Chapter 464: A Glorious Victory

Charge!

On the battlefield, two torrents of armored knights collided, a scene that should have been evenly matched, but there was an unexpected turn. The knight order led by Liszt was like a sharp knife, swiftly piercing through the formation of the knight order that had been destroyed by the Blizzard Beast, decisively defeating the opponent.

Then, they turned their direction and charged towards the adjacent knight order.

Liszt himself was surrounded by Blizzard Beasts, with the stone-armored Hiddleston sweeping through the front, leaving no Earth Knight able to stop him.

Running rampant, they dealt a massive blow to the knight order of Xiangcheye Castle, a blow that affected the entire battlefield. The knight order he defeated was quickly taken over by other Coral Island Knights, who charged and struck fiercely. It was impossible to establish a new formation.

From the very beginning, the course of the battle was determined.

Unless they outnumbered the Coral Island Knights or had multiple sky knights to assist, the Coral Island Knights with Blizzard Beasts were absolutely invincible among the knight orders of the earl-level territories.

Taske Xiangcheye, watching from one side of the battlefield, trembled with anger as he saw his knights being swept away in one wave: "Damn intermediate magical beast! Destroying my city walls, disrupting my formation, damn it!" He suddenly surged his mana, transforming into a flame that shot into the sky.

Then, he descended, ready to strike the Blizzard Beast.

However, before he could land, a fierce shout reached his ears: "Taske, have you asked my sword for permission!" accompanied by a silver-white sword light.

It was Lee William who boldly launched an attack. The opponent of a sky knight should naturally be a sky knight, breaking away from the charge of the Earth Knights, and starting a sword battle in the high sky.

"Get lost!" Taske swung his sword to block.

Boom!

Two high-level mana bursts exploded in mid-air, half flame and half steam. Lee William emerged from the steam, his momentum undiminished: "Big talk, but your strength is too weak!"

"Hmph!"

Taske couldn't spare the effort to speak further, focusing on the sword battle with Lee William. Suddenly, he noticed three arrows shooting towards him from the ground. The trajectories of these arrows were erratic, fast as lightning, forcing him to withdraw his sword stance and twist his body to dodge.

Clang!

However, just before the arrows were about to graze past him, they collided with each other once, then the three arrows changed direction, heading straight for his body.

His sword returned, quickly deflecting the bizarre arrows. Taske didn't have time to catch his breath before Lee William's attack arrived. A sword strike sent him flying from mid-air, crashing to the ground and rolling several times before stopping. Then, he had to face Lee William's relentless wave-like attacks.

Not far away.

Liszt, commanding the charge of the knight order, put away his Swift Shadow Bow, quite satisfied with the power of his "Triple Arrow Chain" shot. Although it didn't harm Taske at all, it successfully disrupted his initiative, putting him on the defensive. It proved that he now had the qualification to intervene in the sword battles of sky knights.

Long-term use of potions, both auxiliary and magical, had caused his mana growth to skyrocket.

Coupled with the slowed loss, he was improving every moment, his training at the elite Earth Knight stage far surpassing anyone else.

If it weren't for a seed of magic power in his heart competing with him for nutrients, he would suspect that his half-month of training should have almost touched the limit of the elite Earth Knight stage, initiating a new round of mana bottleneck, where quantity leads to quality, promoting him to a sky knight.

"Soon! Before I left, Cris refined all the harvested auxiliary Nightshade into Nightshade Auxiliary Potion, combined with Flame Potion and Thorn Potion, enough for me to consume on the battlefield for a month... A month's time, let's see if I can make a breakthrough. If I fail, then I'll wait until I return."

His thoughts were fleeting.

He had to focus on commanding the charge of the knight order.

...

Twenty minutes later.

The battle ended, the knight order of Xiangcheye Castle was defeated, and the Blazing Sword Saint Taske was no match for the Wave Sword Saint Lee William. Leading the remaining few hundred knights, he fled back to Xiangcheye Castle. Then, without hesitation, he abandoned Xiangcheye Castle and fled into the distance without looking back.

A glorious victory.

The knights of the Coral Island Knights suffered less than one-tenth casualties but captured over three hundred Earth Knights. Undoubtedly, at least half of these three hundred Earth Knights would pledge their loyalty and be reorganized to replenish the losses of the Coral Island Knights.

The subsequent reorganization process indeed followed this pattern.

The Peregrine Count had already fled. Although he took with him valuables including spirit bugs from Xiangcheye Castle, a large amount of supplies remained in the castle. This indicated that the Peregrine Count had suffered heavy losses and might be unable to pay the ransom for the captured Earth Knights. Those knights without money had no choice but to accept reorganization.

One hundred and sixteen Earth Knights chose to pay the ransom.

Two hundred and forty-two Earth Knights chose to accept reorganization.

Liszt added seven elite Earth Knights and twenty-seven Earth Knights to his ranks. Including the three elite Earth Knights and sixteen Earth Knights he had previously reorganized, not long after the start of the expansion campaign, his forces had already been supplemented with ten elite Earth Knights and forty-three ordinary Earth Knights.

The Flower Town knight squad currently had no casualties, fully staffed with twelve members, and his territory also had seven Earth Knights who had pledged their allegiance.

Therefore.

He now had a total of twelve elite Earth Knights and sixty ordinary Earth Knights under his command, capable of forming six knight squads, not far from assembling a full knight regiment. However, he did not plan to continue the reorganization, as the cost of maintaining a knight regiment was too high, and his territory could not bear the burden for the time being.

"You can immediately write letters to your families. I will send knights to bring them to my territory, Black Horse Island, to settle. You will stay and assist me in continuing the expansion campaign," Liszt said solemnly to the newly reorganized knights.

The best way to control them was to bring their families along.

Though it was hard to leave their homeland, having been defeated and now pledging loyalty to a new lord, the knights had no choice but to write letters to bring their families over.

Bringing people, reorganizing, and tallying the spoils would take time.

The Coral Island Knights temporarily stationed at Xiangcheye Castle, not planning to attack other noble territories in the short term. Because there was still a large city—Falconview City—that could be plundered.

"This is a huge harvest. In previous expansion campaigns, we might have penetrated thousands of kilometers, or even further, plundering all the resources on the land. But capturing large castles and cities rarely happened... Liszt, your Blizzard Beast is the greatest contributor."

The Count raised his glass in approval to Liszt at the banquet.

Liszt smiled, "Father, I just did what I had to do."

"I am proud of you, my son!" Lee William drained his cup of fine wine, all the food and drink were from the castle's reserves.

Liszt also drained his cup.

The battlefield's glorious victory meant his military achievements were undoubtedly second only to the Count's, a significant feat. Unfortunately, no metal mines were plundered—metal mines were the greatest indicator of merit in the expansion campaign.

The Count put down his glass.

Looking around, he raised his glass again, "The war is far from over, and danger can come at any time. This is the last cup for everyone, let us raise our glasses together to celebrate this glorious victory."

Everyone raised their glasses, "The glory of knighthood favors us, honor belongs to the lord!"

The Count nodded in satisfaction, "Honor belongs to me, and I am with you all!"