Please call me CyberGhost King

Chapter 332: The Western Kingdom’s Response

What Chi Tong didn't know was that the great Emperor actually wanted to accept her as his own. Even if she made some requests, Ke Ling was happy to satisfy them, such as accepting Hei Tong as well.

Ke Ling couldn't say whether the black-eyed girl would give special traits, but there was a 99% chance that the red-eyed girl would. After all, she was the real heroine and a key figure throughout the prequel and the sequel.

But Ke Ling definitely couldn't say this directly, otherwise it would seem like he was threatening the two sisters with Hei Tong's life. Ultimately, it would depend on Chi Tong to figure it out on her own.

However, Ke Ling left out this so-called "Ascendant Promotion Channel", which was also a reasonable way for him to open a backdoor. Even if Chi Tong's final achievements were not very good, Ke Ling could still use the "Emperor's Special Selection" to select her.

The "Ascendants" are originally chosen by the Emperor. Whether the final list drawn up by the "Ascension Committee" can be passed and who will be chosen to "ascend" all depends on the Emperor's mood. It is all decided by the Emperor alone, and there is no room for others to interfere.

After all, no matter what, the final step of "ascending" must be completed by the emperor himself. No one else has this ability. Even other "ascenders" do not have this ability. This determines that no one can have any ulterior motives in this matter, unless they are really tired of living.

Akagi, who had no idea that she had been selected for an "ascension quota", worked exceptionally hard throughout the entire Western Expedition.

Hei Tong, who understood why Chi Tong worked so hard, did not lag behind. The two sisters shined brightly and made many achievements on the Western Expedition.

There's no way around it. Akagi's personal strength is indeed very strong. Although the effect of [Moonlight Dance·Wind Blade Sword] is average, it has enriched Akagi's means of attack and made her more comprehensive.

Kuroneko is even more comprehensive. Her imperial weapon [March of the Dead·Eight Chambers] can be called a BUG-level imperial weapon. [March of the Dead·Eight Chambers] can control the people killed by this sword through curses, and can control up to eight corpses as puppets.

The puppet's state and abilities are the same as when it was alive and it can move freely. Except for the inability to speak, communicate, and think, the puppet looks almost the same as when it was alive.

Hei Tong now has a wide variety of puppets. She can even control these puppets to fight against the entire [Night Raid] in a short period of time. The weakness of [March of the Dead: Eight Rooms] is that the more corpses are controlled during the activation, the lower the user's ability will be.

Relying on this BUG imperial weapon, Kuroyori's contribution is even greater than Akoyori's, which also makes Akoyori feel very gratified.

After being suddenly attacked, the Western Kingdom was slow to organize an effective defense line and was directly attacked by the Imperial Army. By the time the Western Kingdom reacted, the entire eastern barrier of the kingdom had been lost and large tracts of territory in the east had been occupied by the Imperial Army.

King Louis XXVI panicked and urgently summoned all the ministers to discuss countermeasures. He also quickly began to mobilize his vassals to come to his rescue. The enemy had already marched straight in and was about to break into the royal city! If they didn't come to rescue him, there would be no need for them to come at all!

In the palace, the advisors and ministers were panicking. They had never seen such a scene before, so how could they know how to respond? The kingdom had been at peace for many years, and it could be said that the people were at peace and the military was at peace.

Louis XXVI had a grim face. He was a fat middle-aged man. Sitting on the throne, he looked like a rich man, without any dignity of a king.

"What should I do?!"

"The Imperial Army is too powerful! How can we stop their attack?!"

"Move the capital! I've long said that this royal city is too close to the east. Now, they're about to rush directly to the royal city!"

In the meeting hall of the royal palace, a group of people were arguing fiercely, but even so, no one mentioned the topic of surrender.

"Quiet!"

Louis XXVI could not stand it any longer and spoke out to stop the noise in the meeting room. The enemy hadn't even reached their doorstep yet, so why were these guys so panicked? It was simply shameful!

"."

Everyone fell silent, waiting for the king to speak out his ideas, but in fact no one was expecting him to do so. The king had not shown any talent so far. Moreover, the one who was most panicked just now was actually the king himself, looking at a loss.

"Let's wait until the Grand Dukes arrive."

Sure enough, after mumbling for a long time, Louis XXVI came to the conclusion that he should wait for reinforcements.

The system of the kingdom is still the ancient feudal system. The princes in various places are all powerful dukes. The king grants them land and they become great nobles. They then grant land to middle nobles, and middle nobles grant land to small nobles.

Rather than saying that the Western Kingdom belongs to King Louis XXVI personally, it is better to say that King Louis XXVI is the leader elected by everyone. The Western Kingdom is essentially a military and political alliance, and the king's power is not unlimited, at least he cannot have the final say on everything.

Especially since the contemporary king is rather soft-hearted, his communication with the powerful vassals is even weaker. Now that something like this has happened, he cannot make a decision on his own and can only wait for the grand dukes from all over the place to arrive and discuss it together.

But there was one thing that Louis XXVI was extremely firm about, and that was that the capital must not be moved. The royal city was the most important industry of their family and almost the foundation of their family. If he gave up the royal city, then his position as king would probably be unstable. This was absolutely unacceptable.

"Hold the royal city, wait for reinforcements, and withdraw all the troops in the east. Don't let them be wiped out bit by bit!"

Louis XXVI was so angry that he gnashed his teeth. These vassals in the east were all trash, otherwise they would not have been assigned to the east before. Most of the east was newly developed wilderness, and the old nobles simply disdained to develop here.

However, according to common sense, these new nobles should be quite strong. After all, they have to fight on their own and may even come into conflict with other ethnic groups. They should not be so vulnerable.

But the reality is that the nobles in the east were shattered at the first touch, and were directly defeated by the imperial army into the heart of the kingdom.

Fortunately, there are still some noble fiefs in front of the royal city that have not fallen and can still serve as a barrier for the royal city. But now that things have come to this, these bastards can no longer use "it happened suddenly and we were not prepared" as an excuse, they all have to get up and fight the enemy honestly!

It turned out that the nobles around the Royal City still had some strength. They gathered the remnants of the defeated nobles in the east and established an effective defense line around the Royal City, and the Royal City also provided them with continuous support. The imperial army finally stopped around the Royal City. Brand still had some sense. The soldiers had fought all the way here at lightning speed and were a little exhausted. It was time to rest and not to attack the Royal City.

Of course, if they must fight, it is not impossible. After all, the main imperial tool users still have spare strength. But Brand does not want to rely too much on the power of the imperial tool users, because the imperial tools will have to be recovered later, and the empire has already made this clear.

Brand understood that the Imperial Army was still somewhat dependent on the power of the Imperial Equipment Users. He had to get used to the feeling of being without the Imperial Equipment Users in advance, otherwise he would not be able to fight after the Imperial Equipment was recovered.

"No need. Without the Imperial Equipment User, don't we still have Ascendants like us?"

Esdeath scoffed at this. Although there would be no more imperial users in the future, weren't "ascendants" used to replace imperial users? The Empire still had overwhelming power.

"."

Brand's mouth twitched. How could this be the same? There were at least forty-eight imperial weapon users, and at least half of them had served in the Empire before. How many "ascendants" were there now? Could it be possible that every battle would be left to you, Esdeath, to lead the army?
As the commander of the expeditionary force, Brand insisted on his choice, and Esdeath had no choice but to recuperate with everyone else.

After spending these days together, Esdeath unexpectedly integrated into the group and the Imperial Tool User Special Forces. This is because of her identity as an "Ascendant" and "Emperor's Chosen One", and everyone is obviously very curious about this power.

Everyone already knows that the imperial weapon will be recycled. For people who are used to having extraordinary powers, this is actually quite sudden. However, these people are not the kind of people who don't know the overall situation. They also understand that the general trend cannot be violated, so naturally no one wants to sing a different tune.

However, the fact that the Teigu will be taken back in the future does not prevent them from making contributions in these last few wars of conquest when they can still use the Teigu.

Everyone understands that as long as they have made enough contributions, they may be selected as "Ascendants", and they can still obtain extraordinary powers, and these are legal extraordinary powers under the new system of the empire. Not only is it legal, it is even a symbol of glory.

Therefore, it is not only the two sisters Akame and Kurome who are working hard, everyone is striving to be the first, and this is also the main reason why the Western Kingdom collapsed so quickly. The knights of the feudal nobles have no advantage in front of the imperial weapon users.

"The light of the Lord will shine upon you! All warriors who kill pagans can go to heaven, and all warriors who bravely fight against pagans can go to heaven! We must fight the pagans to the end!"

In a castle south of the royal city, a man dressed like a priest shouted urgently. He was a priest of the kingdom's religion and was making a pre-war mobilization. They would respond to the call and go to the king's defense.

The priests were indeed very anxious because these pagan invaders were very brutal. They simply killed all the priests. All the churches in the occupied areas were demolished, as if they wanted to completely destroy their religion.

"Reverend, why doesn't the Lord punish these pagans?"

Some soldiers questioned loudly, a large number of churches were destroyed, and a large number of priests were killed, but the Lord God did not respond at all. The Holy See, which had always been extremely arrogant, was silent this time. The Inquisition, which wanted to punish anyone it wanted, was also silent, as if they were all afraid of being killed by the enemy.

"How dare you! How dare you question the Lord God!"

The priest was very angry. Under normal circumstances, the soldier's remarks would have been enough to be sentenced to death by the Inquisition!

But now, he had to pretend to cooperate with him, because the person speaking was the castle owner's personal guard, and he had to consider whether this guy was speaking on behalf of the castle lord.

Now, their Holy See must cooperate with these landlords and work together to defeat the foreign pagan invaders from the East. This is a moment of life and death and there is no room for any carelessness.

"What's wrong with what I said? Are you going to judge me? Is the Lord God also bullying the weak and afraid of the strong? Facing the Emperor of God on the other side, he dared not bring down divine punishment, but was furious when facing the believers of the kingdom?"

The soldier stiffened his neck and confronted the priest. This farce surprised the surrounding soldiers.

Although people couldn't help but applaud the losses and experiences of the Holy See in their hearts, it did take courage to shout it out directly and confront the priests. The power of the Holy See was also an important part of the kingdom, and the belief in the Lord God had always ruled the kingdom. The soldier's behavior was undoubtedly outrageous.

"you you you you!"

The priest was speechless and could only point at the soldier in anger for his incompetence. He couldn't explain why the Lord God didn't bring down divine punishment. He also wanted the Lord God to bring down divine punishment to let those pagan invaders see the Lord God's power!

"What do you mean by 'you'? What else can you priests do besides cheating and deceiving? You are full of petty thefts and thieves. You go around harming people under the banner of the Lord of God, causing their families to be destroyed!"

The soldier cursed loudly, as if he had finally found an opportunity, which made everyone silent. No one stood up to stop him. With the corruption of the priests, faith had long begun to become impure. Many of them had suffered losses and been hurt by these priests.

In the past, the power of the Holy See was so strong that it would criticize people as pagans and label them as witches at will. Everyone was angry but dared not speak out. But now, someone finally couldn't bear it anymore.

Seeing the unfriendly looks from the people around him, the priest became frightened. Although he had a few knights protecting the religion by his side, he felt that they were useless in the face of these soldiers. The knights protecting the religion were just show-offs.

"Okay, shut up. You still have time to fight among yourselves here. Do you all want to be beheaded by those pagan invaders?"

When the situation began to become dangerous, the owner of the castle came out to stop the deterioration of the situation. It would be a joke if they started fighting among themselves before fighting the enemy.

The lord doesn't really care about beliefs or anything like that, but as a local lord, he has to fight to protect his property. The interests of the Holy See coincide with his, and both want to protect their local properties, so he needs to unite with the people of the Holy See.

"Go to war."

At the city lord's command, the soldiers began to carry out the order. He was just a small noble and did not bring many people with him, but countless small nobles like him gathered together, gathered under the command of middle-level nobles, and then gathered under the command of big nobles. This was a very considerable military force.

(End of this chapter)