It Was a Curse

The brief interlude over, the army continued west, but the grasslands were already in an uproar.

Apart from the rotting corpses that littered the canyon, there was no sign of the thirty-thousand-strong allied army. It was a tremendous shock to the Tuwu People.

Tales of the "Third Army" suddenly became a popular topic of discussion.

In some areas, they even overshadowed the news of the royal court sweeping through Dragon Spine Province.

Before the uproar could die down, disaster struck.

To lay their warriors' souls to rest, the nearby Tuwu tribes quickly gathered men and sent them into the canyon to clear away the rotting corpses, braving the stench.

After all, there were such beings as necromancers in this world.

If they waited too long and those fellows took an interest, it would mean another disaster.

The corpses were cleared away, but the plague was carried out of the canyon.

Every nearby tribe, large and small, fell victim to the plague without exception.

The infirm elderly and other vulnerable people were the first to fall. The tribal priests were run off their feet treating the sick.

Unfortunately, some efforts were destined to be in vain.

Without divine magic, the patients might have held on for a few more days.

Beneath the light of divine magic, many died on the spot.

Of course, the plague was successfully driven out; their vitality had simply been drained too far.

The tribal leaders knew it was a plague, but ordinary herders knew no better. They believed it was a devil's curse.

The "Third Army" had already been called devils, and now the name had been upgraded to the "Devil Legion."

"Ah, the grasslands!"

"Tumen commander, the grasslands are ahead!"

A Tuwu soldier cried out.

Over the past dozen days or so, they had suffered terribly in the forest.

They feared neither poisonous insects nor ferocious beasts. Plague and dysentery were the deadly killers.

Medical care in the army was limited, and it could not provide them with effective treatment.

No matter how strong a warrior was, once he fell ill, he could only be left in the mountains to fend for himself.

Worse still, mist shrouded the forest. In many places, visibility was less than fifty meters, and a moment's carelessness could send them off course.

The footprints left by the enemy became the biggest trap they fell into.

They should have been heading out, but a trail of footprints led them astray and deep into the mountains.

Only when they came under attack from magical beasts did they realize something was wrong.

By then, however, they had already traveled a long way.

Even though they promptly corrected their course, they still paid a painful price to escape the forest.

"Yes!"

"We finally found a way out!"

Gazing at the grasslands in the distance, Tumen Commander Jeremiah could not hold back his tears.

Finding the way out of the mountains was not the end, but the beginning of a tragedy.

With the war having gone this badly, there was no way to answer to the royal court.

The grand ambitions he had set out with had become a scar deep in his heart that he could not bear to touch.

The allied army had set out thirty thousand strong. Now fewer than three thousand battered soldiers remained, scrambling along in a sorry state.

The stark contrast was proof of his incompetence.

Perhaps the allied army's actual losses were not quite so severe; perhaps some soldiers had already made it out of the mountains ahead of him.

But none of that mattered. Fewer than three thousand troops remained with him, and he had to face the reality that less than a tenth of the army had survived.

If they encountered the enemy now, the entire army would surely be wiped out.

"At least we're alive!"

Seeing that his commander had broken down, Knightley steeled himself and offered words of comfort.

Someone had to answer for a defeat, and the tribal chiefs and elders below them could not possibly shoulder the blame.

No matter how they tried to shift it, when the time came to hold someone accountable, the commander would bear the brunt.

If Tumen Commander Jeremiah could not face it and killed himself on the road, Knightley, as his deputy, would be in trouble.

The dead did not have to answer for anything, but the living had to bear all the consequences.

For his own sake, he had stayed by Tumen Commander Jeremiah's side the entire time these past few days.

Even when they ate or slept, they remained within twenty meters of each other.

"Let's go. Out of the mountains!"

Tumen Commander Jeremiah waved his hand as he spoke.

His subordinate's thoughts had not escaped him.

Deep down, he too had considered ending it all, but in the end he had been unable to make up his mind.

Ever-victorious generals were exceedingly rare; no one could guarantee victory every time.

With his past achievements and the connections behind him, a single defeat was not enough to cost him his head.

According to the khanate's usual practice, he would most likely be stripped of his post and have some cattle, sheep, and horses confiscated as punishment.

His present torment was mostly a matter of wounded pride.

He had suffered a baffling defeat, and if he slunk home like this, he would be mocked for the rest of his life.

But circumstances would not allow him to lead his troops against the enemy for revenge.

The Seventh Tumen he had brought with him was crippled, and the surrounding tribes had suffered even more devastating losses. There was no way to organize a second allied army.

To gather troops again, he would either have to wait for reinforcements from the royal court or go and persuade tribes farther away.

To avoid running into the enemy, the group immediately moved away from the Dragonbone Mountains after emerging from them, only stopping when they reached the White Fox Tribe.

The welcome they had expected never came. Few people were even out and about, and the entire tribe was deathly quiet.

"Dominic, what happened in the tribe?"

Catching sight of a familiar face, Sanders hurried over, stopped him, and asked.

"Chief, you're alive!"

"Where have you been these past few days? Everyone in the tribe has been worried sick!"

Dominic asked in disbelief.

With no sign of the allied army for so long, many had already given up hope.

Most of the tribe's young and able-bodied men had perished on the battlefield, while those who stayed behind had been afflicted by a "curse" that even divine magic could not cure.

Watching the people around them fall one after another, everyone despaired of the future.

The once-vibrant tribe had suddenly become deathly quiet.

The tribal leaders could not even be bothered to arrange the most basic daily defenses.

If the enemy wanted to attack, they could have the tribe, along with the "curse."

"It's a long story. We'll talk about it later. What's going on in the tribe?"

Sanders changed the subject, looking embarrassed.

It was simply impossible to admit that thirty thousand allied troops had been chased into a panicked flight by a few thousand enemies.

If he had not experienced it himself, he would have suspected someone was making up a story.

"Those devils did it!"

"A dozen days or so ago, we discovered that the enemy had withdrawn from outside Heavenly Wolf Canyon, so we sent people to investigate.

They found a large number of rotting corpses in the canyon. It was impossible to tell who the dead had been.

Our tribe discussed it with several neighboring tribes, and we held a funeral for them according to our old traditions.

No one expected the enemy to have placed a curse on the corpses, and many people were unfortunately afflicted.

At first they only felt weak all over, but as the curse took hold, the symptoms quickly worsened. They developed fevers, vomited, and their bodies even began to rot...

These curses are also contagious. Even someone who never touched the rotting corpses can be infected.

The priests used divine magic, but they still couldn't save the victims.

After using it repeatedly, even our tribe's old priest couldn't escape the curse's clutches!"

"To lift the curse, we joined several neighboring tribes in searching for a solution, but unfortunately, every attempt failed.

Now we can only wait for help from the royal court. Going by the time that's passed, the news should be reaching the court soon!"

"Chief, you haven't entered the tribe yet. Hurry and run while you're still free of the curse!"

Coming to his senses, Dominic hurriedly urged him to leave.

The White Fox Tribe had already lost too many people to this. It could not afford to lose its last seeds as well.

"Dominic, what nonsense are you talking about? There's no curse. How could-"

Sanders was only halfway through his sentence when someone grabbed him.

"No!"

"Chief Sanders, this is a curse!"

"And one of the most vicious curses in the world!"

"The allied army suffered such heavy losses because the enemy cursed us!"

Tumen Commander Jeremiah said through gritted teeth.

If the others had not been there themselves, they might have believed him.

After a brief moment of bewilderment, they quickly caught on.

Since it had been mistaken for a curse, the best thing to do was to establish the "curse" as fact.

Thirty thousand allied troops had gone to war, and fewer than one in ten had survived.

Without a reasonable explanation, not only would Jeremiah, the tumen commander, be in trouble, but the others would fare little better.

If they simply told the truth, even if the khanate did not hold them accountable, they would have no way to explain themselves to their tribes.

By blaming the defeat on a curse, all their problems would cease to be problems.

The khanate had previously used an undead calamity against the Holy Glory Empire's Northern Frontier Corps. It was entirely plausible that the enemy had learned from it and used a similar method to retaliate.

"The tumen commander is right. This is all the enemy's scheme!"

"The enemy is trying to use a curse to bring us all down!"

"We must get word back to the royal court as soon as possible, so the tribes everywhere can prepare. We can't let the enemy's scheme succeed again!"

The others chimed in, two or three at a time, and soon settled on an account of what had happened.

In an instant, they went from defeated commanders to heroes of the khanate who had successfully resisted the curse.