Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 975: Chapter 974: Falling

In the early hours, still far from sunrise, not even the faint twilight appeared in the eastern hills’ sky, the starry night slightly darker than usual covered the land of the border areas, the night sky hung low, the dark blue heavens stretched from the towering walls of Winterwolf Fortress to the Cecil Clan’s Longwind Fortress.

Knights in black helms and black armor gathered neatly under the night sky, swords sheathed, banners folded, horses controlled by magic potions and calming spells stood quietly, almost merging with the knights without making a sound—cold wind swept the land, the plains seemed to be a gathering of hundreds of steel-forged statues, silent and dignified.

A tall figure on horseback circled half a loop from the rear and returned to the forefront of the knights. His black steel armor appeared even more deep and heavy under the starlight, and from the visor covering his entire face came a low and majestic voice—

Sadly, it wasn’t in human language.

It was a kind of muddled, strange sound as if countless people were muttering simultaneously, eerie to hear yet carrying a certain solemn rhythm akin to a benediction.

The commander in black armor raised an arm high in front of the knights, his indistinct and dreadful voice seemed to inspire the entire troop, knights also raised their arms in response, but no one shouted—a disciplined display of resolve shown in silence to their commander, who was visibly satisfied with the gesture.

He nodded, turned his horse, and swung the longsword towards the distant dark plain, knights began marching row by row, the entire troop surged forth like a sudden wave of wheat, layers upon layers accelerating towards the distance, and during this advance, the standard-bearers at the front, middle, and both sides suddenly raised their banners—

Iron River Knights’ flags fluttered high over the night-covered plains.

...

Andresha dreamt a dream.

In her dream, she felt herself falling into an endless vortex, surrounded by countless shadowy, misty black cyclones swirling around her, vast and obscure, blocking her sight and senses, and she kept plummeting within this enormous vortex. She wanted to wake up, normally this sense of falling would wake her immediately, but a powerful force in the vortex’s depths pulled her away from reality, separated by an unseen barrier—she could almost feel the bed’s texture, hear the wind outside the window, yet her mind was trapped in this dream, unable to return to the waking world.

Andresha strained her eyes in the perpetual spin of the vortex, trying to discern what these shadowy mists contained, then suddenly, faces gathered in the mist—she saw many faces, familiar and unfamiliar, she saw her grandfather, her most loyal soldiers, acquaintances far in the imperial capital...

Finally, she saw her father, Bard Wendell’s face emerged from the vortex’s depths, and he reached out to push her forcefully.

Andresha jerked awake, breathing heavily in the darkness, feeling her heart thumping, a post-drowning sensation tormenting her uncomfortably, while cold sweat soaked her body.

"General, General! Please wake up, General!"

The urgent knocking and shouts from her subordinates finally reached her ears—had this sound just appeared? Or had they been calling her for some time?

Andresha quickly rose, pulling a casual coat over herself as she responded, "Come in!"

The door was pushed open, and a loyal subordinate appeared at the entrance, the young lieutenant stepped in, snapped a salute, a look of urgency on his face as he quickly spoke, "General, there’s an incident, the War God’s Clergy residential area erupted in turmoil, a batch of Combat Priests clashed with guardian soldiers, many casualties have occurred."

"What did you say? Turmoil?" Andresha was shocked, immediately reaching for her sword and outer clothing to leave—despite hearing an unbelievable message, she knew her loyal subordinate’s capability and judgment, such news couldn’t be fabricated, "What’s the situation now? Who’s on-site? Is the situation under control?"

Speaking as she temporarily handed her sword to the lieutenant while dressing quickly and heading out.

"Knight Commander Brule has already controlled the situation—due to sudden loss of control, at first, the soldiers were unresponsive, resulting in seven deaths, thirty to forty injuries, at least fifteen severely wounded. Subsequently, nearby patrolling knights and combat mages swiftly arrived, warding off and separating the seemingly delirious priests," the young lieutenant quickly followed while reporting, "Other regions have increased patrols and surveillance, there are no signs of chaos for now."

Seemingly delirious...

Andresha’s heart sank, her pace quickened.

Nearing the camp within Winterwolf Fortress designated for some clergy, a pungent scent of blood assaulted her senses.

Knights had controlled the scene, heavily armored soldiers guarded all entrances without fail, combat mages continuously used detection spells to scan for all magic disturbances within the camp, ready to respond to any transcendent’s loss of control and resistance, several tense patrol knights noticed Andresha’s approach, halting and saluting in respect.

Andresha waved and went through the human barricade directly into the camp.

Wounded had been moved, corpses remained on the ground, splattered hot blood had cooled in this cold winter night, residual waste energy from dense spell and divine art releases accumulated nearby, showing as foggy in Andresha’s magi-sight. She frowned at the imperial uniformed soldiers’ bodies—they were killed by scorching magic spell blades or divine arts, yet there was little blood loss, the blood scent largely came from those priests slain by swords.

The priests’ bodies lay nearby, intermingled with the soldiers they killed.

Suppressing intense emotions inside, Andresha arrived beside a War God Priest’s body, unphased by the surrounding bloodstains, crouching and rolling over the corpse.

The priest’s body was turned over, hollow eyes stared at Andresha, or perhaps at the dark sky, those eyes seemed to retain a certain chaos and frenzy, making them especially unsettling.

But Andresha’s focus quickly shifted from those eyes—she looked at the priest’s wound.

A fatal wound cut from near the neck through the chest, enchanted blade sliced through weak fabric and cotton robe, under was torn flesh—blood no longer flowing, yet on both sides of the wound there were many... strange objects.

They were flesh sprouts emerging from the flesh, appearing bizarre and disconcerting, Andresha was certain humans’ wounds shouldn’t grow such, and as for their function... these sprouts seemed trying to recover the wound, but the complete cessation of bodily vitality made such attempts futile, now all sprouts wilted, melded with the flesh, exceptionally revolting.

A knight with blood-stained armor approached Andresha.

"Brule," Andresha didn’t look up, she sensed the familiarity in the aura, "did you notice these wounds?"

"Yes, General," the knight officer replied solemnly, "I’ve inspected them before; it’s not an effect of healing spells or alchemical potions, nor normal War God’s divine arts. But one thing is certain, these... anomalies granted the priests here stronger vitality, that’s why many soldiers suffered greatly—no one expected the downed enemy to retaliate as if unharmed, resulting in soldiers seriously injured or even killed by surprise."

Andresha nodded slightly, the knight officer’s statement confirmed her suspicions and explained why the chaos led to such severe casualties.

The War God Clergy here were disarmed, without amplifying talismans or handy weapons, bare-handed priests—even War God Priests—shouldn’t inflict such damage on fully armed and collectively acting regulars, even in a surprise attack.

After all, the Empire’s soldiers had extensive transcendent combat experience, aside from the army’s highly proportioned mass-produced knights and mages, ordinary soldiers too possessed enchanted gear and underwent specific training.

But... if they confronted Corrupted Priests transforming from humans to monsters, then everything was different.

Andresha’s face was grim — although she didn’t want to, at this moment she had to categorize those out-of-control War God priests as "Corrupted Priests".

"Where are the other War God priests?" she stood up and asked in a deep voice.

"They have all been controlled, placed in two adjacent camps, with guards tripled," Knight Commander Brule immediately replied, "Most of them are tense, and a few are emotionally agitated, but at least they haven’t... mutated."

Andresha felt a surge of irritation in her heart: "...We can only keep them confined like this."

"Yes, we can only keep them confined like this," the Knight Commander’s face didn’t look any better, "This chaos is evidently caused by some kind of ’madness’, and we cannot take action against the ordinary awake priests — but I worry the soldiers may not see it that way."

Andresha frowned deeply, about to issue some orders, but soon noticed other details from the priest’s corpse.

She bent down, her fingers touched a thin chain around the priest’s neck, and with a random tug, she pulled out a blood-soaked, triangular iron talisman.

"War Symbol..." the knight commander exclaimed in a low voice, "I didn’t notice this just now!"

Andresha said nothing, instead, she solemnly tore open the priest’s sleeve. Under the bright light of the magic crystal lamp nearby, she immediately saw a triangular insignia painted in red on the inside of the arm.

"Wearing iron war talisman, with War God’s insignia painted on the inside of the arm..." the Knight Commander instinctively muttered, "It represents bearing arms in the name of the God — a sign of entering a state of war!"

"These priests aren’t mad, at least not fully mad, they did these according to doctrine, this isn’t a riot..." Andresha said solemnly, "This is a sacrifice to the War God, to indicate that the faction they are loyal to has entered a state of war."

"State of war!?" Her adjutant came over with a look of astonishment, "Where does the war come from!? Are these people trying to start a rebellion against the Empire?"

"Oathbreakers cannot wear talismans, this isn’t rebellion..."

Andresha’s words were only halfway through.

She quickly recalled various messages recently sent back from the homeland, swiftly organizing the abnormal circumstances of the Sect of the God of War and the balance of the border region’s situation recently — the intelligence she knew was indeed sparse, yet some wolfish intuition has started to sound an alarm in her mind.

She suddenly sprang into a dreadful, extremely atrocious guess.

The Sect of the God of War has issues, the gods of these priests have problems, and at this moment the zealous, fanatical believers in a state of frenzy most want to... please their gods.

But how could these disarmed priests, ostensibly under protective observation but actually under house arrest in the camp, please their god?

It’s difficult for them to achieve... but there are more followers of the War God!

Andresha abruptly lifted her head, yet almost simultaneously, corner of her eye caught sight of a mage hastily flying in the night sky towards here.

This seems specifically designed to confirm her horrible guess.

Andresha felt a sensation arise within her, a feeling of clutching the crucial point yet unable to alter the course of events. She remembered the last time she had such a sensation — it was on a rainy night at the Palamere Highlands.

The messenger mage landed before her.

"General!" The mage gasped with a look of panic, "Without orders, the Iron River Knights moved out, their camp is already empty — the last witness saw them assembling on the plains away from the fortress, heading towards the Longwind Defense Line!"

Falling.

Andresha felt herself falling into a whirlpool.

...

The Longwind Fortresses, centered on Longwind Fortress and constructed with a series of fortresses, outposts, railway nodes, and military stations as its skeleton, forming a composite defense line.

Since its construction, it has not yet faced the test of fire.

At the eve of dawn, the myriad stars in the sky grew dimmer and more indistinct, and the distant eastern hills bore a faint luminescence, heralding the end of this cold night approaches.

The knight regiment, marching under the night sky, had reached the end of the "Carmanta Crossroad", the boundary of the Cecil Clan’s defense alert zone.

Under the black mask, a pair of dark red eyes gazed at the faraway dim horizon, gazing in the direction of the Longwind Defense Line.

Behind this commander, a massive knight regiment had already formed a battle formation, the surging magic power filled the entire resonance field.

A few minutes later, the magic resonance reached its peak.

The Commander raised the longsword high, and at the moment the longsword swung down, the entire knight regiment began to slowly accelerate in waves, at first cumbersome and slow, but then charging at the distant horizon like a wild, fast wave surge.

God needs everything to return to the right track.

Blood and fire warfare is the right track.

The servant of the Lord doesn’t care who will win, doesn’t care whether they might suffer a crushing defeat, doesn’t even care about the ultimate meaning of this war.

At this moment, the war itself is the meaning.

Containing terrifying energy reactions, highly compressed binding plasma — "Thermal Cone" began to form above the knight regiment.