[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela":3,"chapter-exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-chapter-97":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","Exiled from the Start and Dominating the Wasteland with an Intelligence System",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1688697,2155,"Chapter 97 : Chapter 97","exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-chapter-97",97,"\u003Cp>Chapter 97. Blood on the Walls, the Beginning of Collapse\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Leading his five hundred-plus desperadoes, men driven by greed and savagery, Caphis surged beneath Lucerne City’s towering walls in mere moments.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Caphis grinned broadly, his eyes filled with nothing but naked lust for conquest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had ambitions of his own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He meant to do this for real.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he could take Lucerne City, the wealth inside would be enough for him to live in ease for half his life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The reason he had accepted this seemingly disadvantageous bait mission was precisely because he had his eye on this once-in-a-lifetime chance to break a city on his own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the walls, Brandon’s white-haired, white-bearded figure stood as steady as a mountain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His eyes were fixed on the enemies below, swarming forward like ants, calculating the distance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The instant the foremost attackers entered effective bow range—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Loose arrows—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“WHIZZ! WHIZZ! WHIZZ—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A dense rain of arrows shrieked through the air as it poured down from behind the battlements.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Raise your shields! Hold the line, damn you!” Caphis snarled with a grin, swinging the slab-like greatsword in his hand across his body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some of the better-equipped veterans around him also raised their mismatched shields.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The clanging of impacts rang out without end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Caphis’s aim did not stop there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the instant of chaos as the arrow rain descended, a savage gleam flashed through his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His left hand, infused with battle aura, shot out like lightning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He actually snatched a feathered arrow out of the air by force, catching it just as its momentum began to fade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the next instant, the muscles in his arm bulged as Silver-tier battle aura poured madly into the shaft.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That ordinary arrow instantly became as hard as forged steel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Grinning viciously, he twisted at the waist and hurled his arm forward like a catapult.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Die for me—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thud!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A soldier on the wall who had just leaned forward to draw his bow froze abruptly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The terrifying “javelin” punched straight through his chest, and with a scream he toppled backward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“OHHHHHHH—!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Caphis! Caphis!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The desperadoes below witnessed this horrifying scene and instantly erupted into thunderous cheers and howls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shouting wildly, they braved the thinning arrow rain and slammed one crude but sturdy siege ladder after another against Lucerne City’s cold stone walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing the fallen soldier, Brandon’s brows drew tight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He shouted sharply, “Stones! Logs! Fire oil! Throw it all down! Don’t let them climb up!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes, sir!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Grinding their teeth, the defenders on the wall heaved down the prepared stones and rolling logs with all their might.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clay jars of burning fire oil were lit, trailing black smoke as they smashed into the climbing attackers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“AAAAH—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My leg!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Piercing screams rang out, and the rebels’ surging momentum faltered for a moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Watching the enemy fall like dumplings dropping into boiling water, the defenders erupted in cheers, their morale soaring.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it! Useless trash!” Forced back several steps by a rolling log and splattered with mud and ash, Caphis cursed furiously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wiped the filth from his face with one hand, and the vicious light in his eyes only grew fiercer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What are you afraid of? How many stones and logs can they have? Keep putting up the ladders!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Charge up there! Once you’re on the wall, everything inside is yours to plunder!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He knew his men all too well.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They came from that barren land around Skars, where even grass struggled to grow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Their bones were carved with a mad hunger for resources and the ruthless, desperate nature of men who gambled with their lives.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fear?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before such enormous temptation, it was instantly replaced by something even more violent and bestial.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Kill—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Grab the gold! Grab the grain! Grab the women!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Driven red-eyed by Caphis’s roar and promises, the desperadoes howled and charged again, stepping over the bodies and screams of their comrades as they threw themselves at the siege ladders with even greater frenzy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A brutally vicious tug-of-war over the city walls erupted in full beneath Lucerne City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Time passed amid flying flesh and blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Caphis swung his greatsword like a maddened rhinoceros as he supervised the battle below the walls, hacking down several of his own men who had tried to retreat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He stared upward at the battlements.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The defenders’ resistance was weak, yet it remained stubborn.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The losses among his own men had also become shocking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In less than half an hour, nearly a hundred corpses and shrieking wounded already littered the ground below the walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it!” A wave of agitation rose in Caphis’s chest. “Can’t this hard bone really be cracked?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had originally believed that with his men’s desperation, breaking this hollowed-out city would be as easy as turning over a hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reality, however, had struck him hard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The defenders’ tenacity far exceeded his expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Damn it! One last wave! Charge with me!” Caphis’s eyes had gone completely bloodshot as the thought of staking everything overwhelmed him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gripping the blood-smeared greatsword in both hands, he strode toward one of the siege ladders and let out a thunderous roar at the hesitant men behind him:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brothers! Follow me! The city is right there before us!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Kill your way up, and the mountains of gold and silver inside will all be ours! Kill—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“KILL!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Caphis’s act of charging at the front personally reignited the rebels’ last remnants of madness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Howling, they followed close behind him and once again surged toward the city wall like a tide.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In a few strides, Caphis reached the base of a siege ladder. Pouring his High-Silver Tier battle aura into his legs, he kicked off fiercely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His massive body was astonishingly agile, like an ape’s, and in only a few bounds he had climbed several meters up the ladder.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Using both hands and feet, he scrambled upward, and after only a few breaths, that savage head of his suddenly thrust above the battlements.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hahaha! Break for me—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Laughing wildly, Caphis threw his weight upward and hauled his hulking body onto the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His heavy greatsword swept out with a terrifying howl of wind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In an instant, it smashed two defenders who had thrust their spears toward him, sending both men and weapons flying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He planted himself firmly atop the wall, greatsword held across his body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His savage gaze swept over the defenders around him, who for a moment did not dare step forward, and an utterly bloodthirsty and arrogant grin spread across his face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Come on! Who else wants to die? I’ll gladly grant—”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The word “it” never left his mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A figure even more tightly coiled than Caphis stepped out from the shadows on the inner side of the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was Buck, the Gold-Tier Knight who had been watching the battle all along.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wasted movement. No shouted challenge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The seemingly ordinary knight’s longsword in Buck’s hand turned into a black bolt that tore through the air the instant Caphis cried out in arrogance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Slash—!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like a blade slicing through cheese.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The grin on Caphis’s face froze instantly, and the arrogance in his eyes was replaced by boundless shock and confusion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He felt only a chill at his throat, followed by a terrifying force beyond all resistance punching straight through his neck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His huge body went rigid.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He lowered his head in disbelief, trying to see what had happened.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But darkness swiftly swallowed his vision. He opened his mouth, but only a leaking rasp came out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Caphis’s tower-like body swayed, and the light in his eyes went out completely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Filled with endless shock and unwillingness, he toppled backward like a felled pillar and crashed down from the towering wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>BOOM—!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A heavy impact sounded below the wall, followed by the clear crack of breaking bones.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Silence fell over both the wall and the ground beneath it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether they were defenders or the rebel elites who had just followed Caphis onto the battlements, ready to hack and slaughter—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>all of them were stunned by the lightning-fast reversal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Caphis, who moments ago had looked like an invincible war god... had just died like that?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The... the chief... is dead?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A rebel underling stared at the twisted corpse below the wall and screamed in a broken voice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The chief is dead!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Lord Caphis has been killed!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Panic spread among the rebels atop the wall and the attackers below like a plague.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The frenzied morale that Caphis had forced back to life was like a fire doused with a basin of icy water—it collapsed in an instant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the crude command platform hastily erected at the rear stood Caphis’s adjutant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had watched with his own eyes the entire process—Caphis being killed in an instant, then his corpse falling from the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A chill shot straight into his brain, and his scalp went numb at once.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No!” the adjutant shrieked at the top of his lungs. “Withdraw! Fall back! All units, retreat immediately! Now—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he roared, he frantically waved the signal flag in his hand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Had they achieved their purpose of luring out the enemy?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They themselves had become the true bait—the bait that was about to be devoured!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The rebel elites who had followed Caphis onto the wall were the closest of all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sight of Caphis being killed in a single strike had utterly shattered their will.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment they heard the adjutant’s hoarse order to retreat and saw the signal flag waving, they clutched at it like a lifeline.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How could they still care about fighting?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They threw down their weapons at once, weeping and wailing as they turned and slid down the siege ladders, some even leaping straight off the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The soldiers below had originally still been climbing upward with all their strength, but the moment they heard the screams ordering retreat, they all froze in confusion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet when they saw those fearsome “big brothers” on the battlements—men who were usually so ferocious—fleeing in utter disgrace like beaten dogs...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>and when they saw Caphis’s corpse lying below the wall, his eyes still open in death...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>every trace of confusion was instantly replaced by boundless terror.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Run—!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The chief is dead! Save yourselves!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The collapse of morale took only an instant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The remaining rebels were like a punctured skin of air, utterly stripped of all fighting spirit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The panicked crowd surged backward in chaos, trampling one another in numbers too great to count.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the very same instant that Caphis’s corpse struck the ground and the rebel army fell into total collapse, the massive, immensely heavy gates of Lucerne City creaked and groaned as the windlass turned, then swung inward with a crash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eli’s army, already drawn up and waiting behind the gates, saw clearly the backs of the rebels outside—chaotic, disorderly, and fleeing wildly with their backs turned.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clad in black armor, Eli sat astride his warhorse at the very front of the formation, his white hair stirring lightly in the morning wind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his hand, Silver was raised high.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Open the gates! Advance—!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“KILL—!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The battle intent and killing intent that had been building for so long erupted in full at that moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The knights, who had long since been on edge with impatience, drove their heels into their horses’ flanks and spurred the restless warhorses beneath them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A dark-gold torrent burst forth at the front!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ron charged first, and behind him the ninety-six Golden Lion Knights poured out of the gate tunnel at once like a moving golden fortress.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Close behind came the forty Black Crow Knights under Buck, like a black storm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And after them came four hundred Black Territory elites who had long since rested and prepared themselves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That steel torrent, carrying overwhelming might, crashed straight toward the backs of the fleeing rebels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside the gates, the routed rebel soldiers had been crying and screaming, wishing only that they had two more legs to help them run faster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When they heard the terrifying roar behind them, like mountains collapsing and seas surging, they instinctively turned their heads.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What entered their eyes, filled with utter horror, was the open city gate—and within it, a terrifying army drawn up in ranks as orderly as a forest of steel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was golden armor blazing beneath the sunlight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The screams of despair instantly drowned out every other cry and sound of confusion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The... the Golden Lion Knights?!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“They were inside the city all along!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“RUN—!!!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The last remnants of their will to resist shattered completely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only one thought remained in the minds of every routed rebel soldier—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Run.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Use every last ounce of strength and flee desperately toward the direction of the reinforcements.\u003C\u002Fp>",2104,"2026-06-06T13:50:45.844Z",1,"novelbin.me","0e9372c588fa0351b488519df0928006cf7cdee8c1f2417a117ea1d31e346e01","exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-chapter-98","exiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-chapter-96",112,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fexiled-from-the-start-and-dominating-the-wastela-cover.jpg"]