Warhammer Divine Throne

Chapter 1242: Chapter 535: The Legacy of Dwarfs and Elves

Five hours earlier, the Old World, Brittania, Duchy of Musillon, Sharp-Top Palace.

An army of about four thousand troops was stationed inside the Sharp-Top Palace, tasked with defense, with numerous outposts deployed nearby for reconnaissance. Laine initially thought the vampires would at least send some of their subordinates to scout and attempt to attack the supply lines.

No, since the rear-guard Black Knight Corps was defeated by Laine, Mathew Bade truly ordered the withdrawal of all troops, indicating that from a certain perspective, Mathew Bade already considered the Sharp-Top Palace as ”lost territory” and had temporarily given up on reclaiming it.

Laine also didn’t intend to take the initiative to attack because, firstly, his army’s numbers were insufficient. After the battle of Sharp-Top Palace, his original five-thousand-strong army had been reduced to a little over four thousand, and this was with the support of several hundred men led by Surya’s uncle, Antelme.

Secondly, after the previous war, Laine’s army was already exhausted and needed time to recuperate. In fact, after the defense of Sharp-Top Palace, most soldiers and knights only gradually recovered from fatigue after three to five days of rest and training.

Generally speaking, if a troop suffers over ten percent casualties and does not collapse, the army has moved past the stage of ragtag troops. If a troop can endure with over thirty percent casualties, it can definitely be considered an elite force among humans. The danger of the battle at Sharp-Top Palace was that the entire army’s morale was solely sustained by the personal prestige of Laine and Mogiana.

However, it should be specially noted here that, among humans, this calculation does not apply to dwarfs. Ordinary dwarf armies can endure with nearly fifty percent casualties, and some elites can even continue fighting with a casualty rate of over eighty percent.

Elves, compared to dwarfs, are somewhat less resilient, but Laine had seen the soldiers under Tygris’s command. He dared to say that even the militia of High Elves would have a stronger combat force than the regular armies of humans. As for the Phoenix Guards, Hos Sword Saints, and Avalon Maids, the human armies can only boast Holy Grail Knights and Griffin Knights, with White Wolf Knights being slightly inferior because they lack good horses. The followers of the Wolf God, Yurik, always complained that their combat effectiveness would improve if they had better horses.

Regarding this point, Brittania indeed had an inherent advantage. When the Brittania people arrived on this side of the Gray Mountain Range, many pure-blooded Elf Warhorses left by the High Elves, along with their hybrid Half-Elf Warhorses, were flourishing throughout this fertile land. The Brittania people naturally accepted the elves’ heritage with glee. The Imperial people strongly objected, believing that the Brittania people should share the elves’ heritage, while the Brittania people were piqued that the Imperial people were unwilling to share the dwarfs’ gift - the secret of gunpowder.

According to Lord Beilegar, humans were a race merely struggling to survive by desperately digging up the heritage and absorbing the remnants of nourishment from the glorious era of the elves and dwarfs.

This statement, from a certain perspective, is excessively harsh and severe, but Laine thought there was some truth to it. Without the pioneering and introduction of civilization by the elves, humans could not have developed a splendid civilization in just a few hundred years from slash-and-burn cultivation and primitive living. To this day, the laws, medicine, science, agriculture, and crafts of all human realms are deeply influenced by elves. Indeed, even human writing and customs are learned and imitated from elves.

And dwarfs brought metallurgy, architecture, mining, industry, and the secret of gunpowder.

In the bedroom of Earl Ocasen on the top floor of Sharp-Top Palace, Laine was chatting with his female courtier, Teresa, about these matters.

After conquering Sharp-Top Palace, Laine’s strategy was to rest and consolidate defenses there. If the vampires took the initiative to attack, he would meet them head-on, but if they didn’t, neither would he, because he had to wait until the spring sowing was finished to rally the large army needed to march along the Grismore River to attack Musillon City.

Laine certainly couldn’t be so confident as to believe he could conquer a castle that the Brittania people had failed to capture in nearly three hundred years with just four thousand men?

Thus, recently Laine and his people have been resting at Sharp-Top Palace. He also took the opportunity to interact more with the soldiers and dwarfs. Even though Belgar didn’t like living in an environment ”where the sky could be seen,” as the King of Eight Peaks was already accustomed to wandering, according to Belgar, once he and his men had stayed in a Giant Demon lair for concealment, full of stench so foul, Belgar and his men were enveloped in the smell all night long, and the unbearable odor made Belgar immediately record this matter in the Book of Hatred, and afterward, he personally dealt with the Giant Demon.

So why was Belgar hiding in the Giant Demon lair? According to him, it was due to a situation requiring ”strategic retreat,” and the foul stench inside the lair effectively kept the ”green scraps from thinking” and avoided ”pointless victories.”

Laine understood.

Lord Beile really wasn’t having it easy, repeatedly fighting and facing defeat.

He was discussing a topic related to High Elf knowledge with Teresa.

Today, the female sorcerer wore a sea blue layered long dress from Estalia, paired with her black hair and butterfly-patterned glasses. Her slender phoenix eyes exuded a serene and captivating aura; Teresa had a white fox fur cape draped over her shoulders, and beneath her dress, her long legs encased in beige thick pantyhose and silver peep-toe heels. She was complaining to Laine about her problem: ”Only after getting the original works of the elves did I realize how much we’ve lost in the two-thousand-year legacy!”