Count Greywood

Count Greywood's study on the top floor of his mansion was so warm it made one drowsy.

Expensive smokeless silver charcoal burned in the fireplace, its dark red glow licking the hearth without a trace of soot. It was a world apart from the distant Eternal Night Wall.

Count Greywood stood with his hands behind his back before the enormous floor-to-ceiling crystal window. In the distance, thick smoke billowed above the Royal Capital's central square.

Platinum-white Sacred Flame surged skyward, setting half a block ablaze. The Augustine Lineage's mansion had once stood there.

Now the Church's execution troops held their torches high, burning a noble name that had endured for centuries to white ash.

The count's hands slowly clenched inside his sleeves, veins rising one by one along their backs.

The Augustine Lineage was finished.

All because their heir, a man named Roland, had lost his nerve at the Eternal Night Wall and tried to desert his post.

The Most Holy Church's wrath never fell on a deserter alone. They wanted his entire bloodline punished with him.

The count closed his eyes and drew a deep breath of the study's incense.

For more than a decade, the Graymist Defense Line had been bitterly cold, but its situation had remained in a delicate balance.

To the Royal Capital's powerful families, it was the perfect dumping ground.

They could send off a few castoffs who had lost their struggles for power within the family, earn a fine reputation for defending humanity's frontier, and leave those failures to live or die. Two birds with one stone.

The Greywood Lineage had done the same.

Yet every powerful family had miscalculated.

After last year's crushing defeat, the Most Holy Church's desire to control the Tear Knight Defense Line had soared to a monstrous extreme.

But Count Greywood had never expected the Church's butcher's blade to fall so swiftly.

The Augustine Lineage had endured for centuries and possessed deep foundations, yet they had not even been granted a token trial.

In broad daylight, they had been torn out by the roots.

Such naked brutality meant only one thing.

The situation at the Eternal Night Wall's front was far worse than the battle reports released by the Council of Deliberation.

The great figures seated beside the Holy City's Source Furnace could no longer afford to keep up appearances. They meant to use the stench of blood to force the secular crown to surrender the last of its resources.

Just how dire had things become in the Graymist Defense Zone?

A chill rose in the count's heart.

When the last requisition order from the front had reached his desk, he had casually assigned a few hundred serfs who were nearly dead and thrown in a batch of rusty scrap iron to make do.

By his reckoning, if the bastard he had sent to die at the front survived until this year's Blood Moon Season, it would take a miracle from their ancestors.

Sending real elite troops into that wasteland had seemed a waste of effort.

His only prayer had been that the son who was usually as silent as a shadow would die without causing trouble.

He must not be as foolish as Roland, provoke the Church, and drag the entire Lineage into the abyss.

"Master, a letter from Young Master Shien." The old steward silently opened the heavy oak door and approached the count, holding a letter tube in both hands.

The seal was broken, and the parchment was spread across the broad rosewood desk.

The count's brows drew together almost imperceptibly. He had expected a desperate plea for help, or perhaps a notice of death.

But the letter held not a word of lament. Before the count lay a list of demands for resources that amounted to extortion.

At its end was a passage that made no effort to be polite.

"The news of Augustine's judgment must have reached the Royal Capital. If my defense line collapses beneath the Blood Moon... this Refined Steel and Holy Silver won't be saving a bastard's life. They'll be buying the heads of the entire Lineage."

Reading the blood-soaked threat between the lines, the count did not fly into a rage and overturn the desk. Instead, undisguised appreciation appeared in his eyes.

Like a true noble, the boy knew how to use the blade the Church held over everyone's heads to threaten his own Lineage in return.

The boy's instincts and judgment were more than ten times stronger than those legitimate fools who knew only how to bully others with their status.

"Father, since that brat's asking for things again, just send a few lame veterans to make up the numbers. Demonic Beasts will eat him sooner or later anyway. Why waste the Lineage's gold?" his second son said flippantly beside him.

The smile vanished from the count's face. He snatched the letter from the desk and slapped it hard across his second son's face.

Smack! The rough parchment scraped his cheek, leaving a bright red mark.

"Idiot!" the count hissed. He seized his son by the collar, dragged him to the window, and pressed him against the cold crystal glass.

"Open your damned eyes and look at the fire outside!

"The Church's judges are desperate for another scapegoat to slaughter as a warning! Shien is the shield of flesh standing between the Lineage and the executioner's block!"

"If he falls at the defense line, you'll be the one stripped naked, hung in the square, and burned to ash tomorrow!"

His second son's face turned white as paper, and his legs shook uncontrollably.

"Get out." The count released him as though tossing away garbage. "I don't want to hear another stupid word from you."

His son stumbled out of the study, and the heavy oak door closed once more.

The count straightened his disheveled cuffs and sat down behind his desk again.

His anger quickly faded, and the composure of a high-ranking noble took over once more.

Shien wanted supplies. Then he would have them.

The count's gaze passed over the astonishingly long list at the end of the letter again.

The boy had asked for no gold or jewels. Everything he wanted could be used in war.

Three tons of Refined Steel ingots, raw Holy Silver ore, ten barrels of high-purity Alchemical Strong Acid and Bone-Eroding Venom...

He had even specified a complete set of alchemical tools, including a Fine-Cast Black Iron Crucible and Rune Engraving Knife.

The bill would drain nearly a sixth of the Greywood Lineage's war reserves.

Ordinarily, if any subordinate noble dared present such a list, the count would have had the man skinned.

But now he did not even frown.

Since that defense line stood between the entire Lineage and death, he could not be stingy with this risky investment.

He would load every last bit of the Refined Steel and Holy Silver on the list into the wagons.

He would even have the steward bring out the hardest aged steel from deep in the storerooms.

But when it came to manpower, the count opened a drawer and took out a thick register of his fief.

He would never send the Lineage's truly loyal elite troops to Blackpine Fief.

His quill raced across the register, circling the names of veteran knights who had shown signs of disloyalty.

He would brand them all and load them into the troop wagons.

He could clear the rot from his lands as easily as taking out the trash while satisfying Shien's demand for men. One arrow, two hawks.

The quill stopped on a page, and the count's gaze slowly turned cold.

He could never truly trust a bastard he had thrown away like an unwanted dog.

A wolf cub that had tasted blood in the wasteland might turn and bite its master at any moment.

He wrote several more names on the parchment, keeping them concealed.

They belonged to spies and men sworn to die for him, all trained by his own hand.

They would enter Blackpine Fief as high-ranking reinforcements from the Lineage. If Shien obeyed, they would be sharp blades to slaughter Demonic Beasts for their lord.

If the bastard showed the slightest desire to build a private army, they would be ready to take over the camp.

With his decision made, the count drew out a sheet of gold-edged stationery.

He dipped his pen in dark ink. For the first time in fourteen years, he began a letter to that bastard with a formal address.

"To my proud blood, the lord of Blackpine Fief, Sheen Greenwood."

Line after line of concessions and rewards spread across the page. At the end of the letter, he added a pointed warning.

"The Lineage's protection is the only root from which you can draw sustenance in the long night. Beneath the Blood Moon, may you never forget Greywood's glory and gifts."

The count slipped the heavy black iron signet ring from his thumb and pressed it firmly into the sealing wax.

At last, he handed the letter to the old steward, who had remained bowed beside him.