The council chamber was filled with an indescribable scent, a mix of sweat, candle wax, and lingering blood.
The place where Baron fell had been hastily cleared, but no one cleaned the bloodstains on the ground.
That sword strike was too sudden, too bizarre.
Everyone realized one thing, that Kael Remont was no longer the Young Master who could be reasoned with.
The nobility stood around the long table, no one dared to sit down.
Soone whispered argunts, soone rambled prayers, and others repeatedly emphasized "the gates still have guards," as if saying these words could still control the situation.
"We must stabilize the Knight Order first."
"Isolate the Young Master, at least... at least don’t let him hold a sword again."
"No, he just killed Baron! Who dares approach him now?"
Panic fernted in their words.
No one noticed the change in the air in the distant corridor.
The first to sense sothing unusual was a young Viscount standing by the wall.
He suddenly stopped talking and listened closely.
There were footsteps, but not human ones.
It sounded like nails scraping on stone walls, or a heavy body being dragged on the ground, intermittently, yet rapidly approaching.
"Did you... hear that?"
As soon as he spoke, the heavy council chamber door shook violently.
In the next instant, a crack was torn open in the center of the wooden door.
Iron hoops twisted, wood splinters flew, and a cold wind mixed with the scent of blood and alchemical potions blew in.
A noble let out a scream of terror.
Shadows surged in from outside the door.
The knights in the council chamber reacted quickly.
Several knights in heavy armor imdiately ford a formation, pointing their long spears forward, their armor lit up with fighting energy.
Two Extraordinary Knights had even charged up their fighting energy, their sword blades humming, ready to engage the enemy.
When the first monster collided, the formation indeed held.
The spear pierced through its chest cavity, the sword blade shattered its shoulder bone. The monster was cut down on the spot, blood splattered all around.
As soone retreated, they murmured, "Those are from underground..."
"They can be killed!" soone shouted these two words, but their voice imdiately changed tone.
The second, third, fourth creatures kept coming.
No formation, no coordination, not caring about the corpses of their companions, not even their own lives.
The pierced monsters kept crawling forward, the ones with severed arms used their teeth to bite.
Fighting energy slashes could send them flying, but couldn’t stop them.
An Extraordinary Knight was tackled by three creatures at once.
He roared, bursting with fighting energy, shattering one body by force, only to be hugged around the waist by another monster in the next instant.
Claws pierced through armor seams, scales scraping against tal, making a teeth-gritting sound.
The Extraordinary Knight kept swinging his sword to break free, until a fourth creature bit into his throat.
The line began to collapse.
The knights in the city weren’t cowardly or incompetent, they were fighting, using every skill and strength.
But the sheer numbers and madness were devouring everything.
The nobility began to retreat.
Tables and chairs were overturned, candelabras fell to the ground, flas quickly spreading along the carpet.
So fell, so were dragged underfoot. The council chamber once used for discussing taxes and fiefs turned into an inescapable slaughterhouse.
Only the approaching shadows and the ever-closer screams remained.
When the last knight was overwheld, the fate of the castle was already sealed.
Only then did soone finally think of the gates.
They rushed out of the council chamber, running frantically along the corridor, bashing open one heavy wooden door after another, boots skidding on stone floors, armor clashing, creating a frantic and urgent sound.
Soone ran while shouting to lower the drawbridge, others hoarsely ordered guards to gather.
But the orders were aningless now.
The inner chanism leading to the gate had been locked since dusk.
That was an order from Kael himself, to prevent insiders from betraying and surrendering, all keys outside were retracted, the winch sealed, the drawbridge axle fixed with an alchemical wedge.
Even if generals still lived inside the castle, they couldn’t unlock this defense system in ti.
Soone dashed to the winch, hacking with swords, smashing with hamrs.
Sparks flew, but the iron chains didn’t budge.
The structure originally designed to withstand siege hamrs and magical cannons now indifferently denied all survival desires within the castle.
The city gates remained silent, a silence more cruel than any roar.
The stairway leading to the city wall was quickly lost as well.
Those narrow spiral passageways, once an advantage of defense, now turned into a nightmare.
The fleeing crowd was jamd together here; those in front stopped, while those in back kept desperately pushing.
If soone fell, they never stood again.
Flas spread along the corridors, burning everything flammable.
Thick smoke was trapped by the heavy stone walls, unable to disperse, and soon pressed down to breathing height. So lost direction in the smoke, crashing into dead ends, forced into corners.
The stone walls that once symbolized safety now cut off all roads to survival.
The defense design of Grey Rock Castle was ant to make the enemy pay with blood.
Every door, every sluice, every spiral staircase was ant to slow down the besiegers and buy ti for the defenders.
But it was never designed to leave a way out for those inside when disaster burst from within.
Flas spread between corridors and towers, illuminating the shadows of people frantically running, as well as the outlines of monsters crouching on beams, window sills, and castle walls.
They weren’t in a rush to chase, just steadily pushing all living beings into the depths without exit.
Grey Rock Castle was no longer a stronghold.
It beca a hell sealed by its own hand.
Night was dyed red by the flas; screams echoed within the heavy walls, never reaching outside.
By dawn, there would be no more order here, only destruction.
Interrupted screams beca sparse, swallowed by flas, choked off by thick smoke.
But the disaster hadn’t ended.
The unrestrained dragon-blood monsters still road inside the castle.
They surged through corridors, stairways, and towers, repeatedly crashing into closed gates and sluices.
Heavy iron gates trembled, stone walls echoed, the whole castle was like a trapped beast, rumbling softly in the night.
Yet those gates, made from precious mines, held for the mont.
Everything Kael fortified against internal chaos, inner sluices, drawbridges, lock wedges, now beca the only barriers.
The monsters were trapped inside, unable to surge into the residential areas outside the castle, for now.
But each impact made those outside clearly aware that this wasn’t safety, just a delay.
Night was dyed red by the flas; by dawn, Grey Rock Castle was utterly silent.
No flag of surrender, no cries from survivors.
Only charred walls, and the sulfur and blood stench seeping from the crevices.
The vanguard of the Red Tide neared shortly before the disaster occurred.
Louis stood on a high slope outside the city, watching this fortress that should have been impregnable.
The gates were closed tight, yet covered in dents from impacts; the walls intact, yet a deep rumble consistently echoed, as if sothing wandered inside.
A knight hurried forward, kneeling on one knee, his voice extrely low.
"Sir, inside the castle... there are no signs of life."
He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
"But there’s still movent below. A large number, trapped inside. The garrison, the nobility... all wiped out."
Louis did not speak imdiately, just watched that silent castle.
In this morning’s Daily Intelligence System, he already knew the castle’s fate.
Sixty complete, along with hundreds of semi-ford dragon-blood monsters.
When they are wounded, the torn flesh will automatically heal.
More importantly, they possess Fighting Energy, unstable yet truly there, blood-red energy intermittently surging through gaps in scales.
This was the monstrosity wrought by that mad dog Raymond.
He knew all this information in advance, but that was the extent of it.
He didn’t know the details of the chaos or its duration.
But those weren’t questions he needed to speculate on.
"You don’t need to worry," Louis finally spoke. "There is already a plan. Send the orders, blockade the periter, evacuate nearby residents, allow no one near the walls."
Thus, the vanguard knights dispersed, blocking roads, driving people away, pulling them off.
"Move back, don’t stop, go now."
So wept, so struggled, saying they had relatives inside the city, but those who refused to cooperate were grabbed by the Red Tide Knights, dragged away, shoved into carts, and removed.
There was no ti left for explanations.
The isolation line was quickly erected, one layer after another, anyone nearing the walls would be dared and driven away.
Grey Rock Castle was completely isolated, the living were removed, the city sealed.
Louis withdrew his gaze, turning to leave the high slope: "Begin the plan."
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