572: Chapter 271 Transform into a Dragon 572: Chapter 271 Transform into a Dragon The once prosperous lands, where fertile farmlands bore abundant harvests and lively towns echoed with noise, have now all turned into mere fleeting illusions of the past.
Standing atop the castle tower, the Gale howled around the frail frame of the Old Earl of Mamor.
His gaze, heavy and forlorn, stretched far into the distance, staring directly into the darkness that was devouring his last remaining territory, dragging everything into the nightmare of Hell.
He had never imagined this would be how he would encounter His Majesty Aviout’s “army.”
The war with the Land people had already cost him half of his domain, which had fallen into the hands of the Northern people.
He had retreated to the southeast, believing the hardest times would eventually pass.
Yet true calamity arrived one after another; the unstoppable seas of undead corpses swept in relentlessly.
The Mamor family, rulers of this land for centuries through its ebbs and flows, had braved many storms but had never faced despair as profound as this.
As he recalled the loyal warriors falling one by one under the assault of the undead, the old man who had ruled the northern frontier for decades felt his heart grow dim.
“…We cannot sit and wait to die!
If we can no longer stand against it, we must leave!
Lead the remaining troops to retreat south, to the west!
As long as we live, the family will someday rise again!”
His eldest son, Baron Sanger, stood anxiously by his father’s side, his face full of anguish, loudly urging him to act.
The last remaining vassal knights echoed his plea, their faces marked with worry.
“My Lord Earl, we must retreat.
Our ancestors originally came from the south.
As long as you are with us, there is still hope of reclaiming our lost lands in the future.”
The Old Earl slowly turned his head, looking at these loyal vassals who had followed him for years.
His voice, devoid of its former authority, slightly hoarse yet carrying an unyielding resolve:
The knights behind him immediately knelt on one knee, swords drawn, their armor clanking as a mass of warriors bowed as one.
“…From this moment on, I pass the title of Earl to my eldest son, Sanger.
Starting today, he will be your new Lord.
Sanger, head bowed, tears streaming down his face, understood the final decision his father had made.
“…I am old and decrepit.
The gods have turned away from me, and there is no hope left in me.
I cannot bear to flee again and again.
The land beneath my feet is the birthplace of our ancestors.
I have decided to stay here, to defend what is left with the dignity of a warrior.”
After finishing, the Mamor Earl helped his son up: “You are no longer young.
It seems this useless old man should have long since perished, leaving you to lead the family.”
“But now it’s too late to say such things.
I am already little more than a walking corpse.
However, the living must have a leader.
I hope that one day your descendants may return to this land.”
With that, the Old Earl turned once more to gaze at the dark clouds on the distant horizon, as if seeing his impending death.
Yet his eyes brimmed with a calm acceptance.
Behind the Old Earl, Sanger and the family knights were filled with reluctance, but they knew the Earl’s decision would not change.
…The army, reduced to less than a thousand men, withdrew from the last fortress belonging to the Mamor family.
On horseback in the wilderness, Sanger couldn’t resist casting one last look back at the desolate, lonely castle behind him.
It was as though he could still see his father’s weathered figure standing atop the castle, symbolizing the final chapter of the family’s legacy.
Entering the southwest of Mamor County, the last remaining family territory, the army regrouped with gathered family relatives and the land’s displaced commoners who had nowhere else to go.
The knights, gathered around campfires roasting food, all turned their eyes toward their new Monarch.
“My lord, where should we go next?” an aged, loyal knight asked.
The question weighed down on them all like a massive stone, making it hard to breathe.
No one wished to stay in this last remnant of their land.
The flat plain was indefensible, and it was only a matter of time before the undead armies arrived.
It seemed there were only two directions left to them: west, where the Land people’s armies occupied the family’s ancestral lands, and south, where the circumstances remained unclear, toward the Sobonitz Domain and the Baldim family in the East Territory.
Sanger furrowed his brow, deep in thought.
He considered pledging allegiance to the Western Kingdom, the Great Lords who had yet to be ravaged by the undead, far distant from the Eastern Kingdom’s chaos.
Though the family had fallen from power, the elite forces still with him—tested by successive battles against the Land people and the undead—remained loyal and strong.
Even a dying camel is larger than a horse.
Leading these elite soldiers, Sanger believed they could at least find temporary refuge by serving under a noble, even as mercenaries.
The problem now was: how to get there?
To the north lay the sprawling Garak Mountains.
To the east, the Undead Calamity.
To the west were the family’s ancestral lands occupied by the Land army.
Was he to beg the Land people for passage for his battered Mamor forces?
Sanger did not dare to gamble, nor did he wish to grovel before the Land people.
Some of the nobles who fled Mamor mentioned before they left that the Baldim family in the Sobonitz Domain was still holding on.
We’ll see if the East Territory remains passable.
From there, we could use the mountain pass in Ustato’s eastern region to cross the King’s Domain and reach the Western Kingdom.”
“But, I heard from the Eastern Lords earlier that Prince Caso…
has already surrendered to the Land people,” a knight hesitantly reminded him.
Due to the sporadic news about the wars erupting across the Kingdom this year, Mamor County knew little of the battles in Ustato.
However, not long ago, the Eastern Lords who had joined the Mamor Earl’s forces brought troubling rumors of civil strife in the Kingdom’s central regions.