Chapter 1070 - 877: When the Statue Comes to Maturity (Part 2)

Jericho Castle fell, and the commander was struck in the left eye by a stray arrow during the street battles, the arrowhead penetrating his brain, killing him instantly.

Victor placed the statue on an abandoned mine cart in the center square of Jericho Castle, allowing it to absorb the scent of gunpowder and blood lingering in the air.

The Duke noticed that the gemstone in the statue’s eye sockets had begun to change from deep blue to dark purple, and the light circulating within was more intense than it had been in Grey Rock City.

After Jericho Castle came Mill Crossing, a city located at a major river crossing in the kingdom’s middle reaches.

Seizing this place would allow Victor’s army to control the entire river’s water supply line, paving the way for the subsequent invasion into the kingdom’s heartland.

The City Lord of Mill Crossing was a young noble who had just inherited his title, lacking much combat experience, but he had a small yet well-equipped elite guard dispatched from the royal capital.

The siege lasted only three days because Victor had sent men upstream before the battle, dropping several boats filled with flammable oil; the fire followed the water flow and burned the wooden walls built along the river, turning that entire stretch of the riverbank into a sea of flames.

The defenders were forced to abandon the river defenses and retreat to the inner city, and Victor took the opportunity to launch a full assault, capturing the city in one fell swoop.

After the city was taken, victorious rebel army soldiers looted the mills near the crossing, but no one touched the heavy waterwheels and millstones, which stood silently amidst the burned ruins of the mills. The waterwheels continued to turn slowly in the river’s flow, producing a creaking sound.

Victor placed the statue on a hill with a wide view by the riverbank, surrounded by the wreckage of burned boats and scorched planks drifting with the water.

After Mill Crossing came Gray Stone Town, Salt Fortress, and Changqiao Pass, each city had its unique terrain and defense systems, but ultimately they all fell before Victor’s army.

The war formed a cruel pattern: besiege the city, break the city, the statue absorbs, brief rest, then continue advancing to the next city.

The rebel army’s forces underwent significant expansion after capturing these cities; many civilians from occupied cities joined the rebel army after witnessing Victor publicly execute local nobles, and many captives and militia were forcibly conscripted.

By the time Victor’s army approached the central stronghold of the Osseron Kingdom, at the gates of Silver Shield City, his forces were no longer the tens of thousands they had been initially.

Silver Shield City was the largest city in the central region of the Osseron Kingdom, and it was the final barrier of the kingdom’s western defense line.

The city walls were over three zhang tall, with outer walls entirely built of white granite, glistening coldly like silver in the sunlight, giving Silver Shield City its name.

The commanding officer was the Osseron Kingdom’s Second Prince, a direct royal family member famous for his military prowess.

He led several thousand elite Royal Knights and tens of thousands of professional infantry from the royal capital, combined with Silver Shield City’s own defenders, the total strength made many believe this battle would drag on indefinitely.

But Victor did not launch a direct attack; he sent small cavalry units to harass the farmland and villages outside the city day and night, burning all the grain that could be burned, poisoning all usable water sources, and driving all fleeing civilians to the gates of Silver Shield City.

More and more refugees flooded into the city, and the grain reserves within the city were depleted in less than twenty days of the siege, forcing the defenders to slaughter horses for food.

On the night of the siege, Victor ordered tens of thousands of torches to be lit outside the city, lined up as a glowing band stretching for miles; in the darkness, it looked as if the whole plain was ablaze.

Thinking the rebel army was launching an all-out assault, the defenders all climbed onto the city walls in full readiness, but Victor’s main forces took advantage of the distraction, circled around to Silver Shield City’s weakest defense on the east side, and used siege hammers to smash the east city gate.

Silver Shield City fell.

After the city broke, the Second Prince led his remaining trusted aides in an attempt to break through but was intercepted and killed by rebel ambushers by a dry well on the east side of the city, struck by more than a dozen arrows.

The Duke stood high above, watching Silver Shield City’s firelight redden half the night sky.

Victor placed the statue atop the clock tower in the center of Silver Shield City; the clock tower’s copper bell had been struck by a flaming stone during the siege, falling from high up and crashing through the wooden floors to shatter on the pile of rubble at the bottom.

The statue was placed above the iron frame where the copper bell once hung, and the Duke sensed that the energy within the gemstone inside the statue had thickened to near solid state, with dark purple light fluttering at the top of the clock tower, like a heart slowly contracting.

...

A few days later.

Victor stood in the temporary command center hallway in Silver Shield City, hands bracing the edge of a wide oak table, overlooking the sheepskin map on the table marked with countless arrows and circled lines in charcoal.

On the map, the vast territories in the northwest of the Osseron Kingdom were mostly covered with crimson ink, Grey Rock City, Anvil Castle, Mill Crossing, Gray Stone Town, Salt Fortress, Changqiao Pass, each city he conquered was marked with a conspicuous red cross.

His fingers slowly moved along the march route on the map, starting from the westernmost Cadwell Territory, heading east, crossing Grey Rock City, over Anvil Castle, along the river to capture Mill Crossing, then sweeping south through Gray Stone Town and Salt Fortress, ultimately breaking through the kingdom’s last defense line in the central region at Changqiao Pass, with the forces directed sharply at Silver Shield City.

And now, Silver Shield City also bore a red cross.

He straightened up, flexing his shoulders slightly stiff from maintaining the same posture for a long time.

Outside the window, Silver Shield City slowly awakened in the dawn, the footsteps of patrols on the streets were orderly, and in the distance, the Red Sun Banner on the city wall flapped loudly in the morning breeze.

This Osseron Kingdom’s largest city in the central region was now his domain from today.

But Victor’s gaze did not linger on the map; instead, it turned to the corner of the hall where the statue was placed on a specially made iron stand.

The statue had been retrieved from the top of the clock tower and was nearing its full maturity.

The sapphire in the statue’s eye sockets was steadily emitting a deep dark purple glow in the morning light, the flowing luster inside no longer churn as dramatically as a few days ago, instead appearing like the slow currents deep in the sea, calm and substantial.

It’s soon, truly soon.

Victor withdrew his gaze and turned back to the map.

The Kingdom Army’s main forces, numbering three hundred thousand, were marching towards Silver Shield City from the direction of the royal capital.

The vanguard scout cavalry had already appeared on the plains east of Silver Shield City two days ago, engaging in small-scale skirmishes with his perimeter patrols.

Three hundred thousand, indeed not a small number. If placed a few months ago when he had just raised his army, this force would have been enough to completely crush his troops.

But now it’s different; his troops have been tempered by continuous siege warfare, with the surviving soldiers being the elite among elites.

More importantly, he no longer needed numbers to win.

He just needed to wait a few more days for the statue to fully absorb the final batch of war products from the Silver Shield City campaign.

By then, he could absorb the energy within the statue, breakthrough the bottleneck that had troubled him for so long, and advance to the Demigod Level.

Demigod Level.

He silently recited this term, fingers instinctively gripping the table edge.

Elderlands was once a top-tier plane, in those ancient legends, Demigod Level was merely the rank of the most ordinary officer in the army, Level 4 or 5 were barely qualified to be considered strong, while the Level 9 beings standing atop the plane were the oldest legends and faiths of this plane.

But those are distant past, with the disappearance of Plane Will and the vanishing of the World Tree, Elderlands was no longer the Elderlands it once was.

In today’s Osseron Kingdom, Level 3 Extraordinary was the top combat force among major powers, with Demigod Level being enough to make any faction bow down.

Once he advances to Demigod, the mere three hundred thousand Kingdom Army would be as insignificant as dirt and straw, not even requiring his direct action, the pressure of a Demigod Level alone would be sufficient to utterly collapse the knights’ morale.

At that point, he would possess the strength to control the entire Osseron Kingdom, not just as a "Reformer" overthrowing a decaying old dynasty.