novelraw Chapter 73 : Chapter 73
Chapter 73 : Chapter 73
Chapter 73. Are They Putting On a Show for Me?
Inside the central command tent of the Demi-Human Empire.
The Cult Bishop in charge of supervision suddenly shot to his feet.
He stared fixedly at an obsidian disc on the table before him.
Just moments ago, the spiritual light markers representing the one hundred elite zealots sent into the Dragon Mountain Range had almost all gone dark at the exact same instant.
The bishop’s body trembled violently with absolute fury.
That had been one hundred elite zealots.
Several deacons had been among them.
And just like that, they were gone.
Not even a single scream or distress signal had made it back before they were wiped out.
He could not comprehend what kind of power could completely erase an elite squad in the blink of an eye.
He shoved aside the attendants in his way and stormed toward the command tent of Ulzok and Kane.
“Ulzok! Kane! You had better give me an explanation!”
“Bang!”
Before the bishop had even finished speaking, a bear paw larger than his head slammed down onto the battle map.
The solid wooden table instantly shattered into pieces.
Ulzok, the bear demi-human legion commander, had bloodshot eyes and a face full of heart-wrenching grief and self-reproach.
“An explanation? How am I supposed to explain this?!”
He roared so loudly that his spit nearly hit the bishop’s face.
“It was me! It was all my fault! I was too naive! How could I have believed your plan for a surprise attack?! I sent our allies’ brothers to their deaths!”
He beat his chest and stamped his feet, performing with stunning sincerity.
“They came because they trusted us! And what happened? I pushed them straight into a pit of fire! The weapons used by those bastards in the Northern Territory are too vicious! I have failed those dead brothers! I deserve to die!”
The bishop was hit so hard by that combination of words that he froze.
I have not even started raging yet, and he is already acting?
And he is taking all the blame onto himself?
The accusations the bishop had prepared got stuck in his throat and would not come out.
“Ahem.”
At that moment, Kane, the white wolf demi-human standing to the side, stepped forward at just the right time.
He supported the “grief-stricken” Ulzok and turned to the bishop with a heavy yet rational expression.
“Your Excellency, please calm your anger. The general is simply overwhelmed with guilt. None of us expected the Northern Territory’s defenses to have reached this level.”
Kane sighed, his eyes filled with gravity.
“Our reconnaissance mages have already observed intelligence from that battle. The attack fell from the sky without a sound, and its power rivaled a forbidden spell. This has already gone beyond our understanding of war. The defensive line at Bitter Cold Valley is likely impregnable. We must make long-term plans. We cannot allow any more soldiers to die in vain.”
Ulzok continued wailing in the background.
Meanwhile, Kane smoothly picked up a pen and paper, looking as though he urgently needed to report this shocking disaster.
As he wrote, he even thoughtfully read it aloud for the bishop to hear.
“To His Highness the esteemed Regent: The Northern Territory’s defenses have far exceeded expectations. The enemy possesses a kind of… yes, a kind of ‘Divine Punishment Armament’ capable of launching attacks from beyond the nine heavens. Its ammunition appears out of thin air, and when it lands, mountains collapse and earth splits. Its might rivals a dragon’s wrath.”
As Kane wrote, he secretly observed the bishop’s expression.
When he saw the man’s face slowly shift from rage to uncertainty, he wrote even more enthusiastically.
“After joint reconnaissance by our army and our Church allies, and at the cost of grievous losses, it has been confirmed that the enemy has already established an iron curtain over the Dragon Mountain Range that no mortal can cross.”
“Such a weapon cannot be resisted by human strength. In order to preserve the Empire’s vital forces, I, Kane, together with Fifth Legion Commander Ulzok, submit this blood-written plea, begging Your Highness to permit our forces to shift into a prolonged standoff while we seek another method to break the enemy!”
And just like that, a battle report that was half true, half false, and exaggerated to the extreme was born.
As the bishop listened to phrases like “Divine Punishment Armament” and “iron curtain,” even he became uncertain.
Could it be that the Northern Territory had really created some heaven-defying weapon?
Looking at the two legion commanders, one furious and self-reproachful, the other calm and analytical, he found that no matter how much anger he still had, he could no longer vent it.
After all, they had lowered their posture so completely and had even taken the initiative to attribute the failure of the surprise attack to the overwhelming strength of the Northern Territory’s weapons.
What else could he say?
In the end, the bishop could only darken his face and tacitly accept the contents of the report.
…
Winter City.
Governor’s Residence.
Esmeralda, captain of Sylvia’s Shadow Guard, placed an interrogation record on the table.
“Your Highness, Professor Logaris, we got everything out of him.”
Logaris picked up the Recording Crystal and swept it with his spiritual power.
The captured cultist had basically already collapsed.
Under the endless variety of “friendly exchanges” employed by the Shadow Guard, he had spilled everything like beans from a broken jar.
“They thought the Demi-Human Empire’s advance was too slow, and that it was affecting the efficiency of the ‘sacrificial ritual.’”
Esmeralda added calmly.
“That was why they wanted to cross through the Dragon Mountain Range and launch a surprise attack, hoping to catch us off guard and cause large-scale casualties. Most importantly… the one who encouraged them down that dead-end path was none other than Kane, one of the Demi-Human Empire’s legion commanders.”
“Oh?”
Logaris raised an eyebrow.
He walked to the massive sand table and looked at the pieces representing both sides.
On the first day, the demi-human vanguard had charged into the ambush zone and died for nothing.
From the second day onward, they had begun staging that piece of performance art called “mine-clearing,” advancing less than one hundred meters in an entire day.
And now, they had tricked the most impatient cultists into marching into the Dragon Mountain Range to die, using his own hand to perfectly eliminate those unstable allies.
And after his five Truth Mark I shells had been fired, the enemy’s response had not been furious retaliation, but instead…
They had withdrawn even more cautiously.
Logaris lightly tapped his fingers against the sand table as one suspicious point after another connected together.
He suddenly stopped.
Then he turned to Sylvia and General Victor and delivered a shocking conclusion.
“They’re acting.”
“What?”
The old general looked stunned.
“Acting? Professor, do you mean this is a plan to lure the enemy in? They want us to lower our guard before their main force launches a full assault?”
“No, General. You misunderstood.”
Logaris pushed up his glasses, the lenses reflecting a calm light.
“What I mean is that the commanders on the other side, Ulzok and Kane, do not want to fight this war at all.”
“How is that possible?!”
General Victor found the idea utterly unbelievable.
“They are imperial legion commanders. That would be treason!”
“It is a scheme! It must be a scheme to lull us into carelessness!”
However, before Logaris could refute him, Sylvia’s silver-gray eyes suddenly lit up.
What Victor saw was a military conspiracy.
What Logaris saw was irrationality in behavioral logic.
But she, a born politician, smelled something entirely different.
A trace of excitement entered Sylvia’s voice.
“There is another possibility. The generals on the front line and the Regent in the rear may not be of one mind at all!”
Her words plunged the entire command room into silence.
If Logaris’s hypothesis was true, and if her judgment was correct…
Then the nature of this war had completely changed.
As the saying went, the supreme art of war was to attack the enemy’s strategy.
The room for maneuver here was enormous.
So enormous that this crisis might even be divided and dismantled from within without shedding blood.
“Esmeralda!”
Sylvia made her decision at once.
“Go invite Prince Alectos Huiyin over.”