The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

A bard in the East has gone missing.

This news abruptly pulled Lind back from his probing and maneuvering with the Tower.

It's hard to imagine that the group of bards would go missing, especially in such an ordinary place as the Eastern Frontier.

This might sound a bit hurtful, but Lind has never considered the East as an opponent, since these people in the East can't even beat Doug.

After receiving a detailed report from Lucanus, Lind tapped lightly on the desk in his study.

No news came out, and the spiritual link was suddenly broken, as Lucanus put it, as if he had been isolated.

The border contingency plan was activated immediately. It is estimated that the decision-makers in the gray-collar class never expected that the first contingency plan to be activated would be aimed at the eastern border.

"Send people directly into the eastern border to investigate, without paying attention to the eastern border defenses."

Linde added to Lucanus, "Remember to bring holy water. Since an anomaly has appeared in the Eastern Territory that can block intelligence, there's no need to linger. Once you've gathered even a little information, retreat immediately."

"Have Laurie and the others keep a close eye on the Snowbreak Territory. If the demons make any unusual moves, report it immediately."

No matter what happens, it's right to suspect the demons first. This isn't because Linde is being discriminatory, but because those demons are indeed not clean. There had already been intelligence indicating that the demons were constantly transporting people to the Eastern Territory.

Are those demons really just merchants? I doubt even Monroe himself believes that.

As the communicator on Lind's desk kept beeping, countless orders were quickly issued, and the North was once again on high alert.

Deborah, in her guest room, looked towards the Eastern Lands and frowned. The flow of magic had changed; someone had used super-tier magic? And it didn't seem to be ordinary super-tier magic.

"Contact headquarters. I request to use the Holy Grail divination."

......

Meanwhile, at the camp outside Broken Snow Territory, Laurie, looking at the distant demon territory, said to Darcy beside her, "The demons' recent movements have been rather unusual."

Darcy nodded. The war between the Northern Territory and the Demon Race was not over, and it could not even be called a peace talk. Outside the Broken Snow Territory, the two sides were still clashing fiercely. However, it was more of a clash than a conflict, as the Demon Race was being completely overwhelmed by the Northern Territory.

The demons, having reached their limit of tolerance, eventually sent out a fake army composed of humans, hoping to use humans to fight against humans.

This initially caused Laurie a lot of distress. After all, Northerners don't fight Northerners, and while he wasn't entirely unable to bring himself to do it when facing his fellow countrymen, it did have a certain psychological impact on the soldiers.

Fortunately, Lind's orders came down quickly. Whenever the human troops outside the Snowbreak Territory were mobilized, Hammond would lead his fully armed professional troops to split up the human troops in front of the attack and the demon overseers behind them.

Then, the First Army Group escorted the vanguard of human troops into Broken Snow Territory. Subsequently, these humans, whether they were coerced by the demons or were truly loyal to the demons, would be transported to the rear for unified processing.

Perhaps they went to farm, or perhaps they went to mine.

The reason this tactic succeeded is simply because those with greater strength, better equipment, and higher pay could do whatever they wanted.

As for using people as human shields, Lind and Laurie showed no mercy and simply blew them up. The more they acted like saints and hesitated in such matters, the more the demons would escalate their actions.

Sure enough, after the demons who initially used humans as human shields to try and get blown up along with the human shields on the battlefield never tried that idea again.

This not only failed to make the other party show mercy, but instead fueled their anger, leading them to act even more ruthlessly.

Even during this period when both sides were somewhat weakened, the Northern Army still managed to capture some of the Demon Clan's strongholds outside Broken Snow Territory with overwhelming momentum, and is continuing to advance.

If it weren't for the need to secure the stronghold and the concern that the demons might suddenly become hysterical and recklessly continue using that demon god's offspring in battle, causing the border troops to become bogged down, the current advance speed could be even faster.

Darcy flipped through the intelligence and said to Laurie, "Indeed, there are far fewer demons in the Surd region recently. I heard that the defenses of the lost territories, including the Surd region, are very weak. But we can't rule out the possibility that this is a trap set by the demons to lure us into an attack."

"To hell with traps! As long as that tank arrives, we'll launch an attack and take back all the lost territories in the North, oh, and the Governor's hometown!"

Although Laurie had never seen a tank in person, Lind's description had already excited her. A tank that could run and fire its own gun—how incredible that must be on the battlefield!

Just thinking about it made Laurie restless. She pulled Darcy along and started working on the sand table, simulating the scenarios based on the parameters Lind had given her. Laurie even came up with a lot of tactics to coordinate with the tanks just by imagining them. The mobility alone was very promising.

Laurie even urged his soldiers to take advantage of the fact that it wasn't time for the general offensive to quickly learn knowledge and technology, because a new weapon of war meant more opportunities for advancement.

Just then, his subordinates delivered a new message. Upon receiving the message, Laurie looked again at the distant demon territory and said to Darcy, "Report the news of the next scheduled message to the governor in advance. The demons' forces outside Broken Snow Territory are weak, and they have most likely been transferred to other places."

Meanwhile, White, who was stationed in what was originally Doug's territory, quickly ordered his knights to take action upon receiving the message.

A group of Lars knights arrived at the border between the North and the East, carrying holy water, intending to enter the East to search.

When the border guards of the Eastern Territory saw that it was the Knights of Lars who had arrived, they knew that the other side was serious. After exchanging glances, they still allowed the Knights of Lars to enter the Eastern Territory without any hindrance.

After all, even demons can freely enter and leave the Eastern Territory, and the people of the Northern Territory have already beaten up both Doug and the demons. They could have just forced their way through the checkpoint without saying a word, but they still said something to you. Be grateful.

No one was clamoring for Her Majesty the Queen to make a ruling, since everyone knew that the North had effectively become independent.

When the Lars Knights first entered the Eastern Territory, they did not notice anything amiss. However, not long after, they saw dark clouds gathering in the distance and fog spreading at a visible speed.

"Goddess above... what on earth has happened?"

The captain of the Lars Knights took out his binoculars and carefully observed the dark clouds in the distance. The dark clouds felt strangely familiar to him, just like the battlefield on the Golden Harvest Plain.

Before the captain of the Lars Knights could record the situation, a knight who was on guard ahead rushed back and said, "Captain, we have found a noble young master from the Dorian family."