Chapter193

Francis stood still, eyes fixed on the city guard captain in front of him. "You say they committed a crime. What crime did they commit?"

"If you want to know what crime they committed, go ask the prison officials yourself. I'm not responsible for that, how should I know?" The city guard captain scratched his ear and looked down on Francis with clear contempt.

Francis's gaze grew colder.

Everyone in Plumera City knew that the official government offices were basically under Lord Gregory's control.

The city guards worked for Lord Gregory, so if they suddenly attacked these innocent civilians, it must be his orders.

As for their crime... the entire prison office belonged to Lord Gregory. They could do whatever they wanted.

"Good dogs don't block the way. Francis, why don't you go back to being your brother's favorite? Help him gain some experience too. Otherwise, the princess might look down on you."

Suddenly, a shriek erupted!

Before the city guard captain finished speaking, Francis swept his spear and knocked him off his horse.

Francis gripped his bronze spear tightly, veins bulging on his arm.

If he hadn't been forced into the princess's mansion for two years, if his brother hadn't been sending secret letters encouraging him to train harder, he wouldn't have held back now. He would have pierced that beast with his spear long ago.

Three hundred tough fighters trained for over three months tightened their grip on their weapons and charged into the circle, surrounding Francis and the civilians.

The city guard captain, knocked off his horse, looked embarrassed and furious.

"Damn it! You're looking for death, Francis? You'll be a prisoner soon anyway. If you want to die early, I'll help you!"

"Everyone get out here! Whoever captures Francis will be rewarded by Lord Gregory!"

The captain's shout brought hundreds of city guards streaming from the city gate.

They surrounded Francis and the others tightly. Roughly counted, there were at least three to four thousand guards.

Francis frowned. The civilians in the middle were scared silent.

The three hundred fighters were tense and ready.

A few months ago, General Qi left some elite troops to guard the Francis family's mansion.

But with this situation, Francis couldn't send a message to bring those troops inside the city.

And those troops were very noticeable. If moved, more city guards and Lord Gregory's forces would focus on them, causing a mess.

Without those troops, their three hundred men faced thousands.

Francis's frown deepened as he looked at the likely failure ahead.

But inside him, a stubborn spirit rose.

He was the blood of the Francis family, one of the two main heirs alongside his brother.

Ten times the enemy's number meant nothing. His family had won impossible battles before.

This was their pride and honor.

Even if he died, he would not disgrace the Francis name.

The civilians were innocent. As long as Francis stood, no one could pass to harm them.

"Damn it! If I still had half my men from other streets, we could crush you by numbers alone!"

The city guard captain rose from the ground, spitting blood fiercely.

His eyes locked on Francis with hatred.

"Attack! Kill them all!"

The fierce battle between three hundred fighters and thousands of guards began instantly.

Fortunately, Francis had trained these men hard to resist.

The city guards were led by weak commanders. After Lord Gregory quietly replaced the former general with Rafael, the guards' training was neglected.

So despite their numbers, three guards together couldn't beat one of Francis's fighters.

Francis led his men in fierce combat.

Half an hour later, the guards lost over a thousand men.

Francis's side suffered over a hundred serious injuries.

The fight grew fiercer.

With time, the guards' numbers and cavalry gave them an advantage.

The captain behind the guards smiled cruelly.

He ordered his deputy, "Go! Bring more men from the city!"

Then shouted, "Kill them all! They're about to collapse! Whoever captures Francis will get rewards from Lord Gregory! Attack with everything!"

The city guards charged again, making it harder for Francis's men, exhausted and wounded.

"Hold on! The more beasts we kill, the more honor we earn! No matter what you did before, saving these innocent civilians makes you true warriors of our kingdom!"

Francis shouted, blood covering his arm as he gripped his spear tight.

He was ready to charge forward and break through.

But just as he pushed through, several sharp sounds came from afar.

Suddenly, screams echoed!

Francis looked up instantly and saw behind the dense forest a group of people wearing black combat clothes appeared without anyone noticing.

Some held strange weapons like bows and arrows, but the arrows shot out had power far beyond regular bows.

After a continuous volley of arrows, they killed a large group of city guards. The guards were shocked and began to retreat.

Francis did not know if these suddenly appeared people were friend or foe. He pulled back his step and stood with the remaining strong men, guarding the civilians carefully.

The people in black did not treat them as targets. A dense rain of arrows kept coming from those mysterious powerful weapons, all aimed at the city guards.

After a while, another group of guards was wiped out. The captain of the city guards finally recovered from the shock of this sudden change.

He looked nervously at the weapons on the black-clothed men's wrists. He pulled his horse's reins, drew his heavy sword, and pointed at them.

"Kill them all! Take the weapons from their hands!"

After giving the order, he turned his horse to run back inside the city gates for safety.

But just as he turned, a light, sharp arrow flew swiftly through the air. It pierced the unarmored part of his throat with ease.

The city guard captain's eyes widened as he fell to the ground.

Damon pulled back his arrow and scanned with sharp eyes. He saw a few guards at the back trying to flee into the city.

He quickly pulled out more arrows from behind his shoulder and placed them one by one on his bowstring.

Ten seconds later, all the guards trying to escape had arrows stuck in their necks, lying dead on the ground.

The remaining city guards were already panicked when their captain was pierced by an arrow.

Damon's group was only a few hundred, but they were handpicked elites from months of careful selection. Their iron weapons forged inside the trading house were excellent. The guards, already worn down by Francis's previous attacks, could not compete.

After a while, the scattered city guards were all wiped out completely.

Damon ordered his men to search around to make sure no one escaped. After confirming no news would leak, he put his weapon back at his side and walked toward Francis, observing him carefully.

"You are Francis?"

Francis held his bronze spear firmly, eyes still alert.

"Yes, who are you?"

"I am Damon..." Damon's gaze measured Francis from head to toe, "... the princess sent me to meet you."

Outside Plumera City, eighty li away.

After more than three months, Elara had returned to the outskirts of Plumera City and once again carefully observed the condition of the surrounding areas.

The desolate and devastated scene remained, but since Lord Gregory had just marched south not long ago, General Q had also led his troops to intercept and claimed a great victory.

The commotion of the battlefield in this region had been too intense, so all the bandits and rebels that once gathered here had completely scattered.

Villages along the road looked as if a storm had swept through. Not a single figure could be seen.

Elara sighed softly and nodded at General Q behind her.

General Q lowered his eyes to accept the order, clamped his legs to urge his horse forward, and quickly led twenty thousand elite soldiers in organized batches toward another hidden garrison point of Lord Gregory five li away to clear it out.

The day before, after returning from the back mountain of Marigold County, Elara had ordered the Wei clan and all her Puppet Soldiers to closely monitor everything inside and outside Marigold County, as well as the southern borders of Edelweiss.

Once she confirmed that the strong slave warriors from some unknown high-ranking nation had all swiftly withdrawn from Edelweiss as agreed, and the fake "Haochen" had also vanished from the southern territory, Elara immediately set out north.

The situation in Edelweiss had been temporarily held off by Dahlia Yu, and the Edelweiss emperor had lost three major cities in the southwest, leaving him with no time or energy to interfere.

Elara had to take this chance to return north, re-enter Plumera City, and completely clean up and stabilize the situation inside Edelweiss.

Otherwise, if the war in Edelweiss changed again, she would be caught in a pincer attack. The consequences would not be as easy to resolve as this time.

While General Q led the troops to eliminate the garrison point, Elara remained in place receiving intel continuously delivered by Black Hawks from all directions, carefully reviewing each message.

Half an hour later.

The sound of weapons exchanging hands echoed from afar. Elara looked up briefly, then calmly resumed reviewing the ongoing stream of Black Hawk reports.

An hour after that.

General Q returned with twenty thousand elite soldiers, escorting several thousand captives along with more than thirty carts loaded with treasures, gold, silver, and military supplies.

The prisoners were taken into custody by a designated elite squad and escorted back to Marigold County.

The thirty carts of weapons, gold, and silver were also escorted back by specialized troops.

Ever since they began clearing Lord Gregory's hidden garrison points, the number of prisoners and materials captured had significantly increased the population and cash flow in Marigold County.

It was almost enough for the next trade with Zhaiyun Market.

After collecting the prisoners and spoils, General Q presented Elara with letters and intelligence gathered from all areas of the garrison point.

Elara quickly skimmed through them, then organized the new information, and instructed someone to record all the officials who had closely associated with Lord Gregory in recent years into bamboo slips.

"Inside Plumera City, Lord Gregory is clearly growing desperate. He wants to use all the people in the city to threaten me." Elara sneered while reading the news from the city.

General Q stepped forward and stood by her side. "What does Your Highness plan to do?"

Elara put the letters away, took out paper, brush, and ink, and quickly wrote a reply:

"Don't rush. Lord Gregory won't cross the line until we arrive at Plumera. Damon and your brother are still inside. Give them time to prepare. We'll keep clearing out more of Lord Gregory's garrison points, capture more prisoners, and seize more resources. Once Damon finishes preparing inside, we'll launch a full assault."

"Understood."

Over the next two days.

General Q led the elite troops efficiently and swiftly to eliminate multiple hidden garrison points outside Plumera City.

Wave after wave of prisoners were escorted to Marigold County, and cart after cart of Lord Gregory's embezzled treasures and goods were dug out and sent back.

By the evening of the second day, the last and closest garrison point to Plumera City had been wiped out, and Damon sent a message from within the city stating "everything is ready."

Elara looked up toward the silhouette of Plumera City just visible in the distance.

"General Q, prepare the troops. At midnight, we attack the city!"

"Yes!"

Midnight.

Under the cover of night, black serpentine lines emerged from the dense forest outside Plumera City, moving like silent dragons, rapidly approaching the corners of the city walls.

At those corners, the "gate guards" already replaced by Damon's people quickly dropped thick ropes down from the towers, allowing elite soldiers to swiftly climb up.

Within moments, several thousand soldiers quietly entered the city.

Plumera City was still shrouded in silent darkness. Only after the five thousand infiltrating soldiers finished securing the four city gates and rescuing all the innocent citizens held as hostages did the defenders and Lord Gregory's forces finally realize something was wrong.

Screams and shouts exploded within the city.

The once-silent night was torn apart by the clash of weapons.

The city guard force had been expanded by Lord Gregory to over fifty thousand. Combined with the private troops raised by each of the major factions loyal to him, the total number of rebel soldiers reached around seventy thousand.

Fortunately, the four gates of Plumera City had already been secured by General Q's elite troops and thrown wide open, allowing the hundred thousand soldiers stationed outside to flood in like a long dragon.

The innocent merchants and civilians Lord Gregory tried to detain had already been rescued by Damon, Elara, and the others.