Sword of Dawn

Page 189

Chapter 0454 Wilder's Ancestral Mausoleum

The black-haired maid widened her eyes in surprise when she heard what the hostess said: "The cemetery of the ancestors? But the Holy Spirit's Day has already..."

"It's not for sacrificing ancestors," Victoria exhaled, "Go and prepare, Maggie."

Maggie glanced at the hostess quietly, without asking any more questions, but lowered her head slightly: "Yes, I understand."

Just like Gawain Cecil who was finally buried under the Cecil Castle in the south, the mausoleums of the founding dukes of the four borders of Ansu were finally set up on the land they guarded, the "Duke of Winter" who guarded the mountains in the north The place where Snowveld sleeps is under the Winterhold, which stands on the top of the northern mountains.

Passing through the cellar at the lowest level of Winter Castle, and walking through the deepest and most solemn black corridor, is the oldest and most solemn mausoleum area of ​​the castle. Their magnificent fortress, and nearly half of their manpower and material resources are used to maintain this mausoleum buried deep in the mountain.

The ancestors of the Wilder family were not favored by the power of the elements like Gawain Cecil. The mausoleum under Winter Castle was completely stabilized by the powerful human mages who used manpower to apply elemental blessings. survived for seven centuries.

Accompanied by her maid Maggie, Victoria Wilde walked into the underground palace without any extra attendants.

The magic spar lamp embedded on the wall is infused with magic power, emitting a dim and constant radiance: in order not to disturb the ancestors, the magic spar in the mausoleum is specially designed, and its brightness is only about half of that of ordinary magic spar lamps.Under such a slightly dim light, the sloping underground palace ramp extends into the hazy darkness ahead in the duchess' line of sight. It looks vague and frightening.

But Victoria didn't care about the darkness, she stepped forward.

The wall built of requiem stone bricks receded beside her, and the solid stone steps and boots collided with hollow echoes, echoing in the oldest corridor of the entire fortress, Victoria had a feeling that she seemed to be reversing Follow the track of time to the past—every time she advances 100 meters in this ancient corridor, she goes back 100 years. After the reform of the dynasty, after the years of abundance, finally... Arrived 700 years ago, arrived at the original starting point of this country and this family.

The main hall of the rectangular mausoleum arrived, and the maid Maggie silently came to the stone pillar next to the entrance of the hall, and pressed her hand on a metal disc on the surface of the stone pillar. As the magic power poured into it, the magic crystal lamps inlaid everywhere in the hall also Light up one by one, allowing the originally dark hall to float a layer of light enough to see things.

The portraits of the previous heads of the Wilder family hang on the walls on both sides of the hall. From the first generation of "Winter Lord Snow Wilder" to Victoria's father, everyone has the same silver hair and serious face. With slightly lowered eyelids, as if gazing at the visitors entering the hall with serious eyes, Victoria Wilde calmly welcomed the gaze of these pairs of eyes, and saw the ancient motto engraved on the wall:

"We are the last line of defense for Ansu"

Victoria's eyes slowly swept across the faces of her ancestors, and finally landed on her father. Her eyes stayed on the majestic old duke for a long time before she whispered: "Father, it is as you expected. As mentioned above, the hidden dangers of the Second Dynasty finally broke out... But you probably can't predict where the biggest variable in this chaos comes from..."

After a moment of silence, the duchess raised her head and told the maid beside her, "Go out first, I need to be alone."

The black-haired maid exited the hall in silence, while Victoria Wilde stepped forward.

She came to the stone platform at the end of the hall—this platform was about half a person high, like a wide tabletop, engraved with a circle of mysterious runes and patterns around the platform, but the surface of the platform was as smooth as a mirror, invisible to any decorative traces.

After hesitating for a moment, the duchess put her hands on the platform and whispered the ancient spell.

The magic power in the air stirred up, and the runes around the platform lit up one after another, and the smooth mirror-like table began to ripple like water, accompanied by a milky white shimmer, a silver-white metal plate about one foot square Floating up from the rippling platform surface.

This metal plate was actually sealed in dense stones.

Victoria picked up the metal plate—it was not heavy, and it was very thin, and the tough decorative lines could be seen on the edge of the metal plate, which was typical of Gondor style—she rubbed the surface of the metal plate, the metal plate The text immediately appeared on the screen.

Charlie Moon, Guide, Leader, Protector, Founder of the Kingdom, whom we honor as King.

Gawain Cecil, Lord of Knights, Pioneer, Protector, Founder of the Kingdom, we honor him as the Guardian of the South.

Snow Wilder, Frost Grip, Guardian of Knowledge, Pioneer, Founder of the Kingdom, we honor him as the Guardian of the North.

Anthony Rollen, Lord of Warriors...

Always indifferent and alienated, the inaccessible Duchess of the North like the Ice Queen couldn't help showing awe when she saw this metal plate, her eyes gliding over the glorious names, Behind each of these names, there seems to be a towering mountain. They represent the cornerstone of this kingdom, the power to overcome obstacles in the natural disaster that almost destroyed human civilization 700 years ago, and also represent... the country's original history. a treaty law.

This is a list, a list of all the founders of the Ansu Kingdom at the beginning, arranged according to merit and title, but it is not just a list.

Victoria turned the metal plate over, and on the back of the metal plate, a piece of text clearly appeared on it:

"...If a natural disaster breaks out to destroy the country, or an irreversible man-made disaster occurs, resulting in the death of the king or being unable to continue to protect the kingdom due to various reasons, and in the absence of an available heir, the person on the list will inherit sequentially and take charge of the kingdom... "

700 years ago, it was a precarious era.

It may be difficult for people living in a stable and peaceful period to imagine what it was like when humans broke out of the wasteland and established a kingdom on a barren land. Even Victoria Wilder could only learn from ancient books. Seeing the records about that period of time, or hearing some sporadic and one-sided descriptions from the mouths of a few long-lived races, it is impossible to have an empathetic understanding.

But every time she saw this list and the text behind the list, she could still imagine how dangerous the kingdom maintained by the ancestors was at the beginning of Ansu's founding.

The aftermath of the demon tide is constantly invading the country. Until the completion of the magnificent wall, the monsters rushing out of the wasteland of Gondor are still attacking the human world. Even when the demon tide is strongest, the hinterland of the Holy Spirit Plain will be Large-scale erosion occurred. To this day, there is still a black corroded wall brick on a section of the city wall in the inner city of Saint-Sunil, silently describing that period of crisis.

In those days, the king could die at any time, the guardian duke could die at any time, everyone could die at any time.

That's why there is this list, and the "emergency succession rules" behind it.

But just like that, no one has ever thought that the honorary "permanent development right" will come into effect one day, and those who know this list probably never thought that someone on this list would suddenly come back to life...

Victoria Wilde looked at the metal plate in her hand quietly. After a long time, she sighed softly, solemnly placed the metal plate on the stone platform, and reversed the spell to seal it again.

After doing all this, she took two steps back, left the stone platform, and turned around to look around the entire hall.

There are many stone gates lined up on the walls on both sides of the hall. Behind the stone gates are corridors. Those corridors lead to different tombs. One day, she will lie in one of the tombs, and one of her descendants will stand Where she was standing now, she also looked around here.

But you might be thinking about something different.

After standing there for a while, the Duchess seemed to have suddenly made up her mind. She glanced at the closed door, and through the faint sense of breath, she knew that Maggie was still guarding the door.

In fact, even if no one is guarding, no one would dare to trespass on this place.

Victoria turned around, glanced at the stone platform before, then walked around the platform and walked towards the door behind the stone platform.

This door is the most special, it occupies a wall of the hall by itself, there is no corridor behind the door, only the only tomb.

From this structure, the layout of this mausoleum is actually no different from Cecil's ancestor mausoleum.

Accompanied by the creaking sound of the magic mechanism running, the Duchess opened the door of the special tomb at the deepest level, stepped into it, and lit the magic spar lamp in the deep tomb.

The magic spar lamp illuminates this spacious hall, and the furnishings of the hall can be seen at a glance: a large number of stone slabs and magic pattern curtains depicting mysterious runes are arranged around the hall, and bookshelves, planetary instruments, and miniatures can be seen in other open spaces. The mage tower model and other objects are arranged in seemingly random but orderly positions, and on the high platform in the center of the hall, there is a black iron coffin quietly placed.

"Ancestor, your descendants came to visit you."

Victoria Wilde said softly with a solemn expression, then seemed to swallow lightly, and walked towards the iron coffin.

When she came to the high platform, she saw the stone slab leaning on the iron coffin, engraved on the stone slab was the last words left to this world by Snow Wilde, the patriarch of the Wilder family:

"Old folks, I've outlived you all - it's no fun"

It may be difficult for outsiders to imagine that the ancestor of Wilde, who only had a frosty and serious expression on various official portraits, would leave such a sentence at the last moment of his life, but Victoria is no longer surprised by this sentence. .

She diverted her attention away from the stone slab, and stared at the dark iron coffin in front of her, with a struggle and hesitation on her face.

After hesitating for nearly 10 minutes, she finally stretched out her hand boldly and tapped lightly on the lid of the iron coffin.

The iron coffin didn't respond.

After hesitating again, she stretched out her hand again, tapped the lid of the iron coffin lightly, and quickly turned her head to look around.

Of course there was no one here, so the Duchess of the North took a breath and leaned closer to the iron coffin: "...are you there?"

Three embarrassing minutes passed, and all Duchess Victoria heard was her own breathing and heartbeat.

The face of the Duchess seemed to be covered with a layer of frost. She straightened up quickly, took two steps back, and whispered to herself: "...Damn, what stupid thing am I doing..."

She quickly left the tomb and the hall of the underground palace. When the maid Maggie saw her, the guardian of the northern border had regained her indifferent, noble and steady appearance.

"Vicky, you've been in there for a long time."

"To confirm something," Victoria said lightly, "let's go, Maggie, this time, I really want to go back to my room to rest."

"Ok."

Chapter 0455 Summoned

46 days.

Baron Sunderland sat quietly on the single bed that belonged to him, facing the wall, counting the notches on the wall from the beginning to the end, and then from the end to the beginning.

He has spent 46 days in this cell.

As a member of the southern nobles who responded to Earl Hossman's army, he knew that he was very lucky-due to his low title, he was not qualified to be close to Earl Hossman's team, so he narrowly escaped the battle on the gravel ridge. Afterwards, also because of his low title, he was thrown far away by the large army when he fled. As a result, he became one of the first nobles captured by the Cecilians. that ordeal.

But he doesn't know how long his "luck" can last.

The defeat of the noble coalition seems to have happened in the last century. That exciting expedition that ended in tragedy has now become a nightmare that was deliberately avoided but kept replaying in his mind. Baron Sunderland knew that, Except for the Cecil family and a small number of people who loyal to Cecil in the entire southern region, all the nobles are gone - even though he had a little fantasy when he was just locked in this cell, fantasizing about Cecil The Er people lost in the follow-up battle, and finally reached a stalemate reconciliation with the southern nobles, but what he finally waited for was one new "prisoner" after another——

Familiar faces were thrown into prison cells, and each face meant that a new piece of land fell into the hands of the Cecils. When more than half of the nobles in the southern region appeared in this "prisoner-of-war camp", The Viscount Sunderland accepted the fact that there was no turning point.

Now, like all other noble prisoners, he can only stay quietly in these cells, waiting for the Duke Gawain Cecil to summon him one day and give a definite result.

There was a commotion from the cell next door.

Baron Sunderland raised his head and saw his "prisoner" Viscount Trier who was locked in the same room as him also raised his head. The two listened to the movement in the next cell, and looked at each other after a while, helplessly. Shaking his head wryly.

"It's the ones captured from Rock Fortress," Viscount Trier said with a wry smile. "It seems that they haven't adapted to the 'rules' here."

"It was the same when we first started," Baron Sunderland also responded with a wry smile, "Listen—they asked the guards to salute them, and they asked for red wine and pillows, and they even emphasized the issue of ransom... It's been a long time since I heard those words."

The people living in the cell next door were just locked in a few days ago. They came from Rock Fortress. Baron Sunderland once thought that these people had escaped the pursuit of the Cecils and returned to their respective territories, but now Only then did they realize that they just hid in the fortress to the north.

These new "prisoners" brought shocking news to the noble prisoners in the prisoner-of-war camp. According to their descriptions, the Rock Fortress has fallen-under the onslaught of the Cecils, the legendary fortress has persisted for two years. The day will not arrive.

Even according to some accounts, the real attack only lasted about half a day, and the two days included the time the Cecils had set up camp.

Baron Sunderland has lived here for 46 days. He has successfully adapted to and accepted the current situation, but it is obvious that people who have just come in still need a period of buffer to understand the situation.

After the commotion in the cell next door finally ended, Viscount Trier asked, "What do you think Duke Gawain Cecil wants?"

"Perhaps it is the unconditional allegiance of all the nobles in the southern border, just like allegiance to the king," Baron Sunderland said of his speculation, "We can already see that he is actually promoting this war from beginning to end, and he obviously wants to Take back what belongs to you—the southern border will become the Principality of Cecil again."

"...The Principality of Cecil," Viscount Trier was silent for a moment, then sighed, "After he didn't ask for the ransom for a long time, that's what I thought."

Baron Sunderland muttered: "It could be worse..."

Viscount Trier wanted to ask what the other party meant by "worse", but before he could open his mouth, he was interrupted by the sound of military boots on the concrete floor——the cell door opened, and he was wearing magic power. The armored Cecil soldier stood at the door and said in a cold tone: "The Duke wants to see you."

Baron Sunderland and Viscount Trier suddenly raised their heads, and looked at each other in surprise and surprise:

After waiting in fear and confusion for so long, is that Gawain Cecil finally going to summon the nobles of the southern border? !

……

In Cecil City, in the lounge next to the large conference hall of the Government Affairs Hall, Gawain was waiting leisurely, and next to him were Hetty who was standing quietly and Amber who was not at all quiet.

"Hey, hey, do you think those nobles will be persuaded by you?" Amber glanced at the stack of documents on the table next to her, and couldn't help leaning towards Gao Wen, "These things are almost fatal to them. hey-"

"Is it okay to pay attention to the rules and etiquette?" Hetty frowned and couldn't help but said, "This is in the government affairs hall, you must at least be conscious..."

Hu Po put her hips on her hips, and said plausibly, "I was paying attention, didn't you see that I even came in through the door just now?"

Occasional quarrels between the two were commonplace. Gao Wen ignored them and said calmly, "Persuasion? I have no intention of talking to them, and the choice is not in their hands."

"To be honest, in this case, why don't you just send them all to the mine, dig stones until they die, and then pull them out and let them 'voluntarily' give up their noble privileges," Amber said puzzled. , "Anyway, you have already occupied all their territory, and you have wiped out their army, and even their people have been locked in your cell..."

Gawain shook his head with a smile, then looked at Hetty: "Hetty, please explain to her."

Hetty glanced at Amber helplessly. Although she didn't want to deal with the shame of the elves, the elder still wanted to listen: "The population migration and new city construction projects proposed by the ancestors are underway. Currently, Horsman City, Leslie City, The transformation and construction of Gelen City and Kant City are entering a new stage, but as the population continues to concentrate and new decrees continue to be implemented, resistance from various places is gradually emerging.

"The three areas of Leslie, Glenn, and Kant are in better condition, and the biggest resistance comes from the Hosman area, as well as almost all the old aristocratic territories outside these four new cities.

"The influence left after the collapse of the old nobles is still there, and it is quite troublesome. Many local rich peasants still have doubts about the new lords. A considerable number of local scholars and businessmen are still supporting the old lords, or simply the old lords. As the lord's 'private family', it is very difficult for the second-level government affairs department to recruit people in those areas, and at the same time, commercial transformation has also encountered considerable obstacles.

"In the area of ​​Pepo in the west and around the area of ​​Carroll in the north, some exiled knights and noble soldiers have been transformed into bandits. They dare not approach the Cecil Corps station, but they will frequently harass the countryside. Due to the fact that the Cecil Corps The manpower is limited, and the strangling of these exiled knight bandit groups is not satisfactory. What's worse, some exiled knights in the northwest region are in contact with Luan City, and they may be transformed into the armed forces of Luan Cathedral."

Amber's eyes widened: "There are also exiled knights and noble soldiers?! Aren't they all killed or captured!?"

"7 people, running around on the plain, there will always be people who slip through the net," Gao Wen shook his head, "And the 7 people that Hosman pulled up at the beginning could not be the entire army of nobles, each nobleman must at least Leave a few gatekeeper knights and soldiers in your own castle, right? After the news of the defeat of the noble coalition army was sent back, the more alert knights who stayed behind almost ran away immediately, and they became exiled knights."

"It's such a trouble..." Amber felt dizzy when she heard this kind of thing, "You can take down the southern border in a few days, but it turns out that maintaining order is more troublesome than taking down the entire southern border..."

"Government itself is more difficult than occupation," Gao Wen squinted at Amber, "It only takes me a second to pull you off the window sill, but it's been more than a year, don't you still jump out of the window and enter the house?"

Amber: "...Hey, I provoked you..."

Gao Wen ignored Amber's protest, and just said to himself: "These troubles we have encountered are indeed very difficult, and if some of them are not handled properly, it may even cause our new order to go backwards and repeatedly. Some of these troubles It's going to last a long time, maybe even a whole generation or two ... but I'm not worried at all."

There were many footsteps coming from the hall next door, Gao Wen smiled and stood up.

"Except for problems such as folk customs and people's hard-to-raise, which must be solved with time, most of the rest of the problems are actually concentrated on those nobles and the traditional order they maintain, and I am the origin of those nobles and the traditional order. .”

The attendant stood in front of the door of the large conference hall, shouting loudly——

"Guardian of the southern border, pioneer of Anzu, founder of the kingdom, ruler of the Principality of Cecil, Grand Duke Gawain Cecil to—"

Sitting at the long table in the large conference hall, with anxious faces, the southern nobles who were whispering a moment ago closed their mouths almost at the same time, as if dozens of pairs of invisible hands were stuck around their necks at the same time. Let these people raise their heads neatly and turn to the direction of the hall door.

They stretch out their necks like dozens of funny ducks.

Gawain, wearing a black Duke's cloak, walked into the hall. He looked at the southern nobles stretching their necks on both sides of the long table—these people had been deliberately left in the prisoner camp by him for a long time, and the longest time had even been inside After staying for more than 40 days, except for the few people who had just been captured from the Rock Fortress, the rest of the nobles had already been greatly discouraged. The moment he saw their eyes, Gao Wen knew that today's affairs would be easy .

The nobles got up one after another. Although they had been in jail for dozens of days, the etiquette engraved in their muscle memory allowed them to almost instinctively complete the most standard salutation process.

Gao Wen calmly accepted the salute from these losers, and strode to the head of the conference table. He didn't say any nonsense, but waved to the clerk who followed behind him: "Send it to them."

Holding dozens of documents in their hands, the two clerks began to distribute them to every noble on the scene. The nobles watched this scene in astonishment and curiosity, and even dared to discuss it in a low voice—this was exactly what they had expected. The "summoning" process is completely different, and this "Cecile-style" rule makes them at a loss.

The nobles who received the documents immediately turned their attention to the printed matter in front of them: they first noticed the unimaginable uniformity of these printed matter, each of their characters, each line of text, and each segment was extremely accurate. But picky, even the best engraving craftsmen can't carve such a printing plate, but soon, their curiosity about the "printed matter" was distracted by the specific content of the document.

The nobles who saw the contents of the document all showed expressions of astonishment.