Chapter 282 — On the Border

Cecil Territory had once again been attacked by monsters from the Gondor Wasteland, and the invading force had been annihilated that same day. This became the news that spread fastest and widest in the cold winter, and its dissemination was not due solely to the efforts of scouts, merchants, and mercenaries—Gao Yang himself had tacitly permitted it, even quietly encouraged it, which had made a considerable difference.

In Gao Song's words, "We have to make those comfortable southern nobles and capital folk aware that the threat exists."

In this cold winter, many people were destined to find no peace in their sitting or sleeping.

The eastern border of Ansul, Long Wind Fortress.

As the High Guardian of the Eastern Region, Duke Silas Lauren had for many years personally garrisoned this fortress. At this moment he stood on the top terrace of the castle at the fortress's center, gazing at the tiers of walls in the distance and, beyond them, the vast tracts of ice-covered wilderness.

Completed only ten years ago, this fortress was the pride of the Eastern Region's Lauren family. It had taken the labor of three full generations; the Eastern Region family had spent enormous treasure, material, and manpower—even the blood of family members—before finally raising this sturdy fortress on land that stood face to face with the Typhon Empire. It confronted Winter Wolf Keep and its attendant cluster of forts, which the Typhon Empire had established on its border, from afar; it was both a barrier and a deterrent.

The building of Long Wind Fortress had its origins in the rapid deterioration of relations between Ansul and Typhon.

In the Fogmoon Civil War a hundred years ago, the Eastern Region's Lauren family was the one among the four regional dukes that preserved its strength most intact. From the very beginning, this family had recognized that the Typhon Empire, which had always styled itself Ansul's brother, was in fact a massive threat; thus throughout the Fogmoon Civil War the family never committed its core strength to that chaotic and cruel struggle for royal power. The Lauren family's few limited moves during the civil war were made solely to preserve its position and influence within the kingdom, while the greater part of its energy had always been fixed on this eastern borderline. Later events proved that Duke Lauren's caution and dutiful guardianship in those years had protected the entire kingdom.

After the civil war ended and Ansul's domestic situation was swiftly settled by the establishment of the Second Dynasty and the thunderous measures of the northern Wilde family, the Lauren family began building a series of defensive works along the borderline. Long Wind Fortress was the one among all these works into which the greatest effort had been poured, which had taken the longest to build, and which possessed the strongest garrison.

It was less a military bastion than a "fortress city" combining the functions of fortress and city. Within it were all the facilities needed to keep the fortress running and to guarantee self-sufficiency; the warriors of the Lauren family were both the soldiers who held its walls and the residents of this citadel city, and the purpose of this fortress city's existence was to stand firm on this borderland under any circumstances, and never to fall.

When Ansul had declined greatly because of the civil war, while the Typhon Empire had grown ever stronger and conceived improper ambitions, it was precisely because this rampart built by the Lauren family stood on the national borderline that Typhon's improper ambitions could never be anything more than improper ambitions.

In fact, the four great families of Ansul during the Fogmoon Civil War could be said to have shouldered starkly different historical roles: the Western Region's Franklin family maintained diplomatic and trade relations with the Augury Tribal Nation throughout, preserving the kingdom's economic lifeline and laying the foundation for the kingdom's postwar reconstruction; the Northern Region's Wilde family, using an illegitimate son as its banner, pacified the entire country's civil strife with thunderous force, forcibly steadying the kingdom before the situation became utterly irretrievable; and the Eastern Region's Lauren family, as a barrier, held Ansul's border, blocking those ill-intentioned enemies beyond the border during the kingdom's civil war.

Though each of them could be said to have had private motives, and though during the civil war they had come near to splitting apart and turning hostile, they had nonetheless, at the final moment, still held this kingdom together.

In stark contrast stood the Southern Region's Cecil family, originally founded by the foremost of the four founding dukes—the Cecil family that had shone with glory for six hundred years... had done not a single useful thing.

Now that the Cecil family's Xuanyuan Sect had come back to life, no one dared directly impugn the Cecil family's honor anymore; they could only say the family had been unfortunate, meeting the worst possible heir at the most critical moment, so that the ancestors' foundation had nearly been destroyed in an instant.

Historians had never lacked ardor on this subject; they delighted in discussing just what factors had caused the four families to behave so starkly differently during the Fogmoon Civil War. But in Duke Lauren's view, all discussion of that period of history was meaningless. He held that the chief cause of that situation was simply that Gao Yang Cecil had died too early—the Cecil Duke, slain on the battlefield at thirty-five, had departed this world too soon, and so had failed to pass his radiance and glory to his offspring in time; and so the Cecil family's inheritance had gone badly wrong in Grumman Cecil's generation.

The Cecil Duke's resurrection this time might well be for the purpose of educating his descendants.

Silas Lauren stood on the terrace, quietly pondering these questions concerning the kingdom's history and the transmission of glory. Many took this duke of legendary strength for a mere man of arms, but he considered that nothing more than the foolish opinion of the ignorant. He had never lacked profound thought; it was only that his talent on the battlefield far exceeded his thinking, and so people noticed only his power.

A familiar presence drew near. Silas Lauren withdrew his gaze from the distance and turned to see a young man with short brown hair, clad in armor, ascending the terrace. This young knight, fully armed and of striking martial bearing, bent slightly before him: "Father, the intelligence has arrived."

"Make the knight's salute!" Silas Lauren said sternly. "Belk, you are reporting military intelligence now!"

"Yes!" The young man quickly straightened and performed a very standard knight's salute. "General, the latest intelligence."

Silas nodded. "Speak."

"It has been confirmed that the Typhon garrison at Winter Wolf Keep did indeed fight a battle several days ago—but not against us. They fought a kind of unknown 'monster.' The Winter Wolf garrison was victorious; the keep was not breached, but the outer walls suffered moderate damage. The garrison's casualties are unknown, but they should not be few."

Silas nodded slightly, neither confirming nor denying. The young Belk—Silas Lauren's eldest son—could not restrain himself: "Father, this is a fine chance to weaken the enemy!"

Silas looked into Belk's eyes without expression. "You truly think so?"

"The enemy's exhaustion is our advantage," Belk said, meeting his father's gaze with his head held high. "Their walls have been weakened, and repairing walls in winter is difficult, so Winter Wolf Keep's defenses will have weak points for some time to come. Second, they have suffered a monster attack, and the panic will sap their fighting strength for a while. Finally, their soldiers have taken losses—so this is a good moment for us to attack."

"Fool."