Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 23: The Black Forest Tyrant - The Unfeeling - Decree No. 225

Gale Ragon's lamentations were like a cuckoo weeping blood, heartbreaking to hear.

However, he underestimated the brutality of the Green Dragon's rule. Erythea unhesitatingly rejected his request for respite, saying, "We must continue the attack! Utilizing absolute numerical superiority, we will launch a relentless, day-and-night offensive from all directions for at least half a month."

"Your casualties are heavy, but haven't the humans suffered even more? Their knightly orders will also tire, their defenses will be riddled with holes. If you can't take a human castle with a tenfold advantage, I'll turn you all into fertilizer!"

Gale Ragon roared with resentment, "But the morale of the forest's children has collapsed! Continuous attacks for days have been ineffective. Now, the soldiers at the front lines are terrified at the sight of human knights, collapsing at the mere sight of them!"

The description of 'collapsing at the mere sight of them' was extremely apt, without any exaggeration.

When the monsters besieging the city, especially the vile gnolls, kobolds, and even trolls, saw the knights shining with golden light appearing from the horizon with the afterglow of the setting sun, countless spears and greatswords reflecting a chilling light, they were instantly terrified and their morale collapsed. They didn't even wait for the dryads attacking the barbican to retreat, they just ran away. They feared that if they were even a step slower, they would be completely wiped out by these knights, chopped into pieces on the ground.

This led to particularly heavy losses for the dryad legions commanded by Gale Ragon.

Of course, the Green Dragon and Gale Ragon had considered setting up ambushes, after all, insidious ambushes and cunning tactics were the Green Dragon's favorite tricks.

However, in this aspect of the contest, it wasn't just Gale Ragon who was losing his mind. The Green Dragon Erythea was also repeatedly infuriated, venting her anger on any dryad who unwisely walked past her.

Erythea discovered that her ambushes were always avoided by the humans, while the areas she didn't pay attention to were always ambushed by human knights.

The entire Green Dragon legion's deployment was always shattered by the human knights, with defeats in one or even several directions, and fleeing soldiers scattered all over the mountains and plains.

She had guessed that the humans probably had some way of obtaining intelligence.

But no matter how she changed, how she struggled, even if she changed the deployment she had decided on the night before when setting out in the morning, a completely temporary adjustment to her battle plan, she would still be ambushed by the humans.

It was as if the humans knew in advance what her deployment would be tomorrow, even when she herself didn't know.

No matter how she struggled, whether she decided to keep everything the same or not, she would ultimately end up in the ambush prepared by the humans.

This forced her to abandon the conspiracies and tricks that the Green Dragon was best at, and on the advice of some "human ambitious individuals," fight the most rigid and frontal decisive battle with the humans.

This made the Green Dragon very uncomfortable. Even if she won by defeating the enemy with a proper formation and righteous banners, she wouldn't gain any pleasure, which was completely against the Green Dragon's style.

Don't think this is a dispensable issue of pleasure and style. In fact, it concerns the Green Dragon's dignity, status, and internal racial discrimination among dragons!

Among all dragons, the Green Dragon is most at odds with the Red Dragon. The Red Dragon thinks the Green Dragon is insidious and cunning, only daring to use various conspiracies and tricks in the dark, and never daring to show up and fight openly.

And the Green Dragon thinks the Red Dragon is brainless, a typical mindless brute, only knowing how to charge head-on, without any wisdom or tactics.

This involves the internal racial discrimination of the two dragons, just like the discrimination between knights and slaves among humans.

If a knight has to admit that his tactics are not useful, and has to use the tactics of slaves to win, where will the knights' dignity be placed? How can the knights still be proud?

If the knights have to rely on the contributions of the slaves to win, then I'm afraid all the knights will become like eggplants beaten by frost, withered and plunged into deep self-doubt.

The Green Dragon is now in this state. If it were a Red Dragon, it would have collapsed directly, but the insidious Green Dragon has a lower bottom line. It can use any means for gold, except for personally using the Red Dragon's tactics.

So she threw the pressure and internal friction onto Gale Ragon, forcing him to fight, so that the reckless one would be the foolish dryad, not the Green Dragon.

Erythea's cold golden eyes swept over Gale Ragon, and she said strongly, "After all, this is a castle built by dwarves! Do you still want to break through it in a few days? At least be prepared for a bloody battle for half a month! The dryads' morale collapsed after only a few days of attacking the city. You need to reflect on and solve this yourself!"

Reflect on and solve it myself? Gale Ragon almost had the branches on top of his head ignited by anger.

What needs to be reflected on? The morale of the monster legions is inherently inferior to that of humans. This is an indisputable fact.

In this world, no race is not considered a monster! To be able to survive in this dark and desperate world, all races are in fact absolutely worthy of being called demons and monsters, literally.

It's just that the forest monsters are monsters in appearance, while humans are monsters in mind and spirit.

The forest creatures look ferocious and terrifying, so humans call them monsters. But in the eyes of the monsters, the unparalleled courage, extremely tenacious spirit, and super high morale of humans are also monstrous existences.

To evaluate with an Eastern proverb, it is that people know the horror of ghosts, but ghosts know the poison of human hearts.

The forest monster legions are originally armies with high attack and high defense but low morale and courage, unable to be like humans, like soul-burning steel, with high morale and strong courage, and tenaciously defending their positions.

This is the characteristic that the Ancient Sages set for all races at the beginning of creation. How can Gale Ragon reflect on it?

Can he change the nature of the dryads? If humans invaded the forest, the dryads could still fight to the death, but now that the dryads have come out of the forest, they are already very resistant. Attacking human castles has no benefit for them, how can they have high morale and fight bravely?

So Gale Ragon held back for a long time, but still couldn't suppress his anger, and roared, "The morale of the dryad legions has collapsed. We simply can't take this place with our own strength. You are deliberately depleting our strength."

Erythea's golden eyes also ignited with anger. Sure enough, once the war is lost, internal conflicts will intensify sharply. In the past, these monsters would never dare to roar at her like this.

But looking at Gale Ragon's firm attitude, Erythea still slightly endured and retreated a little. She also knew that if she continued to exert strong pressure, Gale Ragon at this moment would probably not hesitate to turn against her and would no longer launch an attack on the human castle.

So Erythea thought for a while and said, "Depletion is necessary! This kind of flesh and blood attrition is especially unfavorable to humans. We must take this city through tragic depletion."

Then she changed her tone, and without waiting for Gale Ragon to erupt, she continued, "The humans have been weakened to the extreme. We should launch a comprehensive offensive. You reorganize the army, and I will personally boost the morale of the legion and attack the castle. Let that idiot Scylla also join the battle!"

Hearing Erythea's last words, Gale Ragon finally calmed down a little. If a fierce attack is launched by the entire army now, then he can accept it, and it can even be said to be the best result he can seek at present. At least with the entire army pressing on, the main force of casualties will no longer be him and his dryad legions, but the entire army will be consumed together.

Everyone is consumed, which is equal to no one being consumed.

The monster's huge scale advantage is still too great. As long as they don't have infighting, any attack is a weakening of the humans.

Moreover, this is also the only way Gale Ragon can think of to limit the human knights.

He immediately asked, "How do we deploy the attack?"

Erythea said calmly, "This time we will attack from all sides. All four Chosen of the Forest will press on, and we must completely block the human knights in the city."

"I will personally attack the castle. You will lead your legion to attack the south of the city, Scylla will attack the west of the city, and Ostanka will lead the legion to attack the east of the city."

"Launch a fierce attack at the same time, and give full play to our advantage in numbers. We will definitely be able to break through the limit of human defense! I don't believe that humans are really unbreakable steel walls."

He only attacks one side? Gale Ragon immediately put his heart completely at ease. It's still the most direct reason. The scale advantage of the monster legions is really too great. Even if four, five, six, or seven legions are destroyed, there will still be more than a dozen legions left.

The human legions are only two or three in total. After such a long period of fighting, I am afraid that only less than two remnants of the legions are left, and there are only a few hundred elite human knights left.

At this time, as long as Gale Ragon gathers several dryad legions in the south of the city, the human knights will definitely not dare to charge them.

So it can almost be predicted that the pressure on them in the south of the city will definitely be the smallest in this first all-out attack.

Naturally, he has no objection, and even fearing that Erythea will change the deployment, he immediately said, "I will go down and gather the legions now, ready to set off at any time!"

After his huge figure completely disappeared from near the Thorns Throne, Ostanka said in a muffled voice, "Erythea, do you really want to personally attack the human castle? I heard that there are dragon-hunting ballistae in human castles, which is too dangerous. Is this war really worth us taking such a big risk? Why not retreat back to the forest? We can live a happy life in the forest, anyway, humans can't get in no matter what, and they are no threat to us."

"But what if our troops suffer heavy losses here, humans may really threaten our lives. And the longer we stay here, the easier it is for our wealth to be stolen."

Erythea touched Ostanka's head with her huge dragon wings. This elemental giant bear has followed her since its birth, and is her most loyal big cat, so Erythea's attitude towards it is completely different from other guards.

"I will never tolerate a group of vile thieves stealing the treasures in my dragon's nest and getting away with it! These damn thieves must pay the price! This concerns the dignity and bottom line of the dragon, and there must be no compromise."

"Moreover, if this human lord dares to steal from us once, he will dare to steal a second, third, or even a hundredth time! I heard that there is an Eastern proverb, 'How can others be allowed to sleep soundly beside one's bed?' If we don't solve them, they will definitely come to steal treasures again when we sleep!"

How can others be allowed to sleep soundly beside one's bed?

Ostanka's eyes suddenly had a look of worship. Erythea is always so smart and can say such philosophical words.

Every time, the Emerald Ring is where she and Erythea hibernate, and absolutely no one else can be allowed to disturb their sleep again.

It roared to the sky, "Erythea, I am ready and will tear all these vile humans into pieces!"

Erythea nodded in satisfaction and said, "Then get ready to go!"

While the Forest Claws were nervously carrying out a full-scale mobilization, the humans were also gritting their teeth and quickly deploying. After several consecutive days and nights of war, the monsters could take turns to rest, but the humans could only fight to the death with their spiritual will.

In the beginning, the command headquarters could still insist on rotating and resting the soldiers, striving to allow the soldiers to fight in the best condition, full of energy, and with complete organization.

But as the Green Dragon Legion's enormous number advantage began to show, and the fierce attacks continued day and night, the command headquarters quickly abandoned this extravagant idea and directly and rudely issued Black Forest Decree No. 225! All soldiers must defend their positions to the death, and anyone who retreats a step will be executed without pardon! There is not even a chance to become a slave, and the supervising knights will immediately execute them in the street.

This decree treats everyone equally, whether it is halflings, dwarves, or mercenaries who come to help, followers of the Radiant Goddess, etc., as long as they dare to withdraw from their positions, there is no mercy to be said, and they will be executed immediately.

This caused Su Li's virtues to drop sharply. In just a few days, his reputation has quickly changed from a kind, bright star of the future to an unfeeling, steel-hearted father, and the tyrant of the Black Forest.

Some mercenaries have already begun to escape in the middle of the night, such as the members of the Red Brotherhood. They really did not expect the war to be so bloody. This is simply not a battlefield that thieves and raiders like them should set foot on.

And the knights of the Black Forest, under the guidance of Su Li's intelligence, also captured these deserters in the first time, and then brought them back to the positions without hesitation, all executed in public! They didn't even have a chance to go to the suicide camp to redeem their sins.

This frightened the mercenaries, and they could only fight more resolutely. After all, fighting against the Green Dragon's claws has only a few percent chance of death. Currently, the Black Forest army's casualties are less than 30%, but if they desert in battle, it is really a dead end.

The knights have found a lot of glory in this war, so they still firmly support Su Li's rule, so these grassroots soldiers can't make much waves.