Your war hammer is too fake

After all the outsiders left, An Jiyue immediately recruited four infantry battalions and two teams of general cannons in Kewang Castle. The girl also recruited three additional teams of musketeers and three heroes (battalion masters, battalion deputy masters, and military alchemists), and formed a cavalry battalion with the two musketeers she brought along. Except for the sword and sword guards, all the troops, including the two teams of Yulin Guards, would stay in Kewang Castle, and only the sword and sword guards would return to the old world with An Jiyue.

It wasn't that the girl didn't want to recruit more troops, but she really had no place to live. Except for one infantry unit assigned to guard Jingxin Fort, the remaining two thousand people were all crowded in Kewang Fort, filling every room that could accommodate people. At present, except for the musketeers responsible for guarding the surrounding areas, the primary task of most of the Zhendan people was to quickly stockpile fuel.

Well, they are not needed to build houses. In a place like Kewang Castle, the strength of the magic wind is far stronger than most areas on the surface of the planet. An Jiyue used earthbending to flatten the village fortress left by Lady Kisli without much effort. She first leveled the land, and then rows of neat mud barracks rose from the ground. Then, the mud was permanently transformed into rock under the effect of the spell, and the girl even turned the frozen ground into rock ground.

Finally, the outer city wall was built, and this fortress that could accommodate 5,000 people was complete.

As soon as the fortress was completed, Dustan and Barel deployed a group of troops. After all, everyone must have a share of the points! Dustan recruited ten teams of sea guards as usual, plus a helmsman and a life elf mage; but the troops deployed by Barel from a distance were more interesting, ten teams of thunder gunners, without full-time melee infantry.

With the help of the legendary engineer Grim Brockson, Plateau Castle has established a gunpowder workshop and a gun workshop, and trained the first batch of musketeers. When these warriors completed their training, the thunder gunners, which had been in a gray and unrecruitable state, were suddenly lit up in Barrel's war book. As a believer in the doctrine of firepower advantage, Barrel is ready to eliminate the dwarf warriors and heavy crossbowmen, and use thunder gunners as the basic troops of Plateau Castle.

In addition to the high elves and dwarves, An Jiyue also invited Xiao Yiyue to send people to pick up the fries. However, the latter was currently busy clearing out the beastmen and undead in the haunted forest, so he had to give up for the time being.

Chapter 137: Ersun's Request

On the evening of the day when the village was transformed into a fortress, An Jiyue returned to the castle to rest.

This castle was preserved, right next to the newly completed fortress. A zigzag path was left between the castle and the fortress, which led to the only gate of the castle on the top of the mountain along the gradually rising mountain. On the surface, if the attacker had enough troops, they could isolate the two, but in fact, An Jiyue used earth control to dig a tunnel underground to connect the castle and the fortress, and the tunnel itself was deliberately covered with a three-meter-thick layer of hardened granite.

The tunnel is spacious enough for two ogres to walk side by side in it without feeling constrained. One of its entrances and exits is located in an underground warehouse on the bottom floor of the castle used to store supplies, and the other entrance and exit is located in the center of the fortress - there is currently a specially reserved open space there. An Jiyue plans to build a glazed tower (Note 1) here, and the entrance and exit of the tunnel will be located in the basement at the bottom of the glazed tower. Since the glazed tower has not yet been started, the tunnel is currently unusable.

Four thousand garrisons from three different races have settled in the fortress. Currently, only the swordsmen and some auxiliary soldiers are stationed in the castle. An Jiyue's bedroom and office originally belonged to Slavin Kurtz. Although the living conditions in the newly built fortress are much better than those in the castle, An Jiyue is too lazy to move her luggage around. Anyway, she won't be in Kewang Castle for a few days, so she can just make do with it. However, Dustan Falcon, the mage, moved into the fortress impatiently this morning.

When she reached her room, the girl was about to push the door open, but she stopped her outstretched hand as if realizing something. The swordsmen following the governor suddenly stared at the door, and their hands rested on the handles of their weapons.

"It doesn't matter," An Jiyue shook her head, "Everyone, leave."

The swordsmen looked at each other and walked away silently. The girl pushed open the door and said, "It is not a good habit to enter an unmarried lady's room without the owner's permission, Mr. Boris... or should I call you Ersun?"

"I apologize for my impolite behavior, son of Zhendan," the veteran Boris turned around slowly, his eyes flashing with a gorgeous light blue light, "Thank you, stranger who came from afar."

"It seems that the Soul Furnace is not as special as described in the legend," An Jiyue walked to the desk, pulled out a chair and sat down, "Or is it that your jailer is more incompetent than I thought, and even gave you the opportunity to contact the outside world."

"You outsiders really know a lot of secrets that no one should know," Boris said mechanically, his expression as stiff as a corpse. "Bilak's surveillance is cold and cautious, but fortunately I was prepared. This is not the first time I have encountered people like you. Before you, there was a brave child who tried to save me from a dark fate."

An Jiyue took out a document and began to review it: "It looks like he or she has failed."

"I should have trusted him more, but I didn't," Boris said. "He told me a lot of things, about my fate, about the tragedy of Yuri Bakov, and about the dark and desperate future of this world. He warned me to be careful of Bilak, but I was too confident that a shapeless shadow could not threaten me."

"So you were caught and locked in the Soul Furnace to die," An Jiyue said as she processed documents. "Bilak probably mocked you every day. After all, it couldn't do anything else before it rebuilt its body."

"It won't stand a chance. Its ambition is doomed to fail." At this point, Boris suddenly stopped, the light in his eyes flickering. About half a minute later, An Jiyue heard Boris continue, "My connection with this child is not stable, so I will try to be brief next."

The girl was stunned for a moment before she realized that "this child" referred to Boris.

"The last 'stranger' I met was named Andrei Andreevich Gezkin (Note 2). He was a brave but naive man who went into battle with unparalleled enthusiasm, but was killed in his first battle. You can inquire about him in Erengrad. Listen, son of Zhendan, and listen carefully to every word I say next. Although I failed to heed Andrei's warning, I still did some necessary work. I placed a part of my essence, my power, in the soul of the man in front of you. If the operation to rescue me fails, kill him, and I will die completely. Bilak should not try to take away my power and ascend to godhood!"

"…This doesn't sound like something a fool who failed to heed the warning would do."

"This is one of the preparations for what Andrei calls the 'end of time'. If Kislev is destined to sink into darkness, at least I want to leave the last hope for the children of Kislev."

After saying this, the light in Boris' eyes flickered again. This time, An Jiyue waited longer before she heard Boris speak again.

"I don't have much time left... I know why you are here. The whereabouts of the Dragon Emperor's daughter is..." Boris' lips opened and closed a few times. An Jiyue opened her eyes slightly, then nodded.

"Please forgive my champion's offense," Boris' voice gradually became lower, "Son of Zhendan, save Kislev..."

After saying this, Boris lowered his head. After a moment, the old soldier suddenly woke up, staring around with wide eyes.

"How much do you know about your mission?" An Jiuyue asked.

"Not much," Boris replied, "but I'm ready, ma'am."

……

Plans never change as fast as they should.

Originally, she thought that she would have to wait until after the expedition to Howling Castle to get the information about Shen Zhu in advance, but Bing Ruolan hasn't even walked out of the mountain pass yet... An Jiyue didn't even have the mood to eat dinner, and immediately found Dustan who was hanging out with a group of dwarves from Plateau Castle, and informed this guy who was always offline of the latest situation.

"So should we start preparing for the expedition to Norsca right away?" asked the drunken wizard.

"How is that possible? There is a great opportunity in the Empire now, and I must seize it no matter what." The Jiedushi frowned, "But I can only ask you to keep an eye on the fort. From now on, the command of all the Anxi troops here will be transferred to you."

"Don't make it so difficult. I have a lot of points to earn here. It's not like I'm going to lose anything." The magician patted the alchemist girl's shoulder. "Hey~ I'll keep an eye on this. Do whatever you want."

"Yes. I will communicate with Barrel and ask him to hand over the command of the dwarf troops to you. By the way," the girl glanced around, "it seems that you get along well with the dwarves."

"I think dealing with dwarves is actually quite simple. There is only one thing: sincerity! Fuck sincerity!" The wizard said as he took another sip of dwarven beer. The beer he drank was the version provided for humans (Note 3). Although it was still too irritating for the sensitive stomachs of elves, it wouldn't put anyone in the hospital after drinking it...right?

The dwarves of Plateau Castle were singing around the campfire and eating heartily. Dustan, dressed in the garb of the Archmage Safri, blended in with them, and there was no sense of disobedience at all.

An Jiyue then logged into the chat group again, informed the other two group members of the matter, and then prepared to return to Xuanshui. In addition to the sword and some auxiliary soldiers, she only brought Boris. Boris could not continue to stay at the front line like Kewang Castle, the girl planned to send him to Xuanshui for strict protection, and then go to the imperial capital of Altdorf alone.

What she was going to do next did not require the army, the Royal Guards who had been sent to Altdorf were enough. This would be a secret operation, and the Imperials would not know she had been there. After all, now was not the best time to meet with Karl Franz.

But before returning to Xuanshui... An Jiyue felt that she needed to meet someone first.

……

Note 1: The barrier towers of the Jiuzhou barrier are divided into three levels from low to high: the Glazed Tower, the Star-Picking Tower and the Tower of Babel.

Note 2: This was originally written by a group member. Because the book was greatly revised (almost rewritten) at the suggestion of the editor, it is completely different from the original version, and the roles of several group members were cut, and this person is one of them.

Note 3: Based on Josef Bergman's background story, there is a version of Dwarf Beer, at least the beer produced by Bergman's Brewery, for humans.

Chapter 138: The New Covenant

Deep in the Daheris Forest, beside an unnamed stream.

White clouds carrying hundreds of passengers descended from the sky and landed lightly on the snow-covered open space. "Stand by here," An Jiyue said to the swordsmen who wanted to follow her, "I'll be back soon."

Even in the densest primeval forest, there are always small clearings in the forest, and the residence of the legendary Ugor witch, Ostankiya, is located in such a clearing. A wooden house that fits people's stereotype of witches stands abruptly and naturally in the center of the entire clearing. Perhaps for the convenience of getting water, there is a stream less than 20 meters away from the wooden house that is waving its teeth and claws - please forgive An Jiyue for using this word to describe a building.

In the wild, any water source is a natural gathering place for wild animals, after all, both herbivores and carnivores need water. Experienced hunters will never build a hunting lodge too close to a water source, but to a powerful witch, an angry brown bear is not much different from an active cat, except that it makes more noise.

An Jiyue stood there and observed for a few seconds, then walked towards the wooden house. Long before leaving Prager, she had asked Prince Belov about Ostankia's residence. Knowing the general direction, it was not difficult to find this place: near the nanny's hut, there was an altar for worshipping the spirits of Kislev, and this kind of facility was always eye-catching in the field of vision of the [Dharma Eye]. As long as she flew back and forth a few times in the sky, she would soon find it.

The girl stood in front of the only door of the cabin. Just as she stretched out her hand to knock on the door, the voice of the nanny floated out from behind the door: "Please come in. Oh, don't be nervous, great being, there is only an old woman here, there is no danger."

An Jiyue pushed the door open and walked in. The wooden house was as messy as she had imagined, but not dark. Every corner was filled with lit sheep oil lamps. The fishy smell that rushed into her nose made the girl frown.

Ostankia sat on a chair with a backrest as rough as the wooden house itself, holding a wooden cup filled with some liquid in both hands. An Jiyue glanced at it and found that there was half a toad floating in it... An Jiyue looked away as if she had been electrocuted, and then she noticed that the other person was wearing a leather eye mask with tiny runes painted on it.

When the girl came in, Mammy stood up slowly and asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

"As a wizard," An Jiyue said, "you actually took the initiative to close your magical senses?"

Even though she knew almost nothing about the strange and bizarre Ugor magic, An Ji Yueguang, with her own magical attainments, could tell that the blindfold worn by the nanny could block her magical senses, making her unable to perceive those supernatural powers.

"Oh, dear," Mammy picked up the copper kettle from the wooden table full of clutter, and then dug out a cup that looked relatively clean from the clutter, "For this meeting, if I don't want to become a lunatic, then this is a necessary measure."

Ostankia poured some suspicious black liquid into the cup, then fumbled and handed it to An Jiyue. The girl took the cup with a rather distorted expression, with no intention of tasting it at all.

"Kislev, this land is alive. It belongs to the great spirits who have lived here since ancient times, not to outsiders," Mammy grumbled in a complaining tone. "With the power of the spirits, I can see things that others cannot see. The moment you landed on the land of Kislev, all the spirits sensed your arrival. They whispered in my ears. They revealed to me the truth that those arrogant ice witches, those disciples of Miska, could not see."

"If that's the case," An Jiyue held the cup, trying not to think about what was in it, "then did they also tell you why I came here?"

"Take a bite, great being," the nanny did not answer the question immediately, but persuaded, "If it was that brat Belov who came, I would not be willing to treat him with such a precious thing."

As soon as she got the cup, An Jiyue scanned it several times with her mind, closed her eyes, and took out the spirit of drinking Chinese medicine as a child, raised her head and drank the sticky black liquid in the cup. Unexpectedly, this thing didn't have any strange smell. To be precise, it didn't have any smell at all, as if she had just drunk a glass of water.

At first, nothing happened. Just when the girl was feeling a little strange, she suddenly felt her spiritual power surge! A surge! A surge! Her spiritual power at this moment was ten or even nine times stronger than usual!

Without further ado, An Jiyue immediately took out the crystal marble from the Faceless Clan from the small bag hanging on her waist. The mighty spiritual energy penetrated into it in a subtle and violent way, and began to forcibly crack the encryption measures imposed by the ancient Faceless Clan. If the War Codex was used, the encryption measures that would require nearly 100,000 points to crack would melt away like spring snow in front of the terrifying spiritual torrent, and were dismantled into pieces and no longer exist.

When the cracking was completed, this unprecedentedly powerful state quickly faded. An Jiyue felt that her mental power had been permanently enhanced by about 30%, and the recovery speed of mental energy and the precision of operation had been significantly improved. She did not rush to check the information stored in the crystal marble, but put it back into the small bag.

“Although the process was not quite what I imagined,” the girl said, “I did achieve my goal.”

An Jiuyue came to Ostankia because of the crystal marbles, because she suddenly realized that Ostankia was a powerful prophet and perhaps the strongest prophet still alive among the humans of the old world's order.

"The Day and Night Spring is the supreme holy place of the Wugor people. Its two springs contain unparalleled power," the nun said, and took out a glass bottle filled with white liquid. "What you just drank is the Night Spring, which can permanently enhance the spirit of the drinker. This is the Day Spring, which can permanently strengthen the body."

"For something this precious, can't you get a container that's worthy of it?" An Jiyue reached out to take the glass bottle of Zhuoquan, which was obviously a bottle of vodka. "I accept your gift. Tell me, what do you want from me?"

"A covenant, great existence," the nanny nodded at the girl, "We don't expect to get the same treatment as the dwarves, even if the Heavenly Court treats the Ugor people as vassals. In short, we need the friendship of the Heavenly Court."

"Before the dark enemy is defeated, we will not tolerate or support any behavior that may weaken the power of the Order camp," the governor said, "as long as you do not violate this, you will get what you want."

"I thought you would take the opportunity to ask for more spring water."

"It would be a miracle if this kind of thing could be mass-produced."

"You just drank the last remaining spring water in the world," the nun said, swearing in Ugor slang. "Two hundred years ago, Chaos invaded our land and tried to corrupt this sacred spring. For the sake of Kislev, my mentor had no choice but to destroy it, lest the power of the holy spring be used against us."

An Jiyue was silent for a while after hearing this. "When I come back after finishing my business, I will go to Prager to sign a formal alliance with Prince Belov," she said. "I just hope you are ready to face the wrath of Kislev."

"Bielov and I are not seeking independence, we just want more autonomy from the Bokaha Palace. Don't worry, dear, we are not fools and will not do the right thing at the wrong time. As for the reaction of the Gospada people," Ostankia laughed hoarsely, "they should take care of themselves first. It won't be long before the city of Kislev will have no time to care about Prager."

An Jiyue did not ask Ostankia what she had foreseen, and the latter did not tell her. For the sake of Ersun, the girl would help Kislev when he was in trouble, but that was all.

She didn't owe Mrs. Kislev anything, either in the past, present or future.

(End of Volume 2)

Volume 3: The Sin of the Holy Hammer

Chapter 139 In the Shadows

When William walked into the meeting room, he found that he was the last to arrive.

"I'm sorry," he said unapologetically, "I'm working on a very important experiment..."

"Take your seat," said the old man at the head of the conference table, "and shut up."

The meeting room suddenly fell silent. The members of the cult who were qualified to participate in this meeting looked at each other, some looked at William worriedly, and some cast mocking eyes at him, but William didn't care about any of it.

He maintained his smile: "Okay, Your Excellency."

William's father, Oberstein, the leader of the Paradis Order, turned his gaze away from his son. He didn't care about his son's little rebellious mood, just as he didn't care about William's hatred for him. The old man looked around at his subordinates who had different thoughts and said, "Di's messenger is here to urge us. The preparations of the order have been delayed for too long."

"Um... Please forgive my offense, Your Excellency," said an old man who looked older than Oberstein and had a clean-shaven beard. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a silk handkerchief and carefully organized his words. "The military work is in the charge of His Excellency William, and in the recent docking work, His Excellency William..."

"We shouldn't have acted hastily at this time," William interrupted the other party. "It takes time to improve the cultivation plan, it takes time to test new products, and it takes even more time to deploy production lines. Time, time, and more time. Has the cult given me enough time?"

Oberstein's voice was even. "The Order gave you everything you asked for."

"Ten weeks ago I was still eating sand in the badlands, and now you want me to take out fifteen regiments of soldiers? Your Excellency," William looked at Oberstein, "I'll give you ten women. Can you make them give birth to children within a month?"

Someone couldn't help laughing. Oberstein glanced over there, and the low laugh he couldn't suppress suddenly turned into a terrifying chattering of teeth.

"How many soldiers are available to fight immediately?" the old man asked.

"Six regiments, including four regiments of halberdiers and two regiments of musketeers," William said without hesitation, "and two regiments of sword and shield soldiers are undergoing training. Our memory infusion technology is not up to the level of the Faceless Men, and we cannot directly give soldiers muscle memory. Training is essential."

"William," Oberstein said, "this is not what you promised the Order."

"My promise has a prerequisite, which is to execute the plan according to the original schedule," William said calmly, "According to your 'grand blueprint', we should have taken action after winter, Your Excellency."

"The situation has changed," Oberstein's tone finally softened a little, but only a little. "The Path Changers have new ideas, and our ally Di is under a lot of pressure. The action plan must be advanced. I just want to know what kind of support you need to deliver the soldiers the cult needs on time. As for other aspects, that has nothing to do with you."

"Okay, okay!" William stretched out his tone and said in a pretentious tone: "How about joining forces with the rat?"

Traces of Skaven can be seen everywhere in the Old World. Except for Middenheim, there are Skaven underground cities under almost all major cities of the Empire. Especially Sigmar's throne and the capital of the Empire, Altdorf, which has the second largest underground city in the entire Old World, second only to the Skaven Magic City located deep in the Blight Swamp.

William's proposal caused a noisy chatter in the conference room. Oberstein looked at his son and tapped the table with his right index finger: "The Rat People have no credibility and will not choose to cooperate with us."

"Just a few days ago," William said with a slightly mischievous smile, "I sent someone to report to the Great Temple of Sigmar that there were cultists gathering in the sewers. Now, the witch hunters should have found the clues I arranged for them. If all goes well, these paranoids will soon discover the secrets hidden under their feet."

"You are playing with fire," Oberstein said. "The actions of the witch hunters are uncontrollable. They will not follow your script. The most important facilities of the cult are underground. If they get lost while running around in the sewers... you can't afford the consequences."

"It seems that you haven't even read the report I submitted recently, Your Excellency," William laughed, and laughed quite happily, "just like you don't care at all about what I brought back from the evil land."

Oberstein was noncommittal: "Well, you can start showing off your new toy now, William."

"I was in the northern part of the Badlands, near the new mountain range." William's expression froze when he mentioned Pingshan. "I found a very well-preserved Faceless ruin there."

“Just as we declared to the believers of the cult, the Faceless Men are masters of the power of the mind. Through deep meditation and arduous practice, they have tapped into the power that comes from the mind itself,” William restrained his smile. “The Faceless Men can use the power of the mind to do many magical things. Telekinesis and telepathy are just the most basic applications…”

"Let's get to the point," Oberstein interrupted William who was about to give a long speech, "We are short on time now."

William curled his lips in dissatisfaction. "The Faceless Men can, to a certain extent, transform matter and spirit into each other. They can transform material existence into spiritual existence, or vice versa. The Faceless Men call their invention the [Framework]. The [Framework] is a complete world, a one-to-one replica of the material universe. The most important things of the Faceless Men are stored in the [Framework]. They have even built more than one city in the [Framework]."

"The [Frame] is the realm of mind and will, and can only be entered and exited with a special key," William said, motioning for Neto behind him to bring over a box. "The key is essentially a tool that can transform the holder between physical and spiritual forms, and is also an identifier."

William opened the box, revealing a golden scepter. Gold was of little value to the high-ranking officials of the cult, but they still stared at this legacy from the distant past with wide eyes.

"When the Faceless Ones were defeated in the war with the Old Ones and were about to be destroyed by those ruthless, cold-blooded reptiles, they built a series of shelters in an attempt to pass on everything of their race. Unlike their previous creations, these shelters are also in the Framework, but they are not connected to each other, and entry and exit require strict identity identification. The Old Ones and their creations are prohibited from entering. This kind of protection is quite powerful, but no matter how powerful the defense is, it is still just a dead thing after all."

"With some... help, I gained control of Shelter No. 13," William stroked the golden scepter in his hand. The eyeball-shaped gem inlaid on the top of the scepter blinked like a living thing. "I have moved all the production lines and training facilities for enhanced human soldiers to Shelter No. 13. Even in the worst case scenario, the witch hunters will only find a few empty houses at most. They will never discover the secrets of the cult."