In the collapsed study room, the pale light could not harm spirits, nor could it bring any warmth to the living. Within that light, Count and Countess Seicore, who had completely shed their living essence, existed before their only daughter in another form.
Their current form was so unfamiliar that it shattered certain expectations in Little Countess Sharon’s heart.
Her heart was quite bitter, and she almost shed tears, but the vampiric nature that prevented tears helped her maintain her final dignity as a lord. However, little Sharon wasn’t soone who would be crushed by emotional changes, so after a brief silence, under the vigilant protection of Knight Valand’s sword, she raised her head and asked:
“You never used to speak like this. Either death has changed you, or those bastards who turned you into this have instilled so terrible things in you. Though the entire city is boiling, we should still have so ti.
Father, and Mother, please tell more about what I don’t know.
About the undercurrents in Seicob City, about your experiences after death, and about those skulking bastards!”
“Hmm, child, you have too many questions, but we have too little ti.”
The old Count Seicore spoke through his withered vocal cords:
“I can feel death’s call from afar. They have noticed the ripples here, and evil will soon strip away our final clarity, so let us be brief.
The plague two years ago wasn’t just a simple act of war. We suspect even General Loren, who ordered the plague barrels to be deployed, didn’t know what was hidden inside them.
He’s not innocent.
But what subsequently happened in Seicob City truly had little to do with him.
That painful and cruel death was just one part of a grand plan. Loren beca a pitiful pawn along with us, and the destruction of Seicob City was even just a backup plan for another sche. Since you’ve beco a vampire, it proves their plans within the Blood Vulture Clan have failed, which ans we ‘hidden pawns’ are about to be placed on the board.
I can’t tell you much, child.
We are just death executors recalled from the netherworld. They don’t need us to help them think, but all of this is related to the Black Plague.
Those people don’t want the 5th Black Plague to repeat the failures of the previous four. They’re determined to clear away all factors that could hinder the gnoll beast armies from slaughtering the continent.
Transia is their primary target!
Perhaps even the dwarves’ Brass Citadel is the sa.
We can tell you with certainty that what’s happening in Transia is just one thread in a great web woven over a long ti.
We aren’t even the most important part.”
Little Countess Sharon bit her lip.
She glanced at her father and said:
“Lord Murphy told a na. Is it Dusk who’s manipulating you? Are they the ones orchestrating Seicob City’s destruction and your resurrection?”
“Stay away from that na, it brings misfortune.”
Countess Seicore warned sternly:
“Their gaze has never left us. They are right beside us. They have existed for over a century, and their shadows lie behind many major events on the continent during these hundred years. All this dark manipulation is for what will happen five months from now.
Their patience is terrifying, and the power they wield is even more unfathomable.
They preach dangerous doomsday theories. What I just said was all branded into the resurrection contract in the netherworld, firmly etched into our souls.
They believe our entire era is an error that must be corrected, and everything that happened in Seicob City is enough to prove that even the supposedly impregnable Circle Tower has long been shadowed by them.
We’ve said enough.
Sandra, you must leave!”
“The book at shelf 3, row 5, column 4 contains what you need.”
Count Seicore clearly understood why his daughter and most loyal knight risked returning to these ruins. He said decisively:
“Sandra, you must sign a new guardian contract with the Forest Spirit as the Countess of Seicob, to rebuild the traditional power of the Seicob Winged Cavalry. The ritual items for signing the contract are in the Seicore family ancestral tomb.
It’s been destroyed by war, but you must find the Wooden Holy Grail again!
Without the forest’s blessing, rebuilding the Winged Cavalry will surely just be an empty frawork that can’t block any evil.
Valand.”
“Present!”
The Osprey Knight straightened his back, gripping his sword as he looked at his forr lord. The old count, now a lord of the netherworld, spoke hoarsely:
“Protect my daughter, as you protected , as you protect your honor.”
“I swear!”
The knight responded solemnly.
“Hurry, death’s call is imminent.”
Countess Seicore’s spirit form continuously trembled. She showed a pained expression and scread:
“Leave this place! Never set foot in these ruins at night. Their eyes will patrol these ruins of death in the darkness. We can still control the undead below the city, but when that mont of inevitable separation cos, you must turn your weapons against us!”
“How can I save you?”
Little Sharon flew over to grab the thick leather book her father ntioned, which was locked with chains. Before being carried away from the study by Knight Valand, she scread:
“Tell ! At least tell one way! Father, Mother! Tell !”
“Only eternal rest is the best blessing for the dead, my child.”
The old count’s deep voice echoed and surged in the darkness, carrying a forcefully suppressed destructive desire. He said:
“When we et again on the battlefield, please purify us with your own hands.”
“Bang”
The doors of the broken castle closed one after another in the cold wind. Under Sharon’s gaze, a layer of ghostly black frost extended up from the ground, quickly sealing off all paths leading inside.
This represented farewell.
It also represented self-sealing.
This was enough to prove that the old count and his wife still maintained their final rationality and clarity, but as they said, as awakened ones under forced commands, they would find it very difficult to maintain resolute resistance.
“We must leave, Sharon.”
Knight Valand listened carefully to the surrounding movents.
Unsettling agitation was gradually spreading, as if the entire ruins of Seicob City were “coming alive” in a horrifying way under so force’s call. He had to get Little Countess Sharon out before things developed beyond the point of no return.
But to his surprise, little Sharon didn’t stay put crying and beating her chest.
Instead, she remained very calm, tightly holding the book containing the Winged Cavalry’s armor and weapon forging diagrams. After taking a deep breath, she actively strode in the opposite direction.
“I thought you would cry, my lady.”
Knight Valand quickly caught up and said softly:
“You used to love crying in front of your parents.”
“I am crying, Valand.”
Sharon said with a taut face:
“But I’m a vampire, and vampires don’t shed tears. That’s a good thing, this way no one can see my weak side. We must hurry back to the forest to gather the tribal elders. Father wants to reforge the guardian contract between the Winged Cavalry and the Forest Spirit.
He actually hasn’t given up!
He also wants to see the proud Winged Cavalry galloping across Transia’s lands again!
I must accomplish all this for him.
“But the family crypt was severely damaged during the war.”
Knight Valand said helplessly:
“We went in to look, it’s almost completely collapsed.”
“Miss Dorothy from the Blood Rat Gang used to be a tomb raider. She surely has ways to retrieve the ‘Wooden Holy Grail’ father ntioned from the collapsed tomb.”
Little Sharon blinked her blood-red eyes and said:
“Also, I want to invite the witch hunters from the Avalon Church to observe our ritual.”
“No! This goes against tradition!”
Valand imdiately bristled.
This rigid and serious mountain folk knight said in a deep voice:
“The feud between us mountain folk and the old religion has lasted for centuries, my lady. They’ve always claid our ancient faith is a branch of the Avalon sect, this insults our traditions! Our faith existed long before that damned old religion.”
“Ah, Valand, we’re already in this state, and the old religion has been buried in history’s paper pile. What’s the point of dwelling on these things?”
Little Sharon said softly:
“I now actually hope those witch hunters’ nonsense is true. That would an their faith’s power could be used by us. The mountain folk’s faith plus the old religion’s rituals might benefit both sides.
You heard father and mother’s warning too.
The situation we face is too grave. Now is not the ti to dwell on the past, and since I am the current Countess of Seicob, I have command over this forest and the mountain tribes.
I say we will invite Guildmaster Natalie and her followers to observe our ritual!
My decision is final!
If any elder has different opinions, let them go directly to Crimson Citadel to appeal to Governor Murphy! That’s that. I must tell Murphy the information we just gathered. This will surely help him.”
——
“Ah, what a headache! This damn Dusk is like pulling radishes, pull one out and a whole string cos with it!”
In the Blood Vulture Corridor of Crimson Citadel, Murphy’s face was dark as water after finishing his conversation with little Sharon. Even though the lord was usually optimistic, he couldn’t stay cheerful about what had happened these past two days, and even wanted to take Tris out for a drive in a convertible to clear his head.
The presence of undead armies in both the Foul Swamp to the south and Seicob City to the north was completely unscientific, and now little Sharon had confird from the old count that this was Dusk’s handiwork.
Combined with the earlier interrogation records of Plague Rat King Zweig, they could basically confirm that Dusk’s deploynt ti and thods in Transia far exceeded Murphy and Tris’s imagination.
Worse still, this matter seed to have a part related to Tris.
This made Murphy have to imdiately take it seriously on both public and private levels.
But he also knew clearly that at this current stage where Crimson Citadel had just completed the great hunt against the gnolls and was preparing to transition to construction, he simply didn’t have enough resources to quickly resolve these two problems.
Let alone the Foul Swamp situation, just the undead army in Seicob City alone was an unsolvable problem.
Seicob City wasn’t so “rural backwater” like Kadman City.
That city had nearly 500,000 people before it fell, and those killed by the plague were the cream of the crop of the Portia Federation’s elite soldiers and warriors.
“No good. Even if I issued all the slots I have now, relying on players with their three-day respawn to gnaw on this bone won’t work.”
Murphy quickly made a decision.
He had to request support from “external forces.”
Of course, he couldn’t ask the Wolf Queen or Marshal Loren, those two wouldn’t use their precious forces just for these matters.
The reality was cruel.
If Transia couldn’t withstand the gnolls’ rampage, then both sides would need to keep their elite forces to protect their own borders. In the current situation, enthusiastically helping neighbors wasn’t a decision a normal commander could make.
So, Murphy planned to request help from another “golden thigh.”
“At such critical monts, it really turns out that only ‘family’ can be relied upon.”
The governor complained as he spread his wings at the corridor entrance, silently flying over the inner city area that had been thoroughly cleaned by the witch hunters.
The Adventurer’s Guild’s tents stood here in an orderly manner, while so young people who had been transferred over were building more solid and suitable wooden houses.
Guildmaster Natalie also wanted solid and beautiful stone houses, but unfortunately the work teams led by Grayman and Bricklayer were still busy at the collective farm. They would only have ti to build houses for the New Avalon Church in the next phase.
Murphy looked towards the outer city area in the night, it was still empty.
But a “residential area” composed of several completed three-story square buildings was taking shape. These houses would soon face testing from Transia’s late autumn and early winter. If they could maintain good insulation, the lord wouldn’t have to worry about his subjects surviving the winter.
He urgently hoped everything would go smoothly, after all, this land that had suffered so much really needed so good news.
A minute later, Murphy landed lightly in the Blood Pact Knights advance force’s camp.
It was equally empty here. Murphy knew those reserve blood knights and their retainers were all practicing combat skills with his little players at the fighting club right now, while the commander of this advance force, Lady Lainnia, walked out from her tent.
This bow knight had her great bow on her back and was fully ard, seeming about to go out “hunting.”
“What have you and Maxim been going out to do at night recently?”
Murphy asked with a strange look:
“Going on dates?”
“I wish.”
The bow knight snorted, responding very disdainfully:
“Who made your Transia have so many troubles that need handling? Tonight I’m going to patrol Anderma Hills with him.
Heard there are so Wolfsbane pups who ran over from the Cato region attacking transport teams.
Perhaps remnants of the Greyclaw faction.”
“Hmm, thank you for your hard work.”
Murphy sincerely expressed gratitude to the proud bow knight before him, but then said with a serious expression:
“I need you to contact the Blood Pact Knights. There’s so important information I need to tell your leader.”
“Lady Yvette must be out seeking pleasure right now. I suggest you co back at dawn.”
Lainnia responded directly:
“The lady doesn’t want to be disturbed while enjoying debaucherous pleasures. Trust , Lord Governor, soone as handso as you wouldn’t want to be coveted by a golden-rank mad hunter who’s always ravenous.”
“Is it really okay for you to be this poisonous towards your superior?”
Murphy complained, then shook his head and corrected:
“I don’t want you to contact Lady Yvette. I want to speak directly with Lord Payne. I know you have secret arts that can contact the Blood Pact Clan headquarters.”
“That’s impossible!”
Lainnia imdiately refused:
“This doesn’t follow protocol! Anyone who wants to et the lord needs to make an appointnt 15 days in advance. It’s not that the lord is really that busy, it’s mainly his personality, he likes everything to be orderly. Moreover, there are many vampires on the continent who want to et the lord.
Although your status is special, forgive my frankness, Lord Murphy, the lord won’t treat you differently because of your series of titles.
Because that’s the protocol!
I can help you register now, and you can see the lord in half a month.”
“No! I need to see him imdiately, and I’m certain the lord will actively have a long talk with tonight.”
Murphy rubbed his neck and said softly to the disbelieving bow knight before him:
“You just need to tell him one word: Dusk.”
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