Yasol's Abandoned-Piece Chess Game

The candlelight flickered gently, making Yasol's shadow dance between light and dark.

He stood before the massive sand table of the Tear Knight Defense Line.

The sand table was dotted with platinum-white small flags, each representing a territory.

It was precisely these hundreds of small flags that propped up the entire Tear Knight Defense Line, fending off the intrusion of Demonic Beasts from the outside for the inland nations.

He watched for a moment, then raised a hand to gently pluck away the flag representing the Grayrock Fief.

"A pity," he said softly.

Yasol remembered the lord of the Grayrock Fief, a valiant young man.

One could even say he was the one who had personally promoted the other man from a knight of humble origins step by step to become a Long Night Lord.

And Baron had never disappointed him.

Every Blood Moon Season, he was the hardest city wall in his defense zone, stubbornly withstanding the blood moon year after year.

During their last meeting, Yasol had originally intended to transfer him away from the Eternal Night Wall and let him be a Bishop in the inland.

Yet Baron insisted on staying, saying his ultimate end had only one outcome, and that was to die in the battles of the Blood Moon Season.

He hadn't expected that less than two years after speaking those words, the man would die and even become a puppet of the Demonic Beasts.

"A pity," Yasol repeated.

Yet the Grayrock Fief was merely a single point of suffering across the entire defense line.

Beside his hand, a stack of letters for help had already piled up, along with report after report of the Sacred Flame extinguishing.

His brows were tightly furrowed, and the old torn wound upon his chest throbbed faintly with his