Chapter 285

After hearing the deputy's solemn account, not to mention the alliance's core members who had been watching the whole time, even Ke Li Si Ting, the party involved, was almost convinced.

Saying she is stupid is only relative to the beasts of the three Inner City families; since she wants to take over a magpie's nest, she naturally investigated beforehand the power structure inside the Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance.

Thus she showed no expression, nor did she use any rhetoric, but directly asked bluntly.

"Heh, you? Everyone knows you are Fei En's confidant; what is your purpose in doing this, lurking, waiting to stab me in the back one day?"

But facing this executioner whose eyes seemed to glow with bloody ferocity, the deputy, only of about ten-plus rank, did not avert his gaze, but spoke loudly.

"The Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance is Fei En's painstaking work; as a veteran who has long been on the battlefield and experienced countless accidents and farewells, he had already prepared himself for sudden death, and had clearly explained his after-arrangements to me."

Saying this, he let out a sigh, then took a deep breath.

"Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance, the alliance chief Fei En has issued an order!"

Almost all the mercenaries instinctively wanted to kneel on one knee, but then they realized the new leader was present, and being so loyal to the old master seemed somewhat……

But just as they bent over, lowered their heads, half-squatted, displaying all sorts of comical postures, the sound of Ke Li Si Ting's leg armor hitting the ground made them feel as if granted a great pardon.

I was scared to death; it seems this crazy woman, although she kills ruthlessly, still observes some rules……

Seeing this, the deputy also quietly relaxed, used his own half-kneeling to cushion Ke Li Si Ting's dignity, then unfolded a letter and began to read it.

Fei En is not some master of flowery language; the orders in the letter mainly express two meanings.

If it is the locals of Sunshine City (the Business Union), the wilderness original settlers (the Adventurers Association), or the Hui Guang Kingdom's dispatched nobles (Sheng Guang Jiao Tang) who want to annex the mercenary alliance, all mercenaries must rise in resistance until the last soldier is exhausted.

——Every inch of the Deep Forest people's territory is won by force; since they already bear the reputation of being bloodthirsty and warlike, they cannot allow anyone to tread on them.

If it is another Deep Forest noble who wants to seize the position of chief of the Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance, as long as his purpose is just and he is strong enough, he will not let our Deep Forest people's face fall to the ground; we can simply honor him as the new chief and fully cooperate, without pointless sacrifice.

——This place is far from the homeland; the Deep Forest lineage ought to be one family of comrades; as long as we can protect everyone's interests, this seat of leadership is the same no matter who sits in it.

???

Ke Li Si Ting suddenly felt that the core objective of this series of orders was somewhat familiar, like……

She lifted her eyelids and glanced at the hall's ceiling; unlike an ordinary meeting room, the so-called Covenant Hall was painted with beautiful and delicate murals like a church, this being the last artistic influence the Deep Forest people inherited from the elves of the Holy Tree Kingdom.

The painting's theme is not a banquet nor a playground, but a massive war, also the decisive battle that determined the Shen Lin Wang Guo's status as the world's foremost power——the Great Holy Tree Encirclement and Suppression.

At the very center of the picture is a monarch on horseback, clad in silver armor and bearing a blue cloak, directing his magic knights to launch a decisive strike against the elves' final formation.

This is precisely the founding monarch of the Shen Lin Wang Guo, and also the 132nd savior summoned by the Yangyue.

Abundant in martial virtue, his prestige shone brightly; he was honored as the Deep Forest ancestral king, once held high hopes by the world's will, but ultimately died in a bizarre fashion on the belly of a succubus——the Lionheart King.

And the ancestor of the similarly declined noble surname Candlelight was one of the twelve Round Table knights who attended him back then.

As a loyalist who possessed the Dragon's Merit and used to listen day and night to the holy teachings, he also let his descendants pass down many of his teachings by word of mouth.

Therefore what Fei En expressed is precisely a part of what the Lionheart King said back then.

……Truly, loyalty……

Looking at Ke Li Si Ting lost in thought, the deputy took out a vellum-bound scroll and held it up high.

"If my lord agrees, please take this item!"

Ke Li Si Ting had no reason to refuse, so she slowly stepped forward and picked it up.

This is the Mountain Folk Mercenary Covenant; orders from the sovereign outside have no effect here, so how could the northern border nobles know the situation in Sunshine City?

In order to resolve many internal disputes, this group of soldiers who had left their homes behind, traveling tens of thousands of miles, additionally signed this covenant based on the Kingdom Covenant.

Unfortunately, after all these years, the so-called covenant has degenerated into useless paper that no one observes.

Even Fei En, who valued it the most, forgot the maxim written in a single line of large characters on a single page—'All mercenaries have the duty to save all mercenaries'—allowing An De Lu to harm countless comrades……

But regardless, its status as a written document still exists; since Ke Li Si Ting picked it up, even if she chose to bear all the responsibilities of the chief, she also gained all the authority of the chief.

"It doesn't matter; what I want is indeed only this identity and this status; I will accomplish what Fei En failed to do."

Ke Li Si Ting properly stored it, then summoned a few alliance high-ranking members to another small meeting room.

The first words after they stood were:

"Issue a notice to all forces in Sunshine City: the new chief of the Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance has taken office; we will hold a grand banquet for guests, inviting them to come witness the ceremony."

Then.

"The entire army prepares for war, ready to seize all power in Sunshine City by force."

Ke Li Si Ting's this gamble, filled with resentment, finally came to rest; unexpectedly, it ended with her own complete victory.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Ji Ming, who was slacking behind the curtains, finally noticed that his body seemed to have stabilized.

The feeling of one's body being violently emptied in one breath and then suddenly refilled is really… terrifying to the point of unbearable.

But the outcome is still good; he discovered that his Vital Breath Nurturing Body Technique had not diminished after the fluctuations, but actually increased by two levels.

So……

First, he had thoroughly researched the method of judging Vital Breath; it is simply "discuss cause and also discuss result".

So if even lying in bed one can see fluctuations in Vital Breath, then it is only related to the "cause", and moreover the time when that "cause" was planted is very close to now.

Therefore, when Ji Ming came to the nearby garrison of the Guardian Knights, besides reporting the explosion he had heard earlier, he also had them focus their investigation on the tax minister, Ke Li Si Ting.

And indeed the church's intelligence network is formidable; Ji Ming, after looking at less than an hour's worth of comic strips in the Clinic, received fresh intelligence from the knights.

As it turned out, after Ke Li Si Ting left the Clinic under their surveillance at night, she did not return to her usual overnight handler's office, but instead headed straight east into the mercenaries' territory.

Although the church does not have much information about this extremely exclusionary region, Fei En could rely on a few corrupted believers using a dragnet to gather scraps of intel; how could the church possibly lack its own channels?

They had a fairly reliable informant report that around 2 a. m., the Mountain Folk Arena transmitted an explosion sound, which coincided almost exactly with Ke Li Si Ting having entered the eastern district an hour earlier.

However, having investigated to this point, the remaining intelligence no longer required the knights to work around the clock with high-intensity overtime.

Because early the next morning, a troop of mercenaries arrived at the Commercial Street bearing a gold flag expressing goodwill, warmly inviting the Holy Light's Chosen, Mr. Ji Ming, to attend at 8 p. m. tonight the inauguration ceremony of the new chief of the Mountain Folk Mercenary Alliance, Miss Ke Li Si Ting Pearl.

Even though Ji Ming had already made sufficient psychological preparations, upon hearing this shocking news he still let out the same exclamation as countless other invitees.

"Ah?"

In fact, after learning that Ke Li Si Ting had gone to the eastern district, he basically didn't sleep that night, constantly wondering what that crazy horse was up to.

Could it be that he intends to slaughter all the mercenaries by strangling them, to prove that he will henceforth be wholly good, in order to convince himself to reconsider his relationship with her?

Or do you still want to end this riddle, join forces with the mountain mercenaries, and use violent means to convince yourself in another pronunciation?

He even wondered if the heartbroken Ke Li Si Ting had taken a wrong turn and accidentally bumped into a wall, but he never imagined that what happened last night would turn out like this.

Ke Li Si Ting, you… you damn well are a high‑ranking member of the Business Alliance, the former princess of Sunshine City, and you must have at least eighteen Heaven‑Reaching Patterns on your head.

You, with your thick brows and big eyes, how did you suddenly become the revered lord whom the mountain mercenaries can smile and send invitations to?

It's like the Russian Empire holding an election for a new king, and the one who ends up taking the throne is a gold‑haired old curly‑haired fellow who's good at playing the accordion—how bizarre!

But no matter how she managed it, something big is bound to happen at tonight's Hongmen banquet.

Seeing that a layer of snow had already piled up on the ground yet showed no sign of stopping, Ji Ming contacted the person in charge of internal testing affairs, White Wolf Ferlo.

If Sunshine City really does erupt into fighting tonight, since no matter who fights whom it's just beasts clashing, he'll definitely bring the players over to help out.

So Ji Ming had Ferlo, with the help of writing the warship system under the guise of the Yangyue cheat, continuously assign tasks to the players from now on.

At least during tonight's banquet, the players should move as widely as possible through the city, so that if something happens in the Inner City, they can seize control of the Outer City in the shortest time, especially its gates.

Besides that, he also had Ferlo issue a second type of task, whose purpose is to compel as many underground city natives as possible to gravitate toward Sunshine City, so that when the players encounter trouble inside the city, they can respond with external support and in one fell swoop take control of the Sunshine City Outer City.

Although the Outer City is large, it's merely a blood bank that the Inner City residents generally don't care about; aside from the heavily guarded gate, there is a massive protective shield separating it from the Inner City, which is practically a slum.

This shield was established after the old city lord's death, when Sunshine City's power gradually fell to three major factions in the chaos; they announced, upon signing the peace accord, that they would jointly build and maintain this defensive device.

If the players want to bring other members of the alliance into the Inner City on a large scale, they must necessarily launch an assault on the shield; but so far no one has ever attacked it with brute force, so even the Holy Light Church doesn't know just how strong it is.

Moreover, no matter how the players try to build plank roads and secretly stockpile supplies, their limited‑size backpacks mean they struggle to bring large machinery into the city; even if they've smashed it to pieces, they've only managed to transport the firepower of roughly an artillery battalion, which for players accustomed to being big‑time explosives feels rather inadequate.

But there's nothing to worry about; first let the players and their animal companions give it a try, and if they really can't break through, they can still summon angels upon dragons to give this otherworldly bubble shield a little fantastical shock.

After settling the underground city's affairs, Ji Ming set off for the cathedral, wanting to know what arrangements Bishop Tenisi had in this situation.

Upon arriving at the cathedral, he learned that whenever Sunshine City held any kind of social banquet, no matter how odious the Church was, it would at least invite some respectable, noble‑background missionaries to attend, as a token of respect to the nominal lord of the land, the Hui Guang Kingdom.

For example, when Suo La previously held a banquet, she not only invited myself, a rising figure in the Inner City, but also invited Eleanor, who came from the Guanghui Capital; even if she wasn't of heavenly‑rank nobility, she was a great noble born in Rome.

Even though everyone knows the Mercenary Alliance is the black glove of the Deep Forest northern nobles, at least in name they call themselves 'mountain folk', which is at least a roundabout way of giving the Hui Guang people an explanation.

But this time, apart from myself, not a single missionary capable of representing the Hui Guang Kingdom was invited to the cathedral—it was as if they had been completely abandoned.

Ke Li Si Ting isn't stupid, and neither is anyone else—so how did she end up making such a… undignified mess this time?

At that very moment, various rumors about Ke Li Si Ting began to spread. Besides the official statement that 'Fei En suffered an assassination attempt and Ke Li Si Ting filled in temporarily', there were claims that 'Fei En was assassinated by people sent by Ke Li Si Ting', and even that 'Ke Li Si Ting boldly struck down and killed Fei En on the spot'.

Although the alliance again declared that Miss Ke Li Si Ting's way of securing the league leadership was proper and reasonable, and recognized by all mercenaries, the crowd is just here for fun—who would listen to such a clarification?

On the contrary, the more it's described, the blacker it gets; now all Sunshine City residents think Ke Li Si Ting killed Fei En to seize power, and then used her authority as a level‑forty professional to coerce them into submission.

Regardless of how the truth of the incident actually is, the mercenaries are truly putting their all into preparing a grand ceremony; the cold, stern arena gradually becomes decked out with lights and banners, turning into a building that looks extraordinarily bizarre.

Laughably, it's just like present‑day Sunshine City: despite doing its best to maintain peace and prosperity, it's a powder keg that can't even tolerate a single spark.