Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 442 Old Jasper's Approach
Su Li's plan, which involved both intention and surprise, was naturally very successful!
The entire council assumed Bayonetta had arrived in a menacing manner, to demand an explanation. Some even thought it was Bayonetta's last desperate struggle. They had already devised plans to humiliate and manipulate this noble lady using curses and other fabricated events.

They never expected that after entering the dark underground chamber and dismissing the guards, Lady Bayonetta would simply disappear!
When the captain of the guard asked in horror where Lady Bayonita had gone, a storm descended upon the entire city of Maleburg.

The parliament building was completely surrounded by the city lord's elite guards and the city guard legions loyal to Bayonetta, leaving no room to move. The enraged head guard of the city lord's mansion, his eyes red, demanded that the parliament immediately hand over the murderer and provide an explanation. A tense, volatile atmosphere hung over the entire parliament building.

The council instantly split. Hardliners advocated for a full-blown confrontation, accusing the city lord's mansion of using the situation as an excuse; compromisers, on the other hand, were eager to distance themselves and demanded a scapegoat to quell the anger. Amidst the arguments, accusations, and finger-pointing, the former alliance teetered on the brink of collapse in the face of this immense crisis.

After the initial shock and grief, the acting leaders of the city lord's mansion quickly reacted. They clung to the accusation of "murder" leveled against the council, sending messages to the city lord Joachim von Gorge, who was far away on the front lines, while mobilizing all available forces to begin a comprehensive purge of the council's influence in the city.

Seize properties! Arrest pro-parliament officials! Expel mercenary groups affiliated with parliament! Freeze parliamentary treasury! A series of swift and decisive actions unfolded under the banner of "avenging the lady." The entire city of Maleiburg was plunged into unprecedented chaos and panic, with numerous fierce clashes erupting in the streets and alleys, accompanied by flames and shouts of battle.

The Parliament building became the eye of the storm. The city lord's army and the private armies and mercenaries assembled by the parliament engaged in a fierce standoff around this symbol of power. The once bustling streets became battlefields, shops closed, citizens trembled in fear at home, and the entire city was shrouded in a chilling iron curtain.

Just as Maleiburg was engulfed in a full-blown civil war, the instigators of the storm slipped away from its epicenter like ghosts.

With the help of the perfect-grade halfling cloak, Lady Bayonetta followed closely behind Su Li like an invisible shadow.

Under Hilder's prior arrangement, Su Li's Black Forest Knights had already quietly withdrawn from Maleburg in batches before the plan was executed, citing "encountering provocation from the Council's forces and needing to temporarily leave the city to avoid their sharp edge," and were gathering outside the city to await orders.

There was no dramatic farewell, no fiery breakout. Against the backdrop of the chaotic city, they easily led Mrs. Bayonetta away from their former prison.

Only after they were far from the city and certain of their safety did Bayonetta lift the hood of her cloak. She looked back at the vast city shrouded in the Iron Curtain, the golden cage that had imprisoned her for thirty years. The morning light shone on her face, and in her once clear and cold eyes, there were complex memories of the past, uncertainty about the future, but even more so, a sense of freedom tinged with a slight dizziness after breaking free from constraints, and… a deep dependence on the man beside her.

“It’s over…” she murmured, her voice as soft as a sigh.

“No,” Su Li gripped her hand tightly, his gaze sharp as he looked towards the direction of the Black Forest Territory ahead, “it’s a new beginning.”

The journey back to Black Forest Territory was easier than ever before, thanks to Su Li's advancement to the Chosen rank. Lady Bayonetta remained silent the entire way, spending most of the time nestled beside Su Li like a frightened bird finally finding shelter.

She needed time to process these earth-shattering changes: from a noble lady of the city to a lover who had "eloped," from the power center of Maleiburg to this cold and desolate northern frontier. The disparity in her status and the uncertainty of the future filled her with trepidation.

Only when she camped at night and was embraced by Su Li's strong arms could the deep-seated attachment and sense of security, etched into her bones by the curse and ultimate pleasure, temporarily dispel the confusion in her heart.

When the iconic silhouette of the majestic basalt castle of the Blacksene Territory finally appeared on the horizon, everyone in the group breathed a sigh of relief. The flags bearing the bauhinia emblem fluttering atop the castle waved in the spring breeze, carrying a rugged yet resilient sense of power.

Oliver, the iron-fisted prime minister of the territory, led his ministers to wait at the gates of the Forbidden City to welcome Su Li.

Upon seeing Su Li, Oliver stepped forward, bowed slightly, and said, "Greetings, Lord. May the goddess's radiance forever illuminate your robes."

"We have heard about your heroic deeds in our territory, and Maleburg is currently in chaos. We heard that the two sides finally couldn't contain their ambitions and have started fighting each other in the past few days."

Su Li calmly replied, "This is certainly a good thing for us. However, although we can reap the benefits without lifting a finger, we must also guard against them resorting to desperate measures. Mobilize the troops, and at the same time notify all the knightly orders and bishoprics to prepare for assembly, as the Night Wanderers are already approaching."

This was the intelligence he gathered on his return journey: the Night Wanderers were already very active, and in the few days since his return, nearly 10 messengers had infiltrated various villages and strongholds in the territory.

Meanwhile, stories about the Night Wanderer began to circulate in the taverns of the territory.

The roads of the empire are always paved with the dead. Awakened from their slumber by the blasphemous whispers of necromancers, or buried in places where dark magic permeates the earth, these undead march endlessly, using every unfortunate soul they pass to increase their numbers. Whether these hordes of corpses move purposefully or not, they often become the center of folklore. Many terrified tavern listeners gather around campfires, listening to tales of the Wild Hunt, ghostly processions, and the corpse-carrying wagons that come to take away the careless.

Of these stories, one stands out in particular. If you wander through the fertile lands between the grey mountains and the great black pine forest, listen carefully for the creaking of wheels and the ringing of bells. Don't wait to ask for a ride from a carriage. Hide! Cover your ears! Whatever you do, do not follow the direction the bells indicate. It is a nocturnal corpse beckoning you.

They were a horde of wandering undead, drawn together by the ancient lich Jasper. He would set out from the Grey Mountains when both moons shone as crescents, leading his horde of corpses across the foothills of the Vorhesen Mountains, awakening the dead along their path. The routes of the nocturnal corpses seemed to have no pattern or reason. However, each time they were sighted, their numbers invariably increased.

Upon hearing Su Li's order, Oliver calmly replied, "We've also received reports about night-walking zombies in our territory recently."

Su Li waved to the guards, then instructed Hilde to take Bayonetta to be settled, while he himself, along with ministers such as Oliver and Orstein, headed towards the council hall.

His face was serious, his brows furrowed. The activity level and speed at which the night-wandering zombies arrived were somewhat beyond his expectations.

After he sat down in his imposing lord's seat, he asked his ministers, "What information has been reported from the territory regarding the night-roaming corpses?"

Orstein immediately replied, "It was reported by the halfling Arnholth. Would you like to question him personally?"

Su Li pondered for a moment. He realized that personally understanding all of this would greatly benefit his understanding of the upcoming war, so he didn't refuse. He was now a Chosen Knight, and even without the ministers' assistance, he could oversee the entire operation!

So he nodded: "Let him come over and give us all a detailed introduction."

Soon, a poorly dressed halfling was brought into the council hall. In an instant, facing so many powerful chosen ones and being stared at by countless majestic eyes, the halfling was somewhat timid and reserved. He quickly bowed to Su Li and said, "Greetings, powerful lord. May the hyacinth bless you with health, longevity, blessings, and prosperity."

Su Li smiled. The halfling's prayer was similar to his own wish: to be healthy and live a long life, and to have many children and much happiness.

So he said calmly, "Arnholt, I've heard you're quite familiar with the Nightwalkers? Tell me about them. If it's valuable, I'll have my knight reward you with a golden crown!"

"I...I will tell you everything I know, my lord. Night-wandering corpses are usually those who don't even know they're dead. Even a halfling guard can take down a dozen of these corpses on the way deep into a dangerous village."

"But that doesn't include the night of the double crescent moon. On that night, old Jasper will drive his hearse out of the Grey Mountains, and nobody wants to run into them at that time."

A night of two crescent moons?
Oliver quickly calculated and then immediately said to Su Li, "That means in 3 days, the time will be almost up."

3 days!
Su Li hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Can our troops be assembled in such a short time?"

Erstein frowned and answered Su Li's question in a deep voice, his tone carrying the pragmatism of a soldier and a hint of urgency: "My lord, three days is indeed too tight. Our territory is vast, and our troops are scattered and stationed in various strategic locations."

He walked to the huge sheepskin map hanging in the council hall, his rough fingers tracing different areas: "It is currently springtime, and our Heavy Knights are herding and training their horses on the Crimson Plateau. Thousands of warhorses are grazing freely on the fertile, cool plateau land. This is our most elite mobile force, but it will take at least two and a half days of forced march to reach the potential battlefield in the Central Plains."

"The Knights of Eternal Light on the Flashspear Plains will need at least two days to assemble and set off. While the dwarven allies in the Grey Mountains and our dwarven forces may be slightly closer, mountain marches are inherently slow, and they also need to guard against the Greenskins and other threats in the mountains; they can't possibly send out their entire force." His finger finally pointed to the westernmost edge of Blackforest Territory: "Even more troublesome is that a significant portion of our 'Free People's Corps'—those auxiliary forces composed of adventurers, mercenaries, and pioneers—is currently heavily deployed on the western slopes of the Twilight Mountains, engaged in a tug-of-war with those damned swamp territories, trying to stabilize the newly expanded borders. They're tied down in the fighting and can't be redeployed anytime soon!"

Erstein looked solemnly at Su Li and said in a deep voice, "My lord, it is almost impossible to assemble an army within three days that is strong enough to directly confront the main force of the 'Nightwalkers' and especially the legendary lich Jasper. Hasty mobilization will likely result in exhausted and disorganized troops being thrown into battle, only to be devoured by the undead army."

The atmosphere in the council chamber was heavy. The ministers all knew that Erstein was telling the truth. The strength of the Hessian Territory lay in its vast strategic depth and abundant manpower, but this also meant that its mobilization speed was its greatest weakness when facing sudden, precise threats.

Su Li leaned back in his lord's chair, his fingers lightly tapping the cold armrests, his deep gaze slowly moving across the map. Advancing to Godhood brought not only power, but also sharper intuition and a broader perspective. He wasn't intimidated by the difficulties before him; instead, he found a breakthrough in Orstein's account.

“You’re right, Erstein.” Su Li’s voice broke the silence, steady and powerful. “A full-scale mobilization and a head-on confrontation are indeed too late and not the best strategy.”

He stood up, walked to the map, and sharply scanned the terrain surrounding the Black Forest. "The key is prediction!" he said decisively. "We must know which route Old Jasper and his horde will choose to invade on this Double Crescent Night! If we can determine their main attack direction in advance, we can ambush them at key locations with our limited, elite forces!"

His gaze shifted to the halfling Arnholt: "Arnholt, you just mentioned that the routes of the Nightwalkers 'seem to be irregular,' but each time they appear, their numbers increase. The legends in those taverns, about the bells, the wheels, and the locations where they were sighted... Is there really no clue to deduce their possible whereabouts this time? Think carefully!"

Arnhot shuddered under Su Li's sharp gaze, but thinking of the promise of the golden crown and the imposing presence of the powerful lord before him, he frowned and desperately tried to recall the half-true, half-false horror stories he had heard in the tavern.

“Clues…clues…” he muttered to himself, his fingers nervously twisting the hem of his clothes. “Legends…legends say they always follow ancient roads, or…or places with a lot of dead people? Because…because they can awaken those who are buried…Oh, right! There’s a ballad! I recently heard a wandering poet sing it, the kind that’s really scary…”

He cleared his throat and, with a heavy accent, began to hum a tune unique to halflings—a tune that was both comical and eerie:
When the two crescent moons hang in the sky
Old Jasper climbed out of the grey rock.

The hearse creaked and the bell tolled softly.
Along the old riverbank at the foot of Crow Ridge.

Avoid the forest and bypass the fields.
The desolate village is its checkpoint.

Cover your eyes when you hear the bell.
If you follow that, you're doomed...

After singing the last line, Arnhot shivered and shrank his neck: "That's about it... that's about it. Raven Ridge... the old riverbank... and the desolate village... these words always come up. We halfling caravans are most afraid of hearing the words 'Raven Ridge' when we travel at night; they say it's a marketplace for the dead..."

“Crow Ridge!” Su Li and Erstein exclaimed almost simultaneously, their eyes instantly focusing on an area marked with a symbol of treacherous mountains on the map.

Oliver quickly stepped forward, pointing to the map: "Raven Ridge! Located on the northern edge of the Black Forest, bordering our Central Plains! There is indeed an almost abandoned ancient riverbed there, called 'Drywater Riverbed.' More importantly..."

He moved his finger across the map, tracing several small dots marked with skulls. "Along this route, there are several villages abandoned by past plagues, wars, or monster attacks! They perfectly fit the description of 'deadly villages'! Moreover, this route avoids the main body of the Black Forest, bypasses our main farming areas, and goes straight into our relatively sparsely populated but resource-rich northern river valley!"

If we can determine Jasper's route this time, then we can set up an ambush accordingly!
Su Li wasn't too worried about the combat capabilities of the Night Wanderers. As long as the Black Forest Territory could successfully assemble its main force, cutting down these skeletons wouldn't be difficult.

However, Su Li had to be cautious about Old Jasper. After all, he was a powerful legendary lich!
He vividly remembered how brutal the last battle with the legendary Holy Knight's mirror image had been. If the opponent hadn't held back and released the sea, the few of them, the chosen knights, wouldn't have lasted an hour at all.

Old Jasper, however, would absolutely not hold back; figuring out how to counter him would be the key to victory in this battle.

Su Li asked, "Have you ever met old Jasper?"

“I…I saw…my cousin saw him once.” Arnholt looked up. “He said some skeletons, all dressed in tattered clothes, appeared and danced near the graveyard. When the village guards went to deal with it, it told them it was taking their bodies, and then it jumped over and blew up the wall. Its voice was shrill, like a vengeful ghost.”

"So how strong is old Jasper?" Su Li frowned, feeling that this halfling had not provided him with any concrete reference. What could a group of guards prove?
“My cousin said he didn’t sleep all night, just listening to the clock outside. He tiptoed to the window and opened the blinds, just an inch, of course—and Jasper was there.”

The halfling shuddered. "It was on top of the carriage, 'but the carriage had no horses.' Only a pair of dead men were dragging it. Old Jasper, the masked man, was driving them with a whip. The carriage was full of... corpses. Heaps of corpses, all howling and screaming, desperately reaching their hands out from between the planks. My cousin must have been terrified, because he let out a gasp. That's when Old Jasper looked at him! By the next day, he was dead, just like that rabbit."

Su Li and Oliver simultaneously discovered the crux of the problem: "If your cousin is dead, then how did you hear his story in the name of Violet's leather hilt?"

This halfling's explanation is terrifying!

A halfling was taken from his life with just a glance?
If he were to go to the battlefield, wouldn't his own ordinary soldiers provide him with a continuous supply of manpower?
To defeat it, it would probably require a large number of elite knights to withstand its damage.

Then all the chosen knights of the territory were mobilized, making a desperate gamble with a decapitation strike.

Clearly, compared to all of this, Su Li and the knights were more inclined to believe that the halfling was lying!
“Ha, obviously he told me beforehand,” Arnholt replied immediately, full of confidence.

Demst felt a chill run down his spine, but he couldn't admit that the powerful Chosen of Mor was frightened by something that was neither human nor ghost, so he immediately jumped out and said, "Pah, are you sure this isn't a ghost story?"

"It didn't even frighten my daughter's wet nurse! Come here, let me tell you a story I heard in the south of the empire about a cavalry unit that spread the plague."

To Su Li's increasing astonishment, the meeting quickly degenerated into a game of who could tell the most terrifying story. Demst's story recounted a magnificent carriage that traveled through the empire, draining the lives of those cursed to follow it.

Not to be outdone, the dwarf Doglin shared a story from the underground corridors—a vast underground network connecting the dwarven fortresses—about a traveler who heard the muffled thud of pickaxes growing ever closer, and finally found himself face to face with those who had perished there after his lantern went out, dying cold and alone in the darkness.

Interestingly, this dispelled the tension that had enveloped everyone since the appearance of the Night Wanderers, as if by telling these stories, it had dragged them back into the realm of fantasy.

It is clear that the legendary lich has also put immense pressure on these knights and dwarves.

If an effective solution cannot be found, it will greatly affect the morale of our side.

Su Li slammed his right fist heavily on the armrest of the chair and said with imposing manner, "Although old Jasper is a legendary lich, I believe he is not invincible."

"Since war is inevitable, let's take the initiative and crush their morale. Let's use our elite knights to cut down the enemy's vanguard first, and then lure them into our pre-planned battlefield."

"Finally, on this battlefield, the dwarves used all sorts of gunpowder and cannonballs to help us behead old Jasper! I need you to bring out your trump card!"

Doglin pounded his chest, his mustache bristling. "Leave it to us, my lord! Those skeletons and death-teasing bastards, the dwarven hammers and runes will teach them a lesson in eternal silence! I'm off to the workshop to dig out all the 'good stuff' we need to deal with the old lich!"

The knights were immediately filled with fighting spirit. Since the territory was still wary of the legendary lich, they would use victory to boost morale and inspire their men!
(End of this chapter)