Chapter 375: The Maiden of Frostgrave (2)

However, that was just the brief summary of the legend of the Maiden of Frostgrave. Still, his curiosity about the legend had only grown.

After all, who wasn’t a fan of a good legend?

But what interested him even more was how she had managed to hold the North together when its defenses were already collapsing. There was also the story about the Paragon who had been sent by Necraz to aid the North, though at that time, he had yet to be formally anointed as one.

Luckily, he had Calyra to fill in some of the missing pieces. As a direct descendant of Alizée herself, Ruvian hoped he might pry a little more of the truth from her.

As Calyra led him through the city toward one of the inns she had known since childhood, she eventually picked up where she had left off.

"There are plenty of records about how Marchioness Alizée took charge of Frostgrave’s defense. Although... depending on which one you read, they tend to disagree on the details."

She paused briefly.

"But... there is one thing most of them agree on. Her methods were different from those of the commanders before her. In some cases, very."

A small note of pride slipped into her voice.

"I suppose the fact that Frostgrave survived says enough about how well they worked. Though... there’s something you should know about her first. Alizée was already familiar with the duties expected of the future head of House Arcanis.

She was, after all, the only child and direct heir of the house, so her family had been preparing her for that responsibility practically since she was little — military command, fortress management, logistics... all those tedious things."

Calyra fell silent for a few steps, as though considering how to put it.

"And when her father died, everything fell onto her at once. Was she ready for it? Probably not." She gave a faint shrug. "I don’t think anyone would’ve been."

She looked ahead with a faintly distant expression. "But she knew enough to act. Ready or not, back then... I suppose that was what mattered."

Ruvian gave a small nod.

’I see...’

Now that Calyra had put it that way, Ruvian had to agree; responsibility had a rather nasty habit of arriving before people were ready for it.

Everyone liked to talk about preparation, experience, and growing into a role. That sounded nice enough. But reality rarely bothered to wait for any of those things.

’Most of the time, no one really knows when they’re ready. You just have... to step up when the moment comes.’

For a moment, his gaze became distant and contemplative. A second later, he pulled his attention back to Calyra.

"So, after she took command, how did she prepare for the next wave of Voidspawns?" he asked. "If the commanders before her had already exhausted every strategy they knew and still failed to hold the frontier, what exactly did Alizée do differently?"

"Well, I don’t exactly remember every detail," Calyra said, briefly lowering her gaze as she searched through her memory. "But if my memory serves me right, one of the old records mentioned that she chose to abandon the second defensive line entirely."

She shook her head slightly before sighing.

"Apparently, it sounded absurd at the time, especially since the first defense line had already fallen." Calyra glanced toward Ruvian as they continued walking. "And instead of rushing to reinforce the second one, she told everyone not to fortify it at all."

Back then, Frostgrave did not rely on a single wall to guard the northern border. There were three main defense lines spread across the region, each built around stone walls, watchtowers, small forts, and military camps.

If all three were breached, Valcavein City itself would become the final line of defense, protected by the massive wall surrounding it.

Each defense line was meant to slow the Voidspawns down and buy the soldiers behind it more time to prepare.

Losing even one meant the creatures were already pressing closer toward the nearby settlements.

So when Alizée proposed abandoning the second line without even trying to strengthen it, several commanders thought she had lost her senses.

Calyra gave him a faint, knowing look.

"But she did have a reason, and once you hear it, it actually makes sense."

Her expression grew slightly more serious as she recalled the rest.

"They barely had enough time before nightfall, and repairing the damaged sections of the second line would have demanded far too many soldiers. So even if they somehow managed to finish before the next assault, those men would have already been exhausted by the time the Voidspawns arrived.

"In other words, she didn’t want to squander what little strength they still had defending a position she had already judged impossible to hold."

Calyra fell silent for a few steps before turning her gaze ahead, where the inn they would be staying at for the night had finally come into view.

"So instead, she ordered them to abandon the second defense line entirely and pour everything they still had into reinforcing the third."

Ruvian thought about what she said for a moment, but something still bothered him.

Alizée did not sound like the kind of person who would simply surrender an entire defensive line without wringing some value out of it first.

If she was willing to abandon such an important position, then there had to be something more behind that decision.

"In that case, she still intended to make use of it, didn’t she?" Ruvian asked, glancing toward Calyra. "If she already knew the line was going to fall, I doubt she intended to let the Voidspawns take it without paying a price."

Calyra’s expression barely changed.

"Yes. Technically speaking... she had abandoned it, but not completely. Like you said, she still had a use for it. She simply stopped wasting men and resources trying to preserve the line itself. According to the old records, Alizée had turned the entire second defense line into one enormous trap."

Ruvian remained silent, waiting for the rest.

"The idea itself was simple enough. She wanted the second line to kill as many Voidspawns as possible while buying enough time for the third line to finish its preparations."

After a brief paused, Calyra added:

"But more importantly... she was waiting for someone."

Necraz had already sent word that reinforcement was coming to aid the North, and Alizée intended to hold Frostgrave until it arrived.

Calyra frowned faintly at that part of the story.

Even now, sending only one person to reinforce an entire region already teetering on the edge of collapse sounded almost absurd.

But then again... this was Necraz they were talking about.

And the one person he had sent would eventually become a Paragon.

Still, looking back on history, it was easy to say that Necraz had made the right decision. But to the people desperately holding Frostgrave together at the time, it must have sounded insane.

They had no way of knowing they were waiting for a future Paragon.

As far as they were concerned, they were being asked to hold together a collapsing northern frontier while staking everything on a single reinforcement whose name meant little to them.

Yet Alizée trusted Necraz enough to stake Frostgrave on that promise.

And perhaps that faith ran both ways, because instead of sending an army he simply did not have, Necraz sent one person and expected Alizée to keep the North standing until that person arrived.

That meant she could not afford to squander soldiers before then.

"That was also why she made sure the men stationed at the second line had a way out. She had hidden passages prepared beneath the fortifications, allowing the soldiers to withdraw toward the third line before the trap was finally triggered."

Calyra’s expression softened slightly at that, though her voice remained firm.

"She was willing to sacrifice the walls, but not the people defending them. Fortifications could be rebuilt. Experienced soldiers — no, people’s lives — could not."

That was how Alizée managed to keep the North standing through the first night after her abrupt appointment as Frostgrave’s acting commander.

However, surviving that first night was only the beginning.

That desperate defense had merely been the opening phase of a much larger plan.

So, what did she do next?

Well, at least according to the way Calyra told the story, Alizée did not waste a single moment once the promised reinforcement finally arrived.

The moment that person reached Frostgrave, Alizée stopped focusing solely on defense.

Rather than waiting for another wave to batter itself against Frostgrave, she decided to seize the initiative.

Before the next wave arrived, she launched a full-scale counteroffensive.

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[Chapter 375: The Maiden of Frostgrave (2)]

Plot Points = 296,500