After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

"Holy Maiden, Holy Maiden—Kagad, Kagard has been breached by the demons!!"

On the other side of the summoning bell, the priest's terrified scream startled the saint.

Kargard—where is that? And it was actually... breached by the demons?!

Before the saintess could even process what was happening, Priscilla, who had come with her, suddenly turned deathly pale.

She rushed to Cecilia's side and shouted into the call bell:

"What happened in Qagad?!"

Although the unfamiliar voice puzzled the priest on the other end, the other party continued to wail and shout:

"While Kargard was holding its celebration... it was attacked by the demons. The High Patriarch who remained in the area has already died on the city walls, and now the demons are slaughtering Kargard's people—!!"

"Your Grace, if we don't send the Holy See's Guard soon, the entire population of Earl Kagard will be wiped out! Almost the entire earldom has gathered in town for the celebrations. Please reconsider..."

Priscilla and Cecilia looked at each other in bewilderment.

At the same time.

In the town of Kagad.

He had the wrongly accused Kagard III strung on a cross in his favorite church so that he could witness the destruction of the town where his ancestors had lived for generations while he was still alive.

As Yang Hao carried the unconscious chief physician and his family onto Golem's back, he said to the Ling clan chief behind him:

"Let the golems attack every living person except us. Every single one."

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Prelude to Khagad

Two hours earlier, as the people of Khagad celebrated in Khagad Town, awaiting midnight the next day for their ritual, the guards on the city walls yawned, watching the joyous scene with envy while calculating how much money they had made on their last trip into the Monster Forest.

"We've captured several monsters, and each one's antlers can be sold for several thousand gold coins... That means each ordinary farmer gets one, each ordinary citizen gets four, and we'll probably get... 10."

"Ten gold coins—if only I could go catch another batch! Ten gold coins won't last long these days, prices are skyrocketing..."

"But if the sacrifice is successful this year, and the God of Light takes pity on us and sends down heavy rain, then as long as the harvest is good this year, the prices will come down, and we can become the elite in this poor, remote village!"

“People are better than others, and people are better than others.”

Although the guards lamented that they could not participate in the city's celebrations, they were overjoyed at the tangible benefits they would receive.

After all, how should I put it? This year, I went to the Monster Forest and captured a few heretics, earning more money than I could possibly save in five years as a guard.

Even after all the money was distributed among the people of the entire Earldom of Calgard, there was still so much left over.

How could this not make them feel joyful, how could this not make them feel hopeful for their new life?

As they pondered how to use the money, they turned to look at the wooden altar rising in the city square.

Accompanied by a series of loud and joyful cries of "Light above!", the guards' lips curled into slight smiles, as if they were imagining the scene tonight where the heretics would be burned alive on the altar to receive the judgment of the God of Light.

"By the God of Light," a guard murmured, closing his eyes reverently in response to the thunderous roar echoing from the square. "By the God of Light—"

But the instant he closed his eyes, he seemed to hear the sound of wind behind him.

puff.

Then, as his face was suddenly splattered with hot liquid, the guard, who was praying with his eyes closed, cursed and shoved his companion. Before he could finish the sentence, "Don't you fucking spray alcohol in my face!", he heard the thud of flesh falling softly to the ground.

What? What's this?

He opened his eyes in a daze.

"...Huh?"

What he saw were the shadows of rocks that had inexplicably flown into the night sky, and the corpse of his companion lying on the ground beside him, his head smashed by a rock the size of a fist.

He was stunned.

The celebrating crowd below was stunned when a large number of stones rained down from the sky.

The songs praising the God of Light were instantly turned into screams and cries by the hail of bullets thrown from outside the city.

...........

Outside the town of Kagad.

Yang Hao and his group hid in a mill on the outskirts of town, surrounded by the corpses of farmers who had been crushed flat by Golem.

At first, Yang Hao only intended to drive him away and be done with it—but here he saw the surgical kit that only the chief doctor of the Red Cross he had set up had, the suture marks left on the farmer's family member after surgery, and gold coins hidden behind the fireplace and farm tools that didn't seem like something a farmer could get.

...He understood in an instant, and after executing everyone, this place became his small command post.

Currently, under the control of the Listening Clan, the Golem is endlessly repeating the simple actions of [digging stones], [grabbing], and [throwing]. The stones thrown by the Golem are like projectiles fired from a trebuchet, full of power and speed.

He could clearly see that a ballista on the city wall had been destroyed by stones, that the wall was riddled with bullet holes from the stones, that guards had been killed by the stones, and that more stones were flying toward the city.

He turned to Naruja and ordered her: "Stop throwing stones into the city. At least not until you find her people. It would be too shameful if the person you're trying to save died from the stones you threw."

The Ling Clan Chief obeyed Yang Hao's orders, while the nun who had been by Yang Hao's side shook her head and said:

“Simply throwing stones won’t achieve our goal, and besides, the Roman Empire certainly won’t let this go easily… We need to delay the pursuers as much as possible in the post-war County of Kagard.”

"We'll see when the time comes—for now, we still need to throw stones to destroy the catapults and ballistae on the tower, otherwise the slow-moving golems will be threatened by the enemy even with [armor]... Once we've taken them all down, we can continue our assault."

Yang Hao was, after all, a man who had been to the battlefield.

Although his ability to command troops may not be as good as that of the little empress's father, who was also his sworn brother, he understood one principle.

Only the poor resort to your mother's tactics.

If you're rich, just blow up his mother's ass.

The Ling tribe's ammunition reserves are now quite abundant.

Unlike siege engines, Golems don't have strict requirements for ammunition—such as ballistae needing to be fired with bolts or stones, or bows and crossbows being unable to kill enemies without suitable arrows... Golems don't have these problems at all!

They dig into the ground, and if it's a stone, they can throw it out as ammunition.

If they can't even find stones, they can simply dig up the cracked bricks and stones along the national highway and launch them.

If they can't even find bricks, stones, or wood, they can simply compress the soil into clumps and then throw them out like water bags.

The only thing to worry about is that the golem might accidentally dig a trench in front of it, and then be blocked from its original destination by the "roadblock" it dug.

Not to mention that Golems aren't living beings; they can throw as far as they can—humans get tired and their hands and feet tremble after throwing stones for a long time, but Golems can throw stones for a whole day and night and still throw them 300 meters without getting tired at all.

With ammunition readily available and no need to worry about stamina expenditure, only a fool would launch an attack on an enemy with ample defensive capabilities.

So Yang Hao said, "Let's wait another ten minutes."

Ten minutes is enough time for 80 Golems to throw 10 more stones or other trash at the city walls to kill the enemy. Even with the most extreme probability calculations, this should be enough to destroy the ballistae and catapults on the walls.

Yang Hao waited patiently with the nun, and the golems, under the control of the Ling tribe, lived up to expectations—although the things they threw could only create countless dents on the city walls without being fatal, the stones that hit the city's defensive equipment and people caused real casualties.

Even from a great distance, Yang Hao could hear the chaos coming from the city. From a great distance, he could also see what appeared to be a catapult loaded with fire pots, which it was about to throw at Gorem's position. But before the fire pots could be thrown, a rain of stones smashed the catapult and the surrounding operators into pieces.

The fire pot was smashed, and the fire, along with the fuel, instantly spread across the tower. The guards, who were still huddled inside the tower waiting for the rain of stones to end, never expected such a disaster. They were all engulfed in flames and screamed as they rushed out of the already burning tower, only to fall off the city wall and disappear.

They appeared to have crashed into a wooden house. Yang Hao noticed increasingly thick black smoke rising from the area near the city walls of Kargard in the night sky.

“We have to move forward,” he said. “But it’s time, after all, the golems have already dug trenches around us, and if we don’t move forward soon, they’ll get stuck in the mud and won’t be able to move. By the way, why is the town so quiet?”

The chieftain of the Ling tribe, Naruja, was unable to respond because she was unfamiliar with human customs.

Mother Teresa tilted her head and said, "Perhaps there are priests of the Church of Light in the city—the Church of Light has a type of magic that soothes the heart, well, although I roughly know that those magic spells are probably used for adultery."

"Adultery?"

"Because when I pretended to convert in the village of Shkul back then, someone in the city asked me to use that kind of magic to hypnotize a noble girl so that I could take her back and rape her."

"..."

"Hmph, don't look at me like that, I didn't know how. I just refused outright, and then I made sure to lock the door tight that night—that was really scary. But for now, let's focus on the siege."

Mother Teresa gave a soft hum, gently hugged her man from behind, and patted his chest, indicating that he should finish his work first.

...........

When the rain of stones finally stopped, Captain Karls of the Gargant town guards was celebrating the casualties of his men.

Fifty-seven people died, and all the city's defensive equipment was fatally destroyed. Even if the craftsmen came, they could only choose to dismantle and rebuild it.

A tower was burned by oil and fire, and all the supplies needed for the battle inside the tower were gone.

Although all three gates of Khagad Town and the drawbridges were raised, looking at the moonlit suburbs and seeing about 20 tall stone giants slowly but surely advancing, Karls quickly came to a conclusion: if the priests of the Church of Light did not come to help, Khagad Town was likely doomed.

"Captain, should we evacuate the residents?!"

A guard trembled, but he still remembered that the town of Kargard, where the celebration was taking place, was filled with a large number of civilians who had fallen into chaos.

If these civilians are allowed to remain in the town, let alone whether the guards can withstand the attacks of these strange stone giants, the chaos in the rear alone could cost them their lives.

After much thought, it seems better to guide than to block. Since these civilians are bound to fall into chaos in the end, why not simply let them out through a city gate? This would both draw enemy fire and allow us to ascertain the enemy's strength and weaknesses. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Unexpectedly, Karls only angrily denounced this useless behavior:

"Given their firepower just now, sending those civilians out would be pointless. In fact, it might give them the opportunity to rush into the city via the open drawbridge—and they can't just have twenty or thirty stone giants. In other words, we need more troops!"

"But where would we get the troops?"

The guard was somewhat bewildered, but Captain Karls simply patted him on the shoulder and said earnestly:

"Go to the square right now and find the Earl! Have him distribute weapons, even if those people can only use pitchforks, they must arm themselves and then be sent to the city gate to use their flesh and blood to stop these stone giants that will definitely break through the defenses!"

The priest must be with the count right now. I beg him to come to the city wall immediately and unleash the divine magic of the Church of Light... All the defensive equipment in this direction has been destroyed. If the priest doesn't come soon, we're doomed!

And you—immediately seek support from other cities through the portal network, but whatever you do, don't let too many of those lowly people flood in at once, otherwise—"

Captain Karls hadn't finished speaking.

A violent explosion occurred at the location of the Kargard Town portal.

They were stunned and didn't even pay attention to the stone giant slowly approaching. Instead, they stiffly turned their heads and looked at the purple flames that shot into the sky, turning the ground purple. They all cursed in their hearts: Damn lowly people!

Chapter Twenty-Four: The City Gates Are Breached

Damn lowlifes!

It wasn't just the guards on the city walls who cursed.

Even Kagad III, who was sitting atop the church tower, unconsciously uttered a curse.