The Hero Arrives

In the darkness, firelight blazed from the Holy City Army's main camp in the distance.

Shien led the charge, seventy fully armed knights behind him, cutting straight through the night like a sword.

The wind whipped his dark cloak around him, making his dazzling silver-white hair stand out all the more.

His youthful face held a resolve that bordered on self-sacrifice.

He thrust his sword high. Battle Aura surged, and his voice rang out across the wilderness: "The Sacred Flame shall never die! We shall not yield to the long night! Bishop Castian is under attack! Knights, follow me! Crush the swarm and fight for the bishop and the Sacred Flame!"

The Church Knights led by Fabien had red-rimmed eyes, burning with zeal.

To them, this young lord looked like a hero stepped out of the Sacred Canon. He knew a hell of ten thousand insects lay ahead, yet he charged without hesitation.

The Grace Values above their heads soared in response to his noble cause.

"Damn it, hurry up! Any slower and we'll miss our chance!"

Shien shouted about rescuing them, but he knew there had to be another reason for the chaos in the Holy City Army's camp.

The Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts could not tear through the Holy City Army. They could not even bite through its Silver-Plated Armor.

Shien was not worried that Bishop Castian would die. What worried him was whether the Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts would last until his heroic entrance.

His sole purpose in coming was to arrive before the Holy City Army regained its footing and play the loyal lord who had come to their aid in what looked like a hopeless situation.

He needed to carve himself into Bishop Castian's memory.

Any slower and they'll wipe out the bugs! Then I won't even get a chance to put on a show!

Bishop Castian stood on the command platform at the center of the main camp.

Pale golden Holy Light spread beneath his feet in a thin film, keeping out the bloody mud and stench as his gaze swept over the churning ground below.

Those Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts should never have appeared inside the Great Wall. Someone's working behind the scenes...

His brows drew together almost imperceptibly. In the distance, the Holy City Army's outer formation was in shambles.

Sickles bursting from underground severed the warhorses' legs, sending them screaming into the mire.

Young Holy City Knights were pinned in the mud by their heavy armor and forced back step by step, their broken formation riddled with openings.

It would have been one thing if these were soldiers from some ordinary domain. But this was the Holy City Army.

Castian's expression turned cold as packed snow. He knew that, for certain reasons, the Church had mixed plenty of useless men into the force it had given him.

He had thought they could at least hold a formation, however shakily. He had not expected them to be this fragile.

These fools could recite every prayer by heart, yet a few insects were enough to give them trouble.

"Bishop, shall we go out and clear them away?" asked Malcolm, the Knights' commander beside him.

Castian merely raised a hand to stop him. "No need."

The true horrors of the Eternal Night Wall were a hundred, a thousand times worse. A low-level insect swarm like this would be little more than a nuisance crushed underfoot there.

If the recruits could not handle an ambush of this scale, they would only die faster on the front line.

"Let them bleed a little first," Castian said calmly.

Under the light of the Blood Moon, he watched the killing ground where insects and recruits tangled together, with no intention of intervening.

Once they had fully adjusted to fighting Red Moon Monsters—or a moment before they were driven to the brink and their lines collapsed—the Holy Knight Legion could step in.

That would strip the recruits of their naïveté and teach them to stand in awe of the Holy Knights who saved them.

That was how they ought to be trained. He waited quietly for the moment to come.

Fortunately, inexperienced though the soldiers on the perimeter were, they were still among the finest people in this world. They gradually adapted as they fought.

More of them began to find their footing and cover one another. Their frantic sword swings settled into a rough defensive rhythm.

But in Castian's eyes, that small improvement earned only a contemptuous sneer. "Too slow."

He was about to continue watching until they had all adapted.

Then a flash of silver suddenly surged forward from the camp's flank.

Castian looked that way, one brow lifting slightly.

A narrow spearhead of more than seventy knights forced its way into the swarm from the side.

At its head rode the silver-haired young lord. Castian remembered him.

Shien raised his sword high, his voice carrying clearly over the insects' cries. "In the name of the Sacred Flame, we defend the bishop's will!"

It was a stirring cry, but one thought drifted through Castian's mind. He shouts well enough, but his moves are still amateurish.

Shien's seventy knights were about as capable as the recruits on his perimeter.

What surprised Castian was that a newly appointed lord of fourteen had managed to hold his own camp against the ambush—and even spare men to aid the Holy City Army.

By Castian's reckoning, those new lords of Long Night should all have been floundering in the mud, howling for the Holy City Army to rescue them.

Instead, this silver-haired boy had not only held his line but entered the battle at the most critical moment. Castian had not expected that at all.

Castian's gaze darkened. Now that help had arrived, there was no point in prolonging the recruits' trial. Besides, letting a young lord witness their sorry state was embarrassing.

He turned his head slightly toward Malcolm, the commander of the Holy City Knights behind him. "Show them what the Holy City Army can do."

Malcolm accepted the order. "Yes!"

When Shien led his troops to the Holy City Army's camp, the first thing he saw was the battered perimeter, nearly torn open by the swarm.

Young Holy City Knights fell into the mud and scrambled back up, barely keeping the locusts a few steps away.

But Shien looked past the chaos toward the inner ring.

Two hundred Holy Knights stood there, silently watching the battle.

Shien understood at once. Bishop Castian had watched coldly from the beginning. To the Holy City Army, this crisis was nothing more than a chance to test its blades.

No matter how badly the perimeter fared, that bishop considered it beneath his notice.

Shien's judgment had been right. His gamble had paid off.

Just as he prepared to lead his men in a charge toward the bishop, the Holy Knights in the inner ring finally moved.

Of the two hundred elite Holy Knights, only a squad of twenty-five broke away, racing toward the perimeter like a white blade.

They drew their greatswords, and dazzling pure-white Battle Aura flared along the edges.

The instant they reached the insects, their swords swept across them.

Boom!!!

Battle Aura erupted like a tidal wave.

The Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts leaping at them had no time even to shriek. Their shells vaporized in the pure-white flames, dissolving into acrid blue smoke that scattered on the night wind.

A second strike followed, then a third. Each swing of the Holy Knights' swords vaporized another swath of Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts.

Within two minutes, the insects' cries fell silent. The Holy Knights had not even broken a sweat.