Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence

The scene that Solly and Earl Stein could see in the distance was naturally quickly visible to Hilde.

After several failed assaults, she quickly adjusted her tactics, retaining only a portion of the knights to attract the opponent's attention from the front, and then having the champion-level knights Tyberius and Constantine lead the Sunburst Knights and the Griffin Knights respectively, launching a fierce charge from the left and right wings towards the monsters.

This powerful offensive was bound to chop these forest monsters into pieces all over the ground.

However, the attack was not very effective. The muddy battlefield, filled with blood, greatly weakened the knights' charging speed. Constantine and Tyberius relied entirely on their personal bravery to break into the monster lines.

The frenzied Tyberius wielded his massive two-handed battle axe. Each time this two-meter-long giant blade smashed down, it caused a terrifying, earth-shaking scene. Any monster that stood in his way would be directly cleaved in two.

However, the knights, having lost their charging speed, had greatly reduced killing power. The battle between the two sides had now become a contest of health and tankiness. With the two heavy-armored units tearing at each other like this, the battle was entering a time of attrition, and there was no way to end it quickly.

After a brief deliberation, the accompanying priest, Ron, said to Hilde: "General, our objective has been achieved. We can retreat. Whether these mere hundreds of treants are chopped into pieces will not have much impact on the overall battle situation."

The knights were all clear that their side had already achieved a crushing victory in this battle, greatly frustrating the enemy's arrogance and boosting their own confidence.

This was a raid, not a pursuit to completely annihilate the enemy.

Continuing to wear them down like this would not have much meaning.

But Hilde decisively raised her hand, rejecting Ron's suggestion, and asked, "Respected Patriarch, haven't you noticed that the situation is not that simple? You must know that the treants' morale cannot be this high. Under our knights' repeated attacks, a desperate last stand is wishful thinking. The effect of instilling fear should be able to quickly break their morale. They shouldn't be able to hold their ground!"

Ron's expression turned solemn, and he immediately looked with awe at the treants who were still holding on in the distance.

But the current situation was very strange. These hundreds of treants were just stubbornly defending the riverbank!

He had previously been habitually thinking about all this with the mindset of mortal warfare, but it should be known that the Black Forest Territory's army had already begun to rapidly advance to the transcendent stage.

These thousands of elites carried no fewer than three or four hundred pieces of witchcraft props and arcane equipment!

Items like Mohr's Death Watch Mask, the Flags of Terror, and the runes of fear on the territorial banners all possessed powerful magical abilities that could make their side look taller and more terrifying.

From the monsters' perspective, this was not just a mere 1,000 elite knights, but a powerful heavenly army composed almost entirely of champion knights two to three meters tall, shining with dazzling light, so brilliant that it was impossible to look directly at them, and a single glance could trigger fear in their spirits, as if they were seeing the majestic sun.

That was a biological instinctual fear of facing a terrifying behemoth, like acrophobia, directly engraved deep within the creature's genes. If one stood on the edge of a cliff with only a rickety, precarious log bridge beneath their feet, the fear a creature would feel is the kind of terrifying effect that magical fear could create.

It could be said that facing such a huge crisis, ordinary creatures would only need to gaze into the abyss for a few seconds to be so frightened that their legs would go weak, lose their courage, and collapse in flight.

The treants' frontal combat ability was indeed good, but they were not considered to be monsters of a very high rank, and were not even generally considered elite monsters. They were just fodder troops in the forest camp, and their combat power was at least far inferior to centaurs.

Yet, even a thousand centaurs would have their courage collapse and scatter in flight in the face of wave after wave of attacks from human elite knights. How could these mere hundreds of treants stubbornly hold their ground, not retreating an inch?

This could not be explained by courage alone!

Under the fear induced by magic, normal creatures would absolutely not be able to hold their ground, especially when the enemy was already in a rout.

Ron immediately asserted, "This should be the effect of a spell like 'Fight to the Death'."

But where were the mages on the surrounding battlefield?

The frontal battlefield had almost been trampled over by human cavalry. Countless monsters had been chopped into pieces, the dead lay piled upon each other, stretching for miles.

The one-sided slaughter had turned this place into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. It was impossible for any powerful mage to have been missed.

Could it be the green dragon in the sky?

Ron immediately looked up into the sky, but in the golden morning sun, the sky was clear, and there was no sign of the green dragon.

Besides, if the green dragon flew too high, hiding in the middle of the clouds, its spells could not possibly affect such a vast battlefield from such a distance. Even dragon language magic was limited by casting distance!

With Ron's consistent view, Hilde could now be certain that there was definitely a powerful monster spellcaster on the battlefield.

Therefore, Hilde said, "We must eliminate this spellcaster. If we can kill the powerful spellcaster in the monster army, then the results of this battle will become extremely glorious, and it can greatly increase our advantage in the upcoming battles."

Otherwise, if a spellcaster was hiding in the monster wave, constantly using curse magic to weaken human knights and motivational magic to strengthen monsters, the battle would become extremely protracted.

Especially in a city defense battle where the two sides were evenly matched, the difficulty of defeating a 400-strong orc warband and defeating a 400-strong orc warband that was fighting to the death was like heaven and earth. If the former's difficulty was 1, which could be achieved by killing just over a hundred orcs, then the latter's difficulty was at least 100. It was very likely that an entire human squadron would be killed or injured before all these orcs could be killed.

Just as Hilde and Ron were searching for the spellcaster among the green dragon's claws, Solly and Earl Stein had also noticed the changes on the battlefield.

Solly quickly raised his monocular telescope to look at the fiercely fought battlefield and asked, "What exactly is Hilde doing? Why hasn't she ended the battle yet, and instead is getting entangled with the monsters! Wasn't she ordered to quickly end the battle with the Thunder Horn?"

Marshal Earl Stein looked at the increasingly strange battlefield and also solemnly took out his golden lens, carefully checking the situation on the battlefield through the eagle-eye perspective, but even through the high-altitude perspective, he didn't discover anything.

"General Hilde must have discovered something." Earl Stein carefully searched the battlefield and said cautiously, "The battlefield is indeed a bit strange. In this situation of utter defeat, the monsters can still stubbornly defend? Under normal circumstances, their morale should have collapsed in a chain reaction and disintegrated."

Just as he was speaking, Knight Earl Stein's expression suddenly changed, and he said, "The insidious green dragon has ambushed troops in the Blackwater River!"

"In the Blackwater River?" Solly immediately pointed his monocular telescope towards the surging river, but with such turbulent rapids, what kind of creature could hide in it?

But after observing for a moment, Solly really discovered that huge fins would occasionally appear on the surface of the river. The jagged fish bones and huge fins indicated that something huge must be hidden under the surface of the water, and the number was extremely large.

Earl Stein immediately made a judgment: "These monsters are probably lurking from the Brienne River very early on, and have been hiding in the Blackwater River, waiting for this war."

This deduction shocked Solly as well. Could it be that the green dragon had already anticipated that their side would launch a surprise attack from the city, taking advantage of their army crossing the river to attack them halfway across?

Then this battle would not be a simple surprise attack, and it was likely to be extremely protracted from the beginning.

Just as the knights of the Black Forest Territory on the city wall were nervously watching the battlefield, on the riverbank of the battlefield more than ten miles away in front, the waves suddenly surged, and a vortex began to form from the center of the river. A terrifying psionic storm began to form, and the surging river became more and more turbulent. Before the knights could withdraw from the battlefield, a large amount of river water suddenly poured towards the shore like a burst dam.

Ron, who was stationed beside Hilde, narrowed his eyes and looked at the surging river water, asking, "Is this the Wrath of Mannan?"

The effects of the Wrath of Mannan were very familiar to the human knights. The surging waves would sweep across a battlefield. If the terrain on the battlefield was suitable, it might even be able to submerge more than two hundred elite monsters.

Of course, the current battlefield could not be as perfect as the one in the Border Sentinel battle. Back then, a single spell was able to drown two hundred monsters because most of the centaurs were washed into ditches several meters deep. The number of those who actually died from the Wrath of Mannan was probably only a dozen.

The current battlefield was a vast plain. The surging waves were diluted after they reached the shore and could not submerge the knights on tall horses.

But this did not mean that the spell had not taken effect. On the contrary, it flooded a large area of land in the direction the knights were retreating, making the entire battlefield exceptionally muddy.

Heavy cavalry would probably not be able to charge on a battlefield filled with stagnant water and mud.

Along with the surging waves that came ashore were also hundreds of green trolls with the same skin color!

This meant that they were definitely different from the scattered river trolls on the opposite bank. They were not a rabble gathered from all directions, but a river troll warband that usually lived together and cooperated tacitly!

The knights who were fighting with the treants stopped their swords and swords one after another, and retreated a distance in an orderly and tacit manner, disengaging from the entanglement with the treants.

Although these treants had powerful frontal combat capabilities, their mobility was negligible. If the knights wanted to retreat, they had almost no ability to stop or pursue them except to activate vines for entanglement and harassment.

After disengaging from the battle, Tyberius put his huge battle axe on his shoulder and turned his head to look at the hundreds of river trolls that were emerging from the river in an endless stream, riding his hippogriff.

Although these monsters blocked the knights' retreat, as long as the opposite bank could not provide large-scale reinforcements, he was not worried at all. On the contrary, he was full of fighting spirit, raised his rough eyebrows, and asked loudly, "Yo ho, have we poked a troll's nest? Or did this social butterfly green dragon hire a troll mercenary from the troll kingdom?"

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His loud voice resounded throughout the battlefield, and soon a particularly tall river troll, hunching over his thick waist, walked out holding a huge rune club.

Trolls habitually hunch over because their waists are extremely long, and even the thickest spine cannot support their three to four meter height.

But even their hunched figures were taller than the knights riding tall horses, especially the troll holding the vibranium rune club. Its waist was probably two meters thick, and its bulging belly indicated that it had sufficient food intake, and it must be an extremely valiant general.

It walked out of the formation, hammered its thick chest with its fist, and roared, "Human bean sprouts, listen carefully, we are the Tearers Warband of Lake Essonid, I am the invincible river troll warband boss, Ugma, who has killed a legion of Chaos Knights and hunted giant elk of the Son of Taal level. Giants will panic and flee when they hear our voices. If you don't want to be smashed into meat pies, surrender immediately!"

Constantine's battle halberd burst out with brilliant golden light. He looked at these hundreds of huge monsters who were raising their clubs and cheering, and his expression was a bit dignified: "A river troll warband lurking in Lake Essonid! This is really the core support of the green dragon's rule!"

Hearing the voice of the river troll warband boss Ugma, all the knights were even more determined to take down Bloodmist Hill and build a Stormshadow Fortress on it.

There must be a sharp dagger inserted directly into the throat of the Bloodpine Forest's sphere of influence. In the future, regardless of whether the green dragon is killed or not, building a fortress on Bloodmist Hill is the key to threatening the core hinterland of the Bloodpine Forest.

This area is so rich, with not only a large number of resource points and mining areas, but also fertile soil and the resource-rich Lake Essonid. It can actually satisfy a river troll island lurking in the depths of this lake.

Freya, riding her hippogriff, stood beside Constantine, her brows furrowed, and said, "This river troll is exceptionally clever. It can even try to induce surrender."

Ugma indeed had an unusually high intelligence, significantly different from his brothers. He himself speculated that this might be related to his exposure to a large amount of warpstone in his youth. Ugma was very satisfied with his life in Lake Essonid because the lake had plenty of food.

Occasionally, Ugma would send trolls along the river to prey on adventurers, thus accumulating a considerable amount of treasures. He liked to talk to these unlucky people before devouring them. Ugma's favorite thing to see was the look of shock on their faces when he spoke to them in the adventurers' own language. However, if communication went smoothly, Ugma would try to persuade the adventurers to help him eliminate the nearby beastmen warbands, claiming that these beastmen had been oppressing his trolls. Of course, Ugma just wanted to clear the surrounding greenskins.

Its cunning was in tune with the green dragon, so the two guys unexpectedly did not erupt in conflict, but instead colluded with each other. The green dragon allowed Ugma to continue to live in its pearl-like Lake Essonid, and the price was that when they raided out of the forest together, these river trolls would accept the green dragon's command.

So seeing so many trolls gather, the human knights were inevitably shocked.

Because commanding so many river trolls was not an easy task, and shrewd war leaders knew that without help, these beasts would rarely be able to concentrate on the battlefield.

If the trolls were allowed to act alone, they would easily be distracted, and instead of attacking, they would bend down to eat the wounded, or simply stand there drooling.

Only a warboss could expect these big guys to get anything done, either by issuing orders himself or by having a boss lead the troll legion. Even this management style wasn't foolproof; some trolls were known to ignore the warboss's shouts in favor of eating rocks or pulling up weeds they didn't like.

But that doesn't mean these monsters are not a threat. On the contrary, river trolls have huge claw-like hands that can deliver devastating raking blows. They like to break tree trunks and use various scraps to put together makeshift clubs to bash their enemies. Once these creatures enter a battle state, they will swing their huge fists or use makeshift weapons to destroy anything.

River trolls also have a disturbing ability: they can vomit the contents of their stomachs. Spraying victims with semi-liquid bile and undigested impurities, the corrosive liquid is enough to melt armor and burn flesh and bone—truly a gruesome way to die.

Therefore, in any case, the appearance of hundreds of these huge monsters on the battlefield is an extremely strange and dangerous thing.

Hild resolutely raised her long sword and ordered, "Assemble the entire army and keep your distance from the monsters."

Hearing this order, Ron was taken aback and asked, "Still assembling the army? Shouldn't we be dispersing the formation at this time to stretch the enemy, exploit our mobility, and divide and surround the enemy?"

Hild said sternly, "No, we need to lure these river trolls away from the riverbank. I think I have a good idea of what kind of monster the hidden caster is."

With Hild's order, thousands of elite cavalry quickly gathered in one place. Scarlet banners covered the sky, and golden armor shone in the sun. This majestic and spectacular scene immediately delighted the river trolls.

Even the stupidest river trolls knew that a head-on battle was advantageous to them, allowing them to take advantage of their huge size. A single rake from their giant claws could tear apart a warhorse. Conversely, if the knights were scattered in individual battle groups, the river trolls would be stretched out in confusion. Once those river trolls were isolated, they would soon be surrounded and killed.

If twelve river trolls were surrounded by a sixty-man elite knight order, no matter how large they were, they would be knocked away in an instant and then chopped into pieces by the knights.

No matter how strong the regeneration ability of a river troll is, one river troll cannot defeat five fully armed, blood-surging elite knights.

Ugma raised his club high and roared excitedly, "Charge! Smash all these stupid knights who refuse to surrender! On the muddy battlefield, we river trolls are invincible!"

And Su Li, watching hundreds of green monsters launch a fierce attack on the elite knight order through his monocular telescope, also clenched his fists nervously and frowned, asking, "Hild, what on earth is she doing?"