174: Chapter 174 The Knights Templar

"War God!!!"

When those two words were squeezed from the throat of a blood-soaked veteran on the city wall, it was like a piece of red-hot iron, searing itself deeply into everyone's hearts.

For a brief instant, Ironwall City fell silent for half a breath.

Then, more and more people subconsciously opened their mouths.

But in the end, no one shouted a second time.

Because they suddenly felt that any superfluous words would not be worthy of the young man walking back to the city gate step by step.

Lin Mo did not stop his pace.

He simply walked step by step toward the inside of the city along the stone steps that had been pitted by artillery fire.

The wind blew from behind, carrying residual scorched ash and gunpowder smoke, sweeping across his shoulders.

The smell of blood, machine oil, and the embers of thunder-fire mingled together, causing the entire street to fall quiet.

No one dared to step forward to stop him, and no one regarded him as a "young man who had just arrived at the front line" anymore.

Wherever he walked, the garrison troops spontaneously retreated.

Some watched him go, some saluted, and some even straightened their backs unconsciously as he passed by.

This was the most direct form of recognition in the frontier army.

It was not an order, not a decoration, and not a line on a battle report.

It was seeing a living person hold up the sky that was about to collapse for them, forcing it back into place.

Lin Mo passed through the long city gate tunnel, and only after entering the inner city of Ironwall City did he finally slow his pace.

The dragon scale patterns on his shoulders had completely faded, and his gold-red slit pupils had returned to their original color.

Yet the aura emanating from his entire being remained terrifyingly heavy.

It was not oppression, but a calmness that comes from having just finished a battle and not yet fully detached from the fighting spirit.

That kind of calmness was even more daunting than rage.

Up ahead, Yan Yue stood at the end of the city gate.

He was not wearing armor, only draped in a worn military coat.

The previous arrogance and skepticism on his face had completely vanished, leaving only a very complex silence.

He looked at Lin Mo, and after a long while, let out a heavy breath.

"During the day, I misjudged you."

Lin Mo stopped his pace and glanced at him: "And now?"

Yan Yue turned around and nodded solemnly at Lin Mo: "Ironwall City owes you a life."

Beside them, Han Xiao also walked over slowly.

He was leaning on a makeshift metal rod, walking very slowly with every step.

His center of gravity was still a bit unstable, and his knees were trembling slightly, but he was standing.

A personal guard instinctively wanted to support him, but was blocked by a look from him.

On that weathered face, not a trace of the previous suspicion and disappointment could be seen anymore.

He looked at Lin Mo, his eyes more serious than ever before.

"Not just a life." Han Xiao's voice was hoarse and low, "It's this whole city that owes you today."

Lin Mo didn't say anything more.

It wasn't that he didn't care, but that he was more concerned about the lingering scent of the battlefield in the distance.

Although the West Federation vanguard army had retreated, they had done so too quickly, too decisively.

It didn't look like a simple rout; it looked more like they were proactively cutting their losses after confirming something.

This was not normal.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze crossing the ruined city gate and falling onto the smoking wasteland.

"They won't just let it go like this."

Hearing this, Yan Yue's expression tightened, and Han Xiao's face also darkened.

"Of course they won't." Han Xiao said slowly.

"This is the tactic the West Federation front line is best at: first using the vanguard army to probe and confirm the strength of the defense line, then deciding whether the next round will be a direct assault, a decapitation strike, or an orbital bombardment."

He looked up into the distance, his voice dropping even lower.

"They suffered a loss this time, so the next time they come, it won't be a formation like today's."

Lin Mo nodded.

Although that vanguard army just now had fierce firepower, their true core combat strength had not been fully deployed.

In other words, today's battle was more like testing the waters, and he had smashed that stone to pieces with one slash.

"Let's head back first." Yan Yue said.

"The medical team is already preparing, and the post-battle meeting needs to be held. You all should attend the meeting in a while!"

When he said this, his tone was completely different from during the day, faintly implying that he was treating these young people as Ironwall City's own.

Lu Chenzhou heard this, finally let out a long breath and grinned: "Finally, we aren't being treated like refugees."

Ye Huangyi said softly: "If you had made one more snarky comment just now, you probably would have really ended up repairing the city wall."

Lu Chenzhou immediately shut his mouth.

Shen Yi stood beside Lin Mo, watching all this quietly, the corners of her mouth curling slightly.

Sure enough, when facing skepticism, the most direct way is to slap their faces with strength.

And Lin Mo had not only done it just now, but he had done it beautifully.

Therefore, after this great battle, the garrison troops had completely accepted their group.

...

The inner city of Ironwall City was not quiet.

Having just ended a great battle, the entire city was in a high-speed state of recuperation.

The wounded were being sent in batches to the infirmary and temporary healing points, while city defense craftsmen shuttled back and forth among the ruins, repairing the blown-open defensive formation patterns.

Spirit machinists lay by the damaged turrets, focused on dismantling the scrapped cores, attempting to salvage the last usable parts, while the air was filled with a mixture of medicinal scents, scorched smoke, machine oil, and spirit herbs.

But unlike during the battle, this city finally had a bit of a living atmosphere.

Yan Yue personally led Lin Mo and his group to the city's council chamber.

Along the way, the garrison troops who had previously carried scrutinizing gazes now almost unanimously cleared a path.

When Lin Mo passed by, they would subconsciously stand straight. That was the simplest respect of frontier soldiers; one look was enough to know who had saved them.

Inside the council chamber, the lights were bright.

Seated on both sides of the long table were Ironwall City's high-ranking generals, formation masters, intelligence officers, and logistics coordinators.

On the table was spread a map of the entire Northern Defense Zone, with red cursors densely marking dozens of dangerous areas and battle damage nodes.

As soon as he entered, Lin Mo smelled a thick scent of blood and medicine; it was clear that this place had just received the severely wounded.

When Yan Yue invited Lin Mo and the others to sit down, his attitude was already much more polite than during the day.

"As for today's battle, let's first count it as Ironwall City owing you a favor." He paused, looked at Lin Mo, his tone solemn.

"However, since you have already arrived, you are no longer temporary guest troops. From tonight on, you are the official combat force of Ironwall City."

As these words fell, the expressions of Ji Wuchen, Gu Yunting, Lei Wanjun, and the others shifted slightly; this meant they had finally truly come into contact with the core battle situation on the front line.

It also meant that the upcoming war would no longer just be about defending the city, but would begin to involve participating in the true Northern counterattack.

Yan Yue stood up, resting his hands on the edge of the table, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.

"Before talking about the next operational plan, there is one thing you must know."

His voice dropped.

"The highest combat strength we can deploy is only Tier 6."

No one in the council chamber spoke.

The generals present understood the implication behind these words, but the people in Lin Mo's team might not necessarily be clear about it.

Yan Yue clearly realized this as well; he turned to Lin Mo and explained:

"It's not that the Great Xia doesn't have powerhouses above Tier 7; in the military's War God Temple, there are seniors at Tier 7 and Tier 8, but almost all of them are currently in the Sealed Land."

Han Xiao took over the conversation, his voice hoarse but extremely steady: "Currently, all of our Great Xia's top combat power above Tier 7 is almost entirely tied up in there. There are very few left within Great Xia's territory."

"What about the West Federation? Don't they have the same trouble?"

Ji Wuchen frowned and asked.

"They do, but they held one more card than us."

He raised his hand and pointed to the West Federation's occupied area on the map.

"The West Federation and we have an agreement that combat power above Tier 7 will not be directly committed to conventional battlefields; both sides are afraid of escalating the war to an uncontrollable level."

"But agreements are rigid, while people are flexible. All of our Great Xia's Tier 7 and above are in the Sealed Land, and we can't call them out even if we want to. Although the West Federation is about the same, they have the Holy Temple Knights!"

"Holy Temple Knights? What is that?"

Ji Wuchen asked.

Yan Yue glanced at him, seemingly surprised that Ji Wuchen had never heard of the great name of the Holy Temple Knights.

"The West Federation's Holy Temple Knights have a history of several hundred years. There are twelve people in total, and the founding members were all existences above Tier 9! They were the highest military force of the West Federation at that time!"

"What? Above Tier 9?!"

Lin Mo and the others present were all startled!

Yan Yue looked at everyone's shocked expressions and was not surprised; he just slowly let out a breath, his expression becoming a bit more complex.

"Don't worry, I'm talking about the founding Holy Temple Knights, not the current Holy Temple Knights!"

He raised his hand and tapped lightly on the map on the table. The light screen that had appeared suddenly changed, and several old golden files were brought up.

"The Holy Temple Knights have indeed existed for hundreds of years, and they were indeed ridiculously strong in the past."

"But over the hundreds of years, the founding members either died in battle, went missing, or completely disappeared into history."

"The current Holy Temple Knights are the twelve most outstanding people among the West Federation's younger generation."

"The weakest among them is at the mid-Tier 6."

"The strongest one is already approaching Tier 7."

Once these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the room immediately became a few degrees heavier.

Mid-Tier 6. Approaching Tier 7.

In any faction, this would be top-tier combat power sufficient to become a commander of a region.

"Especially under the premise of not directly using conventional combat power above Tier 7, the Holy Temple Knights are the West Federation's most dangerous blade."

"They won't necessarily fight you head-on, but whenever they appear, it often means they want to decapitate, penetrate, or destroy a key node."

"For example, the Command Headquarters."

"For example, supply lines."

"For example... Ironwall City."

When saying the last three words, Yan Yue's tone was significantly heavier.

Everyone listened with solemn expressions.

Lin Mo had not spoken the whole time, just watching the light screen on the table quietly.

In his mind, he quickly connected the nature and tactics of this knight group.

High-tier Awakeners, power armor, short-term Tier 7 bursts, mobile warfare, decapitation missions.

This was not just a simple elite force.

This was a killing weapon prepared by the West Federation specifically to break the stalemate.

"So, those vanguard troops today were not their main force?" Shen Yi suddenly asked.

Han Xiao glanced at her and nodded: "No."

"The vanguard army was just an appetizer."

"The real trouble is the Holy Temple Knights they might send out subsequently."

"If this group arrives at Ironwall City, it means the West Federation no longer intends to probe."

"They will directly enter the next phase."

Lu Chenzhou frowned and asked: "What next phase?"

Yan Yue's finger slowly slid across the map, stopping at a red dot thirty miles outside Ironwall City.

"Siege and kill."

"First cut the outer defense zone of Ironwall City into pieces, then use the Holy Temple Knights to decapitate our mobile combat power, and finally, in coordination with orbital cannons and the mechanical army, grind the city to death bit by bit."

"This is the West Federation's favorite tactic."

The meeting room fell silent for a moment.

Everyone could hear that this knight group was no ordinary trouble.

But precisely because it was troublesome, it made it even more apparent that every step going forward could not go wrong.

"A week ago, they appeared on the Eastern Front without anyone knowing, directly decapitating two of our Eastern Army's high-ranking commanders and destroying three outpost turrets, before retreating before our orbital firepower arrived."

Han Xiao added: "This still isn't the most troublesome part."

"The most troublesome part is that every time they appear, their combat style is different."

"This shows that although these twelve people belong to the same knight group, their fighting styles and coordination are extremely strong, and they have extremely high independent battlefield adaptability."

After hearing this, Shen Yi frowned slightly.

"In other words, we cannot use a fixed template to deal with them."

"Correct." Yan Yue nodded.

"They are harder to deal with than the average mechanical army."

"Because mechanical armies have patterns, while they don't."

"As long as they find an opportunity, they will bite down hard."

Han Xiao said this, his gaze slowly sweeping over Lin Mo and the others, finally settling on Lin Mo.

"So, for that battle during the day, the fact that you were able to beat back the vanguard army is already very rare."

"But the real trouble is still to come."

"Once the Holy Temple Knights come, Ironwall City must prepare to welcome a hard battle in the true sense."

Lin Mo nodded slightly, his expression remaining calm.

But the glint of sharpness in his eyes had become a bit colder than before.

Mid-Tier 6. Approaching Tier 7. The twelve strongest of the younger generation.

It certainly sounds troublesome. But it's just troublesome. It hasn't reached the point where they can't be killed.

Yan Yue clearly also sensed the change in Lin Mo's expression; he was silent for two seconds and then suddenly spoke: "Lin Mo."

"If that day really comes, the strongest among the Holy Temple Knights will most likely come for you."

Lin Mo looked up. "Why?"

Yan Yue did not answer immediately, just looking at him, and said slowly: "Because your performance today was too crazy."

"The West Federation will definitely re-evaluate your threat level."

The room fell silent again.

Lin Mo looked at Yan Yue, and after a moment, suddenly smiled lightly.

"That's perfect." "I also want to see just how outstanding the West Federation's younger generation really is."

Yan Yue stared at Lin Mo for two seconds, and then actually laughed low as well.

"Good." "I'll remember those words." "I hope you still have that tone when you actually see them."

Han Xiao also laughed along. "Old Yan, don't scare them!" "Even if the Holy Temple Knights really come, our Ironwall City isn't just some pushover!"

The atmosphere in the meeting room finally loosened slightly at this moment. But everyone knew that this relaxation was just an illusion.