Chapter 378 Juanno's Last Lesson

The raging firelight turned half of Catherine's face orange-red, and her hard-soled riding boots made a tapping sound as they stepped on the hard floor of the city wall.

Wearing a breastplate and a helmet, Catherine held a one-meter-long sun stick in her hand and ran quickly under the protection of a dozen mercenaries.

Beside them, a huge fire was burning in the city, and flames would occasionally burst out from the doors and windows of a house.

Under Mitternich's command, the militiamen, wearing blue cloaks with white edges, pulled down all the houses outside the fire source to create a fire-free zone.

In the fire, wizards in black robes stood in a row. Under the scolding of the wizard leader, they no longer used frost magic, but worked together to throw bottles of alchemical potions into the sea of ​​fire.

The consecutive explosions of three red dragon breaths in the city quickly expanded the fire. Now some militiamen have gone to capture the murderer, but so far they have only caught a few rogue thugs who helped.

"Drink!"

Looking up, Catherine saw the melee between the imperial soldiers and the parliamentary soldiers again.

Before us was another section of breached city wall. The narrow corridor was only wide enough for four people to stand shoulder to shoulder.

The black armor and the light blue short coat pressed against each other, the swords collided with each other and made a sharp clanging sound, and the vortex of steel kept turning.

"Go ahead, don't worry about me!" Catherine took out the sun stick and pointed it at the group of guards.

"Kill!" The black knights were decisive. They drew the long swords at their waists and killed the group of guards.

They kicked over the shields of the guards in the back row, and with a few sword strikes, seven or eight heads flew up in an orderly manner.

"Where did the extraordinary knight come from?"

"Quick, turn around."

"It can't break the damn armor."

"Aha!" Just as all the guards were fighting in front of the formation, a triumphant cry came from behind Catherine.

An armored sergeant raised his sword high, jumped up from behind Catherine, and hit Catherine on the back with a heavy jump.

Catherine immediately groaned, but the armored sergeant's face changed from ecstasy to horror.

This leaping blow that could split an ordinary farmer in half only left an invisible white mark on Catherine's expensive alchemy master-level specially made dwarven adamantine forged white crystal steel armor.

Before the armored sergeant could recover from the fear of the kryptonian warrior, the long spike forged from adamantium by the dwarf master smoothly pierced through his simple chain mail and pierced through his soft abdomen.

"Good day, good day!"

The armored sergeant looked at the weapon in Catherine's hand in astonishment. This was a good-bye stick used exclusively by the militia. Who would have the time to equip the good-bye stick with such an expensive hammer head?

"President, are you okay?" Seeing Catherine being attacked, a guard captain immediately left the battlefield and returned to Catherine.

Catherine shook her head: "He bumped into me, it's nothing serious."

Under the charge of more than a dozen square-flag-level knights, the dozens of guards who climbed up the city wall were quickly driven down the city.

When the last guard was thrown out of the wall by the militia, the entire section of the west side of the wall was recaptured by Catherine.

But looking around the entire city wall, there were scattered fighting between the Imperial Army and the Parliament Army everywhere.

In order to put out the fire in the city, Catherine had to dispatch a large number of troops to put out the fire.

With more troops in the city, there will naturally be fewer troops on the city walls.

In addition, the Red Dragon Breath exploded. Without this powerful weapon, the defenders of Rapid City had no ability to fight back against the large engineering machinery.

But if we ignore the fire in the city, we will be attacked from both sides by the fire and the army.

Even if it was defended, it would only delay the time of death by two or three days.

Who knows? By then, it might be the most determined militiamen who want to open the gates and surrender.

Right now is the weakest time for Rapid City, but under the notification of the insider, the imperial army outside launched an attack.

I should have followed Sissi's advice and set up a gendarmerie. I thought it was too harsh at the time, but now it seems it is really necessary.

Fortunately, under the unified deployment of Pettier, they actually managed to withstand this wave of offensive from the Empire with limited military forces.

To be honest, Pettier has made a great contribution to the fact that they have been able to hold on until now.

Catherine would never have thought that an ordinary grocer's guild in High Castle City could cultivate two military and political geniuses, Pettier and Horn.

"President, President, please look——"

"What's wrong?" Catherine, who was resting, raised her head.

"In the west, on the western wall." The beacon soldier who passed the message stammered, "The knights are ordered to climb the wall."

Catherine stood by the wall and looked toward the western wall.

The area was covered in flames, but one could still see human figures flashing in orange-red light.

That was the Command Knight, a Command Knight that could only be killed and driven away by the Red Dragon Breath. "It's over..." Someone said this word, and everything around them seemed to get colder.

"Is it over?" Catherine suddenly stopped talking.

She knew a way, a way that she feared the most and was most reluctant to mention.

She still remembered those looks of contempt and fear, those strange looks during those two years, as if she was not a seven-year-old girl at that time, but some kind of monster.

Catherine often suffered from insomnia, not because she drank too much black tea during the day, but because she always dreamed about those experiences at night.

The experience of being abandoned by my mother, being driven away by villagers with pitchforks, being chased by knights...

She finally found a group of fellow refugees who were willing to take her in.

But after using her to defeat bandits, he was afraid of her power and sold her to the church.

If she had not been smart enough to escape early, she would probably have died.

She didn't want to go through this again.

With other guards, Catherine ran down the city wall in a daze. She stood at the foot of the wall and saw the militia running.

Under the command of Pettier, they were running towards the western city wall where the gap was getting bigger and bigger.

Pettier, with an arrow stuck in his shoulder and his hair turning white, was still shouting and directing teams of soldiers to the front line.

"Finally I found you." A senior partner of Magdeburg came over jogging, "Hurry, let's go."

"Go? Where?"

"Of course we'll leave through the underground waterway. The Azik Alliance will protect us." Seeing Catherine's dazed look, the senior partner thought she was reluctant to leave, and quickly added, "If Grand Duke Meliati wins, we can still come back."

Since Catherine's Magdi Chamber of Commerce has performed well and has a large number of wealthy El businessmen as shareholders, the Azik Alliance will not leave Catherine alone.

But Catherine stopped where she was.

She took off her glasses and placed them in her palm. This pair of exquisite crystal glasses was given to her by her teacher when she was sixteen years old.

Fifteen years have passed and there is not a single scratch on the crystal.

She still had at least ten and fifteen years left, but how many years did the people of Qianhe Valley have left? How many years could they endure?
Now that she has retreated, how long will Qianhe Valley have to wait for such an opportunity?
Ten to fifteen years? Maybe twenty, thirty, or even before that, all the people of the Thousand River Valley would have been replaced by immigrants from Farlan and Leia?

Suddenly she realized what she was doing.
He led the Magdi Chamber of Commerce step by step to the top and did a lot of dirty things. Why was it so?
When did she start to think about her position in the post-war Thousand Valley? When did she start to think about the power position of the Magdeburg Chamber of Commerce?

If the teacher were here today, what would he do?

"President, President?"

Catherine raised her head and looked at Mitternich in front of her: "What did you just say?"

"For the sake of Qianhe Valley, you better run."

"........."

"President? Please give me a definite answer." The senior partner was almost dying of anxiety.

"For the Thousand River Valley?" Catherine looked at the palm of her hand. The crystal lens reflected the blazing sea of ​​fire. "The teacher died for the Thousand River Valley. Do I have to run away for the Thousand River Valley?"

"President, I am not..."

"Then what's the meaning of the teacher's death?!" Catherine almost growled as she said this.

Mitternich wanted to speak again, but was stopped by Karl. He looked at Catherine with burning eyes: "So what do you want to do?"

After putting her glasses back on, Catherine closed her eyes.

The location of Rapids City is too important. Once it is lost, Meliati in the north and Horn in the east will be in danger.

If the teacher were there, he would probably let the women, children and young people board the ship, and then lead the remaining people and the soldiers to fight to the death.

Yes, even if there is only a one percent chance, he will not give up.

What about me? I hesitated, but I was more than 50% sure, but I was still hesitating.

It would be a shame if you could be a student all your life but still fail to surpass your teacher.

If that means the old nightmare comes back, so be it!
Even though it was more terrifying than death, even though it would make Catherine lose everything she had, everything she had was not what she really wanted.

What she wanted was the free hometown of her dreams, the free Thousand River Valley, a place without wandering.

"Do we still have the seeds of the vampire vine?" Catherine opened her eyes, but those eyes belonged to the sixteen-year-old Catherine.

Mitternich was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly: "I really didn't expect that I would have the opportunity to use it..."

(End of this chapter)