The Truth Behind the Insect Plague
The camps along the way were unrecognizable. Amid the wreckage, only a few wisps of acrid black smoke still curled upward.
Shien rode at the head of the party. Behind him came Ivan, holding the rear like an iron tower, and a dozen or so Church cavalrymen led by Fabien.
Their breastplates had been polished to a shine, and their formation was so precise that even their horses' hooves struck the ground in unison.
The steady hoofbeats drew the eyes of the survivors by the roadside.
At first, those eyes held only numbness and vacancy. Then their gazes slowly sank, leaving nothing but tightly suppressed fear.
In the midst of such chaos, emerging unscathed was enough to send a chill through anyone.
The main camp slowly took shape in the thin mist.
Bishop Castian's anger still hung in the air, weighing heavily on everyone.
Several high-ranking Holy Knights guarded the camp entrance, their Holy Silver Spears held upright like cold stone statues, sealing off the passage completely.
Shien swung down from his horse, tossed the reins to an attendant, and walked straight into the suffocating clearing.
The other newly appointed Long Night Lords had already arrived.
Kevin leaned against a thick wooden post, dark circles beneath his eyes and exhaustion plain on his face.
At the sound of boots on the ground, he looked up. His gaze lingered for half a moment on Shien's face, which showed little sign of fatigue.
A clear flicker of wariness crossed his calculating eyes, but he quickly hid it behind an aristocratic smile.
"Good morning, Lord Shien." Kevin inclined his head.
Shien stopped and met his gaze calmly. "Good morning, Lord Kevin."
As for Eric and Thomas, they had changed into clean everyday clothes, but their trembling hands and lips betrayed just how badly they had fared last night.
They slumped on cold logs, their eyes as empty as dried-up wells.
Last night's one-sided slaughter had crushed every scrap of noble pride they possessed. They were alive, but most of their spirit was gone.
At Kevin's greeting, Eric slowly turned his head.
When his gaze fell on Shien's ice-blue eyes, then swept over the line of guards behind him, as orderly as cast iron, those lifeless eyes finally stirred.
Shock, disbelief, and a trace of hatred buried deep.
Why?
Why had I barely survived by shoving serfs ahead of me, my camp ground into muck, while this castoff without even an inheritance could stand here spotless and look at us?
Before Eric could swallow the bitter jealousy rising in his throat, a heavy, brutal scrape of metal shattered the silence.
Two Holy Knights emerged from behind the command tent, their powerful arms dragging a body that barely looked human.
The Long Night Lords in the clearing drew a sharp breath together. Even Kevin, who had maintained his noble composure, froze mid-smile.
It was Roland Augustine, the unlucky man who was supposed to have died heroically amid last night's swarm and flames.
His expensive silk finery had been torn to rags, and foul mud from the night before was still embedded in his torn flesh.
To keep the Bodyguard Realm knight from breaking free or killing himself, the Holy Knights had smashed every joint in his limbs with Holy Silver Warhammers the moment they caught him.
Roland now looked like a torn sack with its bones pulled out.
He lay limp as they dragged him through the mud, leaving a dark-red trail of blood along the muddy path to the raised platform.
The heavy curtain of the command tent was pulled aside.
Bishop Castian stepped out, expressionless, and slammed his Holy Silver Scepter against the stone paving.
Clang!
The sharp sound seemed to silence the entire camp.
It even drowned out the groans of the wounded nearby.
A pressure so heavy it felt tangible spread from the Bishop and enveloped the clearing.
The escorting Holy City Army knights stopped and tossed several blackened Electrocrystals into the muddy water beside Roland.
Weblike cracks covered the crystals. In the morning light, a thick, eerie glow slowly seeped from them.
Standing at the edge of the crowd, Shien's ice-blue pupils narrowed almost imperceptibly.
He recognized what lay on the ground—Origin-Blood Catalyst.
It was made from residual blood extracted from deep within the bloodlines of the Dark Races and refined into a dangerous fuel. It could feed the Sacred Flame or serve as a potion to nourish monsters.
Under the influence of the Blood Moon's radiation, it could drive even the tamest Rot Grub into a frenzy in an instant, turning it into a machine that knew nothing but how to bite and tear.
A Proclaimer in solemn gray-white robes strode out from behind Bishop Castian.
His chest swelled as Battle Aura surged into his throat. His voice rang like a bronze bell struck by a heavy hammer, crashing through the blood-scented camp.
"Roland Augustine, you have betrayed your oath to the Sacred Flame!"
The Proclaimer coldly revealed the truth behind last night's disaster.
There had been no monster uprising. It had been a carefully arranged slaughter to cover one man's escape.
On the night before leaving Osteria Royal Capital, Roland had used the underground channels his family had cultivated for years to secretly buy the Origin-Blood Catalyst.
After reaching the encampment, he had paid handsomely to bribe several equally terrified men serving the other lords. Under cover of night, they buried the catalyst in loose soil around their lords' camps.
At this, the fingers hanging at Shien's side twitched slightly.
No wonder there had been so few insects around his camp last night.
That night, to establish his authority, he had publicly beheaded Knight Commander Hans and several others whose eyes had burned with hatred.
Looking back, some of those headless bodies might well have belonged to Roland's planted accomplices.
By sheer chance, he had cut the fuse on this disaster before it could ignite.
The Proclaimer continued reading.
Roland's scheme had been meticulously planned. He would use the chaos stirred up by the Blood-Boiling Mud Locusts as cover, burn several carriages bearing his family crest, then throw in a few charred bodies dressed in his armor.
As long as the performance was convincing enough, his trusted men could escort him back to Inland under cover of the chaos and darkness.
Even if he had to give up his surname and live like a rat in a hidden room on his family's estate, he would accept it. Anything was better than dying beyond the Eternal Night Wall.
But the former lord had overestimated his own cleverness and underestimated the Church's methods and efficiency.
He had barely made it ten miles into the wilderness beyond the defensive cordon before he ran into the spearpoints of the Holy City Army.
The air seemed cold enough to freeze.
Eric and Thomas stared at Roland in the mud, their eyes rapidly filling with blood.
The path they had carved through blood and death last night had been nothing more than cover for this coward?
If the Holy Knights' spears had not barred their way, they would already have rushed forward and torn that piece of rotten flesh apart.
Roland could no longer feel their hatred.
The once-respectable young nobleman now lay like a torn sack full of shattered bones. Under the Bishop's oppressive presence, his mind had broken completely.
He jerked his mud-caked face off the ground, veins bulging in his neck, and let out an inhuman howl toward the platform.
"The Great Wall is an abyss! What did I do wrong?"
Bloody froth and muddy water sprayed from his split lips.
He thrashed his limp body wildly. Tears washed channels through the contaminated mud on his face, leaving miserable streaks on the ground.
"I just wanted to live! Who wants to go and die? You don't understand... You don't understand!"
His scream ripped apart the morning stillness. No one stepped forward to silence him.
Roland's face, twisted with terror, was like a mirror reflecting everyone's despair.
Eric's trembling lips slowly went still. Thomas's gaze turned empty once more.
Even Kevin, who had maintained his noble bearing throughout, felt the fingers hidden in his sleeves begin to twitch.
Roland's howl had struck the deepest fear in each of them.