Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 328: Unusual Movements in the Western Territory
In the town of Riggs, sixty kilometers northwest of the main battlefield, 80,000 lightly armed Kalia royal legions temporarily stopped here.

The soldiers were ordered to camp and rest on the spot and wait for daybreak before advancing, but the generals and commanders above the middle level knew very well that whether the army should continue to advance and where to march to depended on the emergency meeting being held in the central commander's tent.

"I have listened to everyone's opinions. Only Lord Moret and Generals Dunn and Weigeles advocate continuing to march south to support the Ancient Dragon Dynasty. The other six generals all want to return to Lienia, right?"

Lacard leaned back in the seat in the middle of the tent, looking at the expressions of everyone in the tent.

The third Sikarian knight in the front row on the left, "Pyroxene Dragon" Moret, is a middle-aged man with a solemn face. At this moment, he is slightly raising his head and closing his eyes to rest, as if he doesn't want to say a word more.

Behind Moret was an old general with a head full of white hair and a young general full of vigor. The former was so angry that his face turned blue, and his hard stubble was shaking up and down with his heavy breathing, while the latter was so anxious that he was turning around, sometimes staring fiercely at the retreating faction on the other side, and sometimes looking at Lacard with hope, as if he still had a lot of advice that he hadn't said yet.

The personnel composition on the right was much more interesting - except for the nominal deputy commander of the expeditionary army, Lacard's distant uncle Duke Ogrian, who was nearly sixty years old and had a slightly plump physique, the remaining five were all middle-aged generals in their forties, and they were also the backbone figures who truly held actual military power in the royal legion.

What is more noteworthy than their age is that almost every member of the Quiet Faction has some connection to the royal family, whether close or distant. Although most of them are not as respected as Duke Ogorian in status, they have long since formed a large and closely connected network of relationships among themselves through marriage, adoption, merger and division. Touching any point among them can cause a series of chain reactions in this huge network.

Of course, this has never been a rare thing in feudal dynasties with aristocratic family inheritance system. The nobles passed down the titles, power, wealth and land from generation to generation, and in the process of inheritance, they fought against or colluded with each other in order to gain greater power and more benefits. This was a common way of playing.

And because any current law will protect the privileges of the nobles to the greatest extent, especially their lives and family inheritance, the priority of "connection" is always far higher than "oppression".

No one can easily kick out the opponent, so it is natural that the lowest cost and most effective way to play is to form cliques and factions through various means, turn opponents into allies, form a more powerful interest group and force other groups to compromise with themselves.

In the eyes of those truly aristocratic families with a long history, even the royal family does not have any inviolable sanctity. In this huge network, they are willing to maintain the royal family's greater dignity and more voice than anyone else, but in return, the royal family must compromise with them when necessary and give up the interests that the nobles "deserve".

However, the world is now at a very special node. Among the three major dynasties, only Kalia is still playing this way, and playing it most thoroughly.

The Golden Dynasty has only been in existence for a few decades, and half of the true founding nobles were exiled with the Eastern Expedition Army and fell into decline. The remaining Golden Nobles spent the first thirty-five years crawling under the authority of the Eternal Queen, with no room for self-determination. In the last fifteen years, they were caught up in the tide of the two-party struggle. No matter the old party or the new party, they could only cling to their own Majesty and do everything they could to survive in this polarized political situation.

Therefore, most of the Golden Nobles dared not to do anything rash, as they were not only watched by their political enemies, but also by their close allies in the same party. Once they made a wrong move, for example, the Duke of Duoris, who was once hailed as the pillar of the country, would be exiled with his entire family overnight.

As for the Ancient Dragon Dynasty, well, these immortals never care about aristocratic pedigrees or aristocratic families. There may be many people who secretly stir up trouble, but do you expect a country where the king has never changed since ancient times, the top leaders have almost never changed, and the government and religion are completely unified to give birth to a group of aristocratic interest groups that dare to challenge the king head-on?

Mostly you're just overthinking it.

Looking back at the history of the border area over the past half century, there is only one country with a situation similar to that of Kalia today, and that is the extinct Storm Dynasty.

After all, not every generation of King of Kalia is as gifted as Lenarra, who broke through to an unprecedented level of magic at a young age and gained a lifespan far beyond that of ordinary people.

And Reinara, who had the greatest hope for internal reform, did indeed make a series of fruitful moves in the first few years of her accession to the throne - the academy surrendered, the nobles bowed, and a large amount of power returned to the royal family. At least in the short period of time before the Battle of the Moon Tree, the Moon Dynasty that had dominated the western border for hundreds of years was really like a bright moon breaking through the clouds, shedding the old haze and exuding unprecedented vitality.

But all this came to an abrupt end with the emergence of a relationship that should not have existed but was suddenly born in the Battle of the Moon Tree.

After enjoying the benefits of the alliance between Gold and Moon for a few years, when the king's husband chose to betray, the queen fell into madness, and the Supreme Will chose the Moon Princess as the first god-person of the Golden Age and sent the envoy Beta into the royal family to guide and teach, the old illness that had been almost cured once again swept over.

With Beta's instigation, many royal nobles who had been marginalized or even kicked out of the core of power in the early years of Queen Full Moon's reign regained control of the government, and the Kalia Knights system that the Queen had worked hard to build was increasingly restrained and compressed.

Having lost the highest legal authority of the Queen's order, the knights could only watch as the nobles with royal blood gradually divided and eroded the power that the Queen had once granted them, and their roots and tentacles filled with the smell of decay spread little by little to every corner of the dynasty's military and political affairs, until they were trapped in the current muddy predicament.

"Your Highness, the situation has become extremely clear—" Duke Ogrian glanced at the old general Dunn's livid face, and a fleeting sneer flashed across the depths of his pupils.

He stroked his carefully trimmed beard and said indifferently, "This expedition was the result of the willful actions of His Majesty and Chief Mugram. The officials in the court were worried about the current situation and warned the Chief several months ago about the frequent and abnormal movements of the Cuckoo Knights. Several generals can testify to this. I have gone to see His Majesty more than once for this matter, but was stopped by the Chief on the grounds that His Majesty was seriously ill."

As the other five generals of the retreating faction nodded in approval, the duke took a step forward, almost to the same level as Lacarde's seat, stretched out his hand to grab the latter's wrist, and said earnestly: "My child, your uncle knows that you have a close personal relationship with His Royal Highness Lucia Sanx, but this is not the time to be willful!"

"The Azalea Knights suddenly attacked Star-Moon City, and Rhea Lukalia also temporarily blocked the main roads north and south of the lake area. The royal court is extremely empty at the moment. No matter what they want this time, we must at least return to the court first to ensure the safety of Star-Moon City and your mother!"

(End of this chapter)