Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 224 Dragon Blood Legion
The wind and snow are howling.

An insect hive burned in the valley, and black smoke, a mixture of blood and tar, shot into the sky, igniting the entire edge of twilight.

Amidst the burning mountains of corpses and seas of fire, the Dragonblood Legion marched down through the snow.

They were clad in heavy armor with alternating black and red stripes, their formation as disciplined as an iron torrent.

The heavy infantry were the first to break through the wind, raising their shields to form a wedge-shaped charge.

Following them were two flanking cavalrymen and heavily armored javelin throwers.

The "magic javelins" dropped from the mountaintop pierced the sky, falling in droves like a sudden thunderstorm.

Flames, explosions, and battle aura—the triple damage surged forward like waves.

The horde of insect corpses surged in, densely covering the valley.

But in the face of the Dragonblood Legion, they seemed to be nothing more than a group of precisely calculated "elimination targets".

"The first column advances, the wedge formation remains unchanged."

"Second column, break through to the left! Three-section demonic spears, prepare!"

"Decapitation squad, take your positions."

Every command was concise, direct, and without the slightest hesitation.

That was the voice of Vice Commander Gaius Calvin, echoing through the ranks.

He rode atop a heavily armored warhorse, his imposing figure, nearly two meters tall, as majestic as if sculpted, his entire being resembling an iron wall.

He slowly raised his battle blade, its blade flowing like magma, and the rising red battle aura seemed to erupt like a furnace, reflecting a blood-red halo across the entire snowfield.

Before the fighting spirit subsided, the insect corpse instinctively took a step back.

What blocked his way were three large, high-level insect corpses.

They have human-like bodies, but are clad in armor made of insect shells and dead flesh, with dark blue eyes and indifferent expressions.

That was a former Snowsworn warrior whose body had been taken over by the insect hive, one of the strongest warriors in the Northern Snow Kingdom.

Forty years ago, the empire conquered the Snow Country, burned down the royal court, exterminated the royal family, and reduced this proud military race to dust.

Now, they are being awakened and controlled by the insect hive in the form of corpses.

They still retain their fighting skills, and are even more ferocious.

Bone blades spring from his arms, his footsteps tread silently on the snow, and as the insect patterns on his body shimmer, he begins to absorb the blood and dead flesh of the battlefield to strengthen himself.

"Chichi-"

A worm corpse suddenly burst forth with silvery-white battle aura, like a polar storm whipping up snowflakes, and swung its blade toward Gaius's throat.
On the other side, it stomped on the snow and kicked a rock to pieces. Purple insect patterns flashed rapidly in its body, indicating that it had activated some kind of enhancement technique.

The third head opened its mouth and roared, releasing a piercing shockwave in an attempt to disrupt the flow of battle energy...

Gaius merely glanced at them coldly, a glint of contempt burning in his eyes.

"Dead things should not be allowed to spring out again!"

He spurred his horse, and the warhorse roared to a great speed, charging straight between the three corpses!

The crimson flames expanded instantly, condensing into a substantial battle aura domain.

"Crimson Flame - Domain Slash, Unleash the full power!"

He raised his battle blade high, flames swirling around him like a tornado, leaving a crimson trail across the snow.

A sudden, powerful strike!
The world seemed to be cleaved apart by a crimson flame!

The three-headed insect corpses froze in mid-air, then their bodies exploded.

No, it was completely melted from the inside out by the scorching battle qi, its bones and flesh were charred black, its insect shell was shattered, and its internal organs burst out like red mist!

Where the cuts were made, the snow melted into black mud, and the air was filled with the stench of charred insect bodies and the smell of burning metal.

"Is this the strength of a peak knight?" a general murmured in the battle formation, his voice filled with awe.

Two seconds later, the three insect corpses collapsed to the ground with a thud, completely dead.

"All troops, advance!" Gaius roared, continuing his advance without turning back.

The Dragonblood Legion pressed forward, like a giant dragon twisting its chains, charging into the still-collapsing Zerg hive.

The mother nest trembled, and three waves of mental corruption surged out from its heart.

Ordinary legions would often collapse in formation and lose their will at this moment, but the Dragonblood Legion did not hesitate at all.

They resonated their fighting spirit, reflecting the mental waves back and even causing the feedback of the nest to become disordered.

"They're trying to use psychological tactics! They're too inexperienced."

"Keep pushing forward! Target: neural crystallization and incubation center!"

"Fireline Five - Prepare to deploy the lava bomb!"

A five-person decapitation squad broke out of the snowy forest. They were covered in different colored battle auras, red, blue, green, gray and gold, each displaying their abilities to break through armor, decapitate, disturb nests and burn.

Their seamless teamwork is enough to rival that of a small tactical legion.

As yet another mother nest collapsed in the explosion, its main trunk was blasted into ruins, and a black rain of insect blood and charred debris began to fall throughout the valley.

Gaius slowly sheathed his sword and coldly gazed into the distance.

"This is just the beginning." Wherever his iron cavalry passed, the insect corpses trembled. "Let them feel the true wrath of the empire."

The Dragonblood Legion's battle banners flew high in the wind and snow, like burning flames, illuminating the entire blood-stained valley.

Although the Cold Iron Legion was already one of the Empire's elite combat legions, with rigorous tactics and stable manpower, it even managed to hold the line in the North for a month.
But when the Dragonblood Legion actually stepped onto this frozen battlefield, the contrast became stark, and the difference was enormous.

In just four days, the Dragonblood Legion forcefully took over command, replacing the exhausted Cold Iron soldiers.

The legion that had gritted its teeth and endured a whole month amidst blood and snow was finally able to reorganize and rest.

However, the advance of the Dragonblood Legion was like a spear breaking through ice, unstoppable.

They captured more than ten Mother Nest strongholds in succession, which is more than twice the results of the Cold Iron Legion's battle in a month!
They lined up in the wind and snow, using their fighting spirit as a furnace and their blood as a sacrifice, charging, beheading, burning, digging nests, and laying mines, one step after another, their actions as precise as a machine.

It wasn't a victory achieved through a surprise attack by a single strong individual, but rather through the coordinated efforts of the entire legion, working together like gears.

Battle aura colors intertwined on the battlefield, like a flowing rainbow bridge, representing the elite battle aura characteristics from every family in the empire, and were mobilized in a highly disciplined and unified manner.

The combination of the strengths of many schools of thought is precisely what makes the empire's strongest legion so terrifying.

…………

The wind and snow continued to fall, and the charred ruins of the Mother Nest emitted billowing white smoke, reflected in the crimson eyes of the flesh-and-blood tower.

The Witch of Despair stood high above, her figure graceful, like a noblewoman dressed in her finest attire attending a banquet.

But what came out of his lips was a deep, feminine male voice, carrying a kind of disdain that one would give to a god looking down on the mortal world.

"How boring..."

In his inner perception, more than ten mother nests had been stained gray, symbolizing a complete loss of contact.

Those were all nodes he had meticulously planned, which should theoretically spread and multiply rapidly in the North, eventually turning this frigid land into an incubator connected to the abyss.

"Four-fifths of the North is completely destroyed... population, army, nobles, resources, all turned to mush. But compared to expectations... it's still too little." His voice was low and hoarse yet gentle, carrying an unsettling contradiction. If it weren't for that old duke's decisive blockade of Frostspear City, keeping several mother hives pinned down... the plan should have already advanced further south.

Frostspear City, which should have fallen, has now become a graveyard that the Motherhound has been unable to conquer for a long time.

"According to the plan, I can turn the entire Northern Territory into a spawning ground in just ten days."

"Now we're stuck in this boring back-and-forth... tsk."

He sighed softly and turned his gaze to the battle lines further away.

There, the Dragonblood Legion was destroying the Mother Nests one by one with terrifying efficiency, and even his sensory network felt the pain of being "livingly cut apart".

"The Empire's dogs... they're still annoying as ever."

However, he remained calm.

The Witch of Despair slowly turned around and stepped into the depths of the cavern, where insect flesh and blood bones intertwined. The enormous, heart-like entity was slowly pulsating, oozing black bubbles that made the entire space tremble.

"The end... isn't won by sheer numbers." He whispered, his expression as gentle as a lover's whisper, "As long as it exists... everything is just a prelude."

On the other side, in Frostspear City, the main city tower on the north wall was battered by howling wind and snow.

On the heavy iron quiver, Duke Edmund stood with his hands behind his back, his silver cloak fluttering behind him, his white hair as white as frost, looking more than ten years older than he had a month ago.

He squinted at the burning valley in the distance of the battle line, where the hissing of the insect corpses was swallowed by the flames, and the black armored banners of the Dragonblood Legion fluttered fiercely in the wind.

"...The Dragonblood Legion truly lives up to its reputation." The Duke's voice was not loud, but it revealed an undeniable sense of relief.

Two people were standing next to him.

One of them is the middle-aged knight known as the "Royal Court Blade"—Arthur Garen.

Clad in a scarlet cloak and with a dragon-patterned longsword at his waist, he was tall and slender, with a handsome face that revealed a sharp edge, and a suppressed glint in his eyes.

He doesn't look very old, and is even surprisingly young, but his presence alone makes people feel at ease.

"The situation in the North... is a little worse than we imagined before we took over." Arthur's tone was cold, his gaze fixed on a mark on the map. "But it's only 'worse'."

"Our main force has already begun the mopping-up operation, and the Cold Iron Legion is resting and waiting for orders. As long as the plan remains unchanged, the rest will simply be harvested."

His tone was calm and even, yet the certainty in his words left no room for doubt.

The other is even more remarkable: Aurelion Sol, the Sorcerer Supreme, the highest authority in the Wizarding Forest.

He wore a dark blue robe with star patterns, his face was covered by a cloak, making it impossible to see his features, and he seemed to blend into the night sky.

During this time, Aurelion's mage ranks have also contributed a great deal.

They were responsible for detecting the weaknesses of the mother hive, setting up amplification magic arrays, casting shields and battlefield healing. Spells rained down on the battlefield like starlight, providing the Dragonblood Legion with stable and precise support.

Although the number of mages was small, they were the key levers that could influence the entire battle.

Without them, the Dragonblood Legion's advance would never have been so rapid.

He didn't look at the map, but simply gazed up at the distant horizon: "Do you really think the Mother Nest spread on its own?"

"The entire system... has a design, a coordination, and a strategy of sacrifice. These things cannot be done by a simple swarm."

He extended a finger and tapped it lightly in the air. The faint magical fluctuations transformed into a phantom of a web of insect nests, as if living things were wriggling.

“I can confirm that behind these mother nests… there is ‘a consciousness,’ an entity that is even more adept at guiding chaos and evolution than I am.”

Arthur frowned: "You mean, it was 'man-made'?"

Aurelion nodded.

"If we can destroy its mastermind, the entire nesting system will be paralyzed immediately."

"But..." he changed the subject, "but the End Nest is different; it seems to hide something even more terrifying, which I can't yet discern..."

Duke Edmund gazed at the distant flames of war and said slowly, "You mean... the End Nest is the key, and there's still a backup plan."

“Exactly,” Aurelion replied calmly, “but a hasty attack on that place without knowing the full picture will surely result in heavy losses.”

Arthur chuckled softly, gripping the hilt of his sword: "Then let's clear out all the outer nests first, and then concentrate our main force to attack one point."

“Tactically, the safest approach is to gradually encircle and kill them,” he said. “No matter where the mastermind is hiding, we will eventually find him.”

Edmund nodded, his voice firm: "That's what we'll do."

Just as the three were discussing their strategy and preparing to issue the order...

A staff officer strode up the city wall, raised his binoculars with a complicated expression, and pointed them at a corner of the battlefield.

“Your Grace, please… look over there,” he whispered in the Duke’s ear.

Edmund frowned, took the binoculars, and squinted in the direction the staff officer was pointing.

The wind and snow could not conceal that unusual scene.

Down the southwestern slope, a cavalry force of no more than a hundred men was advancing rapidly.

Unlike the Dragonblood Legion's heavy black iron armor, these people wore rather strange armor. Many of their armors even had odd bottles and jars hanging on them, and the metal tubular devices at their waists rattled as if they might explode at any moment.

What's even more bizarre is their method of attack.

Someone suddenly stopped running, pulled out a metal nozzle from his back, twisted it hard, and a burst of red flames several meters high shot out, burning the attacking insect corpses to the ground. The wail echoed through the valley.

Flames churned in the ice and snow, burning the ground a scorched black and eerie red, while the knights, like incinerators from purgatory, advanced with unwavering steps and ruthless efficiency.

"At this time, on this battlefield... how could an unorganized knightly unit dare to appear here? What kind of unit is that?" Arthur raised an eyebrow slightly, revealing a hint of doubt for the first time.

Edmund, however, was stunned.

He suddenly widened his eyes and stared intently at the flag held high at the very front of the strange cavalry.

A scarlet background with a golden sun slowly rising, like flames flickering.

That's the flag of the Red Tide Territory!

A name flashed through his mind, a person who should still be far away in Xuefeng County sorting out the situation and could never possibly be here:
Louis Calvin.

"What...is he here for?"

In an instant, Duke Edmund blurted out, his tone carrying a rare shock, and even... a hint of unease.

He thought he had already laid out a plan for this great battle, besieging the Mother Nest of the End, and was just waiting to proceed steadily and unravel the mystery step by step.

But now his clever son-in-law, leading a strange-looking team of knights, has quietly barged into this battlefield.

At this critical juncture when the Dragonblood Legion and the End Mother's Nest are about to clash fiercely?

Flames erupted again, incinerating large swathes of the insect corpses. The "fire-breathing knights" seemed to be a special force dedicated to hunting down insect corpse nests.

They quickly gained a local advantage on the secondary front and gradually approached a small mother nest stronghold that had not yet been noticed by the main force.

“Lenno!” Edmund whispered.

An old knight stepped forward and calmly bowed.

"Immediately take three scouts and circle around to that Crimson Tide cavalry. Tell them this is a summons from the Frostspear City Legion, and to come to Frostspear City to see me immediately."

(End of this chapter)