Chapter 186: Goddess Sculpture

Since the Emperor had expressed his stance, what could the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia say as a subject? He couldn’t just say ‘Emperor, you are wrong’ in front of so many people, right?

Helplessly, in the end, Kalia could only grit his teeth and agree to send 500 Champion Knights, letting them take off their glorious Champion Battle Armor and put on the Armor of ordinary garrison troops to fight.

Although such a sneaky thing did not conform to the Knight code that the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia had always followed, fortunately, it wasn’t doing bad things after all. Wiping out those Robbers entrenched on the Empire’s border and avenging fallen comrades was, after all, a glorious task, not too wronging the prestige of the Champion Knights.

In addition, the Emperor really had difficulties. In that kind of place, if thousands of people were mobilized to kill their way over, the travel expenses back and forth would be tens of thousands of Gold Coins. If any accident happened, the joke would be huge. They would be laughed to death by the surrounding principalities, and the Emperor couldn’t afford to lose face either. That was why he had to use the Champion Knights, this trump card unit. If it weren’t for considering these things, with the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia’s temper, he definitely would not have agreed even if he was beaten to death.

Thus, the matter was settled. Fatty was anxious in his heart, but he didn’t show it on his face, still maintaining a harmless, smiling appearance. But after the meeting ended, he ran to find the Old Mage in a hurry, told him the details of the matter carefully, and then said nervously, “Grandpa, that Champion Knights is not easy to mess with. Should you tell Little Stephen to evacuate quickly and stop tossing about?”

“Sigh!” The Old Mage smiled bitterly and sighed, “You got it wrong again. Now the one to worry about is not Little Stephen, but that Champion Knights unit! Why did the Emperor send them out? Isn’t this sending sheep into the tiger’s mouth?”

“Ah?” Fatty was stunned when he heard this and hurriedly said, “No way, Little Stephen can still handle 500 Champion Knights? Did you forget that Sven and those Barbarians are gone?”

“No!” The Old Mage shook his head and said, “It’s the same with or without Sven and the others. Little Stephen’s strength in Wuwei Castle alone is enough to wipe out the Champion Knights who are fighting in isolation! Sigh, it seems I have to risk this old face to persuade him properly. I can’t let him touch the Champion Knights; that is the Empire’s lifeline!”

“No way, that kid is already this perverted?” Fatty was immediately a bit dumbfounded.

“You just found out?” The Old Mage shook his head helplessly, then said, “Alright, you don’t need to worry about this matter. I will handle it!”

“Yes!” Fatty hurriedly agreed, then quickly left.

After sending Fatty away, the Old Mage did not dare to delay and hurriedly went to the Castle to find Old Xie, who was giving lessons to the Imps. He took him to a quiet place and said, “Latest news, the Empire is going to send the most elite Champion Knights to wipe you out. They will arrive in about two months!”

“Champion Knights?” Old Xie had lived here for more than ten years, after all, and was very familiar with the situation here. Naturally, he knew this household-name unit; after all, it was known as the kingdom-protecting army of the Griffin Kingdom!

He was also stunned when he heard that he had provoked this unit, then couldn’t help but ask strangely, “Is it necessary? Asking the Champion Knights to go to the Great Gobi to suppress bandits? Would the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia agree?”

“His Majesty the Emperor personally asked; can he not agree?” The Old Mage rolled his eyes at him, then said, “As for the reason for sending them, that is even simpler. Just think about it, you kid killed 2,000 border guards in one breath; can the higher-ups not be angry? Don’t think you can be smug just because this broken place of yours can’t handle large troops. See, now they are going big, sending the Champion Knights. What do you say we do?”

“How many people came?” Old Xie asked in a somewhat weaker tone. After all, the Champion Knights had a prestigious reputation; even if he was arrogant, he had his limits. He knew he certainly couldn’t handle two thousand plus Champion Knights, so his tone softened.

However, as soon as the Old Mage said only 500 people were coming, Old Xie immediately became arrogant again and said disdainfully, “Hi, I thought how many were coming. Only 500? Not enough for me to clean up!”

“Get lost!” The Old Mage got anxious when he heard this and cursed directly, “I can allow you to mess around, but messing around has a limit too, right? The Champion Knights are the cornerstone of the Kingdom. If you dare to touch a hair on them, watch me never end this with you!”

“Hey, hey, be reasonable, will you? They are coming to cause me trouble now!” Old Xie immediately said dissatisfied.

“Cut the crap. When do people of the Stephen Family talk about reason? If you kid talked about reason, would you rob the Augustus Family’s shop for no reason?” The Old Mage said disdainfully, curling his lips, then said, “Our Family only recognizes strength. Now you can’t beat me, so you must listen to me. In short, even if you give up everything here, I won’t allow you to touch the Champion Knights! As for the rest, I don’t care!”

“Haha!” Old Xie was happy when he heard this, because these words suited his appetite perfectly. So he laughed and said directly, “Okay, your strength is awesome now, I’ll listen to you. I won’t touch the Champion Knights, but, I have a condition!”

“What condition? Speak!” The Old Mage said.

“I want Refined Iron, 100,000 catties. You transport it over from the back!” Old Xie laughed.

“Damn, I can give you 100,000 catties of Refined Iron, but do you know how many Gold Coins worth of Magic Stones it would consume to transport this thing from the Imperial Capital using the Transmission Array?” The Old Mage couldn’t help but exclaim, “Besides, you are about to be wiped out by the Champion Knights, what do you want Refined Iron for? To give it to them as a war trophy?”

“I have my own use for the Refined Iron. As for the Champion Knights, you don’t need to worry. I guarantee I will make them retreat helplessly!” Old Xie laughed.

“You have that ability?” The Old Mage couldn’t help but ask strangely, “I can tell you, this Champion Knights is not that rabble under Tianfeng Fourteen Lang. Apart from their powerful strength and excellent equipment, the most terrifying thing is their tacit cooperation and selfless spirit of sacrifice. Many powerful Legions have been defeated by these Knights who are willing to die for honor. Let me put it this way, the 500 Champion Knights led by the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia can definitely fight to a draw with Sven and his 300 Berserkers. You must not underestimate them!”

“As long as the Perfect Sword Saint Kalia doesn’t lead the team personally this time, I naturally have a way to force them away without hurting them!” Old Xie said with a smile.

“Kalia certainly won’t come out personally. After all, you are just a robber who has just appeared; you aren’t important enough to alarm a Sword Saint like him,” the Old Mage said. “However, if you can really force them back safely, then I’ll suffer a little loss. I’ll have the caravan on my family’s border send you 100,000 catties of Refined Iron later!”

Old Xie knew he was reluctant to part with the shipping costs, but since he could get the Refined Iron, he didn’t care how it came. Anyway, he still had stock on hand, so it didn’t matter if it was a bit later. So he agreed, saying, “Alright, it’s a deal!”

“Mhm!” The Old Mage nodded and was just about to turn around and leave, but Old Xie stopped him, saying, “Wait, come here!”

Saying that, he led the Old Mage to the square, then pointed at the statue of the goddess in the square and said, “Look, doesn’t this statue look very familiar?”

“Ah!” The Old Mage looked at it and immediately remembered, saying hurriedly, “Isn’t this exactly the same as that Mithril sculpture? I wondered why that sculpture looked familiar to me back then, so the issue was here? Strange, why would these two sculptures be the same?”

“You’re asking me? Who should I ask?” Old Xie said in annoyance, “Seemingly, you are the one who should answer this question, right? Didn’t you say last time you were checking information? What did you find?”

“I only found out that this sculpture is a statue of the Elven Goddess, the ancestral god of the Star Elves. According to records, almost all Elven temples enshrine her statue. However, the style of the statue in each temple is different. The statues of the Sun Elves show the goddess during the day, while the Moon Elves show the goddess at night. As for the Star Elves, it seems to be at any time, anyway, it’s very mixed. But there is one thing I find strange. In my data, there are at least hundreds of styles of goddess statues worshipped by the Star Elves, but none of them match that Mithril statue. I thought my sense of familiarity back then was an illusion, but I didn’t expect to find the source of that familiarity here.”

“If that’s the case, then I feel there might be some connection between them!” Old Xie guessed.

“I feel the same way!” the Old Mage also said.

“Then let’s go check it out!” Old Xie said, leading the Old Mage to the pool in the center of the square.

Viewing from a distance before, Old Xie hadn’t noticed anything special about this statue. Now that he walked up close and examined it carefully, he was surprised to discover the size of this statue. A height of dozens of meters was no joke. Even with Old Xie’s burly figure, standing in front of this sculpture, he looked as small as an ant. Old Xie had to tilt his head back high to barely see the upper body of the sculpture.