Three Layers of Last Resorts

Victor's voice slowly faded, and he shrank back without realizing it. "But... there's one fatal problem..."

Shien pressed a hand to his throbbing temple.

He had spent the entire night directing the battle formation. His mind was strained to its limit, as though fine needles were slowly piercing his brain.

He looked up at Victor. "Stop beating around the bush. Just say it."

Victor drew a deep breath, as if bracing himself. "The Blood Moon Mist has been eating away at it for too long. The Main Gear underneath has warped from the toxin and the cold.

"Even if we scrape off all the Bloodrust, the metal teeth will snap apart. To keep it turning, we need high-grade alchemical oil that can neutralize the Blood Moon toxin and withstand high temperatures."

Shien's heart sank.

Such a thing counted as a high-grade material even in a normal city. Here, clean water was hard enough to find, let alone alchemical oil.

Worse, he knew nothing about this branch of alchemy. If he could not understand what Victor was saying, he could not even tell whether the old man was talking nonsense.

Fortunately, he had his Golden Finger. Shien lowered his eyes and sank his consciousness into the depths of his mind. The illusory Canon of Grace and Righteousness opened silently.

After days of working together and Victor's promotion, the value above his head had long since passed green and settled in the deep-blue range.

Shien did not hesitate. He spent the Reward Value.

The next instant, a flood of unfamiliar yet complete knowledge poured into his mind: wasteland material extraction, aberrant bone smelting, the basic structures of alchemical materials...

The Sacred Canon had copied two abilities from Victor's mind: [Lv. 2 Aberrant Material Smelting] and [Lv. 2 Alchemy of Materials].

The brief dizziness passed, and Shien opened his eyes again.

The gulf in expertise that had seemed impossible to cross a moment ago was gone.

"Could Holy Oil work? It withstands heat and has consecrated properties. In theory, it should suppress the Blood Moon toxin."

Victor was silent for several seconds before shaking his head with a bitter smile. "It would work, but we can't touch it. We need to pour it into the Rune grooves as fuel for the Sacred Flame."

After saying that, Victor slumped onto the stone steps, as though his strength had suddenly been drained away.

The dozen or so craftsmen nearby looked even more grim once they understood. If the Sacred Flame Altar could not start turning, this place would never hold when the Blood Moon rose tonight.

Shien ignored their despairing looks. The knowledge he had just copied raced through his mind, searching for the faintest chance of a solution.

Suddenly, he turned. His gaze swept past the exhausted ranks to a mountain of corpses beyond the defensive perimeter: Bloodthirsty Rot Rats killed the night before.

Shien raised a hand and pointed at the pile. "Bloodthirsty Rot Rats live underground and feed on the rotting flesh of demonic beasts. Their bodies have long since adapted to Blood Moon radiation.

"If we render the fat from those corpses and process it at high temperatures..."

Victor froze, then sprang to his feet. "Yes! Mutant Rat Oil can withstand high temperatures. Refine it with Quicklime to make it corrosive enough to eat through the Bloodrust, then mix in a little Holy Silver Powder to suppress the Corpse Poison..."

He clutched his thinning head, his voice trembling. "It's exactly what we need for a lubricant!"

Shien said nothing more. He pointed his sword toward the mountain of corpses beyond the glow. "Drag those rat carcasses in. Set up cauldrons and render the oil."

The messenger beside him immediately turned to organize the Convicts.

With the Sacred Flame Altar's central problem solved,

Shien had not even had a moment to ease the tension that had gripped him all night before a military Recorder came running toward him.

"My lord..." The Recorder held out a roll of parchment. "We've counted last night's losses. Seven dead, twenty-five badly wounded, and more than seventy scratched."

Against a Rat Tide numbering nearly ten thousand that had lasted the entire night, losing fewer than ten people was nothing short of a miracle.

But Shien showed no reaction.

He knew exactly how that miracle had been bought. He had held the line through tactical command that had nearly exhausted his mind and the blood and flesh of his soldiers.

Besides, those rats had been nothing but the cheapest cannon fodder.

He turned toward the perimeter. The makeshift barricade of wagons with their wheels removed was already in tatters.

Claws had torn gashes across the rough planks. Splinters littered the ground, and a layer of blood had congealed black in the gaps between the wagon bodies.

Knight Fabien moved through the Wounded Soldiers' Camp with several priests.

White-gold Holy Light flickered in their palms, slowly stripping the sickly green Corpse Poison from the wounds.

The Convicts silently dragged piles of rat carcasses toward the iron cauldrons, skinned and deboned them, and threw the fat into the boiling oil. Others used stones and bloodstained scraps of wood to shore up the few sections of wagon wall on the verge of collapse.

Many knights and veterans still stood at the very front.

They had swung their swords all night. Their eyes were bloodshot, and the edges of their greatswords were curled, yet they stood rooted to the spot.

Shien gave an order that left no room for argument. "Rotate the entire force. Everyone who held the breaches last night, take off your armor and rest. The second line will stand guard."

A few veterans tried to protest, but Shien's look stopped them cold.

Fighting to exhaustion in a place like this was suicide.

"The real danger comes tonight. If you don't sleep now, you won't even be able to lift your swords after dark."

Shien paused and looked over the veterans' faces. "Go to sleep. Get your strength back. You'll need it tonight."

The dull clatter of armor being removed sounded one after another. The soldiers trudged toward the tents in the inner ring, many collapsing into sleep the moment they got inside.

Once the rotation was arranged, Shien climbed back onto the raised platform. His gaze crossed the glow of the Sacred Flame and settled on the churning Blood Mist at the edge of the wasteland.

The chill he had felt at the back of his neck last night had not been his imagination.

A higher-tier Dark Creature had to be driving the Rat Tide from behind. That made the situation extremely dangerous.

Shien began running through the possibilities.

If a massive High-Tier Demonic Beast appeared tonight, the line of broken wagons would be almost meaningless.

He could not stake everyone's survival on a single plan.

Shien quickly laid out three contingencies in his mind.

The first depended on Victor making good progress.

If they could refine grease concentrated enough and scrape the Bloodrust from the Ritual Altar's base bit by bit,

they could ignite the Permanent Sacred Flame Platform before the defensive line was breached. Its white-gold halo would be the camp's most reliable shield.

The second contingency was for the wagon wall failing to hold.

Shien harbored no illusions. If a High-Tier Demonic Beast smashed through the outer wall, the defenders would have to fall back.

So he gave another order. The Convicts were to dig a trench two meters wide, following the gaps between the stone slabs five meters inside the wagon wall.

They were to pour in all the leftover Rat Oil and offal from the rendering, then mix in a small amount of Holy Silver Powder.

If the outer wall was breached, the reserves would light it immediately.

The trench would become a Toxic Flame Wall, cutting off the Rat Tide. It would not be impenetrable, but it could buy them some time.

As for the third contingency, that was his final card.

Hidden beneath his dark cloak, Shien slipped his fingers into its lining and felt the cold crystal through the fabric.

The Ember Pendant. Bishop Castian had personally given it to him to save his life: a combat crystal holding a single strike at the full strength of a Tier-Four Knight.

As long as the central defensive line had not truly collapsed and the camp could still maintain order, he would not crush it.

It was his last resort.

The trench was soon finished. Bucket after bucket of low-quality Rat Oil was poured into it, spreading an acrid stench.

In the tents of the inner ring, the elite knights who had removed their armor were already fast asleep. Their low, steady snores echoed through the exhausted camp.