Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence Chapter 760 - 423: Raymond’s Decision

Relentless freezing rain battered Gray Rock Province throughout the winter.

Descending in layers from the overcast, low-hanging clouds, the precipitation—a mix of rain and unformed snow—transformed the roads bordering the Mist Swamp into quagmires of cold mud.

Visibility plunged due to the dense gray mist, which swallowed torchlight at even short distances, leaving only faint, wind-swayed shadows.

A long column of soldiers marched onward.

The heavy wheels of their wagons repeatedly became mired in mud pits, eliciting stifled curses.

Wounded soldiers occupied the center of the formation, wrapped in sodden cloaks and leaning against the wagons, their labored breaths betraying their pain.

From afar, a sharp, fleeting whistle would occasionally pierce the fog, cutting through the air before vanishing.

These were the sounds of Magic Explosion Bullets in flight.

Each whistling projectile claimed the lives of several knights.

The sound invariably sent a ripple of tension through the entire marching line.

Duke Remont’s army had long since shed its disciplined facade.

The knights' armor was caked in mud, their faces etched with pallor and exhaustion.

Though the formation held, few dared to look ahead with any constancy.

More commonly, eyes instinctively darted towards the reeds and woods flanking the road, as if expecting an unseen threat to emerge from the fog at any moment.

Standing atop his command wagon, Duke Remont’s brow was deeply furrowed, the dreary weather and the intermittent attacks by the Red Tide Knights visibly wearing down his resolve.

The elevated position offered little solace.

As his telescope swept across the section of road where the procession had slowed deliberately, he grimly recognized that this prolonged advance would only result in a slow, grinding attrition.

"We cannot sustain this pace any longer," he declared, setting down the telescope. He then summoned an adjutant, outlining the meticulously crafted strategy.

The trap was soon laid.

A dozen or so carts, laden with provisions, were strategically positioned at a road bend, their axles intentionally broken to halt the convoy.

A mere handful of knights, appearing utterly spent, provided a perfunctory escort, their defensive posture exceptionally lax.

Meanwhile, concealed beneath the muddy roadside, hundreds of heavily armored elite knights lay in wait.

Forced to abandon their horses, they were entrenched as heavy infantry within the frigid mud and water, their armor saturated with icy liquid, the immense weight making each breath a laboured effort.

Duke Remont’s gaze fixed upon the supply carts. "Come out, Louis," he urged, his voice strained with barely concealed anger.

In the thickening mist, the sound of approaching hoofbeats soon became audible.

Remont leaned forward slightly, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword's hilt.

However, the hoofbeats did not veer towards the decoy carts.

Instead, they thundered past the woodland flanking the road, moving at such speed that they made no attempt to alter their course.

The deliberately positioned supply carts were completely ignored.

Duke Remont's pupils contracted sharply.

In that instant, he grasped the true objective of the enemy's maneuver.

Their target was a low-lying area situated to the army's right and rear, appearing deceptively distant and safe from the main thoroughfare.

The tents of the Black Vulture Knights' scout camp were located precisely there, tasked with gathering intelligence and providing early warnings for the entire army.

The rapid hoofbeats ceased upon reaching that location.

Lambert and his knights halted in a concealed position approximately 700 meters away, not daring to advance further.

Without drawing their swords, they produced silver spheres from their pouches—these were the seventh-generation portable Magic Explosion Bullets.

Engraved with potent, dangerous runes, these projectiles were swiftly loaded into rudimentary alchemy grenade launchers.

Acting with an unnerving, unspoken coordination, the knights demonstrated exceptional skill.

Dozens of spheres soared simultaneously, tracing elegant arcs through the mist before landing with pinpoint accuracy within the scout camp's tent cluster.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! ..."

Instantly, blinding blue-black alchemy flames erupted.

A powerful shock wave propagated through the low ground, engulfing tents, wooden stakes, and the unfortunate scouts caught unawares before they could don their armor.

The air churned violently with raw magic, sending waves of debris—mud, water, and mangled remnants—flying in all directions.

Cries of agony were fleeting, rapidly silenced by the devastating aftermath of the explosions.

The knights who had launched the Magic Explosion Bullets had already melted away, disappearing with the concussive sounds.

Remont remained rooted to the spot, witnessing the lowland transform into a raging inferno.

The decoy supply carts still stood undisturbed at the bend.

Yet, the two hundred knights clad in heavy armor, submerged in the freezing mud and water, remained immobile in their ambush positions.

The extended period of lying in wait had allowed the chilling water to penetrate deep into their joints.

Without awaiting orders, some soldiers began to shiver uncontrollably, already succumbing to numbness.

The entire situation felt grotesquely, cruelly orchestrated.

The adjutant, his uniform smeared with mud and streaks of blood, nearly tripped as he hurried towards the command wagon.

His face was a mask of distress, his voice quivering uncontrollably, a result of both the biting cold and sheer terror.