First Battle at Sunken Bone Salt Marsh

Yasol turned away from the Weeping Holy Grotto, the Mask of Mercy concealing his face. Castian followed at his side.

Castian had rushed back to the Governor's Mansion for this occasion, arriving two hours before the invocation ceremony began. The invocation of Tears of the Holy Mother required a bishop of sufficient standing from the Holy City to witness it.

The two walked out along the black-stone passage.

Behind them, the clerics were still murmuring prayers to the Holy Mother. Ahead, the outer Holy Relic vault rang with clattering.

Deep within the Governor's Mansion, the machinery of war was rapidly coming to life.

Castian had only just arrived and did not know the strategy, so he asked, "How do you plan to fight?"

Yasol stopped at the end of the passage.

An accompanying recorder unfurled a simplified battle map. The eighteen Grayblood Vein Beds were marked by eighteen dark-red pinpoints, all in a state of high activity.

Yasol raised a hand and drew his finger across the map from east to west. "The main force will advance from east to west, uprooting the Vein Beds section by section, one at a time."

Castian studied the map without interrupting.

Yasol continued, "The Expeditionary Army can't scatter to attack all eighteen Vein Beds at once. That would only let them grind us to pieces.

"But if the main force fixes on a single target and keeps advancing, the other seventeen will continue to mature in the late Blood Moon Season. By the time the main force reaches the middle, the western end may already have been eaten hollow by the Grayblood Bone Pillars."

He pressed his finger to several key points. "So we have to split our forces according to each position's value on the battlefield."

"I'll lead the main force myself