The night was quiet under the moonlight.

Thick black clouds occasionally concealed the moonlight, then let it shine through, brushing the advancing knights with sheets of light like a brush.

The summer night was shorter than expected.

The horses' mouths were gagged, dim lanterns swayed at the saddles, with only the sound of wind and the subtle clatter of hooves in the night air.

Standing on horseback, lifting the beak-shaped visor, Alaric widened his eyes, peering into the distance.

The torchlight and campfire, like beans, were starkly visible in the dark, illuminating the chest walls and cylindrical barriers below the torches.

On the barrier, a red-black flag representing the Holy Alliance fluttered in the wind.

"Stop!"

Alaric whispered.

Like a lamenting horn echoing in the wind, it was then that the advancing blood knights halted.

Alaric concentrated on observing ahead, feeling relieved only when there was no movement.

Looking at the dull blood knights, he shook his head and turned back.

The most frustrating aspect of these blood knights was their inability to understand signals, only being guided by horns and red steel arrows.

With the blood knights halting, the following Imperial Knights naturally stopped as well.

Duke Barry, leading the Imperial Knights, rode out of the darkness, looking displeased, "We haven't reached the place yet? Why are we stopping? Do you not understand the urgency?"

Alaric maintained a stern face, "The Thousand River Valley people have prematurely built fortifications nearby; judging from the number of torches, there are about five to eight?"

"Earthen ramparts?"

"The front of the artillery seems to be rammed earth, while the walls are masonry."

Duke Barry frowned, himself riding ahead for a look before returning, "Indeed, the artillery positions and gaps are blocked with baskets filled with soil."

Alaric wanted to say something but held back.

An old Duke like Barry not recognizing a new duke with no people or territory like Alaric was natural.

Even some of the practical counts didn't respect him as a Duke, but Alaric himself was powerless; it was better to have the title than none.

Such crucial combat, he should tolerate it.

"With these ramparts blocking the way, I'm afraid the mission to night raid the Holy Alliance camp can't be completed," Alaric whispered.

"Can we bypass them?"

"If we detour, it'll likely be daylight, so regarding His Majesty's strategy, I intend to make slight modifications..."

"You, intend to alter His Highness Jinijis' plan?" Duke Barry interrupted directly.

"Yes, since the original plan can't be executed, these ramparts need to be dismantled sooner or later; might as well do it now, at least save time and bloodshed for His Highness."

"Why should you alter the strategy?"

"His Highness granted me the power to adapt before departure."

"Do you dare to shoulder this responsibility?"

"His Highness trusts my ability uniquely with this power."

Duke Barry's face remained unchanged, as if pondering, before speaking again after a moment, "I'll follow your command."

"These ramparts seem to form a triangle; I'll lead the blood knights to charge the center, you just need to hold the wings."

Imperial Knights are the essence of the Leia Kingdom, while the blood knights are strong yet expendable; Alaric didn't want to lose too many.

"Alright." Lowering his visor, Duke Barry turned his horse, took two steps before seeming to remember something, turning back to say, "Good luck, fortunate one."

Seeing Duke Barry's cooperation, Alaric breathed a sigh of relief, "Call out the Shadowless Men and Demon Hunters, eliminate any surrounding sentinels."

"Yes, Lord Duke."

......

Pressing an ear to the wall, after a while, an old sentinel lifted his head in confusion, "I think I heard someone crying?"

"Isn't it you secretly crying from homesickness?" a bald sentinel teased, "We've only been away from Black Snake Bay a few days."

"Nonsense!" Taking a sip of scalding coffee from the campfire, the old sentinel spat a burnt-red tongue, "What time is it, when's the shift change?"

"It's just half past two." The bald sentinel pointed to the distant military chaplain, "His elder's still awake; if it's time for shift change, he'd have..."

"Shh—"

The old sentinel, who was sipping coffee, suddenly crouched to the ground, intently listening to something.

"What are you doing?" Bent over, the bald sentinel picked up the coffee tin cup from the ground regretfully, standing upright, "Only one pot for the night, you..."

"Boom—thump!"

A hollow arrow sliced through the nighttime sky, leaving a red glow trail, directly hitting the bald head illuminated under the torch.

"Enemy attack, enemy attack!" Picking up the horn from the ground, the old sentinel puffed his cheeks, the somber bugle echoing under the moonlight.

Like lighting a beacon, sentinels from other ramparts, overt and covert, sequentially sounded their horns.

"Swoosh—swoosh swoosh—"

A barrage of arrows rained down on the soldiers' heads, felling one by one with painful cries.

Tilted torches ignited wooden crates filled with bread, but no one cared.

Footsteps surged, soldiers inside the ramparts ran, barely wiping their eye crusts, rushing towards the gun positions and artillery.

Clouds obscured the moon, giving cover to the blood knights, blinding the Shadow Crow Army soldiers.

Yet the thundering hooves in the night became increasingly loud.

Though called ramparts, they were atop mounds, surrounded by chest walls and rammed earth barriers forming simple circular ramparts.

Due to the vast battlespace and uneven terrain, the range to control was too broad, making it impossible to build straight chest walls like before.

Despite the blood knights reaching the base of the slope, they still needed time to ascend.

This gave the Shadow Crow Army enough time to react.

"Praise the Holy Wind!" The young Corps Commander Damian shouted.

The bullets whizzed away like clay oxen entering the sea, disappearing without a trace. Only when an occasional spark exploded in the night, did they know they had hit something.

After the first round of reflection, came the second and third rounds, as the Holy Gunmen took turns advancing.

"Where's the cannon, cannon? Gun Captain, where's my Falcon Cannon?"

"I'm hurrying, I'm loading!" The Gun Captain replied without lifting his head.

Skillfully, he stuffed the shell-wrapped shrapnel into the cannon barrel, wound the clockwork, pressed down the clasp, holding the firing cord in his hand, the Gun Captain shouted: "Ready."

"Fire! Aim for those shadows!"

In the dark, shadows surged.

A hard pull on the firing cord, the clasp released, and the clockwork spun with wild gears.

The lead shot and iron sand carved white streaks inside the cannon barrel, showering down like rain on the faces of the advancing shadows.

Warhorses neighed and wailed, yet the sound of hooves did not stop.

"Keep reloading!"

"Hooonnnnng——"

The sound of horns was close by.

In the night, the warhorse leaped, first its hooves stained silver by moonlight, then the Blood Knights turned pink.

The mighty hairless Devil Horse, with eyes full of blood, looked down upon the panicked soldiers below.

"Roar——"

Hundreds of Blood Knights let out a battle cry, crashing into the Shadow Crow Army monks behind the chest walls like ragged dolls.

Bodies slammed onto the ground and walls, dragging long streaks of blood.

But the Shadow Crow Army were no pushovers and immediately organized a counterattack with their clockwork guns.

Next came the thudding sounds of bullets piercing through armor and bodies.

In the narrow bunker, cavalry could not play to their strengths, so the Blood Knights dismounted at the command of the horn.

The greatswords swung without pause, leaving no gaps, and with each turn, several heads flew.

Some were their own, some were the enemy's.

Wielding axe and spear, Damian chopped off the head of a fallen Blood Knight, looking at the chaotic bunker, he gritted his teeth: "Damn devils, they took a cannon shot and still charged through our defenses at full speed!"

Beside him, the Senior Pastor, holding a shield in one hand and a flail in the other, squeezed in.

He had just splattered the brains of an approaching infantryman, with brain matter still sticking to his flail: "What do we do?"

"Any news from the rear? If not, we fight hard!"

Within half a minute, the bunker at the rear sounded the horn for retreating rhythmically. Damian immediately issued orders: "Holy Gunmen cover the retreat, move from the trench to the rear bunker."

The clockwork guns gave muffled thuds, shooting light-penetrating holes through the Blood Knights but doing nothing to stop their slaughter.

Damian's bunker was an outpost, with six bunkers arranged behind him in a triangle formation.

This way, there would be no dead angles in the crossfire zone.

The bunkers were connected by a few real and fake trenches, with over a hundred soldiers moving quickly along the trenches, hunched over.

But when Damian reached the second bunker, his first impression was a scene identical to his previous one.

Wooden boxes burned, Blood Knights rotated their greatswords, mounted Crossbowmen continuously fired arrows, and the Shadow Crow Army soldiers resisted continuously.

If not for the unfamiliar faces, he would have thought he'd accidentally gone back!

However, unlike before, the rear clockwork artillery finally began to exert its power.

The night sky was torn apart by the sound of thunder, lead shot and iron sand flew horizontally, and iron balls the size of fists sent people tumbling in the air.

As for the reinforcements from the rear, they also arrived with the artillery barrage.

At the forefront was Selomis herself, though she was merely a weakened version of an ordinary physical Witch at night.

But to ordinary people, this weakened version was already quite outrageous.

Her greatsword was nearly a meter long, slow yet fast, and with her eyes like knives, Selomis sliced and slashed three Blood Knights in three strokes.

With foul-smelling blood and entrails spilling out, Selomis held her longsword steady: "Go to the rear bunker, I'll cover the retreat!"

...…

The many bunkers in the night were ablaze, filled with the constant cries of battle.

Amidst the surging streams of attacking people, Alaric advanced against the tide.

Blood trickled from the corner of Alaric's forehead, and an attendant tried to wipe it away but was roughly pushed aside by him: "Barry!"

Duke Barry, who was sitting and wiping his sword, was initially stunned, then his expression turned sour: "Lord Alaric's lessons in etiquette have gone too far."

"You're slow!" Alaric didn't care at all.

"So what? Didn't we capture these bunkers?" Duke Barry stood up. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"But we lost more soldiers than expected, and we could've swept up the routed soldiers and taken the camp. But they withdrew, just because you were one step too slow!"

"Do whatever you say, do I still need you to teach me how?" Duke Barry found Alaric unreasonable.

Out of respect for His Highness Ginijis, he'd already shown great deference to this young man Alaric.

Yet, this upstart dared to question him.

Alaric was furious: "I said, we could've had greater results, just because of your selfishness!"

"My selfishness? You brought the Blood Knights to snatch credit, yet called me to hold the line. I endured without complaint, and you call it selfishness?"

"But I said, you were slow!"

"It's so dark, shouldn't cavalry charges take time? Isn't some delay normal?"

"You were slow, don't make excuses, I said you were slow." Alaric was now talking nonsense.

Duke Barry also showed bulging veins: "Then let His Highness decide! Let's see who's right!"