My Players Are So Fierce

Chapter 429: Short Marshal: Why Are Things in Transia Always So Terrible?!

“Is it stuck? Why won’t this magic array stop?!”

At the edge of the East Prussia border battlefield, near the ruins of the destroyed town’s large cemetery, the student players who had just defeated the gnoll undead sorcerers gathered here.

The physical classes were still holding off attacks from newly risen skeleton armies on the perimeter, while the spellcasting classes clustered around the magic array left behind by the gnoll sorcerers in the center of the graveyard, staring at it in confusion.

Before Cheche and Leading Pigeon was a still-operating undead summoning formation, arranged by those gnolls using evil spirit energy skulls plus innocent blood and strange corpse candles.

The runes flickering with cold light around it were in patterns they had never seen before, while the netherworld energy lingering here was rapidly expanding, like an invisible living being that had existed for a long time.

Each of its “breaths” would cause disturbances in several coffins in the graveyard.

Due to the Ten-Year War, the number of soldiers and dead buried in this cemetery and nearby cemeteries was a terrifying figure. Therefore, if Cheche and Leading Pigeon couldn’t stop this ritual before it finished, even though they had crushed the gnoll sorcerers here tonight with the garrison forces, the constantly awakening undead would still viciously “cleanse” the surrounding area based on their hatred of the living.

Now the gnoll sorcerers were being hunted down and killed one by one by the Torrent Knights. The threat from these bastards had been weakened, but the skeleton armies wouldn’t disperse on their own without control. The loss of their masters’ control actually put them in an even more dangerous “wandering mode.”

“F**k, there are at least 4,000 wandering undead on this not-so-large battlefield right now!”

Cheche clutched his staff and screamed:

“If this continues, won’t it spawn an army of 10,000 right here? Pigeon, hurry up and use that brain of yours to think of something!”

“I don’t have any damn ideas!”

Leading Pigeon rolled his eyes and complained:

“I’m a Blood Inquisitor not a purifier, for this kind of ritual that obviously can’t be stopped midway you should find an Avalon priest to have any chance, right? But if you really want ideas, I actually do have one.”

Pigeon looked left and right, then up at the sky, and said quietly:

“Earlier during the Decisive Battle at Anderma Hills, didn’t all players with the Spirit Mage profession learn ‘Astral Tear’?

Although I don’t really understand how that thing works, I think if we could trigger a ‘Great Cataclysm’ here, not only could we use the astral spirit energy impact to destroy this ritual, if we do it right, we might be able to banish all the rampaging skeleton armies here to the Astral Realm in one go.

Hey!

Wouldn’t you say this is a green, natural, pollution-free solution?

Besides being a bit creepy, I can hardly think of any reason not to do it.”

“Uh”

Faced with Leading Pigeon’s suggestion, Cheche, also a Spirit Mage, rolled his eyes and complained:

“Although what you say makes sense, don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking, you bastard just want to try ‘dropping a nuke’ on enemy territory yourself. You’re really an evil person!”

“Well, you got me there.”

Leading Pigeon didn’t deny it, twirling his crimson staff and drawling:

“So, don’t you want to try it too? The devs taught us this kind of mass destruction technique to encourage us to boldly use it in special situations, right? Isn’t the current situation special enough?

Letting nearly 10,000 ghouls and skeleton armies rampage here is enough to turn this place and nearby Banks City into a wasteland, don’t overthink it!

We’re saving people, my dear Cheche.”

“But this ritual requires at least 5 Spirit Mages to execute!”

Cheche frowned and said:

“And the ritual instructions emphasized very clearly that we need a ritual core that can store large amounts of spirit energy and pierce the astral barrier, and this is only possible in regions like Transia where the material world boundary is very fragile.

Only the last of these three conditions is met now.”

“Hey, as long as you don’t let your thinking slide, there are always more solutions than problems.”

Leading Pigeon wasn’t concerned about the difficulties though. He immediately logged into the forum in game and edited a post, calling out for Spirit Mage players who had learned “Great Cataclysm” to quickly come to the border battlefield to join in the grand occasion.

But before the post could gain traction, Leading Pigeon received a private message in game from Lady Aqua:

“Nonsense! Take down your post! You little fool, don’t worry about that still-running undead ritual, just pretend you didn’t see it! You little idiot, are you trying to throw away the construction points handed to you, what kind of family are you from?

So wasteful!

The devs have fed you right to your mouth, and you actually want to spit it out?”

“Huh?”

The scolding from Lady Aqua made Leading Pigeon’s eyes go wide. He hurriedly asked for clarification, but Lady Aqua said they would arrive at the battlefield soon and would explain in person.

The two student Spirit Mages looked at each other, and finally decided to hold off on taking action.

They really respected Lady Aqua and the Silver Moon Pride team’s wisdom. Over the past period of time, several clever operations by the girls’ team had brought them benefits that ordinary players could hardly imagine. Although the students didn’t care much about maximizing returns, when faced with being able to get 100, probably no one would choose to take 10 instead?

Ten minutes later, Silver Moon Pride team officially arrived at the battlefield.

Even though Little Ashina and Sister Pomegranate rushed to bring the other members by flight, they still arrived at the battlefield a bit late. The gnoll sorcerer group had already been completely routed by precise decapitation operations.

Most of the sorcerers had been killed, and the remaining few had fled the battlefield in disarray and were now being hunted down like mad by the enraged local garrison forces.

The Torrent Knights were assisting those respectable soldiers, but at Lady Aqua’s gathering call, Typal, Uncle Fording and Miss Becky had all assembled in the graveyard.

“We must stop this evil ritual immediately!”

Seeing Lady Aqua being supported down from the air by Sister Pomegranate, Uncle Fording, with great roleplaying spirit, strode forward and with a standard knight’s bow declared loudly to this stunningly beautiful peer:

“O mighty priest from the Avalon Church, you are now our last hope in protecting this land! Please quickly guide Avalon God’s purifying power to thoroughly cleanse this unspeakable evil here!”

“That is precisely why I have come.”

Lady Aqua, also with great roleplaying spirit, gave Uncle Fording a priest’s bow, then stepped forward to examine the death magic ritual that was still operating and accumulating netherworld energy.

After several seconds, she leaned on her scythe that greatly mismatched her “character setting” and turned to tell everyone:

“This level of otherworld summoning is not something that I, a mere priest, can handle. Perhaps we need to request aid from the church to dispatch a priest who can perform divine magic. However, I would like to ask everyone a question now, do we really need to purify this ritual?”

“Huh?”

The first to speak up was Miss Becky.

Having just led her knights in perfectly completing the Torrent Knights’ “debut” across the battlefield, she was still filled with fighting spirit. By the most basic knightly moral standards, she naturally wanted to instinctively object to Lady Aqua’s question, but just as she was about to speak she was stopped by Knight Liwen beside her who pressed down on her wrist.

The clever half-dragon used her eyes to signal her to stay quiet first and see how these champions of Governor Murphy would handle this mess.

“Please share your thoughts, Lady Aqua.”

Typal stepped forward and said:

“We all know you are the most beautiful wisdom born on the land of Transia, perhaps you can give us some useful advice.”

“On my way here I heard about Little Pigeon and Little Cheche’s plan to summon the foul spirit energy of Astral Tear to counter this undead formation.

With my shallow understanding of evil powers, I believe this plan has some chance of success, however the massive aftereffects that would be brought by Astral Tear must also be seriously considered.

The city rifts in Crimson Citadel still retain the filth left by that Astral Tear even today. Even if they use this extreme method to stop the undead summoning it would only bring another problem to this land.

And using such weapons of mass destruction in others’ territory can easily cause diplomatic incidents.”

Lady Aqua shook her head and first explained her views on Astral Tear, then playing with her braid laid across her chest, she said:

“Secondly, even if we successfully purify this ritual here, the skeleton armies and ghouls that have already been awakened won’t return to rest when the ritual ends.

The gnoll sorcerers’ evil magic has already polluted this land, its influence won’t disappear in just a few days.

But on the flip side, the maximum range this ritual can affect is just the few large cemeteries nearby. No matter how many dead are buried here there is still a limit, if we let it continue operating until this limit arrives it will stop on its own.

In fact, by my calculations, it will weaken on its own by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“But so many wandering undead will pose a terrible threat to the living civilians nearby! Banks City is only 30 kilometers from here, there are 200,000 people in that city!”

Miss Becky shouted:

“Allowing innocents to fall into danger is not the way of knights!”

“So, we should get them to a safe place before they are threatened by the undead, to start new lives.”

Lady Aqua said methodically:

“This is the most perfect choice that can be made right now, after all neither we nor the Pioneer Army can clear out these already formed skeleton armies and ghouls in a short time, unless the Short Marshal’s thinking is the same as Little Pigeon’s and wants to use a super spell to level everything here.

But if he did that, the local innocents would die all the same.

I can understand your mercy and reluctance in this regard, but the fact is that bad things have already happened. Rather than hoping it will quietly dissipate, it’s better to start physically working to save those who can still be saved now.

At the current rate of skeleton armies and undead creatures being revived, and the terrifying numbers they will ultimately reach, not just the nearby towns, but residents within what amounts to half of Count of Kadman’s domain centered here need to be evacuated immediately!

But fortunately, the great and glorious Torrent Knights will stay here to help them hold back the undead attacks, buying them enough time to evacuate.

Lady Aqua blinked and said:

“The local residents can of course freely choose to migrate to those areas protected by the Pioneer Army, that is their freedom, but under such a terrible humanitarian crisis, I think Transia which is closer will also open its arms to these innocents.

I know of a very good place.

For example, the Torrent Fort that is being built

Not only is it the headquarters of the brave Torrent Knights who intervened in tonight’s disaster and turned the tide, it’s also less than 100 kilometers from their homeland. They can completely rest and lick their wounds there.

Each day looking towards their lost homeland while accumulating strength, growing stronger amidst the wails of this suffering land.

One day, the people forced to leave this land will return to their homeland through their own hands rather than others’ power, they will feel proud of this, and a new epic will be written from this.

Look, what a moving story, isn’t it?”

After Lady Aqua finished expressing her thoughts, everyone in this gloomy graveyard was speechless.

Cheche opened his mouth wanting to say something, but in the end could only give a thumbs up and wave it hard at his “Auntie Aqua”, muttering:

“The adult world is really scary, compared to Auntie Aqua, these gnolls are all saints.”

“Hmm?”

Lady Aqua made a nasal sound, giving a “Ice Queen’s gaze” glance at the unrestrained Cheche, who quickly stood straight and didn’t dare make any more snarky comments, while Typal and Uncle Fording in front exchanged looks.

They both saw the hesitation in each other’s eyes.

Although the Torrent Knights had been working very hard to gather residents after getting the player stronghold’s construction and management rights, their numbers were limited. After all their efforts, after deducting the manpower submitted to the administration, they only had about 3,000 people left in their territory.

If they followed Lady Aqua’s proposal, the number of residents in Torrent Fort would probably exceed 10,000 in just a few days.

If they used some “tricks” in the process, the number of civilians they could obtain might double.

And as Lady Aqua said, bringing so many civilians back to Transia could also earn some construction points. If they needed another reason to convince themselves, these civilians who had experienced the undead disaster would definitely be the best “potential believers” for the Holy Light on this continent.

They were tempted.

They couldn’t find any reason to object from any angle, even the most upright knights were having trouble resisting under such a choice.

“This isn’t right!”

Miss Becky was the only one who opposed this approach, though she couldn’t quite say what was wrong with it, but she just felt there was a problem with the logic in it.

She frowned and objected:

“We should stop this disaster! Not let it continue and take the opportunity to recruit local people, they could have lived in peace and prosperity”

“Alright then, you think of a solution, Lady Becky.”

Lady Aqua wasn’t annoyed, she smiled and made a “please” gesture, stepping aside to expose the still operating undead ritual behind her.

Even someone who knew nothing about spirit energy mysteries could tell this thing was really problematic just by looking at the inauspicious power lingering there now.

“Liwen, can you purify it?”

Becky quietly asked her good friend, Knight Liwen hesitated for a moment, then said:

“If invoking my god’s power perhaps I could, but I think you should consider Lady Aqua’s opinion. Even if we stop it now, the already formed skeleton armies and ghouls are still a big problem.

Whether or not you’re willing to take such measures, I guess Marshal Loren will issue evacuation orders later anyway. The continued infiltration of netherworld energy really has made this area no longer suitable for ordinary people to live.

In fact, the casualties from the Ten-Year War already gave this place undead hazards, it’s just that no one paid attention to this aspect before, and the gnolls’ surprise attack tonight ignited it.”

“Then let’s start evacuating immediately!”

Leading Pigeon excitedly flapped his wings and said:

“We can airdrop flyers to Banks City, telling the innocents who will be affected about what’s happening here as quickly as possible, they have the right to know everything happening on their land.”

“The Torrent Knights will clear out a safe road for local residents to retreat to Torrent Fort!”

Typal said in a deep voice:

“We will maintain this ‘Road of Life’ starting now. Ah, I feel Stratholme’s tragedy is repeating in East Prussia. Fortunately, our situation hasn’t gotten as bad as back then yet. We must learn from Lord Uther’s failures!

We must take action immediately!

Here, time is life.”

“Hurry then.”

Lady Aqua put on a “hiding merit and fame” modest demeanor, she reminded:

“We must organize at least the first batch of innocents to evacuate before the Pioneer Army’s vanguard arrives, otherwise, this matter will be very difficult to get Marshal Loren’s agreement. But if we can make it an established fact, I guess that Short Marshal will have nothing to say except curse a few times.”

This priest of the Avalon God stood in the tragic cemetery looking around at the burning terrifying battlefield, she said softly:

“Those who claim to be protectors of Goldflower failed to fulfill their oath to the people and homeland, so don’t blame the brave ones who hold justice for exercising this power and duty in their place.”

————————

“What did you say? The Transian barbarians are sending our residents to their territory? This is taking advantage of a fire to loot!”

Several hours later, Marshal Loren at Pioneer Fortress received reports from his forward cavalry commander. Although his elite cavalry hurried as fast as they could, by the time they reached the border town it was already six hours after the incident.

According to the cavalry commander’s report, the Torrent Knights who came to support them had already organized two groups totaling 600 people to leave the disaster area in this extremely short time.

And thanks to the “efforts” of those winged vampires, people in more than a dozen nearby towns knew about the outbreak of the undead disaster, even Banks City was already in panic.

“I knew these Transian people harbored evil intentions!”

In the Marshal’s office, Marshal Loren was so angry he almost wanted to grab his battle axe and rush to Crimson Citadel to give Murphy a few cuts.

But he quickly calmed down.

He had to admit, there was nothing wrong with the Transians’ handling of the situation. When unable to quickly eliminate the undead problem, evacuating residents was the best solution.

But those bastards definitely allowed this process to progress, they knew very clearly what benefits they could obtain from there.

The Goldflower Kingdom had only held the East Prussia region for just over 2 years. For the past 400 years this had always been Portia Federation territory. Though the locals couldn’t be said to like the Transians, compared to the Goldflower Kingdom, many people would lean towards their “homeland compatriots.”

Marshal Loren could very easily imagine that once large-scale transfers and migrations began, there would definitely be many people voluntarily heading to Transia for refuge.

“In the current situation, I cannot forcibly stop them from privately crossing the border, but how can I let you so easily abduct His Majesty’s citizens?”

The half-dwarf Marshal narrowed his eyes, and in the rising thick smoke, he called his guards and ordered:

“Immediately inform all town mayors in East Prussia, especially the city hall of Banks City, about the news that the Black Plague will break out in 3 months. Make it clear to those fat-headed fellows that the first wave of the Black Plague’s invasion will break out in Transia.

At the same time, order the newly formed recruit battalions to move towards Malo Town. I require them to completely eliminate the remaining undead creatures on that land before the Black Plague breaks out!

Ah, Transia!

Anything related to that cursed place is always so terrible. I really should have… ah, missed the chance, what a pity.”