Chapter 380: Leblanc, the "War Faction"
"Vladimir." Leblanc came back to her senses and looked at her old friend, the immortal master of blood magic.
"Hmm?" Vladimir slowly put down the goblet filled with scarlet blood, his eyes becoming sharp.
He rarely saw such a solemn look on the face of this Deceiver who always maintained her elegance and mystery.
His intuition told him that what LeBlanc was going to bring him next would not be good news.
Sure enough, Leblanc said, "I want you to go to Balue, Vladimir."
This made Vladimir's eyes turn cold instantly.
He knew what this meant: "You want me to participate in this war with the Leader, and let me test the Leader myself?"
"Yes." LeBlanc nodded calmly.
"But you are not my master, Leblanc," Vladimir said. "You have no right to command me."
He is LeBlanc's partner and a major shareholder of Black Rose, but he is not a pawn that can be used by LeBlanc at will.
Why should he be allowed to do this dirty and tiring work of charging into battle?
"Because you are the strongest among us, aren't you?" LeBlanc said, "The Black Rose needs your strength now, Vladimir."
"Haha." Vladimir wanted to laugh when he heard this.
Putting aside the trump card held by Black Rose, he is indeed the strongest in the organization.
But the problem is, he is the boss of Black Rose!
In this world, there are only precedents of employees working hard for their bosses, so how can there be any reason for bosses to sacrifice themselves for the company?
No matter how well the company performs, can it be more important than the life of its boss?
Vladimir's first goal in life has always been to ensure his own immortality. As for the Black Rose and Noxus? Sorry, these external things are not worth risking his life for.
"I have asked my Scarlet Order mages to take Sean to support the Baluo battlefield." Vladimir said, "They will naturally deal with those leaders."
"Ridiculous." Leblanc mercilessly exposed Vladimir's poor excuse: "Are you really unwilling to go to Barue because you believe that they can deal with the Leader alone?"
It’s because I’m afraid of death.
The war currently taking place in the province of Barue was originally intended to destroy the conventional combat power of the Leader, thereby forcing out the Goddess Gana behind the Leader and confirming the true strength of the Goddess Gana.
There are undoubtedly risks in doing so.
Be it Vladimir or LeBlanc, none of the top leaders of the Black Rose were willing to take this risk personally.
So according to the Black Rose's original plan, the course of this war should be like this -
The Black Rose hid itself behind the scenes, letting the imperial army rush to the front and act as pawns, allowing the 100,000 elite troops to crush the conventional military forces of the Leader with a crushing force, thus achieving the goal of forcing the Goddess Gana to show up.
But the problem is...
"It has now been proven that the 100,000 so-called elite troops of the empire are simply incapable of destroying the conventional military force of the Leader."
After two months of hard work, they still failed to capture even a single hill in Barue.
Why would it be necessary for Goddess Gana to show up in person?
If this continues, the united anti-Noro front formed by the Leaders, Demacians and Ionians will probably be enough to push back the imperial invading army.
"Noxus is now fighting on four fronts and can no longer mobilize more elite warriors to support the Balue battlefield."
"And the beyond-visual-range strike tactics invented by the Leader almost wiped out the Empire's advantage in numbers."
This means that if the Empire wants to defeat the Leader on the battlefield, it must support more and stronger extraordinary warriors.
And within the empire, the only one who can mobilize so many extraordinary masters at once is the Black Rose.
"At this point, the Black Rose can no longer remain in the background and watch from the sidelines." LeBlanc said solemnly: "Do you know how quickly the faith of the Windleader spreads in Ionia?"
The increase in believers will make the power of God stronger, and Leblanc is very clear about this.
She hadn't paid much attention to it before because the Leader was just starting out at the time and the spread of its faith was limited to those small twin cities.
However, because the threshold for understanding Gana's ideology is high and it is difficult to promote it, and the Leader has risen too quickly and lacks reliable political and propaganda cadres... Therefore, even with a population of several million in the Twin Cities, the Leader has been unable to digest it.
To date, out of the nearly 4 million people in the Twin Cities, probably only less than 1 million people believe in Goddess Janna, and most of them are just shallow believers of the wind.
It has only been less than a year since the birth .
In less than a year, from 0 to 1 million, this achievement is actually the result of using plug-ins, which is already very good.
Even Levi himself never thought about exporting ideas and struggles to the outside world in the first year of the organization's establishment.
But no one expected that by chance...
"The faith in Goddess Janna spread like wildfire in Ionia."
"Compared to the Twin Cities, where Ziben is the master, the feudal and backward Ionia is more welcoming to this knowledge that can cure Ziben's illness."
This is actually not surprising.
The great success of the Leaders in Zaun has caused many of them to unconsciously develop a mental inertia and ignore the huge potential for the spread of Janna's ideas in industrially backward regions such as Ionia.
Even many trendsetters believe that true trendsetters can only be born in modern industrial civilization.
Ionia hasn't even started the main battle of Zinben, and you're starting with the main battle of Janna. How can that work? Can a bunch of Ionian farmers who have never seen a factory understand Janna's theory and become the leader?
Many people think not.
However, they all forgot one thing:
“In the words of the leader himself, the struggle will always succeed first where the conflict is most intense.”
After Zaun was taken over by the Leaders, social conflicts have been greatly alleviated.
Although the people of Zaun are extremely grateful for the changes brought about by the Leader and are keen to learn Janna's theories, their affluent and stable life ultimately makes them less urgent in their belief in Janna.
Although Ionia is a backward agricultural country, theoretically there is no soil for Janna's rule to take root.
But this is almost the place in the entire Runeterra where conflicts are most intense and most frequent, and it is also the place where Janna's thoughts are most urgently needed.
After all, in Ionia, facing the butcher knife of Noxus...
If you don't learn Janna's thoughts and don't have the goddess's protection at the critical moment, it will be fatal.
“So, we can’t delay this any longer.”
"If this continues, until the Ionians convert to Janna for self-protection, then..."
Then what are you testing for?
Even if the true strength of Goddess Janna is not as strong as when she appeared in the Twin Cities before, after gaining so many believers, she will become a truly great and true god.
"By then, we will have completely lost - do I need to explain this to you, Vladimir?"
LeBlanc asked him in a serious tone.
But Vladimir remained silent and was reluctant to express his opinion.
"You?!" Leblanc frowned.
In fact, whether it was her, Vladimir, or anyone else from the Black Rose...
They had noticed the rapid spread of Janna's faith in Ionia a month or two ago, and had long been aware of the dangers hidden behind it.
Everyone knows that the war between the Empire and the Leader cannot be dragged on any longer and must be resolved quickly.
But the problem is...
The Black Rose is a loosely organized underground wizard society with many factions within it and is not united at all.
LeBlanc, Vladimir, Iris, these top leaders of the organization do not have a clear hierarchical relationship. Instead, each of them is an independent faction and commands a certain force.
Elise has her own Church of the Vile Maw under her command;
Vladimir, on the other hand, has a Scarlet Order that is loyal only to him;
Leblanc also has a team of mages and spies under her command, which she trained herself.
In short, every member of the Black Rose has his or her own direct troops, and they are all quite strong.
But when experts were needed on the battlefield, everyone only wanted to preserve the strength of their own troops, giving priority to the imperial army and letting "miscellaneous troops" like Urgot and Du Kokao go to the front line to fight.
The result is...
The Imperial Army was no match for the Leader, and the Black Rose members were reluctant to take action. They only wanted to hide behind the scenes and mobilize more Imperial troops to support Barue, trying to see if they could change the situation.
As a result, it has been delayed until now, and all the elite troops that Noxus can support have arrived...
Not only was the leader not defeated, but he became more and more courageous as the battle went on, and there was a tendency for him to turn from defense to offense.
"Vladimir, it's already this late, and you're still thinking about conserving your strength?" Leblanc asked rudely.
Vladimir was not moved at all, and even asked back disdainfully: "You want me to go to the battlefield, what about you?"
"My abilities are not suitable for use on the battlefield." Leblanc replied calmly: "Of course, if you ask, I am willing to go with you."
"Huh." Vladimir didn't believe it.
He knew that Leblanc was the same person as himself.
Would she risk her life? Ridiculous. I'm afraid she would just send a clone to put on a show for him.
But LeBlanc is right.
It is impossible to deal with the current leader without a heavy blow.
"Leblanc." Vladimir pondered for a moment, then tried to suggest: "If you are really worried about the Wind Leader, why not release the Immortal Bastion..."
"No!" Leblanc frowned.
"That thing is not so easy to control. If it gets out of control after we let it out..."
"In short, this is our trump card against Mordekaiser. We must not use it so easily at the last minute. Moreover, it is wasted on this ridiculous internal friction of mankind."
LeBlanc spoke in a serious tone, like a heroic warrior who was considering the interests of all mankind.
But she is not actually that noble.
She didn't want to use that trump card on the Leader, simply because, compared to the Leader, she was more afraid of Modkaiser.
After all, she still has united front value to the leaders.
In Mordekaiser's case, she is only there for entertainment value.
If you fall into his hands, being crushed to dust is the least you can do. If you can die quickly, it is a gift from this tyrant.
"Vladimir, now is the moment to decide the life or death of the Black Rose." Leblanc came back to her senses: "You, me, Iris, all of us, must contribute our greatest strength to this battle."
“Otherwise…” She paused and looked at Vladimir, who looked indifferent: “If we lose, and the Wind Leader defeats Noxus and then rules the world—”
"Vladimir, do you think they will let you go?"
"Don't forget how many lives you have to consume every year to maintain your immortality with blood magic!"
“……” Vladimir’s face suddenly turned ugly.
LeBlanc spoke to his heart.
Among the many evil wizards of the Black Rose, he is undoubtedly the one least likely to coexist peacefully with the Leader.
Because he needs literally "mountains of corpses and seas of blood" and the flesh and blood of countless living people as nourishment to maintain this powerful and eternal body.
If the leader is allowed to take over the world, he will eventually become a sewer rat that cannot stand the light of day, and will eventually be surrounded in the sewer by the increasingly powerful leaders, and die in suffocation and despair.
"Is this the ending you wanted, Vladimir?" Leblanc's question went straight to the soul: "Or do you expect that you can hide safely forever in a world ruled by a goddess?"
This is impossible.
The tide of faith in Ionia has proven that if left unchecked, the leader's footsteps will eventually spread across the world.
By then, the power of the goddess Janna will become unprecedentedly strong, and there will no longer be a "pure land" in the world where Vladimir can eat human blood and drink blood in peace.
"Let's face it - if you don't act now, you may never have the chance to act again."
"I..." Vladimir thought for a long time.
After a long time, he finally agreed: "You convinced me, Leblanc."
"I will take action in this battle."
"Very good." Leblanc smiled confidently.
It seems that as long as all the Black Rose members unite, victory will be within reach.
But Vladimir asked again: "But what if we fail in this battle? If Goddess Janna is more powerful than we thought, if the Leader can defeat us without Goddess Janna, then..."
"Well..." Leblanc smiled but said nothing.
"You!" Vladimir's face was gloomy.
He knew what Leblanc was thinking. This woman was the same as him, extremely selfish and afraid of death.
The only difference is that the Leader will never accept him as a "blood-sucking demon", but Leblanc...
As expected, Leblanc spread her hands and answered frankly and directly:
"It doesn't matter. I will surrender."
Vladimir: “…”
"Don't look at me like that." Leblanc showed a sly smile: "If you want to keep me, then do your best to win back victory for the Black Rose, my old friend!"
