Chapter 50 : Chapter 50
Chapter 50: Eagle's Nest City's Desperate Situation, the Count's Gamble
Eagle's Nest City, the fortified heart of the Eastern Reaches' northern lands.
This giant eagle carved from gray-black stone perched upon the chokepoint of the Dragon-Severing Mountain Range. Unlike the City of Miracles' brand-new walls, every brick and stone here was soaked through with a hundred years of weathering. Ancient scars from axes and blades covered its surface, silently recounting tales of blood and fire.
The deep blue banners atop the walls, painted with silver eagles and mountains, were rolled into bundles by the bitter night wind, making dull flapping sounds like the stone eagle's impatient breathing.
At midnight, a rider on horseback charged toward the tightly shut gates as if possessed.
To be precise, it was a warhorse foaming at the mouth with trembling limbs, already pushed to its limits, carrying a mud-like figure that crashed headlong before the drawbridge over the moat.
“Open the gates! Open the gates! I'm a centurion under Viscount Simon! Urgent military intelligence! Extremely urgent!”
The man tumbled from his horse's back, crawling and scrambling toward the gates, his voice hoarse as a broken gong.
The guards atop the wall leaned down, torchlight illuminating his face twisted by terror.
“Madman!”
The guard captain spat, but still waved his hand to give the order.
“Lower the drawbridge, let him in! Search him, then send him straight to the dungeon. Notify the physician and interrogator!”
Half an hour later, at the Count's manor, in the study.
Unlike the cold outside, this room constructed of heavy oak and crimson carpet was warm as spring.
In the fireplace, logs thick as soup bowls crackled and burned, casting the enormous map of the Eastern Reaches on the wall in flickering light and shadow.
The Count of Eagle's Nest City, Albrecht von Otto, stood with his back to the fireplace, facing the map.
Nearly fifty years old, dressed in well-tailored black velvet casual attire that made him appear much younger than his actual age.
His golden-brown hair was combed without a single strand out of place. Only the few silver threads at his temples betrayed the heavy years he bore as a regional ruler.
He didn't look at the prosperous towns and mines on the map. His gaze was fixed on the cursed place marked in the lower left corner as the Wailing Wastes.
His fingers gently caressed the sapphire ring representing his family's authority. The cold touch barely kept his chaotic thoughts somewhat clear.
The centurion who had been dragged in had already gone mad.
After examination, the physician discovered the man's mind had completely collapsed. Apart from words like “monster,” “man-eating,” and “all dead,” he couldn't speak a single coherent sentence.
The real intelligence came from a magically encrypted letter.
The letter came from gray-robed mage Martin, Viscount Simon's chief advisor.
This old mage renowned for his composure had handwriting in the letter that was unusually twisted and messy, as if his hand had been violently trembling while writing.
Albrecht read through the letter's contents again. Every word was like a dagger quenched in ice, stabbing viciously into his heart.
Undead scourge.
That was how the letter defined it.
Grayrock Town has become dead ground, an undead nest. Tens of thousands of corpse walkers, commanded by two skeletal giants.
Their leader, a mysterious necromancer, can absorb souls and constantly grow stronger.
Grand Knight Reno, struck by Withering Touch, his arm crippled, the curse spreading through his entire body.
One thousand three hundred elite troops, including two official mages, completely annihilated in a single day, with barely one in ten surviving.
“Undead nest……”
Albrecht repeated the term in a low voice, his tone parched.
In his youth, he had gambled with his life against orcs on the northern icefields. He understood better than anyone how powerful a force of a thousand elite troops led by a Grand Knight and two official mages truly was.
Yet such an army had been gnawed clean, bones and all, by a bunch of…… walking corpses.
This wasn't warfare anymore.
This was the kind of terrifying plague that only appeared in myths and legends, capable of erasing an entire kingdom.
Albrecht slowly clenched his fist. The hard sapphire ring pressed painfully into his knuckles.
He had to do something.
But he also knew what he absolutely could not do.
Report upward.
Report this undead incident to the royal capital, to the imperial family.
The moment this thought emerged, he snuffed it out without hesitation.
What a joke! Reporting now would be like throwing a torch into a powder keg himself!
The study door was silently pushed open. The hunched old butler Conrad, carrying a cup of steaming calming flower tea, walked in without a sound.
“My lord, the night grows late.”
Conrad's voice, like his person, carried an aged yet gentle quality.
Albrecht didn't turn around. He only asked.
“Have the ravens returned?”
“They arrived half an hour ago.”
The old butler placed the teacup on the table beside him and respectfully answered.
“The matter of the Eastern Territory Grand Duke's convoy being attacked has been investigated.”
“The Grand Duke's legitimate daughter, Miss Anneliya, confirmed missing.”
“The captain of her guard, Earth Knight Gregory Sebastian, killed in action.”
“Killed in action……”
Albrecht's voice was emotionless.
“The Immovable Lion Gregory, a powerhouse at the peak of Earth Knight, just died like that?”
“The scene bears traces of an extremely terrifying energy explosion that nearly leveled an entire valley.”
“The ravens judge that Knight Gregory, in his final moments, chose to self-detonate his Battle Energy core.”
“Self-detonate?”
Albrecht finally turned around, picking up the teacup but not drinking.
He gazed at the wisps of steam rising from the cup. In his blue eyes, a sharp gleam flashed and vanished.
“To force an Immovable Lion to self-detonate, the opponent…… who was it?”
“Unknown. The scene shows traces of third-party forces intervening. But Grand Duke Sebastian clearly doesn't think so.”
Conrad paused, then continued.
“According to messages sent back from the royal capital, after receiving the news, the Grand Duke shattered the obsidian round table in the Council Hall on the spot.”
“He's insisting that the imperial family sent people to do it, as retaliation for his open opposition to the military budget reduction bill.”
“Now, all the marquises of the entire Eastern Reaches have already arrived at Lionheart City.”
“The Sebastian family's Lion Legion is assembling at unprecedented speed.”
“The two Grand Dukes of the Southern and Western Reaches, though they haven't made clear statements, their legions have also stopped all leave and entered combat readiness.”
“The storm approaches as the wind fills the tower……”
Albrecht drained the scalding flower tea in one gulp. Warmth surged into his belly, yet it couldn't dispel even a fraction of the chill in his heart.
He set the cup down heavily on the table with a sharp clink.
“Now, do you understand why I cannot report this, Conrad?”
The old butler bowed slightly.
“This subordinate understands. The conflict between the imperial family and the four Grand Dukes has long reached a critical point.”
“This attack on the Grand Duke's daughter is the fuse.”
“The entire empire is like a barrel filled with black powder, and our Eagle's Nest City sits upon the lid.”
“At this very moment, if we report the undead scourge upward, what will happen?”
Albrecht sneered coldly, asking and answering his own question.
“Those fools in the imperial family absolutely won't see this as a natural disaster.”
“They'll only think this is an excuse Grand Duke Sebastian deliberately manufactured in the Eastern Reaches to raise an army! A bunch of idiots with muscles for brains!”
“They'll dispatch armies into the Eastern Reaches under the dual pretenses of suppressing rebellion and purging evil.”
“And Grand Duke Sebastian will never allow the imperial family's forces to set one foot into his territory.”
“When that happens, a civil war sweeping the entire empire will erupt right at my doorstep!”
He walked to the window and pushed open the heavy shutters. The icy night wind instantly poured in, making his robes snap and flutter.
He looked down at the sleeping city below, watching those rooftops and streets barely visible in the darkness, his eyes revealing a trace of complex emotion.
That was his domain, his subjects, the foundation his Otto family had guarded for six hundred years.
“On one side, an undead plague that will devour all living beings.”
“On the other, the iron hooves of civil war that will instantly tear my domain and people into shreds.”
“Truly…… an impossible choice.”
Albrecht fell silent for a long while, long enough that Conrad thought he would stand there until dawn.
Finally, he slowly closed the window, shutting out the external cold wind.
“Since neither the king nor the Grand Duke can be relied upon.”
His voice in the silent study sounded exceptionally clear and cold.
“Then I can only turn to another 'king.'”
Understanding flashed in the old butler's cloudy eyes.
“My lord, you mean…… the Church?”
“Precisely.”
Albrecht walked back before the map, his finger pointing to the position of the distant holy city in the empire's center—the City of Holy Light.
“Light and darkness are eternal mortal enemies.”
“For dealing with the undead, no one is more professional than those white-robed holy men.”
“Moreover, the Church is the only force that, in name, stands above both imperial authority and nobility.”
“However, my lord……”
Conrad hesitated, his voice carrying worry.
“Please forgive this old servant's bluntness. Inviting the Church to intervene is no different from inviting a wolf into the fold.”
“Those holy men's greed is no less than their piety.”
“What they want has never been just gold coins.”
“Of course I know.”
Albrecht snorted coldly.
“They want faith, power, infiltration into secular territories.”
“Every so-called holy war is their best excuse to expand their influence.”
“But right now, do we have any other choice?”
He turned his head, his gaze sharp as lightning, staring directly at the old butler.
“A wolf you can negotiate with is better than a monster you cannot communicate with that will devour everything.”
“At least, a wolf will temporarily leave after eating its fill.”
“Whereas the undead will only turn the entire pasture into more of their kind.”
The old butler bowed his head deeply.
“My lord is wise.”
“Go, summon Father Philip.”
Albrecht commanded.
“Remember, use the secret passage. Don't alarm anyone.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Conrad retreated like a shadow without a sound, melting into the corridor's darkness.
In the study, deathly silence fell once more.
Albrecht walked to the wall. On a row of seemingly ordinary bookshelves, he pulled out three books in a specific sequence.
Click……
A faint sound of mechanisms turning. The bookshelf slowly slid aside, revealing a hidden compartment forged from refined steel and covered in complex runes.
Inside the compartment were no gold, silver, or jewels, only a stack of yellowed parchment and an emblem made of mithril, carved with an ouroboros.
He took out the parchment and a specially made quill pen, beginning to write upon it.
His handwriting was no longer the elegant fluidity of handling official business, but became exceptionally cautious. Every word underwent deep consideration.
He didn't use a tone of request, but rather an equal tone of discovering a “common threat” to describe everything that had happened at Grayrock Town.
He deliberately exaggerated the scale and potential of that undead army, emphasizing the terrifying nature of its leader's ability to absorb souls and strengthen himself.
He defined this disaster as “the ultimate blasphemy against Father God's faith,” an “heretical plague shaking the world's foundations.”
He packaged his plea for help as a sacred duty of a devout believer of Father God reporting the traces of evil to the Church.
At the letter's end, he didn't mention any specific aid requirements, only “humbly requested” that the Church dispatch “professionals” to come “investigate” and “assess” this disaster that “might threaten the soul safety of all Eastern Reaches faithful.”
Finally, in a casual tone, he added one sentence.
“To assist the Church in executing its sacred purification mission, the Otto family is willing to 'donate' one-tenth of Eagle's Nest City's tax revenue for the next ten years, and open all roads within the territory to provide every convenience for the 'Emissaries of Holy Light.'”
This was his pledge of allegiance.
After writing the last word, Albrecht dried the ink, carefully folded the letter, sealed it with wax, then stamped it with that mithril ouroboros emblem.
This emblem represented an ancient covenant secretly formed by certain great nobles and high-ranking Church officials—the “Guardian Alliance.”
Letters sent through this channel could bypass all the Church's low and mid-level bureaucratic structures, delivered directly to the desk of one of the twelve Cardinal Archbishops.
This was the Otto family's most important life-preserving trump card, passed down for six hundred years.
Unless absolutely necessary, it would never be easily used.
Having done all this, he heard the coded knock of three long and two short sounds from outside the door.
He closed the hidden compartment. The bookshelf slowly returned to its position.
The door opened. Conrad led in a middle-aged man wearing plain gray priest's robes, with a lean face but exceptionally bright eyes.
Father Philip, director of Eagle's Nest City's great cathedral, and also the Otto family's most important chess piece planted within the Church system.
“I greet you, my honored Count.”
Father Philip pressed his hand to his chest and bowed.
“At ease, Philip.”
Albrecht handed over the letter.
“Tonight, I must trouble you for a journey.”
Father Philip accepted the letter. When he saw the ouroboros emblem upon it, undisguised shock flashed in his bright eyes.
“My lord…… this is……”
“The situation is far more serious than you imagine.”
Albrecht's voice carried a trace of weariness.
“This letter must be personally delivered by you, with utmost speed, to the City of Holy Light, and handed directly to Cardinal Archbishop Cyril, His Eminence of the Silver Hand.”
“Remember, it must be placed in his own hands personally. During the journey, it cannot pass through anyone else's hands.”
Cyril the Silver Hand, among the twelve Cardinal Archbishops, the youngest and most radical.
He oversaw the Church's Inquisition, commanding the Church's most elite and most ruthless armed forces—the Temple Purification Knight Order.
He was renowned for his forceful methods and soaring ambition, the representative figure of the “hawkish” faction within the Church.
Father Philip's complexion instantly grew grave.
He carefully tucked the letter into his robe and said solemnly.
“My lord, please forgive my bluntness.”
“Cardinal Archbishop Cyril…… he's like a blazing fire. While he can certainly burn away evil, he may also reduce everything around him to scorched earth.”
“We are making a deal with the devil.”
“I know.”
Albrecht looked at him, speaking word by word.
“But Philip, you must remember.”
“Sometimes, to drive away a pack of mad wolves about to devour all your sheep, you have no choice but to pay a great price to summon an even more ferocious lion.”
“Even if afterward, that lion will carry off your fattest lamb.”
“At least the remaining sheep can still survive.”
Father Philip fell silent.
He gazed deeply at Albrecht, as if to carve this lord's determination into his heart.
After a long while, he pressed his hand to his chest again and bowed deeply.
“May Father God's radiance guide your path.”
“And may Father God keep you safe on your journey.”
Father Philip said no more. He turned and, led by Conrad, disappeared once more into the darkness.
Albrecht stood alone in the empty study.
He felt unprecedented exhaustion.
Issuing an order that might change his family's fate was far more mentally draining than charging into battle for an entire day.
He walked to that enormous floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the cold crescent moon hanging in the distant sky.
He knew he had just cast an absolutely crucial die.
This die would leap over the imperial family, over the Grand Duke, over countless intricate power chessboards, falling directly into another even grander, even more perilous game.
He didn't know whether what awaited him was temporary peace, or an even more bottomless abyss.