Chương 22: Chapter 14 Part 1

Marquess Drelion Vael stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the tall, arched window of his private study, his gaze fixed on the courtyard below. A column of silver and white riders was passing through the heavy iron gates of Vael Manor. Three hundred knights of the Imperial Silver Wing moved with a terrifying, synchronized precision, the late afternoon light catching the polished edges of their heavy plate armor and the fluttering white pennants attached to their lances.

At their head rode a tall man with close-cropped silver hair and a jagged scar running along his jawline, Lord Commander Eldora Veyne. Beside him rode Dame Liora Sable, the vice-captain, her dark eyes already scanning the perimeter with clinical efficiency. They had arrived far later than expected. Drelion's jaw tightened, a flare of bitter resentment burning in his chest.

He had sent the urgent, desperate request for imperial reinforcements nearly two weeks ago, back when the troll threat first began escalating beyond what his own border forces could reasonably handle. Back then, standing on the battered eastern wall, he had genuinely believed Theloca might fall and burn. The reports coming in from his forward watchtowers had been unspeakably grim. The Deep-forest trolls had not been behaving like normal, mindless monsters driven by hunger or territorial instinct.

They moved with terrifying purpose. They deliberately avoided obvious pitfalls and spiked trenches. And leading them was something the bloodied, exhausted scouts had only managed to describe as impossibly "strong", a colossal Great Troll Warrior. Yet now, the city still stood. Beyond the manor walls, the rhythmic, booming sounds of dwarven hammers echoed through the streets. The shattered eastern wall had been largely cleared of rubble and was already being partially rebuilt.

The citizens who had fled the city in tears were cautiously returning to their homes. Life, resilient and stubborn, was slowly returning to something resembling normalcy on the frontier. The elite imperial knights were arriving to a city that no longer needed saving. The capital, as always, moved only when it suited the political machinery of the royal court, content to let the border lords bleed to buy them time. The heavy oak door to the study opened silently. Rowen entered without knocking.

As the head butler and Drelion's most trusted confidant, he was the only man in the entire household who would dare bypass such protocol when matters were this serious.

"They are ready to meet you, my lord," Rowen said, his posture impeccable despite the tension in the room.

"Lord Commander Veyne and Dame Sable have requested a private audience before anything else. They seem… remarkably surprised by the current, intact state of the city." Drelion turned slowly from the window.

"How much do they already know?"

"Only what was written in the original distress call," Rowen replied, stepping further into the study.

"They know about the massing troll horde and the presence of the Great Troll Warrior. They do not yet know the truth behind it. I made absolutely certain the messenger who delivered the report understood what needed to remain unsaid for now." Drelion nodded slowly, exhaling a long breath.

"Good. I will speak with them alone first. Have the finest tea and a vintage wine prepared in the solar. This conversation may take some time." Rowen bowed and turned to leave, but Drelion raised a hand, stopping him in the doorway.

"Rowen. Before you go... has there been any word from Lady Ming Xuan Ji or her people?" Rowen paused, his silver eyebrows knitting together slightly.

"No, my lord. The communication talisman remains silent." Drelion exhaled again, the sound heavy with the weight of leadership.

"Understood. Thank you, Rowen. I will decide exactly how much to reveal to the knights. For now, prepare the meeting room." After Rowen departed, Drelion remained by the window for a moment longer, gathering the scattered fragments of his thoughts and forging them into iron. He had spent the past few days carefully, agonizingly considering how much of the truth to reveal to the Crown. Ming Xuan Ji had implicitly asked him to keep the girl, Vanessa's, existence a secret, and he fully intended to honor that request.

He owed the mysterious master his life and the lives of fifty thousand citizens; protecting a single refugee was a paltry price to pay. But the Blood God Cult's direct involvement could no longer be hidden in the shadows. Not if he wanted the Kingdom's full, undivided military attention focused on hunting down the remnants of this threat. He straightened his heavy, velvet coat, ensuring the Vael crest was prominently displayed over his heart, and walked toward the door.

It was time to face the geopolitical consequences of what had happened here.

Lord Commander Eldora Veyne was not what Drelion had expected from an imperial knight of his exalted rank. The man who stood waiting in the center of the solar was tall and exceptionally broad-shouldered, radiating the quiet, lethal confidence of someone who had survived real, bloody wars rather than just commanding parade drills in the capital.

His silver hair was cut brutally short in the strict military style, and the thin, jagged scar running from his left temple down to his jawline told a story of a blade that had nearly ended his life. He wore the pristine white-and-silver plate armor of the Imperial Silver Wing Knight Order, but the slight, permanent scuffs on his boots and the way his gauntleted hand rested casually but perfectly near his sword hilt suggested he was no mere ceremonial officer. He was a killer draped in noble colors.

A half-step behind him stood Dame Liora Sable. She was younger than the commander by at least a decade, with sharp, fiercely intelligent brown eyes and dark raven hair pulled into a tight, highly practical braid. Her physical presence was quieter, more subdued than her commander's, but Drelion did not miss the clinical way her gaze had instantly swept the room upon entering, silently cataloging the exits, identifying potential magical traps, and calculating the exact positions of everyone present.

"Marquess Drelion Vael," Eldora greeted, his voice a deep, resonant baritone. He offered a respectful, measured nod rather than a full, subservient bow.

"I am Eldora Veyne, Lord Commander of the Silver Wing. This is my vice-captain, Dame Liora Sable. We rode hard from the capital as soon as the logistics permitted after receiving your request for reinforcements. I must admit, we expected to arrive under… somewhat different circumstances." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Drelion gestured gracefully toward the plush armchairs arranged around a low mahogany table.

"You are not the only ones surprised by the current state of Theloca, Lord Commander. Please, sit. I imagine you have many pressing questions." They took the offered seats, though Liora remained perched on the very edge of hers, her posture rigid and ready. Eldora did not waste precious time with the bloated, flowery pleasantries typical of the capital's nobility.

"We received your urgent, highly classified report regarding the troll threat," Eldora began, his silver eyes locking onto Drelion's.

"Our own imperial scouts had already informed us that something highly unusual was stirring in this region. But the specific details were… sparse. We were told of a massive, unprecedented troll horde led by a creature unlike any previously recorded in the royal bestiaries. We were told Theloca was on the verge of a total collapse." He paused, his gaze steady, searching for any hint of deception.

"And yet, Marquess, when we rode over the final hill today, the city gates were wide open. The walls were already being repaired. The people were haggling in the markets as if the crisis had completely passed weeks ago." Drelion met the commander's piercing eyes without flinching, pouring himself a goblet of dark red wine.

"That is because the crisis has passed, Lord Commander," Drelion stated smoothly.

"The Great Troll Warrior is dead. The vast majority of the horde was incinerated on the battlefield, and the survivors have been driven deep back into the Zel'Mora forest. The immediate, existential threat to Theloca has been entirely eliminated." Liora spoke up for the first time. Her voice was calm, analytical, and surgically direct.

"Forgive my bluntness, Marquess, but our military intelligence indicated that Theloca's garrison did not possess a fraction of the military strength required to defeat a force of that magnitude on its own. How was the situation resolved so quickly?" Drelion set his goblet down. He had rehearsed the telling of this story a hundred times in the dark of his study, but mere words felt utterly inadequate to describe a Heavenly Demon.

"Words will not suffice to explain it, Vice-Captain," Drelion said, rising slowly from his chair.

"If you wish to understand how fifty thousand lives were saved, I must insist you see the evidence with your own eyes. Walk with me." Eldora and Liora exchanged a brief, calculating glance, but both rose to their feet. Drelion led the two elite knights out of the manor and through the bustling streets of the city.

The citizens immediately parted for the gleaming silver armor of the imperial knights, bowing their heads respectfully, but their eyes quickly shifted to Drelion, shining with genuine, unwavering devotion. He was the lord who had stayed on the walls with them while the capital was just a distant concept. The trio climbed the steep, winding stone stairs leading up to the eastern battlements. The air up here was crisp, though it still carried the faint, lingering scent of fresh mortar, ozone, and ancient ash.

Drelion walked to the edge of the parapet and gestured outward toward the vast plains that bordered the Zel'Mora forest.

"Look upon the battlefield, Lord Commander," Drelion said quietly. Eldora stepped up to the stone edge, Liora right beside him. Both of the seasoned veterans froze. Just a few hundred yards from the city walls, the grassy plains had been violently, fundamentally erased from existence. In its place was a massive, perfectly spherical crater easily a hundred paces across.

The earth had not merely been blown apart; it had been subjected to such catastrophic, conflicting temperatures that the edges of the crater were completely vitrified, turned into smooth, glittering black glass from absolute heat. It was a scar of pure, apocalyptic devastation. Liora's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes darted wildly across the crater as she closed her eyes, attempting to tap into her mana-sense to read the magical fallout.

After a long, agonizing moment, her eyes snapped open, wide with profound shock.

"Lord Commander..." Liora whispered, her usual professional composure cracking entirely.

"There is no residual spell matrix. There are no arcane leylines drawn into the earth. There is no elemental fallout consistent with a Grand Mage's incantation." Eldora turned slowly to Drelion, his scarred face grim and pale.

"If this was not an Archmage's spell... what did this?"

"An unknown wandering Master appeared during the climax of the battle," Drelion said, his voice echoing over the ruined earth.

"Her name is Ming Xuan Ji. She engaged the Great Troll Warrior directly when it was on the verge of shattering our eastern gate. The resulting clash, a single strike utilizing internal Qi, left this crater. The troll was atomized in the process. The remaining forces were scattered by the shockwave." Eldora gripped the stone parapet, his knuckles turning white beneath his gauntlets.

"You make it sound as though one woman turned the tide of an entire siege with her bare hands."

"I am not exaggerating, Lord Commander," Drelion said softly.

"If anything, I am vastly understating the scale of what occurred here. Several of my guild mages and surviving knights witnessed the blast firsthand." The geopolitical implications crashed down on Eldora like a physical weight. A single, unregistered, unaffiliated martial artist possessing the destructive yield of a tactical siege weapon was roaming the kingdom. If she allied with a hostile empire, or worse, decided to test her strength against the Crown, the entire noble hierarchy could be toppled overnight.

"This Ming Xuan Ji…" Liora said, her voice tight with barely suppressed panic.

"Where is she now?"

"She has already left Theloca," Drelion answered smoothly.

"She departed a few days after the battle concluded. I do not know her current whereabouts." Eldora studied him for a long, heavy moment, the silver-haired commander clearly weighing the truth of Drelion's words. Finally, he nodded, stepping back from the terrifying view of the crater.

"Very well. The Crown will dispatch its own investigators to analyze this impact site," Eldora stated, his tone shifting into grim military professionalism.

"For now, I need to understand the catalyst. Our own scouts reported that the troll vanguard was acting with unnatural coordination. Almost as if it were being directed by an external intelligence." Drelion turned his back to the crater, facing the knights. The time for half-truths was over.

"It was not a natural occurrence," Drelion said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

"The Blood God Cult was directly behind its creation. They spent years preparing that monster in secret, feeding it corrupted mana and alchemical enhancements." This time, both imperial knights went incredibly still. The air on the battlements seemed to freeze.

"Their goal was not merely to destroy Theloca through conventional warfare," Drelion continued relentlessly.

"They intended to use the chaos of the siege to harvest the souls of the dying citizens. At least ten thousand souls, to be exact. It was the blood-price for the summoning of their god's physical incarnation into this world." Liora's hand drifted instinctively toward the hilt of her sword.

"You are absolutely certain of this?"

"I am," Drelion said, his eyes burning with the memory of the encrypted message Xuan Ji had sent him.

"I received confirmation from a source I trust completely. The cult's involvement is not wild speculation. It is a terrifying fact." Eldora exhaled a harsh, sharp breath, running a gauntleted hand over his short silver hair.

"If what you say is true, Marquess, then the paradigm of our mission just shifted entirely," Eldora said, his expression darkening into a mask of pure, lethal intent.

"This is no longer a simple monster outbreak or a frontier border skirmish. This is an act of highly organized, apocalyptic terrorism against the kingdom itself. An attempt to summon an Abyssal entity that should not exist in this realm."