Chapter 397: Slander
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"Master Anfey, you should take responsibility for falling into the necromancers’ trap," a Knight of Light said, emphasizing each word before dropping into a seat. He looked around for people to support him. Unfortunately, no one seemed to pay attention to what he said except for a few Knights of Light and priests who were qualified to attend this meeting. The rest of them were either chatting quietly in groups or resting with their eyes closed.
After the battle, Blavi and his mage group did a thorough check around the battlefield with Eyes of Sky. They found senior level death spirits among the death spirits. They found about 500 death knights and over 300 specters so far. However, there were so many death spirits, it was difficult to estimate a number.
These death spirits were particular irritating. Their attack and defensive ability was not as good as death knights, but they could fly and release a magic that could affect human’s functioning. They attacked people who had little willpower or telepathy in a way that would cause them to have constant illusions or go crazy.
Specters were rare species among death spirits since they were made very similar to puppets. Once necromancers could force the undispersed spirits to merge with dark series magic crystal powders, a specter was born. Specters had strong defense and almost abnormal recovery ability, since they were just magic crystal powders in the air. Swords and axes could barely hurt them. Low-level magic had no effect on them.
Theoretically, if there were enough dark series magic crystals, necromancers could make as many specters as they wanted. But it was just a theory. Dark series magic crystals were rare and they ranged widely in quality, so no necromancer would make all of their specters with magic crystals.
A Priest of Light tried to mediate. "In fact we cannot blame everything on Master Anfey for the situation we are in." However, he did not really want to help Anfey. By "cannot blame everything on Anfey," he meant Anfey needed to take most of the responsibility. "In addition, it would not help if we are just blaming each other right now. We’d better save it to think about what we should do next. If we stay here, we will die. To break their blockade…"
"Blaming each other?" Ye suddenly laughed. "Who blamed whom? It seems that only you guys are blaming Master Anfey, doesn’t it?"
"You…" That Priest of Light had no comeback.
"Breaking out the blockade? I’d better go to sleep instead of wasting my time with you here," Ozzic said, sounding irritated.
The Knights of Light and priests looked at each other. They were encircled in the Zagreen City and their morale was at the lowest, which was the best time to ruin Anfey’s reputation among mercenaries. If they could not do anything to Anfey at that moment, they would not have any chance in the future.
"Master Thompson, what do you think?" a Knight of Light suddenly asked as everyone was quiet. Thompson just joined Anfey’s League with his mercenary group. Knights of Light and priests thought Thompson had a fragile bond with Anfey. They wanted Thompson to be on their side, otherwise they would totally lose this battle with Anfey.
Thompson did not seem to hear that he was called out. He was still saying something quietly to Orsie and smiling. The Knights of Light and priests could not understand how he could laugh at this moment.
"Master Thompson, what do you think?" the Knight of Light said again, raising his voice.
Thompson was still talking and laughing with Orsie.
In fact, it didn’t take much intelligence to see that Thompson was doing this on purpose. It was impossible that Thompson could not hear it at this volume. The Knight of Light was forced to continue in order to get a response from Thompson. He would even be in a more awkward situation if he backed off now. "Master Thompson!" He sounded very pissed.
"Huh? What?" Thompson "finally" heard him.
"What do you think about our current situation?" the Knight of Light said with his teeth grinded. He realized he had picked the wrong person, but he had to continue anyway. He needed to excuse himself at some point so he would not feel too awkward.
"I do not have any suggestions. I will follow master no matter where he goes," Thompson said calmly. He looked like he realized something and tried to explain, "I should clarify: When I said ‘master’, I did not mean you."
Everyone burst into laughter. That Knight of Light blushed and felt like he would explode in anger,, but he did not since he really had no reason to do so. The Knight of Light just did not want to let it go.
Anfey had been playing with the little unicorn. He did not think those few Knights of Light and priests could ruin his reputation. Mercenaries respected powerful people. If it were possible, they would like to follow powerful people. Millions of bad words about Anfey would not be as influential as Suzanna making moves.
"Master Anfey?" That Priest of Light was worried and angry when he saw Anfey distracted.
"What do you want me to do?" Anfey replied with a smile.
"When you ordered us to attack, it made us miss the best time to retreat. Don’t you think you should say something?" the Priest of Light said.
"Retreat? Sir!" Shinbella did not even want to call his name. "What do you think those death knights and specters were for? If I remember correctly, they had not shown up in the battle yet."
"If those death knights and specters joined the battle, we could have been swarmed over by the death spirits around us. We did not have any barriers between us. Those death spirits could easily crush the formation we had." Thompson’s ears seemed to work again. "If we listened to you, we already would be death spirits now."
"We cannot do nothing. Are we just waiting to die here?" That Priest of Light had to argue from a different perspective.
"Why cannot we wait?" Anfey said calmly. "Archknight Fernando has been looking for opportunities to fight with death spirits. Now it is the time. Isn’t it a good thing?"
"But Archknight Fernando does not know our situation," the Priest of Light yelled.
He sounded like such a layman. The other three Knights of Light who were qualified to sit in the meeting all smiled bitterly.
"We divided each day into six time periods. Each time period we sent out a group of elite knights to contact Archknight Fernando. If the Archknight did not receive any information from us, he could speculate on our location and our enemies’ fighting ability with the time gap," Anfey patiently explained like a teacher. "So you do not have to worry. They will come to help as fast as they can."
"This is a joke. Since we were encircled, we have not sent anyone to contact Archknight Fernando. How could Archknight Fernando know where we are and the number of necromancers we have to deal with?" the Priest of Light said.
The few Knights of Light awkwardly lowered their heads. They could not disagree with their peer, so they had to pretend they did not hear what he said.
"Let’s put it this way. We sent out our knight to Archknight Fernando this noon. At noon, we were 30 miles away from Zagreen and would be reaching Stormenburg in three days. Archknight Fernando would be alerted if the next round of knights does not get to him in time. If the next round of knights is missing, he would know there would be something wrong. It is easy to locate us. We should be only half a day travelling distance away from the last round of knights who reached to Stormenburg. In terms of the number of death spirits, we have about 4,000 mercenaries and about 1,000 Knights of Light and priests. If we were in any trouble, he would know we had encountered the main force of the death spirits." Anfey looked calm and nice, but his words were not. "Am I explaining it clearly? Not everyone is as stupid as you. Archknight Fernando is a good general. You cannot evaluate Archknight Fernando’s intelligence and judgment ability with your own intelligence."
It could be that priest had dedicated his life to God, so it took him a while to realize what Anfey meant. Anfey did not scold him directly. Or perhaps he understood what Anfey meant but could not take it. He was trembling in anger.
"If you are still worried and think Archknight Fernando is as stupid as you, you can ask for help yourself," Anfey said.
"Ask for help? It would be no different than committing suicide," a Knight of Light said, smiling bitterly. "It will take at least 8 days for Archknight Fernando to get here. Can we hold on for 8 days?" Besides the time the knights needed to deliver messages, it would take a day or two to reorganize his troops and few days to arrive. The Knight of Light was not wrong.
Anfey said in a low voice, "If death spirits attack Zagreen City, how long do you think we could hold out?"
"I do not know how long we can hold out, but I do know we will die soon once the priest group exhausts their magic," the Knight of Light responded. He did not mean to ignore the fighting ability of the mage group, but he had to admit priests were a lot stronger in terms of fighting death spirits.
"Did they gather countless death spirits, death knights and specters to wipe us out? We only have a few people," Anfey said with a smile.
"Well…" the priest said.
"Don’t you think they overdid it?" Anfey asked.
"Are you saying…" the priest said.
"I did not say anything. Just stay here." No matter what others thought, Anfey had kept calm since he had Warner and the Book of Life. He had seen the power of the Book of Life in Moramatch. Of course, if others got to know about the Book of Life, conflict with the church would break out. He was not ready yet. He would not use Warner unless it was absolutely necessary.