For Tomorrow's Sun!
"Thrust! Retreat! Thrust again!"
The instructor's rough shouts echoed throughout the training grounds on the outskirts of Blackpine Fief.
The young spearman Todd gritted his teeth and repeated the monotonous upward thrust over and over again.
His hands were badly rotten; his fingers were swollen and purple, with cracks all over them.
Just a year ago, as the eighth legitimate son of a powerful baron, these hands were holding wine glasses.
Until a power struggle involving high-ranking figures in the Church crushed his family name and future prospects.
In the first few days after being branded Convicts and thrown onto the Eternal Night Wall, he would curse because the black bread had gone sour, and he also tried to put on the airs of an Inland nobleman.
But he soon dared not do it again; the monsters and whips here were far more convincing than the rules of the Royal Capital.
Todd swallowed the cold air, which felt like knives, his chest burning with pain.
He lifted his heavy eyelids and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the edge of the pale yellow sky.
The originally gray fog was gradually being soaked in a thicker, deeper dark red, like a pool of blood slowly spreading.
Veterans say that it was a sign that the Blood Moon Season was about to truly arrive.
Even though he had been trained to the point of numbness over the past month, he still couldn't help but feel afraid when that heavy pressure really came down from above.
A few nights ago, several screams were heard from the Fifth Ring area. The sounds were short and sharp, but they sent chills down one's spine, as if someone's throat had been ripped open.
These past few nights, every time Todd closes his eyes, all he can hear are those screams.
He didn't want to die.
I certainly don't want to die in this godforsaken place.
If you were torn to pieces by those monsters on the Eternal Night Wall, not only would your body be gone, but not even your bones would remain.
"Waaaaah--!"
The piercing bugle call suddenly ripped through the noise on the field.
All movements stopped almost instantly.
Those still practicing almost instinctively averted their gaze and quickly lined up in the direction of the high platform.
Todd also straightened his back instinctively, looked up, and saw Shien walking step by step onto the platform.
Her long, silvery-white hair was blown back by the cold wind, and she wore only a Holy Silver Longsword at her waist. She had neither the elaborate heraldic crests of the Church nor the cumbersome decorations that Inland nobles liked to pile on their bodies.
The entire square fell silent.
Shien walked to the edge of the platform, his icy blue eyes slowly sweeping over the tired, tense faces below.
Todd swallowed hard; his throat was dry and sore.
A sliver of pathetic hope still lingered in his heart.
Perhaps these new recruits, who haven't really seen blood yet, only need to do logistical work and won't be pushed into the outermost trench for the time being, or immediately thrown into that real meat grinder.
The next moment, Shien spoke.
He didn't use any magical amplification array; he simply compressed his voice into his thick, solid Battle Aura, which exploded in everyone's ears.
"Raise your heads! Look carefully at the sky above you!" Shien pointed directly at the dark red Blood Mist above, which resembled a festering wound.
"That is the gaping maw of the abyss, a slaughterhouse about to descend and crush your spines and drain your marrow!"
The cardinals in the Holy City may indeed be praying for Blackpine Fief, and the Holy Light will eventually shine into this Gray Fog, but you'd better completely abandon any thoughts of relying on others to save your lives.
Otherwise, by the time the Templar Order arrived, there would likely not be a single survivor left on this battlefield.
The young ruler showed no mercy, brutally crushing the last shred of hope in people's hearts in public.
Todd felt a sudden dizziness.
The lord on the high platform publicly pronounced their most feared fate.
Even though he had already chewed on this despair countless times in bed, when this bloody truth was so nakedly smashed in his face, it still gripped Todd's heart tightly.
Not only him, but a heavy, suppressed breathing sound immediately spread below the platform.
"In this dead land locked in by the Long Night, no one cares whether you were once a respectable mechanical apprentice in the Royal Capital's Workshop or a thief shoveling latrines in the sewers."
In the hungry, vertical pupils of the Werewolf and Ghoul, you, including me, are nothing more than a pile of steaming hot meat!
Shien looked down at the pairs of eyes below, trembling with extreme fear.
His words, however, were like a scalpel, cutting precisely into the deepest nerves of these people from the lower classes.
"Yes! We are the dregs abandoned by the Royal Capital, expendable items destined to die in the Long Night on the roster!"
But why? Why are our lives destined only to fill the bellies of those deformed beasts?
Why should we be forced to crawl and howl in agony, like fat pigs waiting to be slaughtered, in this stinking darkness?!
With a sharp metallic scraping sound, Shien turned around abruptly.
He pointed directly at the steam-powered Steam Repeating Crossbow belching white smoke behind the platform, then at the five reconstructed positions outside the defensive line, flowing with deadly venom and mine fuses.
"Open your hands! Take a good look at the calluses you've developed on your own skin over the past thirty days!"
Look at the three-foot-deep trench you dug into the ground with your own hands! Look at the Deceleration Ice Slope you poured inch by inch with water! Look at those Pig Iron mechanisms that you pushed into position with your own hands!
Those things are not sacred gifts you can only kneel and look up to; they are the means of survival you yourselves carved out!
Todd abruptly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the direction the lord was pointing.
He saw the towering steam-powered crossbow behind him, as imposing as an iron fortress.
They saw the poisoned water trenches dug day and night outside the defensive line, and the barbed chevaux-de-frise and thick ice Caltrops on the slope, gleaming with a chilling light.
These rough, lifeless objects, piled up by their worn-out hands, now exuded a sense of security in his eyes.
An unprecedented burning sensation forcefully dispelled the chill that had permeated Todd's body, stopping his hands from trembling.
With a sharp metallic scraping sound, Shien drew his standard-issue Holy Silver Longsword from his waist.
The newly acquired Third Tier Resonant Battle Aura flowed into the sword through the meridians of the wrist, and the originally dull Silver Sword immediately emitted a sharp vibration.
A blinding white-gold gleam suddenly shone from the hilt of the sword, as if it had forcefully cleaved through the Red Fog pressing down on the high platform, illuminating the surroundings.
"I cannot guarantee that when the morning bell tolls after the Blood Moon, everyone here will still have their heads on!" Shien's voice, crackling with Battle Aura, slammed heavily into everyone's ears.
"But I swear on this Frozen Tundra beneath my feet! As long as your boots remain firmly planted in your positions, as long as the heavy infantry's Ironbound Oak Shield walls do not crumble, as long as the gears of the repeating crossbows continue to turn!"
Any mutated beast that dares to cross the Graymist Defense Line will be crushed into a pile of foul-smelling mud under your feet!
The strong wind whipped up his heavy black bearskin cloak.
Shien gripped the hilt with both hands in reverse, raising the longsword, which shone with platinum light, high into the sky.
"Wipe the Heretic Tribunal has branded on the back of your necks!"
From this night onward, as long as your feet are still on this city wall, you will have only one identity: comrades-in-arms fighting against the abyss in the same mud pit!
When the Blood Moon's pupils fully open, we must let those drooling bastards hiding in the darkness see clearly!
What they crashed into was not a lamb curled up in a ball, but a Pig Iron fortress covered with poisoned spikes!
Since the Holy Light hanging high in the dome can't penetrate this damned Red Fog, then let's use the steel in our hands to smash fire into this city wall ourselves!
To save your own throats, to still be alive and see tomorrow's sun rise, pull out your weapons!!!
"Zheng--!"
At that moment, Todd felt as if a piece of burning coal had been shoved into his chest.
The protective fighting Battle Aura in his Qi Sea completely went out of control and boiled up along with his blood vessels.
He forgot the velvet in the Inland manor, forgot the dignity of a baron's son, and even forgot the bone-chilling cold he had felt during the Ghoul' howls a few nights earlier.
The officer next to him Kyle, with a scar across his face, drew his broadsword, veins bulging on his neck, and let out a roar that was almost like that of a wild beast.
The exiles around them, dressed in coarse linen clothes, all raised their hands as if they had gone mad.
Salty tears mixed with the frozen mud on his face trickled into the corners of his mouth, making Todd tremble all over.
With all the strength he had ever mustered, he raised the spear high above his head and, together with the veteran beside him, roared out all the air from his lungs.
As long as the silver-haired figure bathed in platinum light on the platform doesn't fall, even if he's about to be torn apart by the berserk Werewolf's claws in the next second, Todd will definitely shove that rough spear into the monster's eye socket!
The clanging of thousands of weapons being drawn from their sheaths merged together, like a real wave, forcefully dispersing the Red Fog hanging low above Blackpine Fief.
In the midst of the bustling crowd, Shien remained like a cold statue, maintaining his sword-raising posture.
Deep within his consciousness, even the Canon of Grace and Righteousness seemed to be stirred by this fervor.
The heavy parchment pages flipped wildly, and a torrent of emerald green and deep blue data exploded in Shien's Karmic Sight.