Dark city

Clan

When he saw Yashan from afar, Richard realized that his father was a real big man.

With a population of more than 100,000 people, Yashan is located on the Yuanwang Peninsula, the city is built in the shape of the peninsula, the highest in the northwest, and extends in an arc to the south to the star-dotted archipelago of the Apennine Sea. Outside the city, the vast plains are full of fertile land, and the wide river Lane runs through the city and empties into the Apennine Sea, providing an inexhaustible source of water for the endless fertile fields.

There is a hill in the city of Ahsan, and the world-famous Black Rose Castle is built on top of it. It is a majestic and sprawling complex that could easily accommodate more than 3,000 warriors, and the towers that stand tall at each corner even place large permanent trebuchets that overlook the city beneath their feet. However, since the construction of the Black Rose Castle, the trebuchets have never been used passively. Although there were enemies who attacked the city of Ashan, their footsteps reached the walls of Asan at most, and then they were routed.

The castle is a weapon of defense, and the Black Rose Castle has reached the extreme in design, looking at the composite fortress-type building with the fortress within the fortress as the core, the wooden shooting platform that can reach the top of the city wall or arrow tower at any time, the passage through the city gate like a tunnel, and the depth of ten meters has set up a full five layers of extremely strong gates, and there are many arrangements that cannot be directly seen by the eye. When it was built, the Black Rose Castle claimed to require only a thousand qualified warriors to garrison it, making it almost impenetrable when well supplied.

Many travelers with different intentions have been to the city in various capacities, and when they see the monster that occupies the city's commanding heights, they have to agree with the almost crazy boasting of the designers of the Black Rose Castle. An unnamed aristocratic military strategist was invited to visit the castle, and when he returned, he conducted a sand table deduction of the defenses he saw, and concluded that even with a full army of 50,000 troops and heavy siege equipment, he would have to pay a heavy price to capture the castle.

It's just that she has never really been tested by the flames of war, because the previous owners of the castle did not like to defend, even if the troops were at an absolute disadvantage, they preferred to choose the boundless plains or deep mountains as the background, and destroy the enemy with sports warfare. And they always win in the end.

Even throughout the Holy Alliance, the madness of House Akmund is well known.

No one wants to fight a madman, not to mention that there will always be one or even several geniuses in this crazy family at some point. Duke Joseph of the Lennon Peninsula, once the greatest enemy of the Akmunds, once lamented that when madmen and geniuses are combined, the damage can be multiplied rather than simply added.

At the time of these words, Duke Joseph's main force of 20,000 had just been defeated by Akmund's 10,000 elite men in a long and brutal battle, with less than 2,000 men having fled. And the combat power under Joseph, who is known as the child of steel and iron, is by no means ordinary, and it is the first on the entire continent.

After hundreds of years of development, the members of the Akmund family now include two marquises and seven counts, viscounts and barons are not too many dogs, not much different, with a total territory of more than 100,000 square kilometers. The history of the Akmund family in the entire Holy Alliance is not very long, but its strength is definitely not weak, and it is one of the most important forces.

However, it is a little strange that if other families had so many local nobles, there should have been a duke, or even an archduke, a long time ago, but the Akmund family was only a marquis. You must know that the last thing the Akmund family lacks is force and power, they have both powerful magicians, high-level warriors, and more strange high-level professions, such as dragon vein warlocks, hell demon knights, shadow sacrifices, and so on. And the Norland continent is not peaceful, it can even be said that war is the norm, the human race occupies less than half of the continent's land, and is fighting with a large number of races to compete for living space.

Humans are perhaps no less belligerent than demons. Not only are they fighting against other races, but they are also at war with each other. The flames of war are not only burning in Norland, but also spreading to the depths of the ocean and many planes.

In such a chaotic and complex situation, it is not difficult for the Akmund family, which has many geniuses, to produce a duke or even the founding archduke. As long as they concentrate their resources to expand outward, obtain enough territory from foreign races, and firmly occupy them, establish a complete civil, economic, and judicial system, and coordinate and balance the distribution of interests within the family, a duke will be produced in a maximum of two generations.

At least half of the dukes of the Holy Alliance are produced in this way, so in the eyes of the nobles of other countries, the Holy Alliance Empire is a stronghold of nouveau riche and hillbillies, and the Emperor is the biggest upstart among them. It's just that when something reaches a certain level, there will be a qualitative change, and the same is true for outbreaks. The outbreak of the Holy Alliance's royal family exceeded the critical point of people's psychological tolerance, so it won the respect and respect of the vast majority of old nobles.

The outbreak of Akmund is not inferior, but the history is too short, and the fatal thing about the short history is that the accumulation of wealth and power is not enough. And they were so crazy that they didn't earn respect.

The current patriarch of Akmund, the Marquis of Gordon, is itself an example of an outbreak. When he first started training fifteen years ago, he was only a third-level rookie warrior. Immediately showing his personal strength and political and military talent, he captured the Elven Court of the Eternal Night Forest in one fell swoop ten years ago, shaking the entire Holy Alliance! There are not many people who dare to attack the elven territory, but only with a mere fifty constructed knights and more than a thousand miscellaneous soldiers dared to go deep into the eternal night forest, and he succeeded!

Now thirty-three, Gordon has become a marquis, and has taken up residence in the Black Rose Castle, where he has been given the domain of Akmund, which Akmund has reserved for the patriarch.

In his admiration, Gordon's story is a legend, and the legend is still being written. However, the absolute influence of the Marquis of Gordon, in addition to the Black Rose Castle, is only the territory he has built. The other members of House Akmund usually ignored his orders. In Akmund, the title of patriarch is more of a mere honor, if not for the Black Rose Castle and Ashan.

Heraldic scholars and historians specializing in the genealogy of the Akmund family have concluded that the failure of the family to produce a Grand Duke was due to the independence and rebellion that flowed through the family blood, and that every Akmund was unwilling to submit to others, even if that person was his father.

This is not a rigorous discourse, and the scholars who make the assertions are not very knowledgeable, let alone famous. In fact, if he could not exchange his research results for the support of one of the nobles of the Akmund family, the scholar would even end up on the streets. If he really had the ability, he wouldn't have studied such a remote family. And the final outcome of the scholar is to live on the streets, sick and die. It is said that when the results of his research were sent to the desk of the then Patriarch of Akmund, the Patriarch flipped through them and ordered that no one from Akmund should give him any form of funding. And the Akmunds, who have a rebellious tradition, are surprisingly obedient and completely carry out the patriarch's orders this time.

There's only one real reason behind it, and that's that it's a whole story full of flowery rhetoric, and despite the confusion of logic, absurd examples, and full of chasers and childish speculations, the conclusion is damn right.

The distance from Ruseran Village to Yashan is more than 3,000 kilometers, and the road took less than half a month. Along the way, Mordred told Richard many things about the Akmund family, along with some customs and the distribution of power on several continents. So by the time he arrived at Yashan, Richard already knew a lot about his family.

Family, for Richard, is a whole new word. Before, he even had a vague idea of his father, how could he possibly know what this family was? But judging by Mordred's attitude, this powerful knight is very important to the family. The concept of family here is much broader and includes not only bloodlines and collateral bloodlines, but also minor nobles and knights who follow the main family, all of whom can be considered members of the family. Bloodline is the bond that holds families together, but its meaning is not limited to blood. Many special bloodlines will have unique abilities, and combinations of different bloodlines will often create new abilities. Some bloodlines are very capable of being able to chase them desperately. Thus, nobility and family took on a whole new meaning in the world of Nolan, and marriage was not only for political alliances, but also for the creation of powerful offspring.

By the time Richard stood in front of the gates of the Black Rose Castle, he should have already learned a lot about Akmund. But little Richard felt that he was even more confused, and everything that Mordred had poured into his mind without a system was like a broken puzzle, unable to put together a complete picture.