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In fact, Murphy noticed the gnolls’ movements in Anderma Hills the moment they started acting strangely.

That gnoll warlord Lord Kenport Gnawbone seems to understand the art of warfare well. Wolfsbane’s attack happened last night, and he can be certain that Crimson Citadel suffered damage as a result. Now is the perfect time to launch a full-scale offensive.

In a sense, Kenport’s strategy is completely correct.

If Murphy’s subordinates were truly brave warriors recruited locally, last night’s chaos would undoubtedly have a significant and unavoidable impact on Crimson Citadel’s defenses at this critical juncture, perhaps even directly triggering an irreversible rout.

But fortunately, Murphy’s warriors get a new life every three days, so the vampire lord is not actually worried about the impending decisive battle.

The players still need two days and two nights to respawn, but honestly, given their current numbers, they can’t play a crucial role in a battle of this scale between the two sides.

At least on the front lines, players are still unable to form a reliable, resilient force.

Murphy and Tris are both very clear on this point. They haven’t stopped their preparations because of the near-total loss of players. At this moment, in the Adventurer’s Guild camp in the inner city ruins of Crimson Citadel, Murphy’s key personnel have all been gathered here.

Before their eyes is placed a huge diamond-shaped spirit item. It looks like a flawless natural gem carved into an exquisite shape with hundreds of facets.

But upon closer inspection, one can see that each facet has complex spirit runes carved on it. Under Tris’s guidance with the Nocturne Scepter, this thing floating in the air is undergoing final adjustments.

“The Nocturne Barrier! The strategic-level item that has protected Kadman City for the past 400 years.”

Miss Femis explained to the administrators unfamiliar with spirit energy and this land:

“What you see before you is one of the seven cores of the barrier, placed here is the main core, the other two spirit conversion cores are placed in the outer city area. These three cores can already reconstruct the Nocturne Barrier, creating a shield as solid as city walls for our city.

You’ll see it soon.”

“To be precise, in about 7 seconds,” Tris added softly.

Then, as she gripped the Nocturne Scepter and tapped it in the air, the main core was activated.

It was like a living thing being awakened. In the flickering light of the spirit runes on it, it began to absorb the free spirit energy in the environment and create a wondrous resonance with the two cores placed in the outer city area.

So under the astonished gaze of Miriam and Professor Malcolm, streaks of crimson light penetrated the sky. With the zenith as the source point, an egg shell-like spirit shield slowly expanded in all directions, taking about a few minutes to envelop the entire Crimson Citadel.

“We only have three cores on hand, so we can only erect this single layer of the barrier.

The complete Nocturne is a composite protective field composed of three layers of barriers. The level of protection of this current one is basically equivalent to an ordinary city wall, so it can only be said to be passable, far from outstanding or perfect.”

Tris patted the Nocturne protective core that had already started operating, very dissatisfied. The alluring Blood Vulture Grand Duchess said to those around her:

“The remaining 4 cores are still buried in the sewers of the inner city district. Considering that there are also many ghouls and wraiths there, and we don’t have enough manpower to bring them out, everyone will just have to make do with this.”

“I’ve never seen anything this exaggerated in Shaldor port,” Miriam said softly.

“Can it withstand the 20,000 gnoll vanguard that’s marching towards us?”

“Do you think a gnoll bandit gang of 20,000, lacking siege weapons and with very low organization, basically equivalent to a noisy rabble of scattered soldiers, could take down the original Kadman City?” Femis asked in return.

Miriam shook her head and said with certainty, “Given the thickness of the city walls of the original city, even without the barrier, they’d need at least twice as many to stand a chance.”

“That’s good enough then,” the young lady said cheerfully.

“Don’t worry, Tris just has very high standards. The current barrier strength won’t be worse than the defensive power of Kadman City’s walls. But the problem is that we can’t just defend.

This protective shield won’t protect us forever.”

This statement made Professor Malcolm, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, furrow his brow again. He tasted a hint of foreboding in it, so he pushed up his glasses and asked seriously:

“What do you mean?”

“Let Maxim explain that, he’s the military officer here,” Murphy said without turning his head, seriously observing the operating ritual stone, trying to decipher the principles of the barrier.

“Max, report to our administrative officers about our currently available defensive forces and our full plan for fighting against the gnolls.

Keep it as simple as possible.”

“Yes, master,” the loyal servant in full battle armor turned to face Miriam and Professor Malcolm. He said in a deep voice:

“Currently, the initial training of 500 people under my command in the Kadman People’s Army has been completed. The number of registered trained militia is around 1,000. This data includes the five collective farms currently under construction, and the residents there are already on their way to Crimson Citadel. We can’t leave them outside the city unattended.

That would just be feeding the gnolls.

I’ve also talked with Guildmaster Natalie, and she promised me that the Witch Hunter battalion can muster 500 elite cavalry. This is all the large-scale military force we have at our disposal.”

“So that means we only have 2,000 people as real combat strength,” Professor Malcolm sighed. He shook his head and said:

“It sounds quite meager indeed, but given the current total population of the count’s domain, this is already quite a militaristic level. So we can’t engage in open field battles with the gnolls, right?”

“That’s exactly what I was going to say next,” Maxim nodded. He explained:

“I’ve repeatedly simulated with Lord Murphy, and we believe that on the Crimson Citadel side, we should rely on the defense of the Nocturne Barrier, gather our available forces, and use hunting tactics to harass and strike at the 20,000 gnoll vanguard rushing towards us.

But we can’t fight a prolonged war with them!

What we need to do is to contain this part of the barbarian vanguard within the Count of Kadman’s domain, attracting them near Crimson Citadel, because according to Lord Murphy’s strategy, what follows will not be a battle of annihilation, but a battle of rout.

Transia is about to enter a period of large-scale construction, and these gnolls can serve as quite good consumables.”

“?”

Maxim’s statement immediately aroused the surprise of Lady Lainnia, who was observing the Nocturne Barrier nearby. This haughty bow knight said frankly:

“Are you joking? We don’t even have enough people to fill the gnolls’ tooth gaps, let alone capture prisoners. You should be more realistic instead of having such wild fantasies.

This is a more than tenfold difference in military strength!

Even the Blood Pact Knights regiment wouldn’t dare to be so presumptuous.”

“This is neither arrogance nor ignorance, rude moon elf. You’d better listen carefully to the end!” Tris said in a low voice.

Maxim also ignored the haughty knight’s questioning. He often had private confrontations and sparring sessions with Lainnia these days, and he knew that this bow knight’s haughtiness did not stem from her nature.

It was just an external manifestation of her complex personality, and her questioning had no malicious intent.

Maxim always respects those who are stronger than him and learns from them, and Lainnia’s loyalty and strength are objects of his learning.

He continued to explain:

“Lady Lainnia is quite right. Given our current military strength comparison with the gnolls, we couldn’t possibly win in any normal war rhythm. Therefore, the best way to quell this decisive battle is to take an unconventional approach.

And my master has had a secret plan for a long time.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s one thing in the current Transia that we can use to our advantage, and that’s the unstable mapping relationship between the reality world and the Astral Realm.

I am not a professional Spirit Mage, so I’m not responsible for explaining the specific principles. I just want to clarify to everyone that we will trigger a small to medium-scale Astral Realm tear in a specific area three days from now!

It will be deployed at the core position of the current gnoll camp according to precise calculations. Even calculating with the worst damage level, it can eliminate thousands of elite gnolls in one go.

More importantly, an Astral Realm tear of this scale will create a zone of spirit energy chaos in the gnoll camp, which will effectively isolate the gnoll warlord Kenport from contact with his army.

This is our plan of action for the next step.

That is, a two-front battle!

While holding off and resisting the enemy forces at Crimson Citadel, Lord Murphy will personally lead his warriors to carry out a high-difficulty decapitation operation.

Once we successfully execute it, the gnoll army will begin to disintegrate from its core.

Given the chaotic racial nature of gnolls, they won’t be able to elect a new warlord to lead the overall situation in a short time. And as external pressure continues to increase, the gnoll bandit gang that is still sticking together now will collapse in an extremely short time.

I’ve asked Professor Malcolm, and he told me this is a tactic often used by the civilized allied forces in several Black Disasters.

It has been proven quite effective by history.”

“The Blood Pact Knights regiment indeed often uses this kind of decapitation tactic when fighting against the gnoll tribes in the Dark Mountain range. It is indeed very effective, but I doubt whether you can complete this quite difficult decapitation,” Lady Lainnia said hesitantly.

“They’ve sent out 20,000 vanguards, but there are still an equal number of elites in the main camp. Even if your Astral Realm tear can be successfully deployed, the time left for your action is quite limited.

Most importantly, the Blood Vulture Clan and the warriors of Transia have just suffered terrible losses. Do you have enough elites to complete this plan?

Why don’t I go?”

“We do! And how could we trouble a noble lady like yourself to risk her life for such a thing?” Murphy turned back and waved his hand, saying:

“I’ve already sent out invitations to the mountain tribes where my warriors are from. Two days later, another group of fearless elites will join this battle.

I, along with Count Femis and Baron Kudel, will personally lead them into battle.

We have another advantage: all three of us have experienced the whole process of Kadman City being swallowed by the Astral Realm. We are very familiar with fighting in the shadows of the Astral Realm and know how to protect ourselves from the washing of foul spirit energy.

I don’t think gnolls can figure this out on their own.

Apart from my warriors, this battle doesn’t need the participation of other forces. This is not to underestimate you, but because while I’m on this adventure, you also have to shoulder quite dangerous responsibilities.

Astral Realm tear

Even a small to medium-sized Astral Realm tear is not so easy to complete. The amount of spirit energy needed to destroy the barrier between the material world and the Astral Realm is astronomical.

Among all the methods we currently have, only one thing can do this in a short time.”

Under the gaze of others, Murphy patted the core ritual stone floating above the ground beside him and said:

“It’s this thing! The fact that three spirit energy cores can erect a barrier covering the city means they can also serve as a temporary substitute for spirit energy sources.

Before the operation begins, we need to let the three spirit energy cores simultaneously enter a temporary overload state to provide a spirit energy storm that can break through the Astral Realm barrier.

Tris will be responsible for advancing this ritual, you don’t need to worry about this point.

But this also means that in the time it takes for the three spirit energy cores to recover and re-erect the shield, the entire Crimson Citadel will be left without defense.

I know that under such circumstances, asking you to fight against 20,000 gnolls with 2,000 soldiers is undoubtedly sending you to your deaths, but this is the situation in Transia.

Now is also the moment when we can’t survive without fighting.

Everyone, we are once again standing at a crossroads of destiny.”

“Have you ever had even one battle that could be easily resolved?” Baroness Miriam quipped.

“Following you all this way, I can basically confirm that you’ve already settled down and built a house at the crossroads of destiny, Murphy. Your bad luck has infected everyone.”

This remark made the lord roll his eyes, but he had nothing to say. Guildmaster Natalie behind Miriam smiled and asked:

“So, how long do we need to hold out under the gnoll vanguard’s assault?”

Murphy looked at Tris. The Spirit Sovereign estimated and said:

“At least one hour, at most three hours. Spirit energy conversion cores of this level won’t break down so easily, but it also takes more time to restart them.”

“And how long will your decapitation operation take?” Count Andrei, who was still recovering, asked with a pale face.

“Do you need the help of the Thorn clan, who are skilled in assassination operations?”

“No, you stay here to defend the city. You’re needed more here,” Murphy shook his head and said:

“I’ll end the battle as quickly as possible, but even at the fastest, it might take several hours, and I and my warriors won’t be able to transfer back quickly.”

“There’s a way, use this!” Tris took something out of her spirit bag and handed it to Murphy. The lord took it with surprise, activated the item identification, and a label popped up:

Name: Tris’s Prototype “Return Scroll”

Quality: Alchemical Consumable

Effect: Bind a return coordinate for the return scroll. Within its allowed range, using the scroll can release a temporary portal allowing 1-3 people to pass through, sending the user back to the bound coordinate.

Note!

This item’s spirit energy spell is based on Lady Tris’s research on spirit energy teleportation theory. It’s currently not finalized, and coupled with the inherent instability of spirit energy teleportation when passing through the Astral Realm, there is a small chance (about 1%) of putting the user into an 【Astral Realm Lost】 state when using this item.

Note!

This item’s return coordinate can be bound to the save point most recently visited by the test subject.

Crafter: 【Blood Vulture Grand Duchess】Tracy Cavendina Chia Lorraine Lessenbra

Item Description:

【Do you know why this world has never had a mature teleportation spirit energy system? Use this scroll once and you’ll know why. If you’re extremely lucky to be sent into the Astral Realm, don’t rush to return to the material world, take a good look at the rare sights of the Astral Realm.

Oh, by the way, another name for this thing is the ‘Astral Realm Day Trip’ one-way ticket.】

“Umm, I feel like this thing seems a bit risky,” Murphy blinked and said to Tris:

“Why don’t we try another method?”

“I didn’t ask you to use it!” Tris rolled her eyes and said:

“Let them use it, and then submit some user experiences and reports to me. I’m still waiting to improve my teleportation spell. As long as they use this thing enough times, and bring me detailed user experiences, then that ‘Hearthstone’ you mentioned before, I’m confident I can make it too.

As for the risk

Don’t mind the risk!

The exploration of spirit energy mysteries is always accompanied by risks. It’s rare that you have a group of fearless warriors under your command. Look, what great test subjects they are.”