Heroes of Might and Magic: Grand Consul

Chapter 417 Bloodstained Power

Back in the parliament hall of Kuraki, Su Mu soon received several urgent military reports.

"Isidor continues to reinforce troops in the hilly region. I've heard that a large number of golden dragons have occupied the cliffs and may advance westward at any time."

"In recent days, large numbers of undead forces have appeared in the North and the Plains. They are widely dispersed and only attack small villages and towns, causing dozens of disturbances."

"The heartland has been embroiled in constant warfare recently, leaving many people displaced. Moreover, I have heard that some regions are dissatisfied with the policies of the National Assembly, which has led to riots where the people have dragged nobles to the guillotine and beheaded them all!"

Upon hearing this news, Su Mu frowned slightly, sensing that something was amiss.

The world of heroes may seem to be in the backward Middle Ages, but in reality, it possesses magical powers, has a high level of productivity, and its local governments are quite stable.

The simplest reason is that nobles possess a violent machine, whether it's spearmen or sharpshooters, and their combination of magical weapons makes dealing with ordinary people incredibly easy.

While there may be extreme cases where free people cannot survive and rise up in rebellion, without large numbers of mutations or the discovery of special buildings, they simply cannot fight against the noble army.

The fact that a rebellion has now been launched and was able to overthrow aristocratic rule suggests that a special force has been involved, indicating that someone is secretly pushing things along.

"Which areas are they mainly in?"

"In some of the poorest regions in the heartland, the free people are already suffering terribly. Recently, the kingdom sent troops, which seems to have caused a major disaster, making the lower classes and nobles extremely dissatisfied."

"The rebellious rioters have been burning, killing, and looting everywhere, and have destroyed trade routes in the heartland. Although the kingdom has sent a large army to suppress them, the situation has only worsened."

The rebels were a diverse group, including spearmen, archers, swordsmen, griffins, and even priests. Perhaps they had occupied the original city and wilderness buildings, but in any case, they came with great force.

By the way, those rebels wore bright red armor, were extremely brutal and bloodthirsty, somewhat like fanatics.

Upon hearing the scout's report, Su Mu immediately became alert.

"A bloody regime? How could it have erupted at this time? It shouldn't be like this!"

Ordinary people might think that these rebels have simply changed their flag and painted their armor red to make them easier to identify and more intimidating.

However, Su Mu knew part of the plot: the human race had a special type of unit, which could also be called a special product of ideology combined with magic, called the Crimson Regime.

Under the rule of the Bloody Regime, all military units will be overturned from their previous peaceful state, becoming violent, impulsive, and more aggressive.

In short, it sacrifices some defense and healing attributes to increase a lot of attack power, and can even gain critical hit rate and skills that increase damage, making it quite fierce.

The only problem is that this scene shouldn't be happening now, and it shouldn't be happening on Elton's side either.

Su Mu knew that with his arrival, the butterfly effect had caused the entire timeline to become somewhat inconsistent, but he never expected to encounter such a sudden situation.

"Contact Lord Raven and Duke Peter, and warn them to be careful of these sudden thugs. Someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes."

Be especially careful not to lose high-level cities, otherwise they will quickly accumulate strength.

Generally speaking, even if an enemy occupies a human city, they cannot easily use barracks buildings. Human buildings are mostly for training and require a basic population. Griffin Cliff might be a bit of an exception, but it still requires training officers for more stable coordination.

Either destroy it directly, or establish a puppet ruler to indirectly govern the territory and recruit human soldiers. Doing so would drastically reduce its combat power.

But the Crimson Thugs are different. They are human, and after occupying a barracks, they can be directly promoted. Moreover, gathering thugs has special effects: power struggles and waging war can increase the number of Crimson soldiers promoted each week—a terrifying snowballing ability. Forrest, seeing Su Mu's dilemma, immediately knew that these traitors were no ordinary people.

"In the end, this whole thing was caused by Prince Gaunt. He claimed to be collecting clues about Cloud City, and each time he went to a new place, he opened a passage to another world, releasing a large number of monsters. The local free people were driven out of their homes, and the kingdom lacked a unified plan. It was easily instigated by those with ulterior motives, which led to riots."

After all, the kingdom's trust level had plummeted following several wars, so it's understandable that everyone's anger would erupt after such a man-made disaster.

At this moment, Duchess Maggie spoke up: "The people in the kingdom are very patient. The nobles' policies in the past were extremely inappropriate, but we have not heard of any rebellions."

Especially since there's plenty of food in the hinterland, people won't do anything drastic as long as they have enough to eat. I think someone must have instigated this trouble.

Maggie, after all, was a former marquis heir and was quite familiar with the situation in the kingdom. She believed that there must be someone behind the rebels, perhaps even colluding with powerful ministers in the capital.

"Should we send troops over? After all, there are also cities in the eastern part of the hinterland. If the chaos spreads there, I'm afraid the current city defenses will be difficult to hold."

Su Mu unfolded the map and looked at the defense deployment diagram that Kuraki was currently viewing, and he also felt that it was somewhat troublesome.

Currently, Kuraki has deployed a large force in the three cities of Kuraki City, Bear Fortress, and Silver Peak City, mainly to defend against the enemies at the hill fortifications, the undead in the ancient ruins, and the Arcane Empire to the north.

Because the Arcane Empire was exploring the Void Ruins, and even suffered defeats while swallowing their pride, Silvercaps changed its strategy and began to fund the Throne of Wisdom to restrain the Void Cult. Relatively speaking, the number of troops stationed in the north was not large, only the forces of the tower itself.

Kuraki possesses a portal to time and space. If the Arcane Empire truly intends to launch a large-scale attack, it can easily assemble its forces and head to the North. Therefore, the situation in the North is not currently tense.

The hilly defense line will be more troublesome, and naturally more troops will be deployed. With Black Cliff as the front line, the defense will be layered. There are basically no small villages or towns in the surrounding area. If the fortress launches a full-scale attack, Kuraki will mobilize a large number of troops to fight a decisive battle with the enemy.

The real problem now is the land of the dead.

Stuart, as expected of an old monster who has lived for a long time, quickly figured out the weak point in Kuraki's defense, but Su Mu was not without a solution.

"Let Goode lead the Wind Erosion Cavalry Regiment to patrol the eastern part of Bear Fortress. Pursue and kill any enemy that invades the plains."

"Instruct Liliana to set up defenses around the ancient ruins, forming an encirclement in coordination with Goode. Doesn't she have the Soul Cauldron? She can use it to her heart's content this time!"

Previously, the Soul Cauldron was already at level 4 and could transform into vampires. Liliana could inherit Su Mu's knowledge to accumulate vampires, which would be enough to expand the capacity to more than a thousand vampires.

Last time, the hill had already given Liliana a taste of the benefits, but we still kept her in check and didn't let her run rampant.

Now that we're engaged in a major battle with the ancient ruins and are planning to build a cemetery city for her, there's no need to suppress it anymore.

The Vampire Prince is too resource-intensive, but if you could have nearly 2000 Vampire Counts, combined with Liliana's Dark Queen, that would be a force capable of turning the tide of battle.

Maggie had always been Liliana's liaison, so it was natural for her to handle this matter. Originally, their meetings were somewhat awkward given their respective statuses, but since Maggie became the Duchess, no one could rival her; everyone was submissive. Having Maggie intervene might even make Liliana more restrained.

Just as Su Mu was struggling with whether or not to send troops into the heartland, he received some bad news.

"Your Grace, Master Randall opened a blacksmithing workshop a few days ago and sent Hammondal to the interior to transport some materials. We haven't heard from him for several days now!"

Su Mu was taken aback upon hearing this. He had originally intended to have Forrest handle the matter, but he changed his mind.

"I'll go to the heartland myself and see what's going on with those rebellious troops."

(End of this chapter)