Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 644 - 643: The King’s Price

When the Cecil Clan’s Armored Gryphon swept across the sky, Earl Uriel still had the leisure to enjoy the scenery of Raven Plateau—this highland, once equipped with several sentinel towers and a small fortress, was one of St. Soniel’s garrison points, but now it was destroyed by the flames of war. Among the wreckage and ruins, only the flags and equipment left behind in the hasty retreat of the guardians and the shattered bodies of Crystal Cluster Giants could be seen. New flags flutter at these broken ruins now, carrying a peculiar contrast of beauty.

A cool breeze blew through, carrying the strange smell of the battlefield. Earl Uriel took a deep breath and said with a smile, "The past few days were truly difficult—but fortunately, those hard days are finally over."

"We didn’t encounter much resistance; there were only a few severely injured dying monsters here," a Viscount next to him said. "These results probably aren’t enough, right?"

"No worries, we can gather these remnant wreckages," Earl Uriel said casually. "Our King will probably be quite busy next and won’t have time to notice these trivial matters."

"Our new King..." the Viscount beside him chuckled, then curiously looked up at the sky, "Strange, why are those gryphons hovering around here?"

"Those should be the Cecil Clan’s gryphons," Earl Uriel looked up at the sky. "Are they here to greet us?"

The Armored Gryphon circled above Raven Plateau for a while, then suddenly flapped its wings and flew off at an angle towards the distance.

Earl Uriel squinted his eyes, and after a moment, a sense of unease finally surfaced from within his heart.

He thought of Count Luke Ray, who was executed by the King.

"This is a trap—"

Earl Uriel shouted in shock and anger, yet a sharp whistling sound had already come from afar...

Raven Plateau was engulfed in an earth-shattering explosion, with continuous flashes and clouds rising into the sky.

Wales stood on the walls of St. Soniel, watching it all calmly, and after a long time, he whispered, "He is truly decisive."

Besides him, those standing on the city wall, who knew what lay on Raven Plateau, those children of the nobility supporting the King, the soldiers guarding the city, and others left by Wales for various reasons, all stared in shock and fear at that horrifying scene in the distance.

The crowd cried out in alarm, the city wall was in chaos, and some people ran toward the direction of the King, hoping to request further orders. But Wales raised his Longsword, his voice infused with Magic Power ringing through the walls: "Silence—the noble court, guard squad, follow me out of the city to meet Duke Cecil."

"Your Majesty!" An aristocrat from the inner court exclaimed, "Absolutely not! They just bombarded Raven Plateau, they just killed..."

"Do they know there were aristocratic knights on Raven Plateau?" Wales asked calmly. "Do they know the orders I gave in Silver Castle?"

"Your Majesty, this..."

"This might be a terrible misunderstanding, hence it needs to be clarified face-to-face," Wales said in an indisputable tone. "Regardless, the Cecil Clan saved the royal capital and cleared the plains of monsters. Their legion is outside the city, we must go to meet them."

The King’s last words implicitly awakened everyone present; those inner court aristocrats engulfed in shock and fear realized who truly held the initiative—and the smarter ones suddenly sensed, from Wales’s unusual demeanor, the faint perception of a terrifying, bloody truth happening under the sun. In a brief moment of confusion, they found they had no more choices.

No matter what the truth behind the bombardment on Raven Plateau was, they must now follow the King’s order to go out and meet the Cecil legion.

...

"The meeting point is at Mill Town, which is already in ruins," Victoria ended the Magic communication with Duke Baldwin and turned to Gawain, "Wales and the noble court have already set out."

Gawain nodded: "We will set out as well."

His calm demeanor even instilled an unspeakable fear in Victoria, who couldn’t help but say, "Aren’t you worried that it’s a trap?"

"Worried, which is why I’ll bring a tank battalion—but I think we’ll probably not need it. Wales is a smart man, Baldwin Franklin even more so."

Victoria was momentarily stunned, then her gaze swept over to Dark Raven standing not far away.

This terrifying event occurring under the sun was carried out through a letter delivered by the royal shadow guard. Initially, Victoria had wondered why Baldwin hadn’t contacted her directly through Magic communication, after all, she was already in the St. Soniel area, within range of Magic communication. But soon she understood—Baldwin knew her too well and knew she would certainly not agree with this bold and extreme "plot," and contacting her in advance would only enable her to stop it from happening.

Perhaps Baldwin Franklin, who managed Anzu Commerce, acted like a merchant... precisely calculating the greatest benefit for this country, then using any means necessary to achieve it... Victoria, always trapped within the stale noble barriers of Anzu, probably could never emulate that.

Gawain had already stepped out of the command post, and Victoria quickly composed herself and followed along. But before getting in the vehicle, the Northern Duchess suddenly realized someone was missing: "Where did Miss Amber go?"

Gawain walked towards the Magic-guided Vehicle parked in the camp, casually said, "She went to investigate something."

In the depths of the camp, inside a barrack tightly guarded by soldiers, a Magic Web Terminal was humming and running, and the attached printer continuously spat out sheet after sheet of white paper. The paper bore countless words and black-and-white images, along with detailed hand-drawn crests.

Amber sat beside the Magic Web Terminal, flipping through the printed sheets with a peculiar smile—a smile carrying three parts satisfaction and seven parts mockery.

"There are so many... and it’s impressive Wales managed to hold the city up to this day against such a group..."

...

The Cecil legion had dispatched a guard squad, heading to the ruins of Mill Town outside St. Soniel as agreed. By the time they arrived, Wales was already there.

This ruin, almost just rubble and remnants, had no need for occupation or reconstruction. The Crystal Cluster Giants flattened it, demolishing nearly all its structures and walls. It seemed that complete leveling and rebuilding were the best way to handle it.

The Order of Knights dispatched here cleared the few wandering monsters near the ruins with little effort, then planted the Anzu Banner on a pile of broken bricks.

When the booming sound from Raven Plateau echoed in the distance, the knights silently stationed themselves here, having received orders not to leave no matter what happened. And if nothing happened on Raven Plateau...

Their task was to trap the returning nobles here.

The Anzu Banner fluttered at the edge of the ruined town, with broken bricks and collapsed walls reflecting a desolate air in the sunlight. A solemn Order of Knights guarded the tattered ruins as Wales Moen led his loyal surviving nobles and soldiers outside the town, watching those menacing, bizarre steel war machines rolling into the open area.

Seeing the rotating tracks, the steel armor shimmering with a barrier’s glow, and the rail cannon mouth shining coldly in the sunlight, Wales could clearly feel everyone around him tense up, hearing several throat-swallowing sounds.

In fact, even he couldn’t help but feel an emotional upheaval when he saw those war vehicles.

The door of the Magic-guided Vehicle, guarded in the center by the war vehicles, opened, and Gawain stepped out, followed by the Northern Duchess Victoria, wearing a long white dress and displaying a cold and distant demeanor.

The aristocrats and knights around Wales stirred slightly, but no one made any major movements. Victoria simply stood quietly slightly behind Gawain, even though she knew very well what it meant to stand beside him after Gawain had bombarded Raven Plateau.

She was fulfilling her promise to Gawain in this way.

The atmosphere on-site was subtle and tense, an unspeakable awkward silence engulfed everyone. Gawain certainly felt this special atmosphere, but he only showed a faint smile, calmly walking towards the newly crowned King of Anzu: "We finally meet safely, Your Majesty—but it seems the atmosphere here isn’t very pleasant?"

"Because we might need to clarify a horrifying misunderstanding," Wales met Gawain’s gaze and spoke up before anyone else could, "We need to talk, Duke Cecil."

Gawain watched Wales for a moment, nodding: "Of course."

The town was destroyed, but it wasn’t difficult to find a room for the King and Duke to negotiate matters. A sturdy small church was the only building still intact here. After a simple cleaning, the small church became the venue for their conversation.

Everyone besides Gawain and Wales were kept outside the church, including the aristocrats and guardians accompanying the King, as well as the commanders of the Cecil Legion and Victoria, who had come with Gawain.

The wounded wooden door of the church squeaked shut, and a beam of sunlight penetrated through the cracked colored crystal window into the church. In front of the collapsed and broken statue and pulpit, Gawain and Wales stood facing each other.

Gawain glanced around: "I didn’t expect our first serious conversation to take place in a place like this."

"It’s cleaner here than Silver Castle," Wales said with a smile, "At least there aren’t so many eyes watching here."

"But there are quite a few eyes outside," Gawain said, "I am curious what you plan to do next."

"And you? Have you considered if this is a trap, if I just want to put you in an unjust situation to provoke you into bombarding Raven Plateau, if I want to use this to eliminate dissent and maintain the throne, have you considered what to do in such a situation?"

"Nothing to consider," Gawain watched Wales, "because power comes from the barrel of a gun."

Wales watched Gawain in slight amazement for a while, stunned for two seconds, and then suddenly laughed.

This new King laughed aloud in the abandoned small church, laughed without any aristocratic demeanor, without restraint, as if he had never laughed heartily in the first half of his life, accumulating it all till today and laughing it out. Only after a few minutes did the laughter gradually stop, and he slowly straightened up, taking a deep breath, with the smile still lingering on his face: "Yes, yes... You really are such a person..."

"Our generation is all like that," Gawain, unconsciously channeling Gawain Cecil’s memories, said with a sigh, "Well then, what’s your decision?"

"You know, for nearly a year, the Plains of the Holy Spirits and the northern parts, western border region have been implementing various reforms, trying all sorts of things," Wales calmed down, slowly said, "New types of factories, town management, new military codes, even new-style schools, new freeman systems... All of it challenging the old order, yet Victoria and Duke Baldwin tried their hardest to push them, because we all believe these things can make Anzu strong again..."

A faint noise came from outside the church, sounding far away but seeming to draw closer.

Wales glanced at the tightly closed church door, then returned to continue speaking: "But in the end, almost all reforms failed... Factories became new means to accumulate land, military codes were almost fruitless, new systems couldn’t be promoted, schools... Schools weren’t even built. The only change was aristocrats of the capital split into opposing Reformists and Conservatives, constantly arguing and exhausting themselves...

"But you know, this isn’t Anzu’s only attempt at reform.

"Before you were revived, over the past ten or even decades, we tried many times—of course, I was far from Silver Castle then; strictly speaking, it was my father and several Protectorate Dukes who tried many times.

"Duke Silas Loland brought reform plans referencing Typhon.

"My father considered establishing a parliament.

"The previous Duke of the North pushed the ’Kingdom Constitution’.

"Duke Baldwin Franklin instituted new commercial policies.

"All failed."

The noise outside the church grew clearer, but it didn’t affect the conversation between Gawain and Wales. Gawain nodded slightly: "I know some of it."

"I left Silver Castle, yet watched it all," Wales continued, "since early on, I kept contemplating, wondering what truly hindered the kingdom’s betterment—was it a lack of wise people? Yet before Typhon instituted new policies, their scholars and advisors weren’t more numerous than Anzu’s; was it a lack of enlightened nobility? But the King and every Protectorate Duke were reformists, there were always reform supporters among the nobility; were we lacking money? Food? Time? But in fact, Anzu’s beginning wasn’t far off compared to Typhon’s when it started reforms.

"What did we truly lack?

"Comparing us with Typhon, I vaguely found some key points, and upon the southern borders’ rise, after we emulated your new order with more intense reforms, encountering more intense backlash and conflicts, I think I figured it out...

"The issue stems from the entire Anzu system led by the King, framed by the feudal leader system, with land and serfs as its blood and flesh.

"I don’t agree with Edmund and Duke Silas Loland’s actions, but now I must say... they did me a favor.

"Duke Cecil, do you know what the hardest part of top-down reform is?"

Wales smiled, quietly watching Gawain.

But before Gawain could speak, he voiced the answer himself.

"It’s overthrowing oneself."

Wales strode toward the church door, pushing it open as the noise outside had evolved into a roar and shouts.