A Letter to Bishop Castian

In the heart of the Graymist Defense Zone, inside a hastily erected command tent.

Bishop Castian stood before a vast tactical sand table, holding a black flag that marked a garrison outpost. For a long time, he could not bring himself to place it.

The Graymist Defense Zone stretched hundreds of miles across the sand table, divided into sixteen territories.

In past years, it would have been filled with white-and-gold flags symbolizing the Sacred Flame's protection. Now, black flags covered nearly half of it.

Three black flags stood in the middle of the defense line. Three Permanent Sacred Flame Platforms had gone out, and the newly appointed lords stationed there, along with their attendants, had all ended up in the mouths of the Dark Races.

Far out in the wilderness at the edge of the defense line, two territories had not even received their flags.

Those two expeditions had been swallowed by the Long Night before they reached their fiefs.

Of sixteen territories, nearly a third had been lost before the real battle had even begun.

Castian dropped a white-and-gold flag into the iron basin beside him, then opened one of the parchment battle reports piled high on the desk. His brow furrowed.

The vast Werewolf Tribe entrenched beyond Graymist lay hidden in the shadows outside the defense line, patiently waiting for its prey to weaken.

In its place came packs of Ghouls and low-tier magical beasts.

These rotting creatures, once driven by nothing but hunger, now moved like a scattered army. They deliberately avoided the points where the Sacred Flame burned brightest and roamed the wilderness between the territories.

Outer sentry posts were wiped out, messenger cavalry vanished one after another, and the already fragile supply lines were severed section by section with chilling precision.

Wave after wave of low-tier carrion wore the defenders down, while nightly raids frayed their nerves. This was a hunt whose circle tightened slowly, a noose drawn bit by bit around the Graymist Defense Zone's neck.

Only six months remained before the Blood Moon Season erupted in full.

Those six months hung over everyone like an executioner's blade.

It was falling slowly, and no one could stop it.

Castian turned. Through the gap in the tent flap, his gaze settled on the thousand knights of the Holy City Army outside.

They were his last card.

A thousand elites wielding pure white Battle Aura could have crushed a rebellious duchy in the inland kingdoms.

But scattered across the Graymist Defense Zone, those thousand men would be like a handful of salt thrown into the sea. They would barely make a ripple.

The tent's heavy canvas flap was thrown open. His adjutant, Malcolm, stepped inside and presented two leather tubes sealed with wax in both hands.

Expressionless, Castian broke the first seal and drew out the tightly rolled parchment.

The first letter came from the Long Night Governor's Office: "The Fourth Defense Zone's Holy Silver allotment is reduced by twenty percent. Make up the shortfall yourselves..."

Castian's eye twitched. He tossed the parchment onto the desk and tore open the second letter, a confidential dispatch from the Holy City's Council of Deliberation.

"The request for reinforcements to Graymist has been rejected by the Council's senior members."

Just two sentences, without a word of explanation, as though they were giving routine notice of something trivial.

Castian's brow tightened. The dark stirrings in the wasteland were frightening, but the undercurrents within the Church were more suffocating still.

Supplies for the entire Tear Knight Defense Line were already stretched thin. Even several inland kingdoms were complaining about the weight of the Sacred Flame Tax.

That gave certain people the perfect opening.

To the powerful figures seated in high-backed chairs in the Holy City, the fate of the Graymist Defense Zone had long since become a bargaining chip.

Several factions within the Church coveted the Tear Knight Governor's position. All they needed was a defeat bloody enough.

Then they could use it to attack their rivals and bring about a new transfer of power.

Cutting a portion of the Holy Silver allotment and refusing a few Knights as reinforcements took nothing more than a casual show of hands at the Council of Deliberation's table.

As for Castian and those young Long Night Lords who had only just received their titles, they were pieces to be discarded whenever convenient.

There was no anger on Castian's face. After so many years at the Eternal Night Wall, he knew complaining was pointless. He had expected this, and he had chosen to stay.

More footsteps sounded outside the tent, bringing a string of new battle reports.

The Shattered Stone Fief's defense line had collapsed completely. Viscount Thomas, its newly appointed lord, had vanished when the Rat Tide surged in. He had most likely become monster dung.

The camps of several other young nobles had suffered heavy casualties as well, their defense lines torn to pieces.

Castian stared coldly at the mounting pleas for aid on his desk, his face dark as a storm.

"A pack of noble wastrels who do nothing but consume food." Disgust and exhaustion filled the bishop's voice.

He returned to the tactical sand table and swept his scepter over three outposts at the edge of the defense line.

"Malcolm."

"At your command."

"Send orders to the commanders of these three outposts. Abandon their fortresses tonight, destroy any heavy weapons they can't take, and withdraw everyone to the territories along the Second Defense Line."

Malcolm's head snapped up, his eyes widening beneath his helmet.

"Bishop! There are nearly two thousand soldiers and Convicts at those three outposts! They don't have enough horses. Once they leave the Sacred Flame's protection, the Ghouls will tear them apart on the retreat through the wilderness!"

"They'll die if they stay, too." Castian did not look at him. His gaze remained fixed on the inner section of the sand table.

"While the Werewolf main force is still watching, let the people at those three outposts sate the low-tier monsters and buy the inner line some time. Deliver the orders."

Malcolm swallowed with difficulty, then lowered his head.

"Yes, sir."

"And summon the quartermasters from the secular kingdoms." Castian struck his scepter hard against the stone floor.

"If I don't see the full allotment of food, fodder, and Refined Steel in storage within fifteen days, I don't care who stands behind them. Tie them to the Burning Stake."

He turned, a cold, obsessive resolve all that remained in his eyes.

If the Holy City would give them no way to survive, he would have to spend lives to drag them through these six months. Whatever happened, he could not let the Graymist Defense Zone fall. The consequences would be unthinkable.

As several Recorders hurriedly copied down the military orders, sweat pouring down their faces, another messenger lifted the tent flap.

"Bishop, an urgent letter from the Blackpine Fief."

Castian's pen paused. He looked at the letter tube bearing the Greywood Lineage crest, and his brow slowly furrowed.

That silver-haired boy had been one of the few to raise his hopes.

Calm, ruthless, and adept at using the rules. Like a sword still unpolished, yet already sharp.

Could even he... have failed to survive these night raids?

With a trace of disappointment so faint he barely noticed it, Castian broke the seal.

As he pulled out the letter, a small packet of lead paper slipped onto the desk.

The packet opened, exposing a pinch of dark red crystal powder to the candlelight.

Even from that tiny amount, Castian instantly sensed the violent, sickening dark energy within it—fragments of Third Tier Original Sin Blood.

The bishop's breath caught for an instant. He quickly unfolded the parchment.

There was no plea for aid in the letter, only a plain list of battlefield achievements.

Tens of thousands of Bloodthirsty Rot Rats slain; a Tier Three Mutant Giant Rat and a Ghoul Elite killed in battle; Original Sin Crystal Powder seized as proof.

Just over a hundred dead. The defense line had held, the Permanent Sacred Flame Platform had been relit, and dozens of routed soldiers from the Shattered Stone Fief had been taken into the Deathwatch Battalion.

Castian stared at those few lines. He could almost see the silver-haired boy standing amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, demanding his due with the tip of a sword stained black with blood.

His gaze shifted to the tactical sand table. Among the black flags, the Blackpine Fief's white-and-gold flag stood out starkly.

Castian's cold face twitched. Then the corners of his thin mouth slowly rose.

"Among a herd of swine that know only how to tremble..." The bishop gave a low laugh, rolling the dark red powder between his fingertips. "A young lion that eats people has finally emerged."

Castian might have been only a piece on the Church's pyramid of power, but in the Graymist Defense Zone, he held absolute power over life and death.

He could not conjure a force of Knights from thin air, but the allocation of resources across the entire war zone was in his hands.

Castian pulled over a blank order parchment and dipped his quill in ink.

An extraordinarily lopsided resource transfer order quickly took shape.

"Divert thirty percent of the elite supplies the Kingdom of Austeria shipped to the buffer zone! Load up every bit of high-purity Holy Silver ore and every Refined Steel ingot and send them to the Blackpine Fief!"

Those premium materials would serve the alchemical ambitions the boy had hinted at.

"Then go to the Fourth Punishment Battalion for men! Pick out every Church craftsman stripped of his status and every retired heavy Crossbowman, and send them all to the Blackpine Fief.

"Finally, draw two wagonloads of High-Purity Sacred Flame Grease from my personal allotment and send them under escort with the rest."

Castian seized his seal and stamped it hard into the wax. "Go. Feed all this fresh meat to that young lion."