Chapter 239 - 228: Upheaval at Red Crying Castle
Chapter 239: Chapter 228: Upheaval at Red Crying Castle
Even as Reya and Rosalind spoke, the very same private army of the Heta family nobles had already returned to their home.
But this homecoming was clearly not a peaceful one. In fact, it was filled with explosive tension.
Heta County City. Its towering, gray stone walls looked even colder and more forbidding amidst the falling snow.
An elite cavalry unit, their bloodlust still lingering and their Armor caked in dust, reined in their horses before the massive, closed oak gates.
At the head of the column, the lead Knight, Yagor, his face a grim mask, stared up at the familiar yet strangely alien face behind the battlements and roared his question.
"Walter! Why are the gates sealed!?"
His voice, laced with the biting wind and uncomprehending fury, boomed across the open ground before the gate, startling a few Cold Crows from the withered trees nearby.
"Don’t you even recognize me, Yagor?"
The Knights behind him remained silent, but their taut bodies and the restless stamping of their warhorses betrayed a suppressed agitation.
Atop the wall, Walter stood ramrod straight. A heavy winter cloak concealed most of his armor, revealing only a pair of eyes as sharp as a hawk’s.
But his eyes held none of the warmth of seeing a colleague and old acquaintance, only a chilling indifference.
He spoke slowly, his voice low, yet it cut clearly through the wind and snow.
"Yagor, it is precisely because it’s you that these gates must remain closed."
"What?!"
The travel-worn Knight Commander’s pupils constricted. He almost thought he’d misheard.
"Walter! Have you gone mad?!"
He spurred his horse forward a few paces and roared.
"I am the Knight Commander, appointed by the Count himself! Am I not allowed to enter my own home?"
Walter remained unmoved. His gaze swept over Yagor and the silent phalanx of Knights behind him, his voice suddenly rising.
"Yes! You, Yagor, are the sword of the Heta family, the pillar of the front lines in the Snow Pigeon Territory, appointed by the Count himself!"
"But right now, you should be at the front in the Snow Pigeon Territory!"
"Tell me, Yagor! You’ve deserted the front lines with your troops without orders and have rushed straight to the County City—"
He jabbed a hand toward the dark mass of troops below and demanded.
"Are you planning to betray the Count?!"
"Bullshit!"
Yagor was utterly enraged by the venomous accusation. His furious roar shook the accumulated snow from the top of the walls, sending it rustling down.
"Walter! You dare question my loyalty!?"
He yanked the sword from his belt and pointed it at Walter on the wall, his voice trembling with absolute fury.
"Open your damn eyes and look! Every Warrior under my command, myself included, was personally promoted and granted honor by the Count himself!"
"I am leading my men back on the Count’s own authority, an urgent and secret order signed by his own hand! The order is right here!"
His left hand fumbled inside his coat and produced a scroll tube as he roared.
"You dare question an order from the Count?! Who gave you the nerve!"
Walter’s expression, however, didn’t soften in the slightest. Instead, a darker shadow fell over his face.
"A secret order? If the Count were redeploying troops, would he really bypass the military affairs office and circumvent the entire chain of command just to give *you* a ’secret order’?"
"With you gone from your post, what happens to the defensive lines in the Snow Pigeon Territory? If Paris seizes this opportunity to counterattack, can you bear that responsibility?"
"Or... is this whole thing a conspiracy with the rebels, a ploy to trick your way through the gates?!"
"You—!"
Yagor was trembling with such rage that he was left speechless, the words caught in his throat.
The Knights behind him began to stir, a wave of low, angry growls rising from their ranks, their honor insulted.
Walter clearly interpreted the unrest among the Soldiers below as a dangerous sign.
Without another moment of hesitation, he raised his right hand and swung it down decisively toward the towers flanking the wall!
CLATTER—VMMMM—!
On the once-quiet walls, heavy panels slid open, revealing deep, dark embrasures.
The massive barrels of siege weapons, forged from cold metal, slowly extended and lowered. The muzzles of the arbalests, shimmering with the light of Magic Power, instantly locked onto the isolated, helpless elite cavalry before the gates!
"Yagor! Take your men and turn back! Return to the Snow Pigeon Territory, now!"
"Linger before these walls for a moment longer, and I’ll treat you as rebels! Arbalests—ready!"
The moment the City Defense Officer’s final word, "ready," rang out, the earthen-yellow and eerie-blue elemental light within the dark muzzles flared dazzlingly. A low, dangerous hum filled the air as they charged with power, ready to fire!
The lethal chill of being targeted by those cold muzzles was like a bucket of ice water poured through the slits of Yagor’s helmet, instantly extinguishing the flames of his rage.
’Something’s wrong! This is all wrong!’
’The Count’s secret order wouldn’t have been issued for no reason!’
’For Walter, a deeply trusted City Defense Officer known for his composure and loyalty, to act so abnormally—sealing the gates and even aiming the city’s heavy armaments at me, a frontline commander—’
’There’s only one possibility!’
’Something has happened to the Count!’
’And it must be a cataclysmic event, something big enough to shake the Heta family to its foundations, something that would force Walter to either turn traitor or be compelled to enforce a lockdown!’
’Walter is the traitor!’
’Or he’s being controlled by traitors who have already seized power!’
The thought struck Yagor like a thunderclap, sending a chill through his entire body.
He clenched the reins, his knuckles turning white from the force of his grip.
He couldn’t die here. He couldn’t let the Count’s most elite unit—the sharpest sword of the Snow Pigeon Territory—be broken before its own city gates.
The last hope for the Heta family might rest on them.
"Vito!"
Yagor snapped his head around and barked at his second-in-command, whose face was just as pale with shock. Yagor’s voice was low, filled with unshakeable resolve.
"Relay my order! All units..."
BOOM—!!!
A massive explosion, far deeper and more concussive than the sound of the arbalests charging, erupted from within the city without warning!
The direction... it was the heart of Heta County City’s power—Red Crying Castle!
Yagor and all his Knights, as well as Walter and his guards on the walls, all instinctively turned toward the sound.
In the direction of Red Crying Castle, a massive plume of thick smoke, laced with black fumes and scarlet flames, shot into the sky like the monstrous head of some great beast, tearing through the gloomy, snow-filled sky above the County City.
Even through the layers of buildings and the towering city walls, the shockwave from the explosion seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet, its deep rumble echoing through the snowstorm!
"Red Crying Castle...!"
Yagor’s second-in-command cried out, his face utterly pale.
Yagor felt as if an invisible hand had clamped down on his heart. A suffocating pain and icy despair washed over him.
’The Count... the secret order... this explosion...’
The clues snapped together in his mind, and a shiver ran through his body.
In an instant, all hesitation and grief transformed into a roar that threatened to tear his throat raw.
"Go! All troops, on my command! Turn around! Full retreat! Get away from these walls! Now!!!"
"Commander! The Count, he..."
His second-in-command, Vito, tried to speak, but Yagor cut him off.
"Follow my orders!!"
He knew that every second they remained, this force loyal to the Count was one second closer to being completely annihilated.
But just as the Knights scrambled to pull on their reins, trying to turn their mounts around in the narrow space before the gate, the scene descended into chaos—
On the walls, Walter had been momentarily stunned by the sudden explosion. But when he saw Yagor order a retreat, the last flicker of hesitation in his eyes was instantly replaced by cold-blooded resolve!
’’They’ must have made their move. At this critical juncture, I can’t let this unit escape!’
And so...
"Fire—!"
The City Defense Officer swung his raised right arm down, his roar thundering across the battlements.
The towers on either side of the wall shuddered violently!
VMMMM—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
An eerie-blue Frost Breath and an earthen-yellow gravitational shockwave, like two roaring elemental dragons, tore through the air. They slammed down with devastating Energy into the crowded ranks of Knights still trying to turn below!
"Shields up!!!"
Yagor had shrieked the warning the instant Walter’s arm came down.
PFFT! CRACK! BOOM!
The Frost Breath slammed into the left flank first!
Icy Magic Power erupted, blanketing more than a dozen Knights and their mounts. The extreme cold spread, freezing men and horses into pale white statues, their terrified expressions immortalized. An instant later, the gravitational shockwave that followed pulverized them!
The ice sculptures, along with the flesh and blood within, shattered with a deafening CRACK, like fragile glass!
A spray of crimson chunks and Ice Crystals splattered across the snow, painting a garish and cruel pattern.
On the right flank, the gravitational wave struck like an invisible sledgehammer. Several magnificent warhorses and their riders were flattened without resistance, crushed armor-and-all deep into the frozen earth, leaving behind nothing but a few horribly shaped craters.
The shrill neighs of warhorses, the dying screams of Knights, and the grating shriek of twisting metal drowned out the sound of the snowstorm!
"Commander!"
Vito’s desperate cry was lost in the cacophony of explosions and death. His eyes instantly turned bloodshot as he watched his comrades, men he’d served with day in and day out, be turned to dust by their own city’s defenses.
"Don’t stop! Break through!!"
Yagor braced himself against the oncoming shockwave and spray of ice shards and gore. Spurring his horse hard, he desperately parried a whistling piece of twisted metal with his Longsword, the impact ringing with a piercing shriek of metal on metal.
He had to survive. He had to preserve a sliver of hope!
’My Lord Count... wait for me!’
’As long as I draw breath, I will make these traitors pay for what they’ve done in blood!’