Pillar of Yita

Fang Hong put down the hard bread, a bit surprised: ”They emerged under the dragon beast invasion?”

He had seen the strength of those knights in the square, but honestly, they seemed a bit weak.

”...How did they manage that?”

Luo Hao replied: ”Actually, it’s nothing special, it’s just that the Crow’s Claw Guard is the strongest among all these autonomous organizations.”

”The strongest strength?”

Fang Hong almost thought he heard wrong.

”Yes, the strongest strength,” Luo Hao nodded, ”According to the information I gathered, the internal structure of the Crow’s Claw Guard is tightly organized, with a four-tier structure from top to bottom. The top tier is the Child of the Raven, followed by the Watchers, the Controllers, and the Grey Knights.”

”The Child of the Raven is also its sole leader, yet he almost never appears in public, only through the communications from the lower levels of the Crow’s Claw Guard can one learn of his existence. The four Watchers are all directly commanded by him, and externally they are called the Grey Feather People — because they would have grey crow feathers as their mark. Further below is the Shepherd Chief known as the Controllers, it’s their internal title, but it somewhat resembles the clergy of a regional bishop; generally, each village has at least one. Grey Owl Town has one, codenamed Storm. And beside each Shepherd Chief are a varying number of Grey Knights who follow them. These knights are also roughly divided into three levels, the highest rank called Raven Knights, the intermediate called Feather Knights, and the lowest tier is Claw Knights — who are the ones we saw on the square earlier.”

Tata raised her head upon hearing the title Child of the Raven.

And Fang Hong also furrowed his brows slightly.

He then realized this organization seemed much stronger than he initially imagined.

If those knights were merely the most basic combat force of this organization, in the Northern Talon region at least, Silver Forest Spear certainly doesn’t match their level. Thinking carefully, when he first met Wu Di and Liuli Yue, what level were they? Certainly not fifteen or sixteen.

But near Charter City, to find such a powerful autonomous organization existed, he had never heard of it before, which was indeed quite unbelievable.

”This organization was formerly known as the Crow’s Claw Guard, has anyone ever heard of this name?”

Luo Hao shook his head.

Fang Hong glanced at the others, they too unanimously shook their heads — even Gita included.

This was intriguing, much like Silver Forest Spear, the Tabopolis Oak Knights are also part of the Northern Territory Guild, and Gita, a Natural Historian, hadn’t heard of it either, which indeed was rather bewildering.

Then Luo Hao added: ”But recently in Gula Port, Elpaxin, and Charter City’s communities, discussions about them are actually very frequent, easily noticeable. From what I found, most of these discussions started about half a year ago, which means prior to that, they should have been inconspicuous.”

He looked at Gita, ”I guess that’s probably why none of us have ever heard of this organization —”

Fang Hong silently estimated the timeline.

”So after the fall of Charter City, did this organization rapidly rise?”

”Allow me to correct, ” Luo Hao replied: ”Precisely speaking, rather than rising, it should be as radiant as a meteor streaking across the sky, almost instantly drawing everyone’s attention.”

Fang Hong had never heard of something so peculiar, yet he immediately thought of two possibilities.

One is this organization had been hiding its strength all along.

The other is it suddenly received support from some powerful force behind the scenes, a force capable of continuously providing sufficient manpower and resources, enabling it to rapidly achieve its current strength in such a short time.

Throughout Tarun, however, there aren’t many forces with such capabilities.

Of course, the first possibility is almost certainly negligible —

Regarding the second possibility, employing elimination could yield an answer.

Silver Forest Spear itself surely couldn’t do it, but its backing from the Rainbow Alliance possesses such strength.

Similarly, the Descendants of Flor could as well.

Besides the two Northern Territory Invoker’s factions, among the native forces, Elpaxin’s Artisan Association, Silverwind Knights, or the Praetor should have such strength.

But what benefit would it bring these factions to support such a force?

Thus, first eliminate the Rainbow Alliance, since Northern Talon is already within the Rainbow Alliance’s domain, it seems redundant to do so. Next is the Descendants of Flor, although they have the motive — say fostering their own power in their adversary’s territory.

Suddenly Fang Hong recalled seeing people from Silver Forest Spear on the square not long ago, they appear to be collaborating with those knights. At the very least, they shouldn’t be enemies.

Fang Hong doesn’t consider the Rainbow Alliance to be foolishly manipulated by the Descendants of Flor, thus this possibility can largely be ruled out.

What’s left might be Elpaxin’s forces?

Yet Silverwind Knights and the city defense force belonging to the Prime Minister’s side balance each other, both monitoring the Artisan Association together and keeping that lord confined inside the city, none seem to have action opportunity.

Moreover, he couldn’t think of why forces originating from Elpaxin would need to set such a scheme.

Unless, it is the lord himself...

Upon thinking about Elpaxin’s situation, Fang Hong involuntarily recalled the prince who was confined in Elpaxin.