Chapter 508: Provisional Saint Knight Head (II)
Chapter 508: Provisional Saint Knight Head (II)
Every higher ranked knight present viewed Long Haochen in a new light. In addition to their curiosity, he gained their respect. Although they didn’t know how Long Haochen destroyed that demon god pillar, how could this be done by chance?
The old man from before stood up, and beat his chest with his right fist, “I, auxiliary head of the Knight Temple, Holy Knight He Jun, apologize for questioning this decision. You spread the knights’ glory, and deserve the title of Saint Knight Head.”
Long Haochen returned the politeness with haste, “For the knights’ glory.”
Almost all the other knights present repeated Long Haochen’s sentence, “For the knights’ glory!”
In terms of a contribution made for the Temple Alliance, the mere accomplishment of being the first person to ever destroy a demon god pillar was enough to make his honor and glory unquestionable in their eyes.
He Jun nodded to Long Haochen before turning to look at Long Tianying, “Head, since Twelfth Golden Knight made such a great contribution, how about getting rid of the appellation of ‘Provisional’, and add the title of Auxiliary Temple Head?”
What is a Holy Knight? That’s a knight of the ninth step that has just never obtained the approval from a Divine Throne. And this Holy Knight He Jun was an Auxiliary Temple Head of the Temple Alliance as well.
Long Tianying shook his head, “No need. His contribution for the Alliance won’t be forgotten, and our Knight Temple will keep it in mind. We will speak of his future post after he gains approval from a Divine Throne. He is currently still too young, and giving him too high a post would be inappropriate.”
Long Tianying’s declaration once again shocked the entirety of the officers present.
What does “after he gains approval from a Divine Throne” mean? It means that the master of the Divine Throne of Order and Law, Divine Knight of Control and Constraints Long Tianying, has already determined that this Twelfth Golden Knight will surely obtain a Divine Throne in the future, becoming the fourth Divine Knight of the Knight Temple.
This isn’t merely thoughtless words. Even someone with Long Tianying’s status wouldn’t speak such words lightly, without an absolute confidence. That’s not even saying anything about the following part “too young”. How old could he be? What did he mean by too young? Just how young is that?
Long Haochen didn’t expect his grandfather to introduce him this way. Without exposing his identity, this raised him instantly to the top of the Knight Temple.
After a short time of confusion, Long Haochen understood his grandfather’s intention. Long Tianying did it for very simple reason, to build up his influence, and prepare his future.
To both Long Tianying and Yang Haohan, in the future he will be bound to take up the duty of the head of the Knight Temple. But right now Long Haochen certainly didn’t have an important position or influence in the Knight Temple. As it stood, even if he became a Divine Knight in the future, his approval within the Knight Temple would hardly be assured. The two Divine Knights were aiming at building his notoriety within the Knight Temple in order to have him gain the approval of more of these high ranked knights. Having him take the title of Provisionary Saint Knight Head was also for this—for his future approbation and influence.
He Jun wrinkled his brows, asking intuitively, “Head, may I ask how old Twelfth Golden Knight is? Could he be even younger than Xing Yu was back then?”
Long Tianying replied after a short time of silence, “The day he becomes a Divine Knight, everyone will be aware of this truth. At the moment, it has to be kept secret. That applies to everything I just revealed. Alright, now it is time to start the meeting.”
From this moment onwards, Long Haochen formally became the Provisional Saint Knight Head. This meant that he gained a role to play among the higher-ups of the Knight Temple.
Long Tianying designated a vacant seat for Long Haochen.
This time, Long Haochen couldn’t avoid that, and could only take up the seat. As if it was a matter of course, Han Yu followed him to his seat, instead of remaining behind Long Tianying. In fact, he was first and foremost Long Haochen’s retainer. From this, everyone became even more curious regarding Long Haochen’s identity. Some even started to wonder whether this person could really be the Saint Knight Head Han Qian. Otherwise, why would Han Qian’s grandson, a Temple Knight of the seventh step, follow him, instead of standing behind Long Tianying who just announced his qualifications to attend this meeting?
The highest military council in the Dragon Resisting Mountain Pass started, and the high-ranking officers present had their duties clearly divided, as they summarized the statistics regarding the battlefield. This included the casualties on their own side, the estimations of the enemy’s casualties, and a summary of the current forces at the enemies’ disposal.
For now, Long Haochen only acted as a listener, but he understood well why his grandfather brought him here, and therefore listened with great seriousness. Given his astonishing ability to remember, he only need to put forth a little attention to record all these statistics in his mind.
In the previous battle, the Knight Temple’s casualties weren’t important. A lot were wounded, but there weren’t many heavily wounded or deceased. This was related to the tactics used by the Knight Temple, because this was a war of attrition. Starting from the initial stages of the war, the Knight Temple attached a great importance to healing their own troops. The wounded soldiers would immediately be replaced and get treated, to avoid unnecessary death. After all, although the Knight Temple’s military strength couldn’t compare with the demons, the Dragon Resisting natural fortress didn’t need a lot of defenders. Cycling their troops of less than 20,000 men in order to minimize casualties was Long Tianying’s most basic strategy, and the fact that the Knight Temple managed to persist for so long was closely related to this.
Of course, such a strategy had its perks but also its downsides. It was very detrimental to the soldiers’ morale, and would hardly enable them to deal a fatal strike to the enemies, keeping them in a passive situation as defenders.
After listening to the summarized statistics, Long Tianying declared, “Based on our investigations, the demon food has already reach its bottom line. In today’s battle, they were planning on weakening our forces, as well as making some food from their own side. But they didn’t expect this surprising turn of events, resulting in their retreat without obtaining any supply of food. Therefore, I estimate that after the demon side adjusts, they will very rapidly come for the next attack. So everyone has to stay on high alert to keep doing a good job in defending.
“Outside the mountain pass, the demon side has about twenty-three more legions, which are all considerable forces. Most of all, up to now, the three Demon Emperor Legions have still yet to come, representing a massive threat for us. Due to the pressure they are bringing, we can only apply defensive tactics. But now that we are benefitting greatly from the effect of the environmental conditions, which weaken them constantly, our battles may change to some extent, from a passive defense to a combination of offense and defense.”
Hearing this extraordinary declaration from Long Tianying, all the high officers from the Knight Temple present became excited. None of them objected; on the contrary, all of them appeared quite eager for action.
This reaction was actually not surprising. The Dragon Resisting Mountain Pass had been suppressed for nearly a year and a half! They had simply kept a passive position for far too long, leaving the demons to attack as they pleased, without hearing a single order of counterattack from Long Tianying.
This last battle was, for the Knight Temple, not only a victory, but a call to the knights’ willpower. They were originally unable to hold back, but hearing about Long Tianying’s change of stance, they naturally felt great excitement.
The auxiliary head He Jun reacted first, “Head, I approve a combination of offense and defense, but shouldn’t we also consider this at length, and avoid taking big risks? As a matter of fact, the defense of the Dragon Resisting Mountain Pass is the most important to us.”
Although the passive plans previously formulated by Long Tianying didn’t gain every knight’s approval, who would dare oppose him? Indeed, He Jun was his greatest supporter.
The actual fact that they managed to last for a year and a half proved that Long Tianying’s strategy was correct. Although restraining the soldiers left them sullen, the number of casualties in the Knight Temple never left the safe range, while the demon casualties kept increasing continuously. In particular, since they cut their supply of food this way, this forced the enemy to use their own corpses as food, increasing the damage even further. The nasty environment also kept weakening them with greater and greater efficiency.
Long Tianying nodded, “I have an idea. Let us discuss it together. At the current stage, as long as Saminaga does not mobilize the three Demon Emperor Legions, our defense won’t have any issue. Even if he does, we can go all out, which will very possibly result in mutual destruction. As you said, comrade, even if we attack the enemy, we will still have to put the greatest priority on defending the Dragon Resisting Mountain Pass. At the same time, we have to do our best to minimize our losses. Therefore, I suggest that we opt for a blitzkrieg strategy. Using the best elite knights to raid the enemy forces—retreating rapidly after each attack—we will efficiently kill the enemy, while ensuring our survival even further. This would aim at restricting the demons, while weakening their forces.”
He Jun nodded, “I agree with your proposal. Transferring large troops to confront the demons head on is impossible, as it would be akin to abandoning our advantage. But having small elite forces raid the demons could be very effective.”
Long Tianying declared, “Everyone can give their own view. If you have a good idea, feel free to share it, so that we can discuss it.”
What followed wasn’t an exchange of ideas, but an upsurge of request for participation.
Almost every one of the high-ranking officers present expressed their wish to lead the elites to raid the demons, inflicting heavy damage to the enemy. The atmosphere in the whole room became extremely enthusiastic all of a sudden.
The strategies and tactics were improved gradually, but the real contributors were very few. Among those were Long Haochen and Han Yu.