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

Yang Hao gently patted Theresa's back, just as Theresa had always encouraged him. He was also loving and encouraging this girl who had always accepted his willfulness but had never whine or acted spoiled towards him.

Fen watched with a smile.

Watching the nun's departing figure.

A hint of jealousy flashed in her emerald eyes.

After Yang Hao turned around, she pretended to be calm and said:

"Then we should continue our discussion... about [wide-area destruction tactics] and the upcoming integration of the demon race."

"Perhaps we can take advantage of the Great Khan in the north—if they take a detour south, the pressure on us will be less."

As she spoke, a hint of stiffness crept into her words. The nun and she hadn't reached an agreement; they had only reached a consensus. That was all.

Chapter Five: The Results of the Elven Transformation, and the Final Battle with the Redemption Army

[9K Long Chapter]

Finn and the nun reached a consensus—although neither of them convinced the other at the time, at least they reached a consensus with each other.

"I will never let go of my man! So Fen! I will never give him to you!"

"...But what about public opinion? And to be honest, the old elves chose to pledge allegiance to him instead of me. He's a short-lived human, and if we don't find a way to extend his lifespan, it will cause problems, you know?"

“But he never intended to be your prince! He came with me simply to build a home here! That’s all.”

"...But that's not necessarily the case now. He wants to save the little queen, doesn't he?"

"..."

The nun was speechless for a moment. Faced with Finn's open scheme from years ago, she admitted... she seemed to have no excuse to sever ties with the smiling Finn before her.

Yang Hao wants to save the little empress, his savior, and the nun supports him.

But the nun had no power.

She was the last princess of Bayern, but the last princess had no soldiers or people, and even the light of faith had become a pitiful creature barely clinging to life. How could she possibly support Yang Hao in rescuing that child? In the end, wouldn't she still have to make a deal with the elves?

...For the first time, the nun felt resentment at her own powerlessness. Especially after realizing that Finn had truly made the suggestion without any ill intent, her heart ached as if it were being burned by hot coals.

...She chose to abandon the negotiations, but before leaving, the nun still managed to reach a consensus with Finn.

That is, whatever you do, whatever you do, whatever you do... don't talk about this in front of him. Don't put him in a difficult position. He's already exhausted enough, like a packhorse pulling a truck named "Japaria," and he might collapse from exhaustion any day now.

To avoid that day, Finn and the nun had to make sure he got some rest—or at least not make him feel more tired.

...

Elves keep their vows. So after Finn swore an oath using her real name, the nun left the scene with peace of mind, indicating that, at least on the surface, she was willing to be "friends" with Finn.

But it is precisely because elves keep their oaths.

So when the elf witnessed Yang Hao's doting affection for the nun, his heartfelt trust in her, and how he put her first in everything, a small crack appeared in the elf's already stubborn concept of love.

She suddenly understood why the female elves in Fingel's city, who were bewitched by Arthur, were so hostile to each other, and why Viya was the one who most wanted to fight them to the death.

I can better understand why so many elves would still be willing to get involved even knowing they would die.

Because jealousy is truly poison... It destroys an elf's composure, makes them irritable, brings them pleasure, and even makes them happy...

A wave of envy suddenly surged up in the boredom that had remained unchanged for centuries—even if it tore apart one's emotions and made one's soul weep in secret, such stimulation was like a heavenly rain for the elf who longed for change but could not change himself.

(It's a painful yet pleasurable feeling.)

The excruciating pain, which had to be swallowed with gritted teeth, throbbed in the elf's sensitive heart. But Finn believed she could not possibly lose.

The biggest difference between elves and humans is lifespan... ah.

No matter what, a nun can only accompany this man for a hundred years. Without any external assistance, a hundred years is the limit a nun can achieve.

As for myself, I just need to enjoy the fruits of my labor... after all, elves are a very patient race.

Look, there he is, draped in a golden shawl woven from elven hair... Look, there he is, wearing the regent's uniform he himself wove. All these things are imbued with elven magic. It's no exaggeration to say that Yang Hao is now like a legendary chosen one—he is constantly bathed in the soothing magic of the elves. Even when injured or exhausted, his body recovers quickly, as if a mage is always tending to his every need.

But just as unpredictable changes can occur in someone who is constantly bathed in divine grace, a man who has always lived under the influence of elven magic will surely undergo subtle changes as time goes by.

His body will be gradually transformed by the magic of the elves into a being that can only be cared for by the magic of the elves... In the most extreme case, he will live as if divinely aided in the Elf Forest, and his lifespan will be infinitely extended like that of the elves... But outside the Elf Forest, he may not even be able to breathe normally.

He will live as long as an elf... and then, Mother Teresa, Her Majesty Mother Teresa, the last princess of Bayern—

What can you use to fight me?

Fen sighed inwardly. She looked at Yang Hao with her meaningful emerald eyes, while Yang Hao pretended not to notice and answered Fen's question:

"The Great Khan? Hard to say. When my sworn brother and I defeated the Great Khan, we estimated that they would not be able to rebuild within ten years, nor would they be able to bypass the forest edge of the western plains... At first, we regarded the Elf Forest and the Monster Forest as natural barriers, and the elves certainly wouldn't allow the Khan's barbarians to enter the forest, right?"

"That's right. So the key point is [taking a detour]."

"But for me, the most crucial question is... has the barbarian race truly risen again?"

Elves and humans consider the same problem differently. Elves believe that if the Khan detoured south, it would pose a significant threat to the Roman Empire—while for humans, whether the Khan has even revived is a question worth considering.

After all, Yang Hao and his sworn brother killed three of the Great Khan's four Kheshig generals, and even the Great Khan's head was collected on the spoils wall of the royal palace. Under such circumstances, could the barbarians who were driven away really recover their strength in less than ten years and continue to march south?

Yang Hao found it difficult. So he explained to Fen that it would be better to treat Khan as if he didn't exist for now.

Finn ultimately agreed. After all, she had to admit that once a female elf's stubborn emotions were mixed with a touch of love, her thinking would change.

Since Yang Hao said so, then so be it. With that in mind, they found a garden in the courtyard of the Green Courtyard to rest for the time being. They sat facing each other, and a maidservant from who-knows-where brought them snacks and tea so that the two adults who were discussing important matters would not feel thirsty.

They stopped talking about the Khan. The impending battle seemed too far away. They discussed the Redeemer's potential rash advance on June 15th, given that, according to the Outer Rangers, the Redeemer had already begun stockpiling food.

“They will attack the Monster Forest on the 15th, with more than 8 people, but only 3 to 4 are actually combat-ready,” Finn explained. “The vast majority of them, even by the standards of the Roman Empire’s recruit training, cannot be considered warriors. Their greatest use for the Redemption Army is as a food reserve and transport team.”

"Wait a minute? Reserve grain?"

"They've started eating people."

"I thought I was exaggerating when I lied to the Isgardians... But 3 to 4 people? With the current progress of the elves' reforms, stopping them from entering the Elven Forest is a piece of cake. But we need to eliminate the [Priest] as the commander and the [Cleric's Guard] as the elite reserve force."

Within the Church of Light in the Roman Empire, the priest is essentially the commander of the believers' army.

According to the holy books of the Church of Light, priests will not gather in the same unit to carry out actions unless it is necessary to form a priestly corps for a "divine ensemble".

This is like having two platoon leaders commanding the same platoon at the same time. If the two platoon leaders issue completely contradictory orders, how should the believers' army act? Not to mention, what if the battle is delayed because of the discord between the platoon leaders? How should they be punished then?

Therefore, the Church of Light would only place one priest in each unit, supplemented by a portion of the Guardians... This gave Gaparia an opportunity—to thwart their plot in the first direct confrontation with the diocese, and then to shoot a priest and his accompanying Guardians.

Yang Hao explained that since the priests had never seen the Japa 1404, they would at most set up a few magical barriers on themselves in advance to deal with arrows, and then focus on releasing offensive and area-of-effect buff spells.

In this situation, the priest himself is undoubtedly filled with blind confidence—therefore, the elves must have their archers fire a volley at the priest, who is openly standing on the palanquin, hoping to exploit his blindness to create an opportunity for themselves.

“Now, Gaparia has 200 trained archers. Although ammunition reserves have been reduced due to training, they should be able to withstand the Redeemer Army’s attack. Of course, they can also easily penetrate the Guardians’ armor, and breaking through several layers of barriers without the priests being prepared is also extremely easy.”

"But the problem is that we must practice the [area and point tactics] in advance to prepare for the large-scale battle with the parish later—the parish are not stupid. After one of the priests dies, they will definitely strengthen their protection... At that time, how to kill the believers' army on a large scale will become a good problem."

"However, our reforms have yielded new results... If nothing unexpected happens, the Eagle and Golem will be the key to our victory—and of course, the demons as well."

In Gaparia, Arthur has made new progress in his research on golems.

Although he still hadn't figured out a [large-caliber turret] that could be used directly by Golem, Arthur still designed an extremely outrageous Golem for Yang Hao, based on the idea that [the larger the caliber, the greater the power, and the more explosive charge, the more likely it is to send a brick flying].

This is a golem whose two legs can transform into fixed posts. It has neither human hands nor specialized weapons; instead, it has cannons mounted directly on its shoulders and claws specifically for loading.

This type of golem is called the "Grenade Launcher Golem" and was personally named by Yang Hao. As the latest golem, its structure is made of tough and durable metal, and its primitive barrel structure means that it can only directly bear the recoil of firing with its body without any cushioning.

It has a caliber of 120 mm and uses an extremely primitive gunpowder base to launch shells by igniting them through a vent.

The cannonballs are currently stone projectiles ground into spherical shapes, but Arthur says that the elves have the technology to make a single block of explosive ore into a sphere—if they can solve the problem that explosive ore has a very high probability of exploding inside the cannon barrel, then Gaparia will have its first artillery force in history.

Even if these Golems used explosive powder made from explosive ore as a primer, they could only launch stone projectiles to a distance of about 1600 meters when projectiles were fired—but as a primitive artilleryman, Yang Hao believed that was enough.

"The priest's mass shield is no match for hundreds of kilograms of rocks falling from the sky. If Arthur can get out of bed and work harder to make the exploding cannonballs, then this Golem force will become a nightmare for infantry phalanxes."

Moreover, because these golems are made entirely of steel, although their movement is slower, they are also more stable. A regular spear of light should not be able to defeat a golem without hitting its core. As long as they can protect the core, they can withstand about six rounds of attacks from the spear of light. In addition, these metal monsters, which are more than 5 meters tall, are also powerful front-line units in melee combat.

The only problem is that their cannons are very likely to be damaged in close combat. Because the howitzer golems are manufactured as a whole along with their cannons, once the cannons are destroyed, the Listeners can either turn them into dedicated melee units or simply recycle them back into cannon units.

Yang Hao's explanation made Fen frown:

"Can't it be repaired? I remember Your Majesty saying that the cannons on Isgard's side should be repairable..."

“I’d like to, but if you want to repair the cannon on Gorem’s shoulder at this stage, you’d have to cut the cannon in half—it’s easier to just remake it than go through all that trouble.”

"I see... What about Junying?"

"It's easier than Golems. After all, you only need to train them to throw stones from high places, and then replace the stones with bombs."

Compared to Gorem the grenade launcher and Arthur, whose hair is thinning and who has been trembling lately for some reason, the training of the Eagle is much simpler.

After all, the elves already had a cavalry rider organization, and their training of riders was only for high-altitude projectile dropping rather than dive bombing—moreover, at Yang Hao's request, the cavalry riders actually served more as high-altitude gunners and observers.

Their only task was to pinpoint Golem's landing point so that Naruja's children could adjust their commands accordingly. They would only be allowed to drop bombs from a safe distance as a last resort or when they had absolutely nothing else to do, but even then, the number of bombs the Falcon could carry was still far too small.

(We either use dragons as aircraft, or we build our own—the former is only possible if I can go to Ysgard and bring back a dragon, and the latter is simply unrealistic for us... Sigh, we can only take it one step at a time.)

Yang Hao muttered something to himself.

But at that moment, Fen suddenly came up with an idea:

"Could we use the terrain to prevent the parish's army from flooding in with too many believers at once?"

"Oh?"

"Exactly, while we can't stop priests from bringing their followers into the battlefield—we can at least limit the number of them that come in at once, can't we?"

Before he knew it, the smiling, petite elf was already sitting next to Yang Hao. The maids had also vanished without a trace, and the man, focused on his tactics for the decisive battle with the parish, had no energy left to spare.

He was just thinking—this should be feasible. But the parish wasn't stupid.

It's one thing for the Redemption Army to rush into the Monster Forest, but the main force of the parish, with its massive numbers, will probably choose to set fires as they march... By then, the entire Monster Forest will be burned to the ground, and Finn's plan will be useless.

...However, it doesn't mean we can't create such conditions. Humans aren't creatures that simply sit and wait to die; if possible, Yang Hao could devise a solution...

What should we do? Cast a water spell on the entire Monster Forest to prevent the fire? But if that depletes too much of the forest's magic, the elven mages won't be able to threaten the parish...

Or perhaps... let's put ourselves in each other's shoes.

If we eliminate all the priests with brains, then the priests without brains will lead their teams straight into the monster forest and fight a jungle war with us.

But expecting everyone to make a foolish mistake is too reliant on luck. It might work now against the Roman Empire, but what if we need to deal with barbarians, Isgard, or even other nations later?

Um...

Yang Hao fell into deep thought.