Not everyone was as fortunate as the Red Tide Territory, which had a calm, decisive, and intelligent lord like Louis.
Take the Grant Family's Iron Wall of the North, for example.
This territory was a crucial transportation hub located between Red Tide and Snowfall County, where ice plains and mountains intersected, and major routes extended in all directions.
It was the first iron wall protecting the northern heartland, where the Grant Family had long been rooted, ruling by hereditary succession.
Militarily, the Grant Family commanded a formidable elite legion: the ‘Frozen Blood Legion’.
This was a veteran unit, clad in ice-scaled heavy armor, renowned for its mountain warfare tactics.
Its discipline was strict, its organization vast, and every winter, it conducted live-fire drills around the ice lake. It was said that it could maintain formation even in extre blizzards.
The central defensive stronghold was the daunting Embedded Rock Fortress.
It wasn’t rely a castle, but a colossal fortress built into the mountainside, integrated into the rock layers.
A poet once exaggeratedly wrote: “If Embedded Rock Fortress falls, the North can be abandoned.”
They prided themselves as the ‘Wall of the North’.
For years, they had resisted the Northern Barbarians and Frostland Demonic Beasts, never truly falling.
This was the honor the children of the Grant Family grew up with, and the source of all their confidence.
And all of this built a stable prosperity.
Order reigned within the fortress, with clear divisions between farming and comrce among the populace. Granaries, foundries, schools, and stables were all complete.
Even during the snowy season, temple fairs, hunting competitions, and military parades were organized.
Compared to other territories still struggling to prepare for winter, their people lived in relative ease.
Then, on October 10th, the Grant Family was in the midst of festive celebrations.
In the main hall of the Embedded Rock Fortress, family banners hung between high, carved pillars, their silver and dark blue totems fluttering in the firelight.
The hearth fire burned brightly, even rare ‘Winter Everlasting Flas’ were lit, sothing usually reserved for celebrations or weddings in past years.
Today was the coming-of-age ceremony for the Grant Family's youngest grandson, Elton.
The sixteen-year-old youth walked firmly up the steps, receiving an ancient short sword from his father's hand.
It was a family heirloom, a military weapon that had earned rits on the northern front, symbolizing responsibility and heritage.
He raised the short sword, his voice still tinged with youthful immaturity, yet unable to hide its proud tone:
“I, Elton Grant, swear before all my kinsn today—with this sword, I shall defend the family’s honor and guard the North’s dignity, until my last drop of blood!”
Thunderous applause erupted in the hall, family mbers raised their cups in unison, and elders smiled, praising, “This is truly a descendant of the Grant Family.”
Yet, no one noticed that outside the main fortress, several scout riders had lost contact in the wind and snow.
The city outside the fortress was peaceful.
Villagers were busy with their final winter preparations. So tied bundles of dried fish into strings and stored them in cellars.
Others brought worn-out leather boots to the street cobbler, while vendors set up stalls selling salted snow radishes and cured at patties.
At the corner blacksmith’s shop, the clang of the anvil echoed. An «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» old blacksmith, sweating, forged a crossbow arm for snow use. He chatted with his apprentice as he hamred: “This year is strange; the snow is half a month late, and wolves are scarce—looks like we’ll have a good year.”
In the city’s northern academy, a group of students loudly recited ‘Records of the Iron-Blood Empire’ with their lecturer.
It was a textbook compiled by the Empire, mostly praising central order and conquests.
In the small temple west of the city, an old woman with white hair knelt before the incense altar, tremblingly lighting an old bronze oil lamp.
She murmured, “Last night in my dream—the Snow God wept—”
Several youths who followed the Imperial Orthodox faith smiled and shook their heads: “The old woman is reciting her old god’s nonsense again.”
“Who still believes in the Snow God these days? Everyone believes in the Holy Grace of the Dragon Ancestor now.”
“Yes, the Grant Family guards us well; what is there to fear?”
Their laughter intertwined with children’s voices in the snow and the clang of hamrs, weaving a peaceful tapestry enveloped by ti.
Suddenly, dark clouds surged above the entire Grant Family territory, like a black tide rolling backward. A cold wind swept down from the north, carrying a foul, alien stench.
The sky seed to be obscured by so colossal entity; sunlight instantly dimd, as if the apocalypse had arrived early.
A scout knight galloped out of the south gate, but before he could leave the city, he reined in his horse, startled, at a bend in the mountain road.
He saw a ‘wall’.
A ‘wall’ made of insect carcasses and hive resin, over ten ters high, blocking the entire mountain road.
Fragnts of armor, severed limbs, and heads hung from its bone-supported exterior, and the resin, as it pulsed, seed to ‘breathe’ slowly.
It was a living ‘corpse city’.
The ssenger knight's Adam's apple bobbed, and he whispered a sentence:
“—It’s a city built of corpses.”
The next mont, the Doomsday Mother Nest erged from the fog.
It slowly advanced along the main mountain road, dragging a miles-long tunnel of insect shells, every inch of which squird with unhatched larval sacs.
Corrosive fluid dripped from its massive abdon, lting the snow into black mud, and steaming with a viscous, bloody red mist.
The vanguard consisted of swarms of ordinary Worm-Eaten Household.
These grotesque, mutated creatures wore tattered human armor, their limbs twisted, eye sockets hollow, mouths split to their ears, constantly spewing scorching, venomous gastric fluid that could corrode tal and rock from a distance.
A squad of Worm-Eaten Household rushed to the mountain foot outpost. The soldiers drew their bows, ready for battle, but before three volleys could be fired, the city wall collapsed under the scorching gastric fluid.
Black shadows poured into the city; screams, wails, and the sound of breaking bones intertwined into a symphony of flesh and blood.
Soone raised a sword to resist but was bitten through the spine by an Worm-Eaten Household that had infiltrated from behind.
Soone tried to escape but found that the mountain paths on all sides were already surrounded by the swarm. The only way out was death.
A young girl hid in a woodpile, covering her mouth, afraid to cry out.
She saw an Worm-Eaten Household dragging her mother's corpse past, the body with only half a face, still muttering, “Help light the fire and cook.”
A young father tried to block an Worm-Eaten Household climbing onto the window sill with a kindling knife. With just one claw, the latter tore him open from the neck, splattering blood on his son’s face behind him. The little boy collapsed to the ground, crying loudly, and was imdiately discovered by the Worm-Eaten Household. The entire outpost lasted less than fifteen minutes before it completely fell.
Next were the villages.
The Worm-Eaten Household that escaped the fortress rushed into the villages below the mountain at extre speed. Houses were crashed, cowsheds caught fire, and the ringing alarm bells of the bell tower ultimately beca a dirge.
So mothers fled into the woods with their children, but there, they encountered more Worm-Eaten Household surrounding them.
On the white frosty ground, blood stained a series of shattered totems, recording life's final struggles.
anwhile, in the upper levels of Embedded Rock Fortress, the Grant Family’s banquet was in full swing.
Inside the opulent banquet hall, roasted at filled the air with its aroma, silver cups clinked, and the fireplace burned brightly.
Young Elton, wearing a silver-embroidered cloak, proudly raised his goblet, toasting his relatives. Just then, a sudden thunderous roar ca from outside the banquet hall.
It was not thunder, but the resonant impact of the Red Tide hitting the mountain walls and ramparts, like war drums beating.
Then ca the second, and the third, growing closer and heavier.
The banquet hall door was ‘bang’ed open, and a knight captain burst in, half his armor lted, blood flowing from the crevices.
His face was filled with terror, and he roared: “Enemy attack!!! Monsters are here!!!”
The scene imdiately erupted in chaos. The Count rose abruptly, his face turning from anger to coldness, and imdiately ordered: “Close the inner fortress! Muster the Frozen Blood Legion, and follow to the wall to et the enemy!”
But everything—was too late.
Through the rear window of the banquet hall, the distant mountain road seed to have collapsed.
Amidst the surging Red Tide, Count Grant saw the Doomsday Mother Nest for the first ti.
It was a terrifying colossus, its upper body like a Holy Mother embracing with outstretched arms, yet its face was composed of countless tornted human faces, its eyes tightly shut but weeping blood, giving birth to squirming swarms of insects.
Below its waist were swollen, twisted fleshy ovaries and incubation chambers, constantly spewing tentacles and offspring.
Its aura was like death made manifest, mixed with infant-like shrieks, blurring one's sanity.
The Count stood frozen, gazing at the colossal monster of fallen motherhood, and suddenly realized this was not a battle, but the apocalypse.
A black tide had already surged from the weakly defended southern slopes, breaching watchtowers, collapsing mountain gates, and destroying inner city drawbridges, like a doomsday tsunami sweeping in.
He widened his eyes, and in his ears, he seed to hear a warning from Duke Edmund’s ssenger several months ago:
“Worm-Eaten Household must not be underestimated; they retain their combat instincts from life, and they do not die. Once an infection begins, it will spread exponentially, starting from hundreds and reaching tens of thousands.”
At that ti, Count Grant had scoffed.
He read the warning letter from the Duke of Snowpeak County, rely smiled faintly, and casually tossed it into the fireplace.
“The Duke is old and loves to exaggerate,” he told his aide. “My Grant Family has guarded the North for a hundred years; would we fear a few strange insects?”
But only now did he understand that the letter was not a false alarm; it was a real ‘calamity’.
The Embedded Rock Fortress was about to fall. The next morning, he finally roared, donning his armor, silver armor covering his body, a frost-patterned cloak fluttering in the wind, holding the family sword, and rallied the Frozen Blood Legion for a final counterattack.
However, the Red Tide was not a barbarian charge; it had rhythm, strategy, and the intelligence of the Mother Nest.
The knights were routed repeatedly, the main city was besieged, and various refuge fortresses successively lost contact. Carrier eagles fell from mid-air, their scrolls burned to black.
The once proud Grant Family defense line shattered like thick snow on tiles at a touch.
Even more bizarre was that so captured nobles, knights, and warriors with fighting aura were not imdiately executed.
They were taken into the Doomsday Mother Nest.
There, altars were built of insect bones, surrounded by thick fog, emanating a corrupt and seductive aura.
A figure slowly rose from the insect formation.
He wore a blood-red long dress, his long hair like burnt silk draped over his shoulders, yet his voice was a hoarse, deep male voice, as if hundreds of souls were muttering from a single mouth.
He smiled and ordered the Worm-Eaten Household to ‘seal’ the captives one by one into cocoons.
These cocoons squird and vibrated, and hours later, they split open, from which new Worm-Eaten Household crawled out.
Their armor was still on, their faces vaguely recognizable, and they even possessed combat skills, as if the deceased had been ‘replicated’.
Count Grant led his army in a bloody battle, slaying multiple Worm-Eaten Household alongside several Extraordinary Knights, vowing to defend the last remaining inner city. But late at night, he heard terrified screams behind him.
Turning back, he saw his personal guards kneeling on the ground, trembling all over.
The swarm parted, creating a gap.
From it, two figures slowly erged: his grandson and his second son.
They wore tattered knight armor, their steps slow and stiff, their eyes hollow and lifeless, their chins split into deep insect mouths, and a hoarse yet familiar voice emanated from their throats:
“Grandpa—we—are back—”
The Count was struck by lightning, kneeling and stepping back, his sword-holding fingers trembling violently.
“No—it’s not you! You shouldn’t—!”
The ‘grandson’ on his face squeezed out imitative syllables from his mouth: “—Honor—forever—”
“Shut up!!!”
Count Grant roared, charging forward, his longsword slashing down fiercely, but he was tackled to the ground by the swarm that surged out the next mont.
He struggled and roared, hacking relentlessly, but eventually, his strength gave out, and he was captured.
The red-robed witch walked slowly, narrowing her eyes as she observed him, like admiring a jade waiting to be carved.
“What a specin—the once ‘Wall of the North’? Now just a malleable husk.”
Insect silk, like a tide, climbed all over the Count’s body, slowly ‘entangling’ him into a giant cocoon.
Finally, a new Worm-Eaten Household was born.
It wore remnants of armor on its back, the Grant Family emblem still hung on its chest, but its face was twisted, its eyes hollow.
The Doomsday Mother Nest humd in the dark night, the Red Tide resud, treading on snow and blood, slowly moving south.
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