Chapter 396: Chapter 396: The Intruding Descender Who Ignores Rules and Distance

Meanwhile, the Kingdom’s army did engage in a brief skirmish, but the two sides just brushed past each other outside the city. It was evident that the Kingdom’s forces planned to rely on their tenfold superiority in numbers for an open-field battle. However, upon seeing those dozen or so giants, nearly thirty feet tall and wielding giant timbers some sixty to ninety feet long as weapons, the morale of the Kingdom’s army collapsed. Leaving some cannon fodder to cover the retreat, the main force fled immediately.

Just imagine what it feels like for ordinary people to see giants three stories tall; even the bravest knights would turn and run. The size difference was just too great; even the cannon fodder surrendered on the spot.

And so, without much of a fight, they took over the capitals of two provinces, and the Kingdom abandoned them outright.

In the wake of this, the two church armies pursued them relentlessly, and the commanders seized the opportunity to capture two more provinces in quick succession, stopping just at the border of the province where the Royal Capital was located.

Out of the fifteen provinces of the entire Kingdom, Lin Xiao had now taken control of seven.

The remaining seven provinces lay on the other side of the province containing the Royal Capital; to go there, one must first conquer the King City.

Upon receiving the battle reports, Lin Xiao decisively ordered his troops to hold their positions at the border and meanwhile, sent another thousand men over.

He speculated that the Holy God might be close to fully materializing.

Now utilizing a nearly infinite supply of resources, he grew rapidly without encountering any bottlenecks. The openness of the Plane to Transcendent beings was occurring faster than he expected. Currently, the Plane’s limitation on Superhuman Power would likely soon reach Legend status. By Lin Xiao’s estimation, as soon as the Plane could sustain Transcendent beings at Rank 8 Legend status, the Holy God would emerge.

Of course, the newly born Holy God would still be subject to Plane restrictions, and wouldn’t be too strong at first, and besides, the Neuer Kingdom wasn’t the headquarters of the Holy Church, so if the Holy God really did emerge, it wouldn’t be able to touch him immediately.

But once the Holy God was born, it would be able to bestow Divine Arts, and the Holy Church would see the emergence of Priests and other Extraordinary Professions.

Given the territory and foundation of the Holy Church, once restrictions were lifted, the pace at which its strength expanded would outstrip his own. By that time, defeating the Holy Church would be no simple feat.

Moreover, Lin Xiao had another significant concern; he feared the awakening Plane Will would designate the newly born Holy God as its agent, essentially acting as a Child of Plane.

Yet that wasn’t even the worst-case scenario; his greatest fear was that the awakening Plane Will would directly use the newly born Holy God as its Incarnation and take over its divine body. That would be troublesome.

With the Plane Will manifesting itself, they would effectively be contending with the entire Plane. Just the repulsion from the Plane was enough of a problem for them, not to mention the onslaught from the entire Plane.

Therefore, he had to make even more preparations. The key was to ascend to become a Totem Lord before the Holy God fully mastered its Divine Power. Only as a Totem Lord, bestowed with privileges by the Crystal Wall Universe, could he stand against the Plane Will.

The Neuer Kingdom most likely knew of this as well, and so both sides, in a tacit understanding, faced off across the two provinces without crossing the boundaries.

An unofficial ceasefire lasted less than three days when Lin Xiao convened a secret meeting with his subordinates. The very next day, Afonso dispatched a massive host of Messengers to all the lords, both large and small, within his seven provinces, ordering them to gather at the Dyer Life Cathedral.

During the meeting, Afonso formally announced several significant decisions, which included the establishment of a duchy with the current seven provinces and the reduction of lordly powers.

The establishment of the duchy was mainly for centralization, to better coordinate the land and troops.

The reduction of lordly powers focused on three aspects: military, minting, and legal powers—the withdrawal of military forces from the lords, prohibition against establishing large private armies, disallowance of private minting of currency, and the abolishment of all local laws in favor of unified laws.

Most lords agreed to the establishment of the duchy, as he was already the de facto ruler of the seven provinces and thus qualified to create a duchy.

However, the proposal to reduce the lords’ powers met with opposition from all lords in attendance; one hundred percent unequivocally opposed it.

This opposition, of course, was futile. Afonso had already been preparing while summoning them.

When negotiations broke down, the Church and Afonso’s already dispatched forces acted simultaneously—first, detaining all the assembled lords and then disarming the localities, either by force or other means.

There were some disturbances, but without any lord in command, resistance from various localities was sporadic and quickly suppressed.

Afonso did not strip the domestic lords of their territories. He simply disarmed their forces, removed superfluous checkpoints within territories, confiscated most of the independent rights and some strategic resource ownership, and restricted the territories from forming new armies.

Surely, this action would breed resentment among the lords, but bereft of military power, they had no means to rebel.

Plus, he did not go to extremes; he did not cancel the privileges of the lords, only their military rights, and they still retained the authority to maintain a limited number of guards. As a result, most of the nobility, who held no great ambitions, had little reaction to this decision, and such lords constituted the majority.

Furthermore, under Lin Xiao’s guidance, Afonso established a surveillance department to monitor all the significant lords. Any sign of abnormality would lead to arrest and direct stripping of territory.

As time passed and they gradually integrated their new territory, two months later, Afonso declared the establishment of Afonso Duchy, with Dier City as its capital, and recognized the Church of Life and Wisdom as the state religion.

At the same time, four Children of Nightmare united to defeat the combined forces of the Church’s Knights and the local Great Lord in Om Province, on the other side of the Kingdom, capturing Possa City. Centering on Possa City, they swiftly quelled any dissenters, aiming to seize the entire province.

Half a month later, in the neighboring Ghana Province, three Children of the Spirit Realm also united to mobilize all their forces to launch an attack on the capital of Ghana Province.

The troops arrived at the city, and after a brief rest, they began their siege.

Eight days later, the news of the Children of the Spirit Realm’s defeat reached Lin Xiao’s hands, and he read the report in silence.

An hour later, Afonso appeared in the cathedral with several holy knights. He handed them the report and said in a deep voice,

“Our advantage is gradually disappearing, and once they are ready, they will pose a greater threat to us. We need…”

His finger pointed towards a certain direction on the sand table inside the hall…

“Boom!”

One after another, giants standing ten meters tall and clad in steel plate armor thicker than red bricks, carrying boulders as large as houses, rushed towards the city walls through the rain of arrows. They swung the massive rocks down fiercely, smashing more than a dozen gaps in the walls. The troops behind them flooded in, killing their way into the city.

The city’s defenders fell into despair when the Marshal of the Kingdom was captured by two holy knights who had broken into the city. They declared their surrender, and Possa City fell. The main forces of the kingdom that had been drawn from various places over the past few months, amounting to nearly 19,000, surrendered.

The news spread, and the kingdom was shaken. Another line of defense’s Church Knight Order hastily retreated to the Royal Capital.

The most tangible feedback was that Afonso secretly met with many special envoys that evening.

Five days later, the Great Lords of the three provinces united the small lords to announce the expulsion of the Holy Church and their secession from the Neuer Kingdom to join the Afonso Duchy.

At this time, the military forces of the churches in those provinces had been called away earlier, leaving almost no strength behind, otherwise, they would not have dared to do so.

Thus, of the fifteen provinces of the kingdom, ten were now held by the Afonso Duchy.

The Children of Nightmare had taken one, leaving only four for the Neuer Kingdom.

And these four were also in internal turmoil, with the pro-war faction and the surrender faction clashing with each other, creating chaos.

At this time, the main forces of the Afonso Duchy were already at the gates of Neuer Kingdom’s King City, facing off against the kingdom’s last forces, led by the Church knights. As for the other provinces, most of their military strength had surrendered in the previous battle, and with the internal chaos, they were unable to send reinforcements to support the King City.

Below Neuer King City, there lay a large camp established by 25,000 elite soldiers. With 5,000 main troops and another 20,000 prisoners who had not participated in the battle located behind the camp, fifty giants standing ten meters tall and wearing thick plate armor stood within the camp, exerting immense psychological pressure on the soldiers on the walls.

It wasn’t just that they’d never seen such enormous giants before. Although legends of ancient giants and giant beasts slain by powerful holy knights abound in mythological texts, those were just legends. Seeing such creatures in reality, in such numbers, and crazily clad in full-body armor thicker than paving tiles, including faceplates, made them scream in horror. Even with unwavering faith and the calming effect of Priest’s Divine, their morale was at rock bottom.

Yes, priests had recently emerged in the Holy Church.

It was after receiving news from the Children of the Spirit Realm who attacked Ghana City, that priests appeared in the defending Holy Church during the battle, displaying Divine Arts, thus sparking astonishing fighting spirit and morale, which allowed them to hold off several elite Children of the Spirit Realm and defeat them.

It was upon receiving this message that Lin Xiao didn’t dare to slowly digest his existing territories any longer. He launched a surprise attack, capturing the kingdom’s main forces, and swiftly marched to the gates of King City.

It was now certain that the Holy God had been born, but he was too far from the Neuer Kingdom, and since he resided permanently in Dyer City, there were no followers of the Holy Church here for him to sense his birth immediately.

Luckily, he had only just been born, barely able to grant Divine Arts, and there were not yet many priests who really mastered them. There was still a chance.

The army rested briefly before marching out of the camp. Twenty giants clad in thick armor strode out of the city, their heavy steps enveloping a terrifying pressure toward the city walls.

The morale of the defenders on the walls plummeted, even that of the knights of the Holy Church.

Though they were devout believers, such devotion proved useless against these formidable giants.

Several priests from the Holy Church climbed to the top of the walls, exhibiting Divine Arts to boost morale, and although it was just simple Blessing Art, it indeed inspired the soldiers.

Upon seeing this, Lin Xiao let out a light chuckle and stepped out into midair, immediately causing a stir.

Although the revival of Spiritual Energy had introduced signs of the Transcendent, up until now, no one had been able to fly on their own, making this feat quite miraculous.

But this wasn’t the most miraculous thing—of course, that would be…

He took out a book the size of a door, made of pure gold, opened it and began to chant. The book’s pages, shimmering with the texture of gold, flipped swiftly to a certain page. He gestured, and a ball of golden light coalesced from the page, slowly lifting into a glowing sphere.