We Won!

The rat oil at the bottom of the trench burned out. The sickly green wall of fire wavered in the night wind, then suddenly sank.

Their stay of execution, which had lasted more than an hour, had finally run out.

"Roar!" The beast's bellow exploded across the field again.

The Third-Tier Bloodthirsty Giant Rat stepped over charred corpses, climbed out of the trench, and entered the final defensive line.

On the raised platform, Shien pointed his sword at the massive figure breathing white vapor. Battle Aura carried his voice across the position. "All knights in the Resonance Realm or above, move in!"

Fabien swung his longsword and charged out again with a dozen of the strongest Heavy Cavalry Knights.

They planted themselves in the giant rat's path, holding it and the elite Ghoul on its back at the edge of the defensive line.

Shield-bearers met the rat's charge head-on, while swordsmen on either flank hacked at the bone spurs protruding from its belly.

Fabien brought his heavy sword down on the Ghoul's scythe blade again and again, knocking the massive weapon aside with every blow.

But dread was already creeping into their hearts.

The mount was Third Tier in its own right, and the Ghoul on its back was nearing Fourth Tier.

The giant rat supplied sheer size and the protection of its bone plates, charging like a siege engine. From its back, the Ghoul used its War Scythe to cover the rat's blind spots and lack of speed.

Chained together, the two fought as one: a killing machine built to crush defensive lines.

Worse, under the Blood Moon, the beasts' strength and reaction speed had increased severalfold.

The knights struggled more with every exchange. Still, their efforts finally opened a gap!

In one close clash, the Third-Tier Ghoul swept its War Scythe too far, exposing its chest.

Fabien stepped in at once and struck with all his might!

At that instant, the giant rat's bone-spiked tail lashed out, as fast as a black shadow.

"Watch out!" Bart, a knight on the left, lunged forward.

He threw himself between them and raised his Tower Shield beside Fabien.

Bang—crack!

The huge tail slammed into the shield, caving in the thick Pig Iron in an instant.

The impact drove through the shield and into Bart. Both arm bones snapped, their splinters piercing his flesh.

A withered smile spread across the elite Ghoul's face.

The heavy scythe that had seemed to overshoot suddenly hooked back. Its blade slipped precisely into the gap in Bart's neck armor.

Slash!

Blood sprayed. Bart's head flew off with his helmet still on, blood gushing from his severed neck like a fountain before his body crashed into the mud.

The battle had been against them from the start. Now it teetered on the edge of annihilation.

Thousands upon thousands of red-eyed Corrupt Rats crossed the trench and poured into the camp from every direction.

The makeshift defenses around the inner ring held for only a moment before the swarm swallowed them.

Against such overwhelming numbers, spear formations and rotating shield walls meant nothing.

The entire line was torn apart in an instant. No formation remained.

Kyle the veteran, the recruits fresh to battle, and the Convicts... every one of them was surrounded by the Rat Tide.

Several huge Corrupt Rats bit into a young recruit's calf and wrist and dragged him into the swarm.

His screams lasted only seconds. All that remained where he had stood was a bloody skeleton.

Everyone swung swords, kicked, and tore at the rats like wild animals, fighting desperately amid blood and entrails.

There was no battle line anymore. Only an open-air slaughterhouse.

At this rate, the camp would be gnawed down to the bones in less than half an hour.

On the raised platform, Shien's expression did not change as he watched the collapse below.

His gaze swept across the field just as the giant rat's claw struck Fabien.

The Holy Light on his breastplate shattered. The Resonance Realm fighter flew away like a rag doll and slammed into the muddy water, coughing up a mouthful of blood and clots.

Shien knew there would be no miracle to save them.

His fingers closed around the Ember Pendant, his last resort. It held the full-force strike of a Tier-Four Knight.

It might have been more useful later, but he had no choice now.

Shien pressed his thumb against the crystal and poured Battle Aura into it. A little more pressure, and it would shatter...

At that instant, the ground beneath his feet trembled.

Click... boom!

A heavy metallic grinding erupted from underground. The tremor spread through the ground, and the Holy Silver Fire Brazier on the platform began to shake violently.

A shout, so hoarse it nearly broke, tore across the battlefield. Victor's voice shook with tears. "I got the damn thing turning!"

Scalding Rat Oil surged through the pipes into the core. The mechanism, dormant for more than half a year, began to turn again.

White-gold light raced along the dust-covered Holy Silver Runes, lighting the concentric rings one after another.

Then the entire Ritual Altar gave a low hum, and a pillar of white-gold fire burst from its center!

The pillar was so thick and bright it was almost impossible to look at. It shot into the heavens, ripped through the blood-red clouds beneath the Blood Moon, and blasted a vast opening in the sky!

Sacred energy erupted from the pillar's base. A white-gold ring of light spread outward along the ground.

The ring swept across the battlefield. The Third-Tier giant rat had opened its jaws to bite down on Fabien.

The next instant, its body froze.

An invisible force pinned its massive body in midair. The elite Ghoul on its bone saddle did not even have time to scream.

White-gold light washed over them. Rotten flesh evaporated, and bones rapidly crumbled.

In a single breath, the Composite Demonic Beast that could have crushed the defensive line was utterly erased.

As for the tens of thousands of Corrupt Rats across the position, they hardly counted as enemies before the ring of Sacred Flame. Like ashes scattered by the wind, they collapsed in waves and dissolved into black dust that filled the air.

The entire battlefield fell silent.

Heat from the concentrated Sacred Flame slowly spread, driving the cold and stench of rot from the air.

The wasteland that had been strewn with bodies and blood moments ago now looked startlingly bright.

Kyle dropped to his knees in the mud, spent. Cloudy tears mingled with the foul blood of Mutant Rats and ran down his stubbled cheeks.

We survived. We actually survived...

Driven by some instinct, Kyle slowly turned his blood-smeared head toward the platform in the center of the square.

The white-gold pillar piercing the heavens still burned.

Shien stood before it. Pure white-gold light fell over the silver-haired boy, tracing his outline in dazzling brilliance.

Beneath his feet lay a reeking mire soaked with rotten flesh. Above him burned the White-Gold Sacred Flame, driving back the Long Night.

It was a scene that seemed possible only in a Church oil painting, and its impact left nearly everyone breathless.

Reverence, fervor, fear, devotion... all of it surged into their hearts at once.

Amid that fervent silence, Shien moved.

He slowly drew the Fine-Steel Longsword at his waist and pointed it at the dark-red sky the Sacred Flame had torn apart.

Two full nights of exacting control had pushed him to the brink of mental collapse. Yet when he spoke, his voice still carried unquestionable force.

"Raise your heads. Look at this light." Shien swept his gaze over the hundreds of faces below, all smeared with rotten flesh.

"We climbed over the corpses of tens of thousands of beasts and pried this path to survival from the jaws of the abyss!"

He paused briefly. Wind swept past the burning Sacred Flame, and his voice rang out again, louder than before.

"This White-Gold Sacred Flame is the Great Wall humanity has built at the edge of Eternal Night! As long as we still stand, the Long Night will not cross it!

"Perhaps the Church's records will call this an ordinary night raid.

"Perhaps battles like this happen every day along the vast defensive line of the Eternal Night Wall."

His voice fell silent for a beat, then rose again.

"But for Blackpine Fief, this was a great night. We survived! We won!"

His words ended, and the entire position went quiet for an instant.

It was as though something had struck inside every chest.

Kyle shuddered. Gripping his chipped, broken sword in both hands, he drove it into the muddy water, then became the first to bow his head deeply toward the platform.

Fabien spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and dropped to one knee.

Then came the knights, the soldiers, the Convicts... one after another, hundreds of blood-soaked bodies bowed together amid the charred ruins.

They faced not only the Sacred Flame, but also the silver-haired boy bathed in its light upon the platform.

In Shien's sight, countless streams of deep blue, each a sign of absolute loyalty, rose from the blood-soaked ground below like a surging sea.