Chapter 37 : Chapter 37
Chapter 37. The Black Crow Spreads Its Wings
Inside the council hall, the air seemed to grow heavy from words such as “over a thousand rebels” and “they could strike at any moment” falling from Eli’s lips.
Yet on Buck’s resolute face, the shock only flashed by for an instant.
It was immediately replaced by a cold, razor-sharp edge.
His hawk-like eyes narrowed slightly as his gaze passed over the map spread across the table.
It was as if his sight had pierced through the wooden walls themselves and shot toward Lucerne City in the northwest.
“Over a thousand rebels?” Buck’s voice was not loud. It even carried a strange kind of calm.
“Young Master, you seem to have forgotten that I did not come empty-handed this time.”
Eli looked up. “Captain Buck, I know you brought reinforcements...”
Buck slowly straightened to his full height, his towering frame like an iron fortress that could not be shaken.
He raised five fingers.
“Fifty knights of the Black Crow Knights. All have arrived.”
He paused, and the corner of his mouth lifted in the proud curve that belonged to a top-tier powerhouse.
“Among them, twenty-five are at the Silver Tier.”
“What?!” Eli’s mouth flew open wide enough to fit an egg.
He suspected he had misheard.
“Twenty... twenty-five Silver knights?!”
Buck gave a slight nod. His voice was steady and powerful, every word carrying the weight of a thousand pounds.
“Yes. Including me, there are twenty-five at the Silver Tier. The remaining twenty-six are all at the High-Bronze Tier, and half of them have already touched the threshold of Silver.”
Seeing Eli so thoroughly stunned gave him a faint sense of satisfaction.
“So long as they do not hide inside Lucerne City like turtles in their shells, and dare to come out and fight us head-on in open ground...”
A burst of golden battle aura suddenly erupted from Buck’s deep-set eyes, so intense it seemed almost tangible.
“The Black Crow Knights, fifty riders strong!” Buck’s voice rang like clashing steel.
“Once we charge in formation, each of us can stand against ten! Fifty breaking five hundred would be effortless!”
Fifty against five hundred.
This was not the arrogant boast of a madman, but a rational judgment founded upon absolute strength.
Twenty-five Silver knights, with a Gold Tier knight as the spearhead.
And behind them, a torrent formed by twenty-five of the most elite High-Bronze knights...
If such a force launched a massed charge across open ground, its destructive power would be enough to punch through an ordinary army several times its size in an instant.
Eli’s heart thundered wildly in his chest, and the roar of rushing blood pounded in his ears.
When he had received his father’s letter, he had known the Black Crow Knights were strong. He had never imagined they were this strong.
All of his earlier anxiety, all of his pressure, melted away like ice and snow beneath the sun in the face of this absolute power.
His own soldiers, Bol and the other ten family knights, Wolfgang’s thirteen Wolf-kin warriors...
And now these fifty terrifying Black Crow Knights, each one worthy of being called a trump card.
Buck’s gaze swept across Sebastian, the silent old steward standing nearby, and a deeply peculiar look flickered through his eyes as he added,
“And besides, Young Master... there is a true ace hidden here as well.”
The dreadful shadow of that day still lingered in Buck’s mind, unforgettable even now.
An ace?
Eli froze for a moment, then followed Buck’s gaze toward Sebastian.
The old steward remained expressionless, the eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses as still as an ancient well, as though he had not heard Buck’s words at all.
And then Eli suddenly understood.
Of course. This unfathomable old steward.
Could his father truly have sent him here merely to manage the accounts?
Sebastian’s strength... was probably far beyond what it appeared to be on the surface.
His father had sent him the very foundation of the family’s hidden power.
A surge of overwhelming joy, mixed with a shock too deep for words, crashed into Eli.
Only now did he truly understand what it meant to possess the terrifying reserves of one of the Royal Domain’s foremost marquess houses.
What it meant to have the deep roots born of a century of accumulation.
This was a gap so vast that someone like Grumm, a mere baron of a small city-state, could never even begin to imagine it.
Before a giant like House Black, Grumm and his thousand-odd troops were nothing more than a slightly sturdier buffoon.
“So that is how it is...” Eli slowly let out a long breath, and his tightly furrowed brow finally eased completely.
All his earlier worry and caution vanished without a trace.
His gaze fell once more upon Lucerne City on the map, and his finger struck it heavily.
“Now we only need Brandon to send back exact information. Once we confirm the number of troops Grumm is sending, the direction they are advancing from, and the timing...”
Eli’s voice became utterly decisive.
“We will strike first. We will catch them off guard and finish everything in a single battle!”
The atmosphere in the council hall suddenly relaxed.
“Hahaha, rest easy, Young Master.”
The golden glow in Buck’s eyes receded, but that powerful confidence still clung to him like something tangible.
Eli’s lips curved upward. “Earlier, the Governor of the Western Frontier promised me that if I could retake Lucerne, he would grant me the title of baron.”
“Oh? A baron?”
“That is good news! If the Marquess learns of this, he will certainly be very pleased.”
All the while, Sebastian stood there in silence. He merely stared at the abrupt white hair atop Eli’s head, as if lost in some thought of his own.
......
At the same time, far to the south of Obsidian Territory, deep within that hidden ravine wrapped in steep cliffs and dense primeval forest...
The atmosphere there was utterly different from that of the council hall. It was filled instead with a near-frenzied scholarly obsession.
“This is it! This is the place!!”
Master Glenn Parr’s roar echoed again and again through the narrow rock fissure, shaking loose pebbles from the cliff walls.
At this moment, the short, sturdy old man had completely cast aside all dignity worthy of a master.
Like a monkey that had discovered a peerless treasure, he threw himself at a rock wall streaked with strange, dark blue veins of light, scrambling forward with both hands and feet.
His fingers, thick with calluses and burn scars, trembled as they greedily caressed the cold stone.
“Energy turbulence! A spatial seam! Associated Starvein Rock! No mistake! Absolutely no mistake!!”
He suddenly lowered his head and began clawing directly at the damp soil at the base of the rock wall with his bare hands.
Without even looking, he grabbed a large handful and stuffed it straight into his mouth.
“Master Glenn!!” Estor was so frightened that his soul nearly left his body. He cried out sharply and rushed forward, trying to stop him.
At the side, even Scholar Alva lost his composure for once. His eyes behind his spectacles widened into perfect circles, and his mouth fell slightly open.
He completely forgot his usual scholarly bearing as he stared blankly at the towering rock wall before him.
“So it is real...”
Then Estor’s cry drew his attention.
“H-He is actually using the most primitive ‘earth-tasting method’ (eating dirt)... This old madman...”
Master Glenn paid no attention at all to their horror.
With his eyes shut tight, his cheeks worked vigorously as though he were savoring the finest delicacy in the world.
A twisted expression, mixed equally with pain and supreme delight, spread across his face.
The coarse mud, mixed with gravel and unknown minerals, was kneaded by his saliva inside his mouth.
“Ptoo!” A few seconds later, he spat the muddy slurry violently onto the ground.
“Hahahaha!!!” Master Glenn exploded into deafening laughter, his graying hair and beard standing on end with excitement.
“It is here! It really is here! These are the fragments of Starvein Rock unique to the rock layers associated with mithril!
And this... this damned energy that makes the soul tremble!!”
He waved his arms wildly, tugging his burn-marked leather apron into a crooked mess.
Then he suddenly spun around, his bloodshot eyes blazing like iron pulled fresh from a forge.
He fixed a stare upon Estor, who had been frightened senseless by his wild behavior, and upon Leon beside him, who was equally shaken.
“Boy!!!” Master Glenn’s roar nearly overturned the entire ravine.
“What are you still standing there for?! Go! Find me men! Find the strongest miners you can!
Bring me the best stone-splitting chisels and rock-breaking pickaxes! Bring them here immediately! Right now!!”
He swung his mud-smeared arm as he shouted, his spit nearly spraying across Estor’s and Leon’s faces.
“And you!” He jabbed a finger at Scholar Alva, his voice hoarse and warped with excitement.
“Old man! Stop standing there in a daze! Where are all those precious instruments you brought?! Set them up at once!
Take the measurements! Find the energy nodes, the frequencies, and the weak points for me! Down to the inch!
I want to know exactly where to bring the pick down so we can avoid those damned fissures without disturbing the treasure below!”
Scholar Alva, infected by Glenn’s fervor, suddenly snapped back to himself as well.
“Yes! Yes! Energy mapping! Spatial analysis! Quickly! Bring over my instrument cases!”
He began directing the apprentices who had followed them, his hands moving in a flurry.
Estor looked at the two old men, both of whom had entered a state of instant madness, and felt his scalp go numb. He turned to Leon beside him for help.
Only to find Leon looking back at him in exactly the same way.
Their eyes met.
They both nodded at the same time.
“Go find the lord!”