Chapter 1144: Chapter 1079: Longbow Castle Defensive Army
"Clang!"
The black-and-white soccer ball clanged loudly against the goalpost, bouncing more than three meters high.
"Kaler!" The goalkeeper Bradak shouted his teammate’s name in despair, but it was too late.
Jeanne leaped nearly two meters high, performing a perfect bicycle kick that sent the heavy soccer ball straight towards the goal line.
With immense force, the ball soared through the air.
Bradak reached out with his iron gloves, claw-like, but the ball grazed his fingertips and crashed onto the ground.
Instantly, the turf erupted with dirt, stones flew, and the soccer ball bounced into the net, pulling the webbing and the frame of the goal backwards.
"Ah—" Kaler, who rushed over anxiously, turned pale and collapsed to the ground on his knees.
After a hard-fought match to make it one-to-one, they were about to draw when Her Highness the Saintess dribbled past five players and scored.
Jeanne raised her hands high, cheering as she ran wildly around the field.
This was the last minute of overtime, and her decisive goal meant there were hardly any seconds left to play.
Sitting on the sidelines with a large bandage on his brow, Tora coldly snorted, "Five players couldn’t stop her; it was a kowtow match."
"This is a kowtow match?" Socette, whose chin was wrapped in a blood-stained bandage, muttered indistinctly, "You should go to the ry Court Barracks next time and watch the Saint’s Grandson and the Loyal Successor Army officers play; that’s a real kowtow match."
These two officers didn’t actually get seriously injured on the field; they just looked intimidating.
Given their level of breathing technique, they’d recover in three to five days.
As for the others on the field, they were fully armored.
Leather armor, shin guards, iron-tipped boots... there were even helmets.
Wearing shin guards and iron-tipped boots was actually a necessity because soccer in this world was much harder and heavier than the soccer back home in Horn.
Due to technical and dissemination issues, both the Holy Alliance and the Empire found it difficult to produce suitable and widespread soccer balls.
Considering the people in this world were tougher than those on Earth, the Holy Alliance soccer balls were made with hardened slime glue wrapped in leather.
Just by weight alone, they were almost like two-pound cannonballs.
To adapt to the change in the weight of the soccer ball, coupled with the high physical endurance of people in this world, a layer of leather armor was nothing.
With the end of the match between the First Corps and the Second Corps, local officers from Dawn Island and Holy Alliance officers left the field arm in arm.
As for the soldiers who watched, after exchanging some taunts, they all headed towards the mess in the drifting smoke.
Socette and Tora exchanged a smile and also headed for the mess.
Compared to three months ago, the mixed soldiers of the Holy Alliance and the local soldiers now get along quite well.
Michelle, as the instructor, was quite capable.
Besides routine training, he organized entertainment activities like these.
The essence was to force the First and Second Brigades in Longbow Castle to compete and in that competition cultivate a sense of collective consciousness and battalion honor.
Since Her Highness Jeanne arrived with the Holy Alliance Volunteer Corps, more than two months have passed.
During this time, they suppressed the rebellion in Longbow Castle, divided the assets of oligarchs and devilish nobles, raided Duckwater Harbor, and repelled two local noble sieges.
After more than two months of integration, relations between the local faction in Longbow Castle and these Holy Alliance faction members gradually became harmonious.
War is still war, no matter how advantageous the situation, unless there is a completely overwhelming disparity, there is still a risk of life.
After experiencing the battlefield, local officials and soldiers like Tora, Bradak, and others became acquainted with Jeanne and her Holy Alliance faction.
As more officers arrived, the legion’s territory, Hundred Households District, and legion school were gradually established.
Various Holy Sect ideologies also began to spread from Longbow Castle to the surrounding areas.
The monks sent by the Holy Alliance were skillful at dealing with local towns and village gentry and magnates.
Before the end of the first Thousand River Valley War, Juanist Faction monks often interacted with these people in rural areas.
After the first and second wars ended, a large number of newly styled monks joined the Holy Alliance, engaged in activities to deal with local forces from all over the Empire.
One could almost say that part of the reason for the Holy Alliance’s "no grain in three years" policy was because they couldn’t collect taxes.
And why couldn’t they collect taxes? Wasn’t it because the monks, leading the Defensive Army, were fighting cunning battles with local forces?
Plus, unlike the earlier troubled times for the Holy Alliance when they were isolated and tumultuous.
Now Longbow Castle is different; if the common people don’t pay taxes, so be it.
Apart from the city’s own financial and manpower resources, there is also grain support from the Holy Alliance and covert monetary assistance from Falan.
Moreover, there are many free cities not daring to resist that actively supply Longbow Castle with troops and money.
The Saint’s Grandson is not a succubus, lacking that kind of charisma.
Longbow Castle’s favorable position is largely due to riding the wave of the times.
So what is the tide of the Imperial Era?
Toppling noble rule over cities, abolishing feudal privileges, and promoting commodification.
The Empire’s development had been unbalanced, with productivity clearly surpassing production relations.
Yet due to the existence of extraordinary, military, and intellectual hegemony, nobles and priests could forcibly suppress this tide.
As paper became widespread, printing developed, and remnants of war, a lot of breathing techniques and extraordinary martial arts seeped into the populace, leading to professional mercenaries.
The extraordinary large phalanx at the Battle of Windmill Ground was proof of this.
The Holy Favor Seed and extraordinary breathing techniques were gradually dismantling the extraordinary hegemony.
The fall of Holy Seat City and the Sixth Great Duke Conference shattered the Empire’s intellectual hegemony.
As for military hegemony, Norn might be uncertain, but Leia was being dealt blows by Falan and the Holy Alliance.
As long as Horn continues down the path of liberating production relations, it will find everything tends to align in its favor everywhere.
Jeanne is the same.
As they descended from the hill, a gust of evening cooking wind made Tora sneeze.
"It’s already September, the weather is cooling down." Socette looked at the soldiers queuing before the mess, "These soldiers are almost ready for graduation."
"Yes, but who knows why, after the local nobles’ attempted attacks two or three times, they’ve not attacked since; it’s puzzling..." Tora was even more baffled than Socette.
Before this, they were anxious about the impending attacks of the Leia Army.
Now that they are finally almost prepared, the Leia Army failed to show up, leaving them perplexed and restless.
Where did Leia’s army go?
"Could it be related to the sudden dysfunction of Divine Art along the coast some time ago?"
About two months ago, news came from Windmill Ground that the Divine Art along the coast suddenly failed.
No matter how the monks prayed, they could no longer invoke any Divine Magic Light Ball.
Not only the coast but also monks and monasteries on the Xilan Islands experienced the same.
But this anomaly lasted only over a day and then dissipated, likely not dragging on to the present, right?
As the two pondered over what had happened, a little Loyal Successor rushed over waving a flag: "Gentlemen, Her Highness Jeanne requests your presence in the main camp to discuss an important matter. You can dine directly in the camp; no need to go to the mess."
The two paused in surprise, then Tora laughed and scolded: "We really are jinxes, aren’t we?"
