Chapter 434: Green Sentinel Knights (02)

The process Ethan thought would be extremely quick ended up taking nearly two hours.

By the time he finished defining the last details of the order, he had paid a total of six million gold coins for its creation.

[Do you wish to designate this fortress as the base of the Order of the Green Sentinels?]

Ethan confirmed without hesitation.

In the next moment, a slight tremor ran through the world around him.

The stone floor vibrated beneath his boots, and a low hum rose up through the walls, as if the entire fortress were taking a deep breath.

Then an intense green light shot up into the heavens before cascading back down upon the fortress, streaming over the towers and ramparts until it flooded the entire courtyard with an emerald glow.

[You have created a Divine-Tier Knight Order!

Divine-Tier Knight Orders require a divine patron to maintain their full power.]

[The Goddess of Life smiles kindly at you and bestows her blessing upon the Order of the Green Sentinels.

A new trait has been added to the order.

Masters of Nature (This trait grants the knights of this order the ability to connect with the nature around them. They can receive information from animals, communicate with them to a limited extent, and essentially turn the entire forest into a gigantic network of informants.)]

Seeing that trait, Ethan couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

His beloved Goddess of Life truly never disappointed him!

Soon, however, he had to tear his eyes away from the messages.

The knights and squires for whom he’d paid an extra five million gold coins were arriving!

As the green light poured over the fortress courtyard, tiny glowing fragments began to gather in the air.

They swirled like fireflies, drifting closer and closer together before coalescing into figures of light.

One by one, these figures took on weight and shape, the glow fading away to reveal men clad in powerful steel armor.

The sound followed. The clang of metal settling into place, the creak of stretched leather, the heavy thud of boots striking the stone for the first time.

The first figure Ethan saw was the Grand Master of the Order, a towering man, perhaps close to two meters and twenty centimeters in height.

Ever since the magical density of Goldenveil had exploded, the height of adult men had changed significantly, with the average among them now reaching two meters.

Ethan himself had grown quite a bit as well.

Even so, he looked rather unimpressive standing before that powerful, intimidating figure and the soldiers behind him, who were perhaps ten centimeters shorter on average.

The man’s face was hidden beneath a heavy dark-green helmet. Its only opening was a narrow T-shaped visor that ran from his eyes down to the base of the helmet.

At each corner of that T, small golden decorations shaped like deer antlers jutted outward, glinting in the green light that still bathed the courtyard.

His armor was clearly very heavy, and the powerful musculature beneath it only made it look bulkier still.

The steel plates ran down his body, mostly green with black mixed in here and there, each one fitting precisely into the next. They were thick enough to make an ordinary sword look like a toy.

A green cloth hung from his waist, falling between his legs and bearing the order’s emblem.

Over the heavy shoulder guards, a gray wolf-fur mane spread down to each upper side of the breastplate, where round golden brooches held it in place.

On his back, attached to that mane, a wide green cloak fell down the sides of his shoulders, its hem stirring faintly in the breeze that crossed the courtyard.

At his waist, his heavy gauntlets rested on the hilt of a long sword.

He was clearly a very heavy man, perhaps one hundred sixty or one hundred seventy kilograms of pure muscle. With his armor, he could easily weigh as much as two hundred fifty kilograms.

No ordinary horse could bear that weight for long.

Fortunately, a beast no less impressive appeared to carry him, one on the same level as its master.

The light beside him thickened once more, and out of it stepped a wolf as heavy as a polar bear, with dense, powerful muscles shifting beneath its fur.

A body like that would barely feel its master’s weight on its back.

It padded to its master’s side and stood there, a low rumble rolling from deep within its chest.

The wolf stood about two meters tall at the top of its head. Its fur was gray, lightening to white along its lower belly and neck.

Its eyes were a brilliant green, its ears pricked up in attention, and on its head, antlers resembling those of a deer stood proudly.

The men behind him emerged wearing similar armor, slightly lighter versions, but none of them, not even the squires, stood less than two meters tall.

The wolves that appeared at each man’s side were no less impressive or beautiful than the Grand Master’s.

Row after row, they filled the courtyard. Green steel and gray fur as far as the eye could see, thousands of eyes gleaming in the same direction.

Ethan felt the weight of every one of those gazes settle on him.

In total, 1,103 men were assembled, of whom 1,000 were squires.

These were different from ordinary squires, those who served as knights’ attendants during training until they, too, were knighted by lords.

They were knights too, just of a lower and as yet unrecognized rank.

Each of them carried himself with as much pride and power as any of his brothers.

A pleasant surprise for Ethan was realizing that, in total, five hundred more wolves had been spawned.

While the mounted wolves were all males, these five hundred additional wolves were divided between males and females, ready to be used for breeding.

They gathered along the edges of the courtyard, pacing slowly, their antlers catching the last of the fading green glow.

The Grand Master of the Order was the first to break the silence.

Bringing his hands to his helmet, he slowly lifted it free with a soft scrape of metal, revealing the mature, dignified, and handsome face of a man in his late middle age.

Streaks of gray mingled with his hair, his jaw was firm, and his eyes seemed to bear the weight of decades of battles.

He knelt immediately, his steel knee striking the stone with a sharp thud that echoed through the courtyard.

"Grand Master Isaac Greenheart, of the Order of the Green Sentinel Knights, greets Lord Ethan Goldenveil!" he declared forcefully, his deep voice rolling off the walls.

He was a being generated by the System. His entire backstory was artificial, and his loyalty to Ethan was absolutely unwavering.

The other knights followed, their knees bending one by one.

NT: Images showing what the Green Sentinel Knights and their wolves look like can be found in the comments for this Chapter.

Full quality images can be found on my discord: https://discord.gg/ZMhMj7Dawz