wind, and pressed towards the formation that the Nilfgaardians had formed in a hurry.

No piece of armor could block his blade, no weapon could hurt him; and whenever someone tried to escape, they could only see a golden light flash from the corner of their eye, and then the lion appeared behind the deserter.

The bearded officer drew his sword and roared loudly to cheer himself up, trying hard to parry the enemy's weapon.However, the long sword flashing with runes obviously hadn't touched him yet, it seemed that an invisible blade extended from it, and it could easily smash the officer's weapon into pieces, which was no more difficult than breaking a branch.

Gushing blood flowed from his cut neck, and the bearded officer was surprised to find that he was still alive.The lion of Sintra put the weapon on his neck. Although the invisible blade still hurt him, it didn't take his life.

"Lannister...you are indeed as brave as the intelligence said. It is no wonder that the guys on the front line have not been able to take down Sintra." The bearded officer couldn't control the soreness of his throat and the trembling of his thighs. But still trying his best to maintain his demeanor.His hands touched his lower back, where a dagger was tied.

At some point, the Nilfgaardians here had died so that he was the only one left.As an officer, and Lannister hadn't killed himself yet, Beard knew what was waiting for him next.

[The sun is on top. ] He said silently in his heart, 【I must not divulge any information about the empire. 】

The bearded officer closed his eyes and made up his mind in secret. He was about to attack with a dagger to force Lan to kill him, but when he opened his eyes again, he saw only a left palm emitting white light.

【Axie Sign · Charm】

"Your name...forget it, I'm not interested." Lan shook his head and changed the question, "How many of you are there, and how did you sneak into Little Skellige Island?"

The officer who had just made up his mind to keep the secret knew everything at this moment, and said in a daze, "We have a total of 143 warriors here this time. We accidentally encountered soldiers from the Principality of the Arc Coast on the sea. It is clear, so let us sneak in."

Lane frowned when he heard the name of the "Arc Coast" principality, and then remembered that it was the culprit who forced Gerd to go to Skellige because of political conflicts.

They pursued Ged, but according to the previous intelligence, these soldiers who were chasing from the mainland had already disturbed the guards of the Tursek family who were under martial law on the island when they assassinated Ged in the tavern, so half of them were killed. flight.

During this process, the team from the Arc Shore has gained some familiarity with Little Skellige Island, so it is reasonable to know some secret passages to help the Nilfgaardians land.

"What about the people from the Arc Coast Principality?"

"Kill them all."

Lane chuckled, which was also reasonable.

"You dare to come to Skellige with only more than 100 people, what is Emhyr's plan?"

"We originally wanted to bring more soldiers, but we had to reduce the number of soldiers in order to transport the catapults." The bearded officer said in a daze, "And this is not His Majesty's plan."

Lan En couldn't help raising his eyebrows when he heard that, these soldiers actually acted without authorization.

What the bearded officer said revealed a lot of information.

The Nilfgaard Empire is very similar to a powerful empire named "Rome" in Rann's previous life, and some of the political systems in it have a lot of mutual confirmation.

The highest political institution of the Nilfgaardian Empire is called the "Niflgaardian Senate", or "Senate" for short. At the beginning of the establishment of the empire, the Senate and its members had supreme power.But after Emperor Emhyr came to power, his iron-blooded wrists shocked the empire, and then he continued to wage wars and won repeated battles. The power of the entire empire was gradually concentrated in the hands of Emhyr himself, forming the centralized power of the emperor.

And today, when Nilfgaard unified the entire south and began to sweep across the north, the Senate is even more useless.It is also because of this that intensified the internal contradictions of the empire.

In addition, there are many conflicts between the new nobles created by military exploits and the old nobles, and the conflicts caused by the emperor's arbitrariness and the big families in the empire.The current expansion and strength of the empire is almost all facilitated by Emhyr after he ascended the throne. Although it is powerful, the time is short and the foundation is unstable, which has led to turbulent undercurrents and hidden dangers.

It's just that all of this is usually covered up by Emhyr's constant record on the front line.In the general direction, no one dared to defy the emperor, but there were still many small actions in private.

Emhyr led the soldiers on the front line to continuously expand the territory, and their prestige continued to accumulate. Naturally, the members of the Senate were unwilling to sit and wait for death.But what unites people more than the benefits of war?

The answer is - revenge.

The Skellige once plundered Nilfgaard, which had not yet become an empire, which was the "City of the Golden Tower" at that time. Many nobles and high-ranking officials are witnesses of it.The Senate attempted to take revenge on the Skelligs to gain the friendship of these nobles and officials and enhance their own prestige.

At the same time, in the eyes of the Senate, fighting against Skellige itself is also in line with Emhyr's strategy of sweeping the northern border, and there is no harm to it.When all the dust settled, Emhyr could only pinch his nose and acknowledge everyone's contribution.

"I probably understand why your Senate is overwhelmed by Emhyr." Lan shook his head, "So you have such a small number of people, you don't really want to march into Skellige, but just arranged An 'assassination', right?"

"Yes."

"Then I feel relieved." Lann breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank you for bringing me precious information. Discord within the empire is really great news for me."

The effect of the Axii seal had been lifted at this time, and the bearded officer backed away again and again as if waking up from a dream, and the expression on his face became terrified.

"What did I just say? No... Lannister! What did you do to me?!"

"Not much, but enough." Lann raised his long sword and approached the bearded officer who kept retreating step by step.

"You, you hypnotized me and made me reveal all the information... You can also summon ice giants, this kind of absolute killer on the battlefield... What kind of vicious magic is this! Lannister, you become a warlock Is it... no, you are more terrifying than a warlock!"

The bearded officer's eyes were full of fear at the moment. He stared at Lan's sword, and he no longer had the aura of death as before: "No, I can't die. You have become so terrible. I have to send your information to you. Take it back... and I'll tell everyone that the Lannisters have..."

The sword light came towards him, no matter how brave the officer was, he couldn't avoid the sword that was as fast as light.However, the expected death did not come. Instead, severe pain came from his limbs at the same time, and his body fell to the ground involuntarily.

"You have no chance to bring the information back to Nilfgaard. You must die here."

Lan said with a blank face: "But not now. Don't worry, your death will be very valuable-although this value is for me."

(End of this chapter)