Chapter 1190: 1190
When Qianye returned to the Martyr’s Palace, Caroline was already waiting at the cabin doors . “Did everything go well?”
“Of course, the Wolf King is no idiot . He knows what he should do . ”
“Is there no way to bring him to our side? I mean, as a true ally . ”
Qianye shook his head . “No . We still haven’t made clear what his true intentions are, or even why he appeared in the neutral lands . An alliance under such circumstances is extremely risky . I still don’t trust him even now . ”
Caroline smiled . “Then how can you trust me? You even gave me partial control over the Martyr’s Palace . ”
Qianye didn’t know how to reply for the moment . He tried to respond vaguely and get away with it . Of course, there were a lot of reasons—the war on the void continent, Caroline risking injuries to defend the Martyr’s Palace, etc . She had spared no effort on her part, and comrades who had fought through life and death were naturally dependable allies .
However, Qianye felt a bit guilty even as he was saying these things . He would be rather dumb if he still hadn’t noticed Caroline’s feelings at this point . It was just that he would rather keep this layer of mist undispersed, and certain things, unrevealed .
A flash of disappointment flickered through Caroline’s eyes . She then said in a more spirited manner, “It’s a good thing that you’re willing to trust me . How about this? Let’s head back to Thunderfrost Temple and recruit more people to help . I think I can split two-thirds of the temple guard squad for our operation . ”
“Nothing can be better!” Qianye said, delighted .
The members of the temple guard were all attendants who had to be at the level of a human champion to be assigned to the role . They were the result of the temple’s many years of accumulation, the elites of their clan . At this point, there were only a dozen or so members in the temple guard . If Caroline was going to bring two-thirds of them, this meant that Qianye would have around seven or eight champion-rank experts to aid him .
Qianye seemingly thought of something as he glanced toward the airship’s bow . He patted the ballista cannon beside him and said, “Remove this . ”
The ballista was ten meters long . The ammunition in it was also several meters in length and looked extremely powerful . One could tell at a glance that this was a cruiser grade main cannon . Yet, it bounced away with a casual slap and fell with a muffled thump . This certainly wasn’t the sound of metal; it sounded like wood instead .
A number of warriors arrived to carry the giant ballista away toward the crane . Their steps were light and unlabored . The ballista cannon’s bottom part was actually covered in wood patterns . Turns out, their so-called main-cannons were models carved from wood .
“The Wolf King will see it if you remove them now,” Caroline reminded him .
Qianye smiled . “That’s the point . ”
“I really don’t understand you . ” Caroline shook her head and went back into the cabin .
Meanwhile, Qianye was ordering the crew to remove the dummies one after the other .
Within the Totemic Castle, the Wolf King had just sat down when he heard hurried footsteps in the hall . A young shaman pushed open the door and entered, saying, “Great Chief, you had best come and take a look . ”
Seeing the shaman so anxious, the Wolf King chose not to blame him for the lack of manners, and only followed him to the main tower of the castle . Gazing up, he saw the Martyr’s Palace currently in ascent . With his eyesight, the Wolf King naturally saw that the ballista cannons on the side had disappeared . Someone of his intellect could easily put two and two together .
In the blink of an eye, most of the cannon ports became empty . There used to be dozens of ballista cannons in varying sizes, half of them representing terrible cruiser-grade firepower . Now, only a single cruiser and five destroyer main cannons were left . It was even less than the odd number from the previous count .
The werewolves on the ground looked ashen . Who wouldn’t see that they had been tricked?
The shaman clenched his jaws in hatred . “You actually dared lie to us! Great Chief, we can’t let this be . No matter what requests he made, we should just go ahead and uproot Southern Blue . We’ll see what tricks he has up his sleeve then . ”
The Wolf King broke into sudden laughter after some thought . “Don’t mind him, we’ll stick to the arrangement we had before . Relay the message to all our troops, no one is to touch Southern Blue from now on . It’s settled!”
The werewolf shaman was stunned . “Great Chief, you saw what he did just now!”
The Wolf King said indifferently, “Of course, I also know that he’s doing that for me to see . So, we continue as planned . ”
The shaman was baffled . Judging from the Wolf King’s reaction, not only was he not angry, but he was actually more willing to compromise now . All the shaman could do was to issue the order for now . After everything was done, he planned to visit the great shaman and seek advice . Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night .
Southern Blue became extremely busy . Be it recruitment or outfitting, everything Dark Flame did caused a big commotion that would move countless people .
On the top floor of one of Southern Blue’s taller buildings, a number of people were gathered in front of the window, looking down at the soldiers training on the drill grounds .
Dark Flame was constructed within Southern Blue, so many of its facilities were open to public sight . Song Zining didn’t consider the drill grounds very important, so he made no special effort to cover it up .
Roughly three thousand soldiers were currently training in groups . The drill grounds wasn’t big, and a couple thousand men looked rather cramped in there . There were thousands of new recruits to the side who had finished their initial training and were waiting to register their new gear .
There were powerful binoculars on the building, and currently, two elders had their eyes pressed against one each . The scopes were clear enough to see the weapon and equipment models being passed out to the new recruits .
Using origin power to bolster vision was good and all, but that would easily attract the attention of the other party’s experts . Hence, it was still better and safer to use such equipment during times of peace . One could see just how careful these people were .
After gazing out for a good while, the two old men put down their binoculars and, glancing at one another, descended with the group in tow . They entered a sealed chamber and heaved a sigh of relief only after locking the door . The first elder said, “Brother Liu, what do you think?”
The other old man fell into deep thought . Only after a good while did he say, “Dark Flame’s outfit for the new recruits consists of more common weapons, barely premium goods . From what I know, they’re somewhat inferior to the Empire’s main army corps . It’s not like the bigger mercenary groups in the neutral lands can’t afford such equipment . To be frank, Dark Flame’s fifty thousand new recruits and this batch of equipment is comparable in cost to one main army division . ”
Another person picked up the conversation . “The batch of new equipment that came a couple of days ago is the real high-end stuff . According to insider information, they’re custom made weaponry for the Empire’s elite corps . It’s just that the number is rather limited, reportedly two thousand sets . Half of them have already arrived . ”
The elder surnamed Liu said after some thought, “That means Qianye wants to form an elite squad like Red Scorpion and Broken-Winged Angels, with the rest remaining at the top-standard for the neutral lands . ”
A number of people nodded . “That should be the case . ”
They had been observing Dark Flame for a good while . Combining their findings with intelligence reports from other sources, their guess wasn’t really too far off .
Moments later, someone finally broke the silence . “What do we do now? Shall we just watch them leave for Fort Continent?”
This problem plunged the room into silence . A while later, the old man surnamed Liu said, “Looks like it’s better to lie low . ”
Someone objected immediately . “Won’t he grow stronger once he gains a stable foothold on Fort Continent? We’ll have even fewer ways to deal with him then . ”
Elder Liu sighed . “No one wants to watch Dark Flame grow stronger, but we don’t have a good solution . Even if we want to fight, how do we fight and what do we fight? Qianye will surely bring his entire elite force and fleet on this expedition . What do we fight? Do we launch a surprise attack just to kill some ordinary mercenaries and plunder some resources? You saw it, they can recruit tens of thousands of those soldiers in a month’s time . ”
Although the group had expected such an outcome, they were still reluctant to admit it when the time came . They had never expected that Qianye would use most of his resources to build a small elite-squad while leaving the majority of the forces at the neutral lands’ standards .
One of them laughed wryly . “Since that’s the case, let’s cancel the operation . ”
“We’ve been preparing tirelessly for an entire month . How can we cancel just like that?”
“What else should we do? We don’t dare to make a move when Qianye’s around, and Dark Flame has no value when he’s not . The only things of value in the city are the workshops . Do we plunder ourselves then?”
“Ningyuan Heavy Industries have factories here as well, right??”
“Those factories only process raw materials and produce simple parts . The real factories that produce mechanical components are in the Empire . The parts in stock here are only valuable in Song Zining’s hands, it’s just a pile of scrap metal to us . ”
The conclusion was very clear at this point in the discussion . Elder Liu said, “The plan has been aborted . Everyone, be careful not to reveal clues in your daily operations . ”
One of the men said in dissatisfaction, “The gears produced from our factory are also important components for airships, only we can produce certain models . I don’t think Dark Flame dares to offend us . ”
“Who do we sell those gears to, if not for their orders?” This stifled the previous speaker’s anger .
Everyone gradually departed as the meeting dispersed on bad terms .
Several days later, Qianye had finally finished arming Dark Flame . A big transport squadron took to the skies with twelve thousand soldiers, on track to rendezvous with the fleet in the void and head toward Fort Continent .
Several high-speed airships had already set out ahead of the fleet to establish content with local assets .
Afterward, the Martyr’s Palace, the battlecruiser, and some of the faster airships took off with two thousand elite soldiers on board . The ten thousand ordinary soldiers aboard the transports and older warships would slowly catch up from behind .
According to Qianye’s plan, these ten thousand mercenaries would be used to occupy territory and maintain order . It was fine even if they were a bit late .
Within the Martyr’s Palace, Qianye was confirming the elite-squad roster repeatedly . These two thousand men were the elites of Dark Flame, made up of Whitetown veterans, Highbeard’s top mercenary warriors, and talents selected from Song Zining’s personal guard . There were also some temple guards from the Thunderfrost Temple .
The makeup of this group could be considered complicated, but there was no other way to form a group comparable to Red Scorpion and Broken-Winged Angels . They wouldn’t even have half the required manpower if they didn’t absorb elites from other sources, and that wasn’t counting for the time these elites needed to mature .
Qianye had read through the list several times and nearly memorized all the contents . He suddenly realized a problem—he was so busy these days that he had forgotten to give this squad a name .
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