Whiteflame Reinforcements, Graymist Still Burns

Blood Moon Season had entered its middle-to-late stages.

The blood moon hung high, its glow growing richer, like a festering wound spilling foul red light over the frozen tundra and ruins.

Hoofbeats approached from the distance.

A detachment of the Whiteflame Holy Knight Order rode hard across the sticky, frozen ruins. Their horses' hooves plunged into half-frozen mud, spraying black-red sludge.

The knights' white armor had long since lost its original color, and blood and gray mud had plastered their cloaks to their backs. Still, their formation held.

After receiving Yasol's orders, Castian had immediately led more than five hundred Whiteflame Holy Knights toward the Graymist Defense Zone at full speed.

They had ridden almost day and night. No one dared stop for long; the Graymist Defense Zone was a battlefield running out of time.

Only the three fiefs under Shien's command still held.

Castian had to arrive before the Grayblood Vein Bed evolved again—or before the Sacred Flame in the Graymist Defense Zone went out.

Along the way, he had seen too many fiefs meet too many different ends.

The old Long Night Fiefs near the main defense line had suffered badly, but their foundations, built through years of Blood Moon Seasons, still showed.

Those old lords commanded Tier-Four Knights and groups of Third Tier knights. Their Source Furnaces, Holy Silver, and provisions could still sustain a longer fight.

Farther toward the Gray Fog, the scenes grew worse.

Some fiefs cut off by the Tear Knight Defense Line had nothing left but an extinguished Sacred Flame Altar standing amid the ruins.

Assimilated corpses crawled through the wreckage, trailing gray-white veins beneath their flesh. When they touched rubble or broken timber, they drew it into their bodies.

Other fiefs had support from the Tear Knight Legion and had not yet