Super Righteous Player
Chapter 519 - 60 Frostbite Disaster_1

Chapter 519: Chapter 60 Frostbite Disaster_1

Rebels...

Annan vaguely remembered that there seemed to be such an incident.

A curse object that could replace the necessity of the Winter Clan... This was indeed fatal.

Even after this curse object had been destroyed, the concept that "The Winter Clan is not entirely necessary" had taken root in people’s hearts.

Grand Duke Ivan spoke slowly:

"By the time we realized that Vladimir might betray the Winter, he had already tampered with the memory cores of a third of the military Frost Beasts, changing the highest authority from me to ’him’.

"Fortunately, we discovered it in time, and with Bella’s confession, claiming she wanted to atone for her crimes... We used her intelligence to purge the Winter’s Hand from within.

"A total of thirty-one traitors were found, seventeen of whom had already fled. Although the number is not large, they managed to quietly steal a lot of supplies with the authority of the Winter’s Hand."

In other words, they had been plotting for a long time.

With his father’s introduction, Annan slowly pieced together what had happened six years ago:

After the Rot collected the bets, nobody knew what price Vladimir had paid or whether he had already conspired with the Rot—he escaped the Winter Duchy using the Rot’s power and went underground.

And the Winter Duchy immediately took control of all of Vladimir’s students.

But even so, there were still those who slipped through the net...

That was Solomonik, Vladimir’s disciple who hadn’t gone through the Rite of the Wolf’s Kiss and had already left the province of Frost Speech.

Annan still remembered this name.

In the nightmares of the wolf’s kiss, he had seen this person...

Solomonik was a shy young man with light brown hair, very white skin, and freckles on his face. His cheeks were gaunt; so much so that they were hollowed inward.

Both his parents were murderers, so no one was willing to teach him swordsmanship. In the end, Vladimir took him in, raised him, and led him onto the Transcendent path.

"—My teacher is my benefactor! For my teacher, I can even give up my life!"

Solomonik’s resonant and passionate words seemed to still linger in Annan’s ears.

"Solomonik took advantage of Vladimir’s authority, leading those defecting Hands of Winter, and organized a rebel group known as the ’Icebreaker Army’.

"They claimed... we of the Winter Clan have no human emotions, hence our laws are harsh, uncompassionate, always sacrificing others but never sacrificing ourselves, which cannot convince the public.

"—Since the core reason for the Winter Clan to hold the position of Grand Duke is that the Blood of the Frigid Winter can freely control the Frost Beasts, which constitutes an irresistible military force, anyone could become the Grand Duke if they found a different method to control the Frost Beasts without necessarily being from the Winter Clan."

Having said this, Ivan sneered, "The winter years are just too long.

"The younger generation, born and raised in the winter years, has forgotten their ancestors."

"What happened afterward?"

"Afterward, they promised a lot in various places and gained the support of some local nobles."

But it so happened that Ivan Winter was the most recognized and capable Grand Duke of the past two hundred years. His personal charisma meant most of the people didn’t want to join the rebellion.

But sacrifices were real.

Therefore, there weren’t many open opponents to the rebels.

"Most people are just watching. They hope that through this rebellion, we ’sacrifice less and lighter’."

Everyone hopes that they are not the ones to be sacrificed.

It’s only logical.

And after that, there followed three long years of rebellion.

The cursed object capable of controlling Frost Beasts allowed the Icebreaker Army to recruit soldiers almost without cost beyond the small barrier... It was also possible to collect a large number of juvenile creatures through the Underworld and release them into blizzards to artificially create Frost Beasts.

Aside from the First Legion trained alongside Frost Beasts, ordinary soldiers were incapable of resisting their swarm attacks.

Although the numbers of the rebels were not high, they merely launched long-range Frost Beast attacks against towns that didn’t support them, mainly to annihilate the armies sent for reinforcement. The true rebels rarely moved themselves, making them difficult to deal with.

Only the Winter clan, the Hands of Winter, the holy clerics of the Grandmother, and the First Legion with their Frost Beast mounts, could effectively counter the Frost Beasts.

"In the beginning, their strategy was very successful... As the number of attacked towns increased, because reinforcements couldn’t arrive in time, or the reinforcements couldn’t resist the Frost Beasts, the number of people dissatisfied with us also gradually grew,"

Duke Ivan slowly said, "At that time, your brother, ’Iron-blooded’ Dmitry... on Bella’s suggestion, proposed a strategy.

"After all, the Icebreaker Army had more Frost Beasts than men. They mindlessly hoarded Frost Beasts in quantity, but our Frost Beasts had soldiers of the First Legion, criminals to feed them, whereas they didn’t have enough people.

"Therefore, we could further reduce the frequency of our troops’ sorties. Then, more and more Frost Beasts would gradually become uncontrollable due to the lack of killing soldiers and food scarcity... Once the hungry Frost Beasts slaughtered the first town for food, the situation immediately reversed.

"The Icebreaker Army almost instantly lost the support of all the edge towns and local nobles—the controlled Frost Beasts were merely weapons, but uncontrollable Frost Beasts became a disaster. Disasters could only be dealt with by the power of the duchy... In this regard, Bella’s strategy had an immediate effect.

"But a large number of hungry Frost Beasts could not be controlled, and their greedy predation made even more Frost Beasts lose their food sources and go mad. In the end, they formed a disaster known as ’Frostbite Calamity’ like an avalanche."

The disaster overtook the rebellion.

At this point, Bella, riding on her success to offset her past failures, showed a special power—werewolves were not the first priority for Frost Beast attacks, thus werewolves hunting mad Frost Beasts was highly efficient... As long as ordinary people were used as bait, the mad Frost Beasts would ignore the attacks of the werewolves.

Therefore, the Hands of Winter tried recruiting a group of werewolves, trained them as "Wind Walkers," to go to various places to kill and clear the surplus of mad Frost Beasts.

——The outcome was unexpectedly good.

Thus, to combat the Frostbite Calamity, the Winter Duchy absorbed more werewolves into the military and the inside of the Hands of Winter. At that time, the Icebreaker Army had already been gradually forgotten... They could only control the common Frost Beasts, and the newly born Frost Beasts would quickly go mad.

In the end, Maria Rime successfully inherited the power of the Lady of the Storm.

Through the power of the Tower of the Storm, she detected the entirety of Winter territory and harnessed the power of the great barrier to kill Frost Beasts on a large scale. At last, she ended the disaster.

And incidentally, she found the Icebreaker Army and completed the suppression of the rebellion.

"But," as the leader, "Solomonik disappeared.

"After Maria increased the intensity of the detection and the scope of surveillance, although Solomonik was not found, it was unexpectedly discovered... Bella and some of the werewolves recruited into the Hands of Winter were still secretly passing messages outside.

"The person receiving the messages this time was no longer Vladimir, who had fled the Winter Duchy years before to enter the Underworld.

"It was an ambitious man known as ’Professor Wolf,’ Frederick."

In other words, she had betrayed the Winter Duchy for a second time.

If nothing unexpected happened... The strategy she had impressed upon them years ago was given by ’Professor Wolf,’ designed to raise the position of werewolves.

In other words, the Frostbite Calamity, which was at least five times larger than the Icebreaker Army, might also have been part of their conspiracy.

"...That is also the cause of ’the second great purge,’ where all werewolves were cleared from the Hands of Winter and executed in secret."

Having finished, Ivan looked calmly at Annan and said, "Bella fled abroad for several years and was found and killed by Maria two months ago.

"But Annan, you must know... this matter is still not resolved."

The surreptitiously underground Vladimir, the mysteriously missing Solomonik, and the ’Professor Wolf’ with unknown intentions...

Annan slowly nodded his head.

"I understand."

So Dmitry lost all trust in her, and in the werewolves as well...

——I understand.

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