A Battle That Could Not Be Won

By the time Usop returned to the inn, Mr. Tauren Punch Master had already drunk himself under a table on the second floor.

"Hey! Usop! You're back? Have you eaten? Want a drink?"

Sun Busong's head was spinning, and he was slurring his words.

"Chief, I've already eaten. I came to find you because there's something I need to report!"

A hint of unease showed on Usop's face. The moment Sun Busong saw it, most of his drunkenness vanished.

"You lot carry on. I need to talk to your knight commander."

With that, Sun Busong got to his feet and left the inn with Usop.

"Go on, then. What happened?"

Usop began recounting his investigation that day.

It turned out that these two delivery errands were anything but simple.

First, there was a man named Sven. While he was away delivering goods, his entire family had been murdered. He didn't know who had killed them, but he'd seen a blurry figure burying something near his family's barn. He hadn't dared retrieve it himself, so he'd asked someone else to do it.

When Usop went to investigate, he discovered that the other delivery errand had also led to that same spot.

So Usop went ahead and completed the preliminary steps of the other errand, too. In the end, the two quests had mysteriously converged!

When Usop opened the thing buried in the barn, he found a book—or, more precisely, a diary.

He still didn't know who had written it. All he knew was that its owner had gone by the nickname Coward.

The diary's contents left him stunned. The werewolves had been accidentally released by this Coward from the cursed scythe in Roland's Tomb. He'd merely pulled the scythe's handle free of the rubble, but that had released the werewolves and the Undead.

"Where's the diary now?" Sun Busong asked.

Usop took the diary from his backpack. "Here!" Then he watched Sun Busong, waiting for his next instructions.

Sun Busong flipped through it. There were no unusual markings, and he sensed no magical energy. He could read the writing at the beginning, but as he reached the later pages, he couldn't recognize a single character!

What exactly was Sun Busong's Warrior character? A big shot on the Love Forum had gone to great lengths and poured their heart and soul into modifying it. He could read the writing of any race, understand the speech of any race, and speak and write in every language!

Yet now he couldn't read the words in this diary!

After thinking it over, Sun Busong decided to seek out the mayor and the Night Watch commander. This was the sort of matter best left to them.

They soon found the mayor, who was still awake at this hour. Sun Busong showed him the book, but the mayor couldn't read it either!

"Please take the letter I gave you to Shila Warningdy. He knows a great deal about languages and ancient art. I think he may be the only one who can translate it."

The two of them quickly found the historian named Shila Warningdy.

"Give me some time to decipher it. There are a lot of words here, and working them out will take a while. Half an hour. I'll have it deciphered in half an hour."

"Sorry for the trouble. We'll wait outside. If you need anything, just let us know."

Once they were waiting outside, things began to change inside the room.

As Shila Warningdy translated the text, the lights in the room dimmed and flickered. The stairs creaked as though something were moving on them, but before long, the strange phenomena stopped.

Half an hour later.

"Get in here, quickly!" Shila Warningdy's shout rang out from inside the room.

Sun Busong glanced at Usop, and the two hurried in. They had expected something to have gone wrong, but Shila Warningdy was standing there, perfectly fine.

"What is it? Did you find something?"

Shila Warningdy spoke quickly. "Heavens! If everything written in this letter is true, then what they're doing... It's horrifying! You'd better take the translated letter back to Mayor Elro. Hurry. I have a feeling this town's end is near..."

Sun Busong and Usop were both shocked. Night Town was where the Imperial Guard had made its first move to build its reputation. How could they let anyone else destroy it?

"We're going right away!"

They returned to the mayor's house and handed him the translated letter. He'd barely read it when his face turned deathly pale.

"This... This can't be!" The mayor couldn't control himself and cried out.

"Mayor, please calm down! What's wrong?" Sun Busong still had no idea what had happened to drive the mayor to the brink of madness.

"We've all been deceived. You aren't the first fool Apoclonby has manipulated. That old man who shuffles around, that respected Hermit of ours—he's actually an evil necromancer, a Morbent! He's a scourge upon this town!"

"Impossible! It can't be true!" Sun Busong hadn't liked the old man at first, what with him constantly sending them off to deliver this or that.

But after learning who the old man was, the Imperial Guard's reputation in Night Town had quickly risen. Sun Busong had even planned to find a chance to thank him. And now the mayor was telling him the old man was a necromancer—a Morbent!

"I don't want to argue with you! We need to go to the Night Watch now. The letter says they're going to make a major move tonight. We can't let them destroy our town!"

After saying that, the mayor paid them no further attention. He hurried out and headed straight for the Night Watch commander's office.

"Chief! What do we do?" Usop was just as confused. All he could do was hope his commander would make the right decision.

"Damn it!"

"Come on! Let's follow them and see. If the mayor's right and that Hermit is a necromancer, then I'm going to chop him into pieces tonight!" Sun Busong was furious. He'd realized he'd been made a fool of—played for a laugh! His anger surged higher and higher!

"Is this really true? I can hardly believe it!" By the time Sun Busong hurried to the commander's residence, the Night Watch commander's doubtful voice was coming from inside.

"There's no chance this is a mistake. Believe me. We're not here to question whether it's true—we need to figure out how to kill it and save Night Town!"

Commander Althea Eberlock fell silent.

At that moment, Sun Busong pushed open the door. This was no time for courtesies.

"The Imperial Guard knows what happened, too. We want to do our part to help the town!" Sun Busong told the bewildered commander and mayor.

After learning the Imperial Guard's intentions, the mayor relaxed a little. But his brow furrowed again almost at once.

The commander had also finished reading the letter. She let out a long breath, then lowered her head without a word.

After a long while, Commander Althea Eberlock spoke. "So that's what happened!"

She then briefly explained the story of the necromancer.

It turned out that Apoclonby had been manipulated by a necromancer named Morbent Fel. But the Hermit himself had also made a terrible mistake, allowing the necromancer to take control of his body.

Apoclonby had once been a kind alchemist and a Hermit, but he'd gone mad after his wife, Eliza, died. To bring her back to life, he'd become a Morbent, using dark magic to place his essence inside his dead wife's chest.

Eliza had come back to life... but she'd been cursed, turning into something neither human nor ghost. She began attacking people in a frenzy, and Apoclonby had no choice but to bury her.

But he couldn't bear to see his wife suffer. In the end, he turned to the people of the town, leading them to his wife, who had become a zombie, to be eaten.

Then Morbent Fel, a necromancer who had been wanted for hundreds of years, successfully used magic to control Apoclonby. Now Apoclonby and his wife were both the necromancer's puppets.

The necromancer had decided that at two o'clock tonight, he would gather all the nearby Undead and werewolves to massacre Night Town, using the town to build an altar and resurrect his own body!

"I've made the situation clear. But the most serious problem is that none of us can kill the Undead!" Commander Althea's face was ashen.

"No! There has to be a way! Usop is a Paladin; he can counter the Undead. And everyone in the Imperial Guard is powerful. We'll definitely defeat them!"

Sun Busong didn't want his first battle to end in defeat. Even if it cost him his life, he wouldn't retreat or back down!

"There is one more thing we can try." The mayor suddenly spoke up.

"What?" Althea and Sun Busong asked at the same time, turning to him in desperation.

"Go to Stormwind and contact Archbishop Falthien. He'll surely know what to do!"

"Stormwind? The archbishop?" At those words, Sun Busong's first instinct was to reject the idea.

Stormwind was currently in the hands of the nobles and the Black Dragon Lady. They wouldn't care about the safety of this little town of Night Town.

"What other choice do we have?" Commander Althea asked directly. Sun Busong was confused. The Night Watch was an official organization, a force under Stormwind's command. Surely Althea should have sent someone to ask for help—or at least believed Stormwind would keep an eye on things here and save the townspeople.

"Stormwind won't send reinforcements." After saying this, Althea lowered her head and fell silent. The mayor could only sigh and shake his head.

Unable to bear their resigned silence, Sun Busong took Usop with him and left.

"Go! Bring every member of the Imperial Guard here. They've given up. They've lost their nerve. But I haven't! Even if every last one of the Imperial Guard dies tonight, I'll still rip a bone from the Undead's leg!"

"Yes, sir!"

As Sun Busong was thinking about how to deal with the Undead, someone leaked the news. Before long, much of the town knew that the Undead would lay waste to Night Town at two o'clock that night!

"Why haven't Stormwind's guards arrived yet?"

"The Undead are rampaging all over the place, but where's the army from Stormwind?"

"We need a stronger response and more support from Stormwind. Our homes are under attack by the Undead!"

"It looks like Stormwind has abandoned us completely!"

"Fear and darkness are closing in on us."

"Stormwind's army isn't coming. Waaaaah!"

Of course, not everyone was in despair.

"Crying won't do us any good. We need to take action!" said the sheriff.

"The villagers of Night Town are counting on us. We can't let evil hurt them!" said a Night Watchman.

"The armed forces of Duskwood must take action! Evil is everywhere. We can't just sit around and wait to die!" said Fidia, a rogue of the Brotherhood!!!

Sun Busong smiled when he saw the rogue, her face full of righteous conviction.

"Looks like there are still plenty of good people in the Brotherhood!" This only strengthened his resolve to turn the Brotherhood into a weapon in his own hands.

"Commander! All ten members of the Imperial Guard are here. Please give the order!"

By then, Usop had brought the Tauren and the other members of the Imperial Guard over to Sun Busong.

At the first call to battle, their drunkenness had already worn off. Now they were all standing at attention, ready to brave any danger for the Imperial Guard and their commander!

"This operation will be extremely difficult. We're going up against an enemy we may not be able to defeat. But even if we can't accomplish our objective, we will never retreat. The Imperial Guard may die on the road ahead, but none of us will live as cowards or run away from a fight! We'll fight with everything we have. Even if we die, our names will live on for a thousand generations!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The townspeople, who had lost all hope and had no thought of fighting back, were startled by the three spirited cries, ringing with killing intent.

"Look! It's the Imperial Guard! They're getting ready to fight. They're here to protect us!"

"That's right, that's them! The Imperial Guard!"

The crowd surged forward, surrounding the Imperial Guard.

"Everyone, please stand back! Rest assured, the Imperial Guard will hold the front line. As long as we're still alive, the Undead won't set foot in Night Town!"

"Imperial Guard, please defend Night Town and protect us townspeople!"

"Look! That's Mr. Heavy Fist! I've talked to him before!"

"Don't push me! Commander, I'm with Fidia's Brotherhood. I want to join you and fight!"

"I want to join, too! I'm not with the thieves' gang—I'm a good person! I want to help protect the town!"

Seeing the crowd's excited faces, Sun Busong's mouth finally stopped drooping.

At a moment of crisis, there would always be people whose blood still ran hot enough to step forward. With their passion, they would remind those whose blood had grown cold that if they wanted to survive and live better, they had to learn to risk their lives for a chance to live. First, they had to be willing to give everything. Then they could trade their own lives for the lives of their loved ones!

"Thank you! I'm Sun Busong, chief of the Imperial Guard! I swear that anyone who joins the Imperial Guard today will be one of us for life, as long as you survive the battle. I won't ask where you come from, what you've done, or what race you are. If you fall in battle, the Imperial Guard will provide for your parents in their old age and support your children. I, Sun Busong, will keep my word!"

No need for more words. Just two: thank you.