allonlinenovel Chapter 212 The dust has settled
Chapter 212 The dust has settled
While Haakon and others were wandering, the interior of the palace had already been in chaos. The servants were fleeing around in the palace, and whether in the magnificent conference hall or the narrow and deep corridors, there were figures of the Fire Dragon Knights fighting with members of the Shadow Hand Party. The floor was covered with blood and mutilated corpses, which was enough to prove the intensity of the war at that time.
In the conference room, Grunberudo swung the hammer in his hand and smashed the head of a Shadow Hand assassin in front of him. Then he looked at the assassins who were still rushing towards him with a serious look, shook off the blood and brain matter on the hammer, and said to himself:
"It's as annoying as a cockroach."
Edward and Sigel also came from the main gate at this time. After seeing the battle in the conference hall, they immediately joined in with long swords in hand. Although the two did not have the strong physique like Gurenberudo, they had received training since childhood and had mastered extraordinary swordsmanship after years of desperate fighting.
The two men were seen standing on the left and the right, wielding long swords and launching fatal attacks again and again on the assassins who dared to attack. With their superb swordsmanship and nimble body movements, the assassins, who were originally outnumbered, were unable to break through the defense line due to the cooperation of the two men, and could only rely on their numerical advantage to stalemate with the two men.
Thanks to the efforts of the two, the battle in the rest of the hall was quickly ended with the help of Gulenberudo. Everyone gathered their forces and killed the only remaining assassin on the opposite side.
The assassins of the Shadow Hand Gang were not fools. They were assassins, not death warriors. When they saw that the situation was hopeless, they fled through the back door of the conference hall.
"You go chase those assassins, Sigur, Grunberudo, let's hurry and find Grand Duke Haakon." Seeing that the battle was over, Edward shouted to Grunberudo, then rushed towards Haakon's bedroom.
After a while, everyone came to the door. Looking at the closed door in front of them, Edward breathed rapidly. Holding the sword in one hand, he carefully grasped the door handle with the other hand and gently pushed the door open.
Just as the door was opened a crack, an assassin suddenly flashed out of the bedroom. He was holding a dagger and stabbed at Edward through the crack in the door.
Edward, who had been prepared, would certainly not let him succeed. After blocking the dagger with his sword, Edward kicked the door. The door flipped backwards and hit the assassin's head directly, causing the assassin to fall down involuntarily.
Seeing Edward being attacked, Grunberdo behind him immediately rushed into the bedroom with the knights and immediately held down the assassin who was about to get up.
Edward seemed not to have noticed the assassin and walked right past him. What caught his attention was Archduke Haakon lying on the bed.
At this time, Grand Duke Haakon had lost his former temperament of a grand duke. He became like a sloppy uncle, lying on his luxurious bed with his arms open. If his eyes had not occasionally blinked, Edward would have thought he was dead.
"Do you have anything else to say?" Edward said slowly, looking at the Grand Duke in front of him.
After a period of silence, Archduke Haakon opened his mouth slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he closed his mouth and shook his head.
"Snapped!"
A slap hit Archduke Haakon in the face. Edward raised the hand that was slapping Haakon, wiped it with a towel, and left the bedroom without looking back.
Seeing this, Grunberudo glanced at Grand Duke Haakon on the bed and chased after him. Seeing Edward standing silently outside the door, he could not help but stepped forward and asked:
"Is this the end?"
"Yeah, it's over."
Edward sighed softly, took a deep breath to calm himself down, and then said to Grunberdo:
"We can't kill Haakon yet. Everyone on the island will know what happened tonight in less than a day. The most important goal now is to control all the Nords before my brothers do. Then, I can explain this to Marshal John. With the endorsement of the French King's Office, my status as the Grand Duke will soon be recognized by the mainland countries."
"Then how do you explain what happened today?" Gulenberudo continued to ask. After all, today's conflict did not look like a small-scale assassination.
"Don't worry, I have my own arrangements. I will send a team of people to guard this place, and the others will come with me immediately to take over other military outposts in Nord City." After saying that, Edward walked out of the palace.
It was early in the morning and the sun rose as usual from the east of Nord City. The residents of the city had been hiding in their homes when the explosions were heard at night. When the residents of the houses on both sides of the main road opened their doors, a smell of blood wafted in from outside the doors.
The residents were shocked to find that the streets were full of Fire Dragon Knights and Guards, most of whom had blood on their weapons and armor. Although there were no corpses on the ground, it was not difficult to guess from the situation that the battle last night must have been very fierce.
Just when everyone was confused about the current situation, an army with a white flag and a black eagle came in from the gate of Nord. In the carriage in the middle of the team, John looked at the situation outside and couldn't help but sighed:
"As expected, the most brutal wars often occur in internal fights among one's own people. They either cause the greatest casualties or have the greatest impact."
Pros said:
"What should we do next? What should we say when the Dharma King's Office asks about this?"
"Just follow the plan." John paused, then continued:
"Because the Nords suffered a sudden attack by the cultists, Archduke Haakon was injured and unable to handle government affairs. According to his wishes, the title of Archduke Grant will be passed on to his son Edward, and the remaining cultists will be burned at the stake. What do you think of this?"
Seeing that John had made his own decision, Pross dared not say no and could only nod yes repeatedly.
The carriage soon arrived at the palace gate. John got off the carriage and led the White Wolf Knights into the palace. At the palace gate, Edward and his party had been waiting there. When he saw John coming, Edward stepped forward and stretched out his hand and said:
"Marshal John, thank you for helping us maintain the stability of Nord."
After holding Edward's hand, John asked in a slightly sad tone:
"No, no, but how is Archduke Haakon's condition?"
"It's not too good at the moment. Let's go inside and talk about the specific situation." Edward said as he took John into a room in the palace. After the door was closed, besides Edward, Grunberdo and Shiger, there were only John and several White Wolf Knights in the room.
After entering the room, John changed his previous expression, sat on the sofa and asked Edward:
"Is everything settled?"
"Everything that needed to be resolved has been resolved. Now the entire Nord city is under my control. The Archbishop also recognized my status as Grand Duke after my 'persuasion', and my brothers voluntarily gave up their titles after my 'reasoning'." Edward said truthfully.
John nodded after listening, and then congratulated:
"Then I congratulate Duke Edward and hope that you can lead the Grand Duchy of Grant to prosperity as soon as possible."
After hearing John's congratulations, everyone present breathed a sigh of relief. As long as John agreed, all foreign countries would listen to the words of the French King's Expeditionary Force Marshal, and the potential external threat would be resolved.
"Oh, right." John suddenly said:
"Do you have any pagan items or anything like that? After all, the purpose of my coming here is to eliminate the cultists. If there are no cult items, I may not be able to complete my mission."
"That's easy. I'll send people to dig out some items from the assassins' base right away, and then you can hand them over to the French King's Office." Edward assured John after listening.
"No, no, no, what I mean is, are there some strange, unreasonable items that are more representative of cults?" John explained to Edward in detail after denying it.
"Is it strange?"
Just as Edward was thinking about where to find this kind of thing for John, Grunberdo beside him interrupted as if he had thought of something:
"Marshal John, do you think this will work?" He then took out a black stone from his pocket. When the stone was fully displayed in front of everyone, Edward and Higel beside him couldn't help but gasp: the stone actually had human facial features!
"This was taken out from the tiger's belly in the Yoda concentration camp. I thought it was strange so I put it in my pocket." After Gulenberudo finished speaking, he suddenly felt something strange in his mind, as if a thread was broken, but the feeling disappeared after a moment.
"This kind of thing will do." John picked up the Behelet and put it in his pocket, then continued:
"There is also the issue of the local sea bears. I have a solution. That is to bring these people back with me to Chusda or the South Grant Islands. This way, there will be no loss and they can continue to live a stable life. What do you think?"
Originally, Gulenberudo was still worried about his people. After hearing what John said, although he was sad that his people were about to leave this land, at least they saved their lives, which was better than being killed by the French King's Office when they landed on the island.
Seeing that everything was almost done, John ordered Flamar to take his men to deal with the relocation of the sea bears, while he took his army back to the mainland by boat. After several weeks of travel, he finally returned to the Earl's Castle in early summer.
However, when John was about to take a break to deal with documents, Matilda walked into John's bedroom with some letters.
"John, take a look at these letters. The civil servants in the territory said they have no way to deal with them."
"Oh?" John changed his previous laziness after hearing it, and hurriedly sat down at the desk with the letters to read through them. Finally, when he finished reading the last letter, John's expression changed from calm to solemn, and then he slowly said:
"It looks like things are heading in a bad direction."