"It's simple. I will leave you with the fifty cavalrymen I brought. They have all been personally trained by ladies and have rich theoretical and practical experience. They will assist you in rebuilding the entire army." Catherine naturally did not refuse. reason.
This may be a kind of training for them. They have no experience in organizing such a large-scale army, and they need to learn many things.
"That's all for now. If there are other issues, we will communicate and negotiate in time." Gavin nodded with satisfaction.
This kind of mutually beneficial business is the best to negotiate, because the interests of both parties are different. In many cases, not only do they not conflict but they complement each other.
Afterwards, everyone had to discuss the situation in Ivanso. Darnell, August and Erdan had very little room to intervene. Their origins determine that they are better at small-scale elite operations. , especially the paladins of the Hammer of Justice. Not to mention a war of this scale, many of them have never even seen dozens of paladins dispatched. What they mainly listen to is the analysis of Ms. Strategy's first choice, Catherine.
“This war between you and Ivanso is no longer just a matter of one city and one place, but involves the entire Dragon Coast, involving all the cities and forces here.
If you lose the war with Ivanso, the mercenaries from those cities will surround you like jackals and eat all your bones.
If they win, it will be the moment when they are completely united. Not only will they not allow you to continue to attack the city, they will not even allow you to stay here any longer. This is driven by their common interests.
But at that time, whether it is war or peace, the initiative is in your hands. "Catherine, as the first choice of Ms. Strategist, is definitely not a boast. She looks at the entire situation with a gaze that is half a level higher than Catherine and Veranika. Although it has something to do with the changes in the situation, the analysis is indeed convincing. .
Gavin couldn't help but ask: "How to maximize the benefits of war? What should we do with peace?"
"Once you choose to fight, your migration journey will end here. After capturing Ivanso, you must push the army to the city of Boscu as quickly as possible. No matter what the cost, you must use the fastest speed to conquer this city. Take it down at speed.
Only in this way can we avoid being attacked from both sides and manage this place for a long time.
Since you are swallowing up the big with a small one, if you want to completely digest Bosku and Ivanso, you will need at least five years. During this period, you can only defend but not attack, because no matter how much you occupy, There is no way to digest the cities and land.
Under your strong pressure, all the cities on the Dragon Coast will break from their previous state of separation, enter a state of alliance merger, and form a coalition to fight against you.
If you want to annex the entire Dragon Coast, you must make a century-old plan, because by that time, the Kingdom of Cormyr and Sembia will never sit idly by and ignore it. Even if they do not directly send troops, they will secretly make trouble, because they both We don’t want an aggressive nascent empire appearing at close range.
All of this is based on your victory everywhere. Once there is a big defeat, it will be the moment when you all betray your relatives, because to the people of the Dragon Coast, you are out-and-out invaders. There is no mass base here, and your current allies may turn their backs on you then. "
Under Catherine's dismantling, everyone seemed to see the rise and fall of an empire over a century. This is the inevitable development trend of a force under normal circumstances.
"If there is peace, you will have to continue on the migration path as originally planned, but you can use war as a threat to exchange benefits within their tolerance from those forces who are eager to drive you away, such as a part of the population. Such as limited supplies and so on.
They will not allow you to retain the right to rule the city here, or even allow you to leave a military organization larger than a mercenary group or a caravan.
But you can choose local forces that are close to you and hand over the dominance of Ivanso to them in exchange for certain privileges and benefits. "
After Gavin finished listening, he nodded repeatedly and said: "After listening to the lady's analysis, I have a clearer understanding of the way to go next. I know what I should do, and I am ready to surrender to the necromancer. , what do you think, madam?”
"This kind of personal situation is not easy to judge." Catherine conservatively replied, "It doesn't make much sense. Your previous plan was very complete. You will know if it is a trap or not."
"Okay, I'll go meet this death viper myself and see if what she exposes is the fangs or the deadly seven inches." Gavin no longer hesitated.
Although the two support teams are not large in size, they account for nearly half of them with extraordinary troops.
There is one legend and two quasi-legends inside.
The hobgoblins of Blood Gorge City also selected three thousand elites, all pressed to the edge of the Giant Plains, and they could rush out with just one order from him.
In terms of military strength, they already have an absolute advantage, and their winning rate has completely shifted to them. It depends on how they fight to minimize their own losses.
Rather than a miserable victory, Gavin now pursues a glorious victory like the one that wiped out the Troll Kingdom.
I hope Grace is this opportunity for me.
The meeting place that Grace chose was Warehouse Hills, an abandoned warehouse not far from Ivanso.
Her way of delivering information was very unique. The summoned ghost she dispatched delivered the message to the designated personnel and was dismissed on the spot.
This means that there is no possibility of the information being leaked, and Gavin and the others have no way to pass the information back to Grace. They can only go to the designated place at the time designated by her.
There is basically no fault tolerance. Failure in any link will lead to the failure of the rebellion.
This is also the reason why Gavin and the others speculated that Grace might have rebelled. After all, as a trap, the success rate is a bit too Buddhist. If you prepare for a long time, Gavin may not have received your information at all, or in other words, Gavin and the others Just ignore it.
Gavin secretly arrived at the location designated by the opponent in advance, and carefully scouted the place inside and out, but found nothing unusual. It was not even a good ambush site, and there was not enough place to hide troops around it. There is no magic fluctuation.
The only thing that can be used is the teleportation tactic, sending a wave of elite soldiers to surround and kill Gavin.
But the problem is that not prohibiting teleportation not only means that Gavin can also use teleportation tactics to send elite soldiers over on a large scale. If it doesn't work, they will run away with just one teleportation, and their plan will also fail.
Or is that death viper really going to betray his teacher? Or is it to divert themselves and their elite soldiers away from the conqueror's army, where they plan to use troops?
But the undead have never been known for their reaction speed. The space they marched through was enough for them to return to the army with their elite troops.
Their poisoning tactics were useless. The chariot village where the conqueror's army was located was shrouded in a temporary nine-ring fog barrier. Teleportation, invisibility, and flying were prohibited. This was Raymond's handiwork, originally planned to be used on the dwarf statue. The city's fog barrier was used here first. In order to ensure the safety of the entire army of conquerors, no one can be too careful. As an insurance measure, hundreds of thousands of spellcasting materials are not a waste in this case.
As the appointment time got closer and closer, Gavin put all the messy thoughts out of his mind and quickly armed himself to the teeth. Even his extraordinary body was turned on, which made it easier for him to sense magic fluctuations, which was the only thing the opponent could do. The direction of the hands and feet.
The moment the appointed time arrived, Gavin felt a wave of magic power in the direction of the abandoned warehouse. It was not too violent, and it was still an unusually familiar negative energy.
A figure appeared out of thin air not far away. Just from his body shape, Gavin could recognize it at a glance. It was Grace, the Ivanso envoy who had been in contact with him several times.
No, it's not Grace herself, but a shadow clone formed by condensed negative energy.
This is projection.
That's not right. Projection is a misleading illusion performed at close range. It is mainly used for detection or misdirection. If she arrives in person, is there any need to do this?
Or is this a variant of projection, capable of long-distance projection control?
Gavin did not dare to neglect, and after confirming again that there was no other abnormality, he quickly ran towards Grace's projection. The duration of this spell usually did not last too long.
Although it was just a projection, Gavin could read a lot of information from her body movements.
After finding that there was no one around, she was disappointed and relieved at the same time. She didn't show too much anxiety, but when she saw Gavin running towards her, she became nervous and hesitant again.
When he was still more than ten meters away from Grace's projection, Gavin stopped and his eyes fell involuntarily on the foot of her projection. It was an inconspicuous bluestone, with waves of magic power coming from it.
Obviously this is the opponent's projection anchor point, which is a new type of spell that combines preset phantom and projection techniques.
Grace Projection said with a complicated expression: "I didn't expect that Lord Lord would have the courage to come to the meeting. Aren't you afraid that this is a trap?"
"I didn't expect that you really wanted to defect. Can I ask why?" Gavin is now basically sure that this is not a trap, but that Grace really wants to take Ivanso and A. Mus was sold.
"Amus has gone completely crazy. He has set up a huge transformation circle in Ivanso. Once he is at a disadvantage in the war with you, he will activate the transformation circle and turn this place into a dead land. He is even preparing to To cause death disasters in major cities on the Dragon Coast is an out-and-out act of the devil. Even if I repel you, it will arouse the anger of the whole world. I have no interest in accompanying him to hell." Grace replied quickly.
Rather than trying to convince Gavin, it is better to say that she is confirming her intention to defect, because the second before she met Gavin, she was still in a state of hesitation. After all, the risk of this matter was too great, and the benefit to herself was too great. Small.
"So, you don't know the true face of your teacher Arms." Gavin sneered, not at all surprised by what Grace said.
For a normal person, even a necromancer, this approach is harmful to others and not beneficial to oneself, but for a devil, it is profitable.
He can harvest tens of thousands of innocent souls and drag them into hell to become his precious wealth.
"My teacher's true face?" Grace asked in surprise, "Isn't he a powerful necromancer? What other true face is there?"
"Do you know that the leader of the Basilisk Man Slave Trading Group who has been trading slaves with you is disguised as a Nadalun Evil Beast Ghost?" Gavin asked without answering.
"Chuck is a Nadalun evil beast ghost in disguise? Is there any evidence?" Grace's expression was uglier than eating feces. Although she is in a projection state now, what is inside is her true soul. Except for The appearance looks different from the real form, but otherwise it is the same.
"The real projection is proof." Gavin directly played the real projection of killing the Nadarun evil beast on the three-masted sailing ship to Grace. As for whether she believed this evidence, that was her business.
"You infer from this that my teacher is an Akchaza evil beast ghost in disguise?" Grace's projected expression was even more ugly. If the speculation is true, it means that she has been working with a demon in the past few years. , and acted as a collaborator, and might have been marked with the mark of the devil. If so, once he died, he would not enter the normal death process, but like the devil, his soul would be dragged directly into hell.
"The original inference was only 30 to 40% likely, but now it has increased to 60 to 70%." Gavin did not threaten him, because the other party was an out-and-out smart man, and as long as he had enough information, he would My own inference is more deterrent than what he said.
"Isn't it? Just kill it and you will know." Grace's projected expression was full of sternness, "Behind the abandoned warehouse behind me, there is a secret passage leading to the Ivanso Underground City. This is my I just discovered it during my recent underground investigation. No one in Ivanso knows about it except me.
I have buried Ivanso's dungeon layout in another location in advance. As long as you ensure my safety afterwards, I will not only hand over the layout to you immediately, but also find a way to destroy the transformation circle and the mystery lock, and ban Ah Muth's teleportation ability gives you the time and opportunity to kill him completely. "
Even if she surrenders, Grace is not aware of her conscience, it is purely for her own sake.
"If I agree to your terms so readily, I'm afraid you won't believe that I will keep my promise." Gavin knows these selfish and evil people very well. Besides himself, even his parents I don’t believe it, let alone an outsider’s promise, “I can give you another choice, I can help you cut off the mark of hell, but you must die once, and you will be transformed into a true shadow state, and you will be restricted from now on. Me, pledge allegiance to me.”
"How can I be sure that you have this ability?" Grace asked immediately.
Gavin's words spoke to her heart. There is still one biggest problem in the cooperation between the two parties, which is the problem of mutual trust. If this major premise cannot be solved, their cooperation may not be able to proceed smoothly.
Not only was he unable to trust Gavin, but Gavin and the others were also afraid that they could not fully trust him, an evil person.
On the contrary, the method Gavin mentioned is more feasible.
She just doesn't want to be dragged into hell and face an unknown fate. She doesn't particularly care about the human state and being inferior to others.
As long as he is alive, as long as he is in the material plane that he is familiar with, he has the confidence to change everything with his intelligence.
Moreover, serving under the famous conqueror seems to be a good choice. There will be many opportunities to use what you have learned.
It seemed that Grace had expected such a rhetorical question, and directly played a new real phantom to her. This was naturally about cutting off the soul of the six-armed snake demon and returning it to the abyss, transforming it into the six-armed snake demon Night Shadow.
Without giving Grace a chance to raise new questions, she directly launched the demon's true name summons. The next moment, a huge figure appeared in front of one person and one projection.
As always, the sword of the six-armed snake demon Yeying was faster than her mouth. The moment he appeared, the six swords were already slashing towards Grace's projection.
"Stop, this is an ally." Fortunately, Gavin was well prepared. When he summoned the six-armed snake demon, the designated location was a bit far away, and he immediately stopped.
Even so, the six-armed snake demon's six swords have already been placed on the neck of Grace's projection. If it had been a second later, it would have been enough to tear the projection into pieces.
"It's not a fight, why did you invite me here?" The six-armed snake demon glanced at Grace's projection with some disdain, and slid behind Gavin at a terrifying speed. She was not in the night shadow state now, but in the physical state.
Different abilities have different powers in the hands of different people.
In the hands of Estelle and Amanda, the ability to transform reality into reality only gave them the opportunity to be human again, and Daphne was just used as a weapon to seduce Gavin.
But in the hands of the six-armed snake demon, it turned into an extremely sharp weapon, which directly brought her strength to a new level, because this ability gave her two completely different fighting methods.
In the physical state, with her extraordinary body turned on, she possesses incomparable speed, even surpassing ordinary war horses. The faster the speed, the faster the killing speed will naturally be, especially when facing miscellaneous soldiers.
In the Night Shadow state, speed is exchanged for damage reduction and spell reduction capabilities that are richer than those of a main battle tank, and the attack ability is immediately upgraded to a new stage.
"Prove to her that I have the ability to cut off the devil's mark. As for fighting, don't worry, it won't be long before you have the opportunity to harvest a large number of high-quality souls." Gavin still maintains the highest respect for the biggest trump card in his hand. Yes, because the combat effectiveness exerted by the two attitudes is still very different between positivity and negativity.
(End of chapter)
