Chapter 409 Queen, go find Rand...

Zorn had been dragged away for "treatment".

The treatment process must still be unbearable to watch.

Rand had the armor and weapons of the uninjured knights sent by the queen collected, then tied their hands with hemp ropes and took them to the royal city.

The injured were given simple medical treatment and were allowed to temporarily live in the camp.

A small number of soldiers were left to guard it.

There were 1,100 knights and knight squires and 300 magicians attacking the camp.

According to statistics, the total number of people killed or seriously injured was 400, including 100 mages and 300 knights and knights' squires.

There is no specific statistics on those who suffered minor injuries.

But overall, the surrender rate is high.

The feeling Rand gave them was truly terrifying.

The army led by Zorn this time was basically most of the elite troops sent by the Queen.

The rest are mercenaries and conscripts. Without the knights and grassroots commanders to drive them, they have no combat effectiveness at all.

Nothing to be afraid of.

In other words, the war is over.

This time it should really be over.

But compared to the last time when they were smiling, both Duke Thorn and Count Moon Phase had sad faces.

It was as if they didn't win the fight, but lost.

Rand and Lord Thorn rode in front.

Lord Thorn whispered to Rand, "Is it too late for us to surrender now?"

Rand also whispered: "I think it's too late."

Duke Thorn fell into deep thought.

Does he really have to sit on this throne? "In fact, it's not impossible for us to support a puppet." Rand has already assumed the role of a minister and is giving advice to the Duke of Thorn.

"Come on." Duke Thorn shook his head.

Of course it is possible to support puppets.

For example, now we are supporting the third prince to ascend the throne.

But since the battle has already ended, the nobles in the country will know who is truly in power in this country.

It must be following the lead of the neutral faction.

Wouldn't that mean he would have to deal with domestic affairs? How is that different from being a king? He would be extremely busy and still have no official title.

And will the third prince always be willing to be a puppet?

By then, there will probably be open and covert struggles.

If you win the fight, you may have to fight the next king.

After thinking about it, I decided to forget it.

This place is not far from the royal city. It takes less than half a day to walk to the bottom of the city gate.

The queen and the third prince have come to the city gate to greet them personally.

The queen and the third prince, mother and son, have of course been paying close attention to this fateful battle.

They came to the city wall early in the morning, before daybreak, and watched as Zorn led his army out.

And then I have been watching from the city wall until now.

When they saw Rand's family flag, Duke Thorn's family flag, the Black and Brown family flag and the Stag family flag flying in front of the team.

Their hanging hearts finally died.

Sure enough, no one can defeat Rand in the field of military affairs? The queen and the third prince came down from the city wall in a daze.

Opened the city gates and surrendered to Rand.

They can actually close the city gates and hold on now.

It is estimated that we can defend the royal city for ten days or half a month.

But it doesn't make sense.

There must be many great nobles in the Queen's faction who have long wanted to surrender to the neutral faction.

The queen and the third prince arrived at the city gate.

His face looked ashen.

Now we can only hope that Grand Duke Thorn will not actually execute them for the sake of the previous king.

In this era, the execution of royal family members was extremely rare, and might not be seen once in hundreds of years.

The royal family has sacred blood flowing in their veins and cannot be killed at will.

The Duke of Thorn himself also has royal blood, so theoretically he should not be so cruel.

The queen and the three princes were not wearing armor and carrying no weapons. They knelt on the side of the road with their guards.

Lord Thorn rode in front, and Rand followed closely behind.

Duke Thorn said calmly: "Get up, let's go to the palace."

…

In the palace one day ago.

The palace hall is luxurious and majestic, with golden reliefs on the walls.

In the center of the hall stood a crystal clear ice coffin, and the ground around it was covered with a thin layer of frost. In the ice coffin lay a young corpse, dressed in an elegant dress.

Suddenly, cracks began to appear on the surface of the ice coffin, and then with a low "crack" sound, the ice coffin shattered. In an instant, cold air spread, and a faint green light ignited in the eye sockets of the corpse.

The corpse suddenly sat up, its flesh peeled off quickly and turned into ash, revealing a skeleton with white bones. The skeleton slowly stood up, the dress still hanging on the skeleton, but it looked even more weird now.

The head fell from the neck and rolled to the ground.

With the sound of bones colliding, the skeleton bent down and picked up the head.

Replace it on your neck.

Green flames burned.

The corpse of the eldest prince's substitute has turned into a walking skeleton.

The skeleton's bones creaked.

The white bony feet stepped on the marble floor, making a crisp sound.

The Stand is a member of the Scourge Cult.

As he bore some resemblance to the eldest prince, he was sent over to see if there was any chance of doing anything.

And now, it seems that there is really a chance.

Civil war broke out again in the Frost Moon Kingdom.

The war lasted for half a year.

The smell of death is everywhere.

How strong is the power of death.

as well as……

This is the royal palace of the Frost Moon Kingdom.

The royal family of this world does have a special bloodline.

Most members of the royal family have relatively better talents in various aspects, such as magic talent, martial arts talent, or intellectual talent. Of course, the gap between them and ordinary people who are not royal families is not too big, and not all royal families have better talents.

But it does have some other effects.

According to legend, the royal bloodline was blessed by the gods.

Possessing a greater tolerance than ordinary people.

In other words, it can accommodate more power than ordinary people.

Including the power of the great Scourge Apostle.

The power of the Scourge Apostle is even more special. His power can be bestowed upon the dead.

Of course, you can't be dead for too long. If you are dead for too long, you will be no different from an ordinary corpse.

Can only turn into the most ordinary skeleton.

But there seems to be another person here who died not long ago.

The skeleton's feet stepped on the ground and walked deeper into the palace.

The royal family has a special mausoleum.

However, due to the mysterious cause of the king's death, he is still sealed in an ice coffin and placed deep in the palace and has not been buried yet.

The skeleton came here.

There is no altar for the Scourge Apostle here.

But it doesn't matter.

Some of the Orbs of Calamity were smuggled into the palace.

And that is, because of the war, the city and the surrounding areas have long been filled with the smell of death.

Death gathers in the hands of this skeleton.

The skeleton felt pity because it could not withstand so much power. All the accumulation of the Scourge Cult in the Frostmoon City was destroyed by the Crimson King.

There really wasn't anything left.

That woman is so meticulous.

The evil Crimson King! The Orb of Scourge was embedded in the dead king's body.

The power of death was injected into the king's body.

The body remains intact, which is good news.

Now it is time to pray.

The skeleton strikes a strange pose, praying to the great end, the embodiment of natural disasters and death.

…

The eldest prince and many nobles from the royal city began to make preparations.

Now according to new information, the third prince was indeed defeated.

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But Rand must have felt bad too.

The queen sent so many troops, no matter how strong Rand's military ability is, he will not be unscathed.

Moreover, now in the eyes of Earl Rand and Grand Duke Thorn.

They no longer have any enemies.

The eldest prince had apparently died at Zorn's hands.

Most of the great nobles of the Royal City faction either fled, were captured, or surrendered to Rand.

Now that the neutral faction has achieved military victory, what they must do is to stabilize the domestic political situation and then disperse their troops to avoid delaying the autumn harvest too much.

Only then will the remaining forces of the Wangcheng faction be persuaded to surrender or destroyed.

During this period, the eldest prince did not believe that Rand would deploy any more troops.

Who would have thought of this, right?

The royal city must be poorly guarded now.

It's time to pounce.

The eldest prince has prepared a secret passage.

Entering the royal city through the secret passage, it won’t take long to get close to the royal palace.

Seize this opportunity when the defense is loose.

In one fell swoop, Rand, the queen and his three prince brothers were captured.

"Let's go!" The eldest prince has led the army to the secret passage.

The secret passage is not particularly long, but it still takes some time to walk.

If we set out now, we will probably arrive in the evening.

The eldest prince himself has decent martial arts skills and is quite courageous, otherwise he would not have dared to go to the front line to boost morale.

This is the final battle, and failure means death, so the eldest prince will lead the team personally.

The team is composed of carefully selected elites.

The weapons and armor have also been specially adjusted to facilitate walking and not make too much noise.

This is a special operation and requires secrecy.

The eldest prince led the elite troops out.

…

Just as Rand was about to go to the palace to help Duke Thorn deal with affairs.

Karin arrived.

Karin, exhausted, came to Rand.

Rand was a little surprised to see Karin: "Why are you here? Aren't you hunting down the followers of the Scourge Cult?"

"Yes." Karin walked side by side with Rand and whispered in his ear: "According to the intelligence I have found, there are Scourge followers who have come to the royal city. Their appearance seems to be somewhat similar to that of the eldest prince."

Ellie saw Karin lean over to Rand's ear and raised an eyebrow.

After hearing what Karin said, Rand frowned.

That being said, it may not be over yet.

He knew that Zorn had killed the eldest prince.

Now, that’s really not certain.

Could it be that the person Zorn killed was the Scourge cultist whose appearance was somewhat similar to that of the eldest prince?

And if they prepare in advance, the Scourge Cultists can obviously be resurrected as undead.

And, in that case, where is the real prince?

Rand walked quickly to Lord Thorn and told him the news.

Duke Thorn also held his forehead after hearing this.

I didn't expect that there was something about the Scourge Cult involved here.

Isn't it over yet?

Lord Thorn sighed.

Grand Duke Thorn ordered the team to stop, as there might be a problem in the palace, so they should not go there for the time being. Instead, they should stabilize the situation in the city in the square first, and then send people to the palace to investigate.

The Duke of Thorn became busy. In theory, he should exploit Rand's labor force and let Rand help him do some work, but Rand said that he was injured in the battle and needed to rest.

Duke Thorn could only express his understanding.

He did see that Rand was injured, and he estimated that the injury was not too light.

And RAND had already taken over the war, and had resolved it with astonishing speed and incredibly low losses.

So it would be fair for him to take on more of the subsequent government affairs issues.

After the order to work on the spot was issued, the surrendered nobles, the queen and the third prince were somewhat confused.

But no one dared to question it.

After Grand Duke Thorn had been handling affairs for a while.

The queen and the third prince came over hesitantly.

As royal family, they mother and son would naturally not be imprisoned.

Even without being too restricted in movement.

They surrendered the city honestly and did not resist stubbornly, so they deserve better treatment.

But the queen was still very worried about the situation of her and her son.

After all, the war was lost.

As things stand now, it is obvious that the Duke of Thorn is about to ascend the throne.

In order to secure his throne, the Duke of Thorn might go on a killing spree.

Although the queen herself felt that there was no need for the Duke of Thorn to do this, slaughtering his relatives would only make his reputation bad.

But she couldn't figure out what the Duke of Thorn was thinking.

Therefore, seeing that his movements were not completely restricted, after notifying him, he was brought by the guards to the office of the Duke of Thorn.

Duke Thorn was in a bad mood. Before, these things were supposedly done by his cousins, but now it was all his own work.

Duke Thorn listened to his men's reports and then gave orders.

Several clerks were standing nearby, taking notes.

Seeing the queen coming with the three princes, Duke Thorn sighed.

The queen was wearing an exquisite silk dress with delicate gold thread embroidered on the hem, like the rippling surface of a lake in the sun.

She wore a golden crown inlaid with gems, her hair was elegant and solemn, and her every move showed nobility and majesty.

The third prince had just come of age, at the age of fifteen.

At the age of fifteen, you can join the army and become an adult, but you still look very childish.

The queen wanted to protect the third prince behind her, but the third prince did not want to hide behind his mother.

The third prince is very smart. Just like when he was in the royal city before, he lived with his mother in a secret place and disguised the atmosphere of the third prince's mansion. It was the third prince's idea.

The third prince knew that his mother could not protect him.

Duke Thorn really hadn't figured out how to deal with this mother and son.

Grand Duke Thorn would definitely not kill them, and he also had no intention of letting the Thorn family replace the Frost Moon family and become the royal family of the Frost Moon Kingdom.

But how to deal with it is still a troublesome matter.

He could not allow this mother and son to be contaminated by power, nor could he give the domestic nobles any room for fantasy.

If someone were to plot the restoration of the Third Prince, that would be a huge trouble.

Grand Duke of Thorn cannot guarantee that his future governance will satisfy all the nobles of the Frost Moon Kingdom.

Duke Thorn rubbed his temple, trying to shirk responsibility: "Go find Earl Rand. Earl Rand will decide your future life."

To be honest, Lord Thorn did want to place the queen and her son in a holiday villa. The environment there was good and safe, and it was Rand's base camp, so there was no need to worry about accidents.

I just don't know if Rand is willing to take over.

(End of this chapter)