Imperial Crown

"Hey, Mr. Jose will definitely be able to win this time!" Snow Chicken held a glass of wine in both hands, nodding and bowing to praise.

"Hmm..." Heleti was noncommittal, staring at the fire in trance.

At this moment, the closed door suddenly opened with a bang, and "Iron Shield" Eugene stumbled in with blood all over his body. He knelt down in front of Heleti with a bang and burst into tears: "Master Sand King, King Sand grown ups……"

"What happened? Why did you come back alone? Where is Jose?" Heleti's heart tightened.

It didn't matter if he didn't ask. Eugene cried louder when he asked.

Heleti rubbed her temples and ordered: "Snow Chicken, help him up."

"Yes..." Snow Chicken intuitively felt that there was nothing good going on here, but he still had no choice but to step forward and help Eugene: "Commander Eugene, please get up quickly. Lord Sand King is still waiting for your reply..."

Eugene slowly raised his head, revealing a ferocious face stained with dried blood: "...It's all because of you!"

He suddenly grabbed Snow Chicken by his collar, lifted him up, threw him to the ground, and kicked him one after another: "You bastard, piece of shit, you bastard who deserves to go to hell!!"

The hard iron boots kept kicking Snow Chicken, and blood overflowed from the latter's mouth as he wailed: "Commander Eugene, spare your life... spare your life!!"

"Lord Sand King, save me!!"

"That's enough..." Heleti ordered in a low voice.

Eugene continued his atrocities as if he hadn't heard.

"I said, that's enough!" Heleti raised her voice and her tone became cold and solemn: "Eugene, you don't even listen to what I say?"

Hearing these words, Eugene rolled his eyes with his lowered head, threw himself on the ground and cried loudly: "Master Sand King, it's miserable, it's so miserable!"

"One hundred and sixty brothers, a total of one hundred and sixty! Only seventy-eight came back alive! There are only forty brothers left in the main camp, and everyone is injured!"

This level of damage was completely beyond Heleti's expectation, and his face turned livid: "What's going on? How could the damage be so big? Where's Jose, let him come over and see me!"

"Jose...Jose..." Eugene suppressed the smile on his lips: "He died!"

"What!?" Hleti thought it was Jose who didn't dare to face responsibility and pushed Eugene forward. Now that he knew that his most valued confidant was dead, his eyes suddenly went dark.

After a long silence, Heleti opened her lips with difficulty: "...Where is his body?"

Heleti's tone was not serious, but Eugene couldn't help but become nervous. A cold air rushed from behind to the top of his head, making him afraid to even cry: "...I was stuck in the enemy's formation and couldn't get back. "

"Okay, okay... very good!!" Heleti spat out a few words from between her teeth, with veins pulsing on her face and the corners of her mouth twitching.

Jose is his confidant, and he is the old man who fought with him from the bottom, and he is also the only one who is still alive today!

Anger, hatred, regret, regret... a lot of emotions suddenly surged in Heleti's heart.

His breathing became extremely heavy, and he suddenly grabbed the gold wine glass and threw it to the ground, smashing it into a gold cake.

Eugene lowered his head, not daring to look at it at all, preparing to face the coming storm.

Snow Chicken also stopped moaning, holding his head and shivering, for fear that the anger would be poured out on him.

But to their surprise, Heleti's breathing gradually calmed down, and her voice was hoarse than ever before: "Tell me, Eugene, what exactly happened?"

For the first time, Eugene discovered that even after following Heretti for so long, he still could not see through this "Sand King", and he immediately gave up the idea of ​​throwing all the responsibility to Jose.

He straightened up, gave the snow chicken a hard look, and said in a deep voice to Heleti: "The most important factor in this failure is the intelligence error!"

"What Snow Chicken said is completely different from the actual performance of the Eagle Army. They are not the same army at all!"

Heleti's eyes fell on Snow Chicken, who quickly lay on the ground and cried out: "Master Sand King, I can swear to the Lord of Light that everything I said is true, there is no lie! The Eagle and I How can you provide false information when your hatred is as deep as the sea?”

"Oh, it's impossible?" Eugene gritted his teeth: "Didn't you say that they only have Eric, a first-level transcendent?"

"Yes!" Snow Chicken looked confused.

"It's a head!" Eugene stretched out four fingers and slapped Snow Chicken in the face: "They have more than one first-level transcendent, there are four of them that I saw! And Eric himself, even more Reached the second level!”

Snow Chicken's expression froze, and then he turned to Heleti: "Lord Sand King, I really don't know this!"

"I'm afraid there are too many things you don't know?!" Eugene raised his voice: "Not only are their numbers extraordinary, but their equipment is also amazing. Eric not only has an enchanted plate armor, but also at least Two enchanted weapons, and an enchanted shield."

"The four extraordinary ones are all equipped with enchanted weapons!"

Snow Chicken was so frightened that his face turned pale and he couldn't say a word.

However, Heleti's attention was not on him: "But this does not explain why this battle will be lost. Even if they have five extraordinarys, their equipment is not bad, but we only have more extraordinarys than them, let alone , Jose is also the second level!”

"...This is about Eric's brilliant tactics." Eugene took some responsibility on himself at the right time: "His tactical arrangement was completely beyond my expectations. I have an unshirkable responsibility for this failure." Responsibility!”

"Oh?" Heraiti knew Eugene's abilities very well. He was very professional in training and marching formation. Otherwise, Heraiti would not have promoted Eugene to be his confidant.

This was the first time he heard Eugene admit that his tactics were inferior to others.

"Tell me more specifically."

"Yes, sir!" Eugene stood up and began to tell the story of the previous battle, telling exactly how they marched, how he saw that Eric had a plot, and how Jose decided on the tactics.

Heleti closed her eyes and thought: "José's decision is correct."

"It should be like this." Eugene sighed: "But three rounds of galloping shots had no effect. The leather armor on the Eagle Army has such high protective power that most feather arrows cannot penetrate at all and cannot cause any damage! "

"I worked hard to capture this on the battlefield, please take a look!"

Eugene clapped his hands, and someone immediately brought a set of dirty leather armor in front of Heleti.

The latter took it and didn't care about the blood stains on it. Instead, he stretched out his hand to touch its surface and even tore it twice. The look on his face became much more solemn:

"No wonder the feather arrows can't penetrate it. The leather is tough and the surface has been hardened by a special process. Even if it's not as good as Warcraft leather, it's not much different."

"Where did this Raven get such a good thing?"

The Snow Chicken immediately crowed: "Sir King Sand, I really don't know this. When I saw it, the Eagle Army was all wearing ordinary leather armor!"

Heleti believed this, because the scout he captured was equipped with ordinary leather armor. If such good leather armor had been available, it would have been impossible for Raven not to use it for the scout.

But now, he had no intention of paying attention to this snow chicken.

Heleti looked at Eugene: "Continue."

"Yes..." Eugene swallowed: "Next, Jose led the team to attack the Eagle Army's main formation. By the time he completed the charge, our team had already lost more than thirty people!"

Heleti was keenly aware of the details: "Did they dig a horse pit? No, it's freezing cold now and the ground is as hard as stone. They don't have that much time!"

"You are right." Eugene sighed: "So they just dug many small holes like gerbil caves on the plains. If the horses step into them, their hooves will be broken, and Eric also showed The crossbowmen hiding in the snow use three-stage shooting, and they still use enchanted crossbow arrows!”

"Three-stage... shooting, what is that?" This was the first time Heleti heard this term.

"That is to divide the team of more than 30 crossbowmen into three groups to shoot, and start reloading immediately after each period of shooting. This can ensure that the firepower of the crossbow will not be cut off."

"It is indeed an unprecedented tactic." A dark cloud appeared on Hleti's face.

Continuous firing of enchanted crossbows, even if he led the team, he could not avoid casualties: "But this is not enough to make Jose fail."

"Indeed not!" Eugene praised his dead colleague: "Jose was very brave. He led the team into the Eagle Army's main formation and caused a lot of damage!"

"Then how did he lose?" Heleti was puzzled: "Even if the opponent's equipment is not bad, they can barely catch up with us. What's more, even if there is a loss, we still have the advantage in numbers!"

Hearing this question, Eugene glared at Snow Chicken again: "Lord Sand King, this is why I think he is a dead soldier who deliberately came to deceive us!"

"The soldiers of the Eagle Army are not new recruits at all!"

"Although they are not as good as the Iron Legion, the discipline and quality they have shown can serve as elites among the Earl family's private soldiers!"

"It's not like we haven't fought against the private soldiers of ordinary nobles. No matter what formation the opponent puts up, they will scatter as soon as they get in their face. However, these Eagle Army can barely maintain their formation! They fight in a melee with our people. Together, we will fight to the death!”

Speaking of this, Eugene seemed to have returned to the battlefield just now, with the taste of blood in his mouth: "Those first-order extraordinary people were hiding in the crowd, Lawson, Binrui... were all besieged and attacked to death by them! "

"Jose and Eric are entangled together. Eric is obviously a man of steel and vindictiveness, but he is evenly matched with Jose!"

"José's trusted cavalry was stopped by Raven alone. The bloody bravery he showed has nothing to do with 'greed for life and fear of death'!"

Eugene took a breath and calmed down a little. Seeing Heleti's livid face, his expression became sad: "Even so, Jose still seized the opportunity, but just when he was about to kill Eric At that time, the extraordinary ones hidden among the ordinary soldiers surrounded him! "

"That's when I discovered these extraordinary existences!"

"I wanted to rush in and pick him out, but I encountered extremely stubborn resistance. When I broke through the defense line, those extraordinary ones had already surrounded Jose. He was one against five, but in the end..."

"Okay, stop talking..." Heleti waved her hands tiredly and closed her eyes: "In this battle, our intelligence was insufficient, and we lost...unjustly!"

The air fell into a dull silence, and even the snow chicken could feel Heleti's helplessness.

Hleti's mood was extremely low.

The loss of dozens of men was not a big deal. The Bloody Highlands were not short of bandits who robbed and looted houses. He could always recruit another group.

But a second-level extraordinary person, especially a loyal second-level extraordinary person, was not so easy to cultivate on the Bloody Highlands.

"Who killed Jose?" Heleti's voice was low and majestic.

At that time, it was too far away from there and the environment was too noisy. Eugene didn't know the name of the man who stopped Jose, but he had to give a clear answer at this time: "...Eric!"

Eric was far superior to Eugene in both personal strength and battlefield command. He provided this name, not only for the reason, but also to cut off the possibility of Heleti recruiting him.

"Eric...!" Heleti opened his eyes and burst out with a strong killing intent: "I will cut off his head with my own hands to commemorate the dead brothers!"

"Then... tomorrow we will gather the troops and set off immediately?" Eugene asked tentatively.

"No hurry." Heleti remained calm at this time: "...Although they performed well, this arrangement can kill Jose, but it can't defeat me. They must have a backup plan!"

"Send out all the scouts. I want to see what tricks they have!"

At the same time, in a cave three kilometers southeast of the Scorpion Nest, the "backup plan" Heleti mentioned, that is, Raven and his men settled here.

"Hey, I didn't expect Heleti to be so timid that he didn't dare to come out by himself. I was blown by the wind for so long. Damn it!" Nancy complained while roasting around the fire pit.

"Captain Eric is still amazing." Volaf grinned and added firewood to the campfire: "Hey, more than 160 people went out, and less than 80 people came back, a great victory!"

"That's all thanks to me!" Nancy patted her chest and said proudly: "If I hadn't advocated keeping Mary, they wouldn't have been able to fight so smoothly, don't you think?"

Raven rarely agreed with Nancy: "Yes, if Mary hadn't given the specific personnel composition, Eric wouldn't have been able to make targeted arrangements."

Mary, who was cooking food, lowered her head shyly: "Baron, you are too kind."

"How can I be too kind? That's not enough!" Nancy smiled proudly: "If you hadn't led the way, we wouldn't have been able to come so early. If Heleti went out in person this time, we would have missed the opportunity!"

Hearing this, the personal soldiers also nodded in agreement.

Mary provided a lot of help along the way. Not only did she introduce and use the flora and fauna on the Bloody Highlands, but with the crows, she could always find small paths that were hard to find, and also found many places that were not on the map but were enough for them to stay.

Even Volaf, who had always been wary of Mary, had to admit that without her help, they would probably still be eating snow on the road, and they couldn't even contact Eric, let alone sneak to the vicinity of the Scorpion Nest.

"Mary, you've worked hard all the way." Raven stood up and walked to the side of this "black pearl", and put his hand on her shoulder.

Mary's cheeks flushed: "...It's my honor to serve the Baron!"

"Our goal is the same, to kill Heleti." Raven's cheek slowly pressed against Mary's ear: "But before that, there is one more thing I need your help with."

...