I will be crowned king

One fifty-five minutes outside Clovis.

Under the ruins of the street, the messy sound of military boots mixed with the sound of gunshots broke the brief silence. Two companies wearing exactly the same military uniforms and flying the red and black King Clovis flag spread out their lines sporadically, relying on Street militias left behind the remains of fortifications and launched tentative attacks against each other.

The forces on both sides were not too large, but they were enough to form a line in the middle of the narrow street, use frontal firepower to try to suppress the other side, or simply launch a column assault and drive the enemy out of the position with bayonets; but they all chose to use skirmishers. Adding cover is the method of fighting that I am least good at.

Not only that, both sides did not put all their troops into the front. More than two-thirds of the soldiers were hiding in bunkers, holding up guns and dummy targets made of wooden sticks and military hats, staring at the doors and windows on both sides of the street in fear. , eaves, windows, alleyways, and any corner that seems to hide people; soldiers rushing in the front row cannot devote themselves to the battle. They must always pay attention to the movements to their left and right, and at the same time ensure that they are not too far away from the soldiers in the rear row. Far.

In comparison, a head-on conflict can no longer even be called a "conflict": both sides firmly hold every position that seems to be defendable, constantly test each other with cold guns and small groups of assaults, and quickly retreat if they are slightly frustrated; fighting It seems to have become a turn-based attack and defense.

And such battles are being staged in many large and small streets in the outer city.

Due to various problems in the distribution of spoils and logistical supplies, as well as some intentional or unintentional stimulation, the eight standing armies that mutinied quickly entered the "internal strife" stage; even though the generals understood that it was not yet time to completely break up, It is no longer possible to completely stop it - property is secondary, and what really matters is supplies.

The start time of the entire mutiny was six o'clock in the morning, but in fact, as early as around four o'clock, they were assembled in advance due to the sudden action of the Storm Legion.

To put it more bluntly, nearly 300,000 soldiers not only did not get enough sleep, but also fought at high intensity from four in the morning to one in the afternoon; not to mention breakfast, they did not even get a glass of water.

Originally, in the imagination of the generals, the battle after the mutiny was nothing more than two situations. One was an unprecedentedly fierce resistance, with more than 200,000 militiamen and almost 10,000 Storm Legion high-walled fortresses, fighting each other step by step; soldiers We fight with high intensity, and no one will complain about eating before evening.

The other is even simpler. The 300,000 standing army is overwhelming. They will reach the Osteria Palace before the afternoon, overthrow and dissolve the Privy Council. There is also no need for supplies. The nobles who surrendered will provide them. With all their wealth, they can hold a celebration banquet.

But neither situation happened. The resistance on the opposite side was very weak. However, the offensive momentum still stalled, and the vanguard was unable to enter the inner city.

As soon as they stopped, the soldiers who had nothing to do immediately noticed their thirsty lips and throats, plus their empty stomachs that had been complaining for most of the day.

Then I saw that the friendly troops who entered the city in advance were burning, killing and looting. They had already eaten fried sausages, butter on the bread, and chicken was boiling in the pot... Then I saw that they were blocked outside, just because they entered the city later. I could only smell it, and the other person held a gun against me with a wary look on his face.

In an instant, the unknown anger in their hearts broke through the soldiers' reason, giving them a strong desire for "fairness and justice" and "retaliation."

The generals who could not control the army could only let it go. After all, they were not an omnipotent ring of order. They immediately set up a stable supply line to deliver the supplies in the general camp to the soldiers on the front line - not to mention those who were also the same. It is your own capital. Who can guarantee that "friendly forces" will not loot your supplies?

And just when the mutinous legions were hurting each other, another force that had been defeated quietly rose up in the dark...

"boom--!"

Accompanied by the crisp sound of gunfire, the soldiers hiding in the bunker watched in horror as the three-cornered hat on the target had a hole; soon, countless gunfire exploded on both sides of the street and in corners in all directions. , sweeping both sides indiscriminately like a violent storm.

The two companies that had just been attacking and defending in a turn-based manner immediately shut down their fire, and all the soldiers hid in the nearest bunker as quickly as possible regardless of whether they were friends or foes.

Through the choking smoke and dust, they could actually see groups of messy and disorderly figures armed with weapons emerging from both sides of the street; either looking down from a high position, or touching the company from the dark. bunker and began to attack them.

The scattered soldiers could only fight on their own, fearfully guarding against bayonets suddenly coming from the dark, or staring at themselves in a corner; while the soldiers gathered in the bunker were " "Focus on care." Being hit by random gunfire, torches, or homemade Molotov cocktails, he was like a trapped beast.

Starting from occupying most of the outer city area, the legionnaires who had just easily defeated the militia were horrified to find that these troops, which had no combat power in the face-to-face confrontation, suddenly became extremely powerful.

They knew the neighborhoods and streets far better than the standing legions who had maps, and as if they were self-taught, they knew how to seize the opportunity to attack unsuspecting or marching armies.

The most important thing is that unlike the thugs during the previous rebellion in Clovis City, these militiamen who had just touched weapons for a few days never shot randomly. The first target they aimed at was always the officers in the team.

This puts huge pressure on the legion, especially the legion that has been unable to assemble a large number of troops for the time being... Middle-level officers do not dare to leave the headquarters easily, and lower-level officers risk being shot in the head at any time. Soldiers also stay away from their commanders in order to survive. He was afraid that the other party's bullet would miss him and find him.

Faced with this situation, many military officers also tried to suppress the resistance in the streets and communities under their control, but this is actually a paradox: to suppress the riots, we must mobilize troops, which means giving up certain occupied areas to friendly forces. , and once it is given away, it will definitely not be taken back, and some important traffic arteries will even be cut off by excessive measures.

Therefore, we cannot give up the control area easily and must disperse our forces to occupy it. Then we cannot balance the tasks of attacking the inner city and suppressing the riots, and we have to watch the number of casualties expand. Every officer and soldier is in danger. No one dares to act without permission, and orders cannot be given. If the order is executed, even the order cannot be conveyed to the army below - the messenger will also be shot in the cold.

The chaotic situation interrupted everyone's plans, and a very terrifying realization gradually began to emerge in the minds of the mutinous generals.

…………………………

"Cognition?"

Anson blurted out subconsciously with a surprised face.

"To be more precise, it is that your cognition has been reconstructed under the influence of some special factors."

Wilhelm Gottfried scratched his messy hair and continued to speak in a feeble tone after staying up all night:

"Things like memory... will have a subtle impact on people or all intelligent life as time goes by. This impact will not be obvious at first, but... how should I describe it, it is like some kind of... choose."

"You get a kind of information, and your subconscious mind keeps and stores this information, and then gradually loses it, and finally turns into a symbol. It needs to wait until it is confirmed again, and the symbol will be re-extracted and interact with more memories. The connection creates a new memory again.”

"I tell you the answer to a question, you get the answer, and combine it with other memories to confirm the answer repeatedly; after some time, the question and the answer will become a common symbol in your memory; think of the question Or the answer will immediately evoke the 'memory' of the other."

"The above... is the memory formation process of most intelligent life forms below humanoids and apostles, and it does not apply to apostles who have completely abandoned their 'restraints'."

After the words fell, Anson, who had been silent for a long time, looked at William who was having one cup of coffee after another, and couldn't help but raise his eyebrows:

"So... aren't we talking about 'cognition'?"

"That's true, but I thought you went to such trouble to find me because you didn't just want to know an answer that you couldn't understand at all."

William took a sip of the scalding coffee and looked at Anson seriously: "So, do you probably understand what I just said?"

"Can you only tell part of it?" Anson frowned slightly:

"In short, in my mind, the name 'Maurice Périgord' is equivalent to the Elf Ambassador of Ythel who was framed by Mace Honard and died at the hands of Judge Lawrence. What?"

"That's right, and judging from your description, I'm afraid this name is related to you and this event. It belongs to a subset of a large collection and is irrelevant." William Gottfried tilted his head :

"If I'm not mistaken, you have basically no impression of this Yser elf, right?"

"……You can say that."

Anson's expression was not very sure... He writes a diary every day and reads it frequently. In addition, his memory has improved significantly after becoming a blasphemy mage, and he has reached the point where he can fully understand the events of the past year.

If it hadn't happened too early, and if I didn't care at all, I wouldn't have suddenly reacted until now and faintly noticed the abnormality.

"That's it." Wilhelm Gottfried nodded: "That person...that is, the Maurice Périgord in your mouth took advantage of this and extracted an insignificant story from your memory. information and then deconstructs it to confuse your perception and make you think of him as 'Maurice Périgord'."

"And in order for you to deepen your understanding of this 'false information', he should have provided you with more information - origin, experience, identity, nickname, age, etc... It can be false or true. Yes, it doesn’t matter.”

"The important thing is that under the same 'symbol', his amount of information has greatly exceeded that of the real 'Maurice Périgord'. In addition, you care very much about him, resulting in this 'false information' Successful latecomers come to the fore and replace the original correct understanding.”

"No, if that were the case, it would be different."

Anson frowned: "Because I have also confirmed the information about him with other people. A lot of the information was not obtained from his mouth or body, but from others. If it just confuses my knowledge, why can I get it from others?" Where is the confirmation?"

"Uh, well..." William spread his hands and said:

"I have no idea."

"you do not know?!"

"I really don't know, because I have not personally experienced the incident, and I don't know the Maurice Périgord you are talking about at all, and I don't have the same memory as you." He said matter-of-factly:

"Why? Maybe those people worked together to deceive you, maybe their memories were also confused, maybe you were influenced and spread the wrong influence to others..."

"Of course, the most likely thing is that he mixed some correct parts into the wrong memory. In order to prevent further damage to your cognition, others can only temporarily let you master the correct information on top of the mistakes. .”

"After all, the original 'Maurice Périgord' doesn't matter to you. Even if it's wrong, it doesn't matter. But what's important is that in the mistakes, you must be able to master important and correct memories, form symbols, and avoid being hurt again. The influence that comes from this person.”

"……damage?"

Anson was even more confused: "Wrong memory will cause harm to me? And... memory, is there a difference between right and wrong?"

"This kind of thing cannot be explained in one or two sentences. You only need to know one thing first, that is, this kind of damage is subtle to you, and you will not see any impact in a short time; but to him, it is extremely serious. Crucial step.”

William Gottfried nodded: "I'd better give you an example. It's a bit like using 'ancient runes' to interpret unknown information. As an interpreter, I don't need to know everything right away. Content, I only need to understand which runes correspond to a small part, and then I can decipher them all."

"The memory that confuses cognition has the same principle - first it mixes in some of your indifferent memories, distorts them and completely replaces them, so that you can follow the information he has to understand the higher level of this part of the memory. Content, and those are the ones you are more concerned about, and then spread from them to other content that you don’t care about..."

"The speed of this diffusion is geometrically multiplied. Eventually, your memory will be presented to him without reservation, and can be read, interpreted and understood at will."

"Actually, this is the best case scenario. It's just that the memory is known by the other party. It doesn't matter. The huge amount of information will also affect him, but what if he can not only master it, but even..."

"Can it even be...modified?"