947 Bloody Battle at Lonestar Part 2 (1/2)

The pope no longer had any mind to spare for other matters and went straight to talk with the three great head inquisitors of the tribunal. Fifty-thousand elite wardens and a large number of black-robed high priests were mobilized, before the head inquisitors had a grip on what was going on.

The pivotal council did not lack for high priests, but a considerable number of the high priests in the war were tasked with propagating the faith in the church to stabilize the rear. That was different from how things were usually done. Famine broke out within the Tanggulasi Empire. The nobles' support for the war was low and nobody was willing to offer food supplies.

The army of the tribunal was independent from the Holy Army's chain of command, and it was a sign of splintering within the Holy See. The splintering was only postponed indefinitely due to the holy war taking place. Unless the Holy See was able to unite the mainland, the tribunal was reluctant to go on with such internal friction.

Declaring war against the vassal duchies of the Cloudflow Empire was a show of the tribunal wanting a piece of the cake. The plan with Titan Duchy went bust however, when the pope went negotiating with the Cloudflow people, and the tribunal was without saying, reluctant to just halt the war.

The case with Lonestar City had the pope swiftly reaching a deal with the tribunal. The pope was still in command of the line at the Qin borders. The two-hundred elites scrambled by the tribunal moved at the rear of the front lines, making their way straight for Laiyin Duchy.

While the tribunal had mobilized two-hundred-thousand elites in name, there were actually fifty-thousand Blood Knights and one-hundred-thousand Savior Army troops mobilized beside the declared two-hundred-thousand. The total count of the mobilized army to Lonestar City was three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong.

The Holy See gained control of most of Kroraina. The highways within Kroraina were advanced, and the three-hundred and fifty-thousand strong army was able to march at the rate of over six-hundred miles per day almost every day. Such a speed would have been deemed to be fast in Tanggulasian standards. When Saleen was back recuperating at Metatrin City, the army of the tribunal had almost reached Lonestar City.

The Holy See was able to do little about the spies planted by Lex at the northern defense line at the north of Bitterwater prefecture. The spies who remained in Kroraina informed Daliang City of the mobilization of tribunal forces, which Daliang City delivered to Metatrin City in turn. Saleen had no choice but to start fretting over things upon hearing the news.

It was a pity that both the Kingdom of Metatrin and Bitterwater prefecture did not have such strength in numbers. Mobilization of a one-hundred-thousand strong army was something that neared the limit of their forces. He was required to also leave behind some of his forces to guard against any attacks from the sea as well as the area surrounding Huoxing City. The army in Daliang City was also unable to simply wade through all those obstacles to aid Lonestar City.

Saleen knew well that the two-hundred-thousand strong mobilized by the tribunal was just the beginning. He had never expected the Holy See to move against Lonestar City. He had no choice but to think of something to crush the massive invading force.

It was a certainty that he had attracted the attention of the Holy See. Pope Theisio would not mobilize such a large force from the tribunal otherwise. Saleen had learned a great deal from Nicholas and was very clear of the relationship between the tribunal and the pivotal council and knew well that such a course of action meant that the Holy See had begun seeing him to be more than just some king of some small kingdom.

Saleen had no choice but mobilize two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers from Metatrin City when his army set up camp.

The metal flyers were also something reverse-engineered by the Sregl Island mages. The flyers differed from the metal flying monsters of the grand duke in the sense that their means of assault laid within their alchemy crossbows, which made them resemble the Wings of an Elf in that case. The metal flyers carried large amount of bolts and were heavy, and their defensive capacity was inferior to the Wings of an Elf's.

Not even sorcerers would not have approached the metal flyers without hesitation being strafed by the alchemy crossbow bolts. Having sorcerers bringing the flyers along when attacking enemies would have increased survivability exponentially.

Subtle changes were seen in the rules of the war. Professionals began to fight amongst the common people. The rules established painstakingly by Alchemy City were utterly broken, and no one cared about the city's opinion in that.

It was fortunate that the power of the mainland was seeing exponential increase and yet the number of sorcerers remained few and far between. The rate of swordsman advancing to swordmasters grew by more than ten times, and the rate of mages advancing into the ranks of grand mages was also increased by more than three times. The threshold at advancement into sorcerer rank however, did not see many changes.

Sorcerers serving under Saleen were basically based in Metatrin City. Newly developed sorcerers were handpicked by Jason and sent into Six Element Space of interdimensional spaces. All sorcerers qualified for such treatment shared two specific traits: first of all, they were trustworthy mages. Second, they were of average talent, and had no hope of ever advancing into grade-10.

Mages of better talents were all told to remain behind with Jason and were sent into towers of sorcerers. Their rates of advancement were sped up by using massive amounts of magic nuclei.

While the Six Element Space was a good place on its own, it was nonetheless somewhere ancient mages used to perform alchemy. Speeding up the rate at advancing to grade-9 was but a convenient byproduct. Such methods of advancement were less than ideal, as the understanding of rules and soul power would have proven difficult when advancing to grade-10.

The very reason why Saleen mobilized two-hundred Wings of an Elf and one-hundred metal flyers was because there were still too few sorcerers around. Such flying devices proved very useful still at killing infantry.