Chapter 224 (5/14): Movements in the Dark

“What did you say?” Lucienne repeated, unable to believe her ears. “Moltrost is no more… what, do you mean what I think you mean? Moltrost is…” She struggled to find the right words as she avoided the conclusion she first came to before she finally gave up and asked again: “What happened?”

“Moltrost has been destroyed. That’s what we heard before we came here, and that’s a huge army of undead marching south in this direction. I don’t know if they’ll stop at the forest,” Fleur said, looking down at her feet. She shivered. “That’s why we need to see Camilla; she’s known about all this, right? That’s why she came here.”

A huge army of undead…

Lucienne didn’t hear the second part of what Fleur said, and all she could think about was how something so threatening was drawing near. Undead… heading toward the forest.

There was no reason for the undead to stop once they reached the forest; they knew nothing of, and cared not for borders. Dianene was not far at all from the border, and Lucienne knew in her gut that once the undead crossed the border, they’ll set upon Dianene like a horde of hungry dogs.

Lucienne shook her head and tapped Fleur’s shoulder. The girl was shuffling her feet with unease.

“That information— is it reliable?” she asked. “Where did you get it?”

One last chance to escape reality. However, Fleur dashed her hopes when she nodded.

“There have been a ton of people fleeing south,” she said. “Some of them claim to have seen the undead with their own eyes from a distance. However, most of them merely stopped at the border, unwilling to enter the forest.”

Anne scowled. “They’re so scared. From the looks of it, sooner or later the undead will arrive, and by then, it’ll be too late to run. They’re unwilling to take their only chance of survival and will instead take the easy path to certain death!”

She hated the weak—not physically weak, but the mentally weak. Those people that gathered at the edge of the forest, unwilling to enter because of their fear of the unknown, were weak. Those that have given up and accepted their fate were weak too.

Despite being an acolyte no longer, Anne still identified as one. She sympathized with the Church’s public message of defending the helpless people who relied upon them for protection. When she thought about all those brothers and sisters who sacrificed themselves in battle against the undead, only for these idiots to squander the chances given to them at the cost of her siblings’ lives, anger rose up within and she stomped on the ground to vent.

“Anne…”

“Haha…” Lucienne squeezed out a small laugh. “Maybe the Church and the templar orders will stop the horde…”

Anne’s brows twitched as the anger she just suppressed came flooding back. “No, they can’t!” she snapped. “Even though they died for those idiots, those idiots are just throwing their lives away! It’s disgusting!”

“Anne…!”

“Sorry, Fleur,” Anne muttered through gritted teeth. She stepped back so that she didn’t have to look up as much to see Lucienne’s face. “And there you have it, the reason we’re looking for Camilla, and the problem at hand. Is there anything you can do?”

Lucienne felt horrible that she couldn’t help Fleur and Anne, but it’s been so long that she’d last talked to Camilla. She shook her head. All she could provide was some information in return; the girls can take it as they will. “Camilla went to Celrantis, her mother’s city. The plan was to find backup. Judging by how long it’s been since they left, they should already be there, but I’m not sure if they’re successful or not.”

“Is that so…” Fleur looked torn, looking downcast, but at the same time her eyes filled with hope upon hearing Lucienne’s words. “No, she’ll definitely succeed, because Camilla won’t fail!”

“I hope so too. By the way, do you have a place to stay?”

Lucienne didn’t think so, and sure enough Fleur shook her head even when Anne tried to stop her. “There’s no need to be shy,” Lucienne said, smiling at Anne, not at all bothered by Anne’s angry outburst before. “Camilla’s friends are my friends too, so it’s only natural for me to help them given how much she’s helped me. Let’s go find Justin.”

“Okay!”

On the way toward Justin’s mana, Lucienne exchanged stories with the two girls. When Lucienne heard about the betrayal and Justin’s discovery, her face darkened. “Traitors… So Arvel is dead? Camilla will be sad.”

But that was the extent of her emotions since she wasn’t familiar with Arvel in the first place. All she knew was Camilla was close with Arvel, but she herself didn’t feel much from the news.

“As for me, after Camilla left, I stayed behind with Ari and Sari since we didn’t quite fit into her party. Afterwards, we joined a party that we met and that Camilla saved in a dungeon, and we live with them now.”

“That sounds nice…”

“It is. It’s nice to have people looking out for you and they’re really nice people. Sari and Ari are only a little younger than the two of you,” she said.

The thought of being able to talk to and see someone her age again made Fleur’s eyes glow. Anne sighed and shrugged helplessly.

After giving them her address and directions to get there from the hospital, Lucienne left and hurried home, since she still needed to make food for her two children. When Ariel and Sariel began to eat, Lucienne headed for the door again.

“Where are you going?” Sariel asked.

The look on Ariel’s face suggested that she also wanted to know, but was just unwilling to take the initiative to ask.

Since her destination wasn’t much of a secret, Lucienne decided to tell them. “I’m going to the council,” she said. “I learned some things from a few old acquaintances and I need to report it quickly.”

The answer was vague, but Sariel nodded and accepted Lucienne’s words. “Okay!”

Lucienne smiled. “Don’t open the door for strangers and if they force their way in, show them what you can do, okay?”

“Okay!” the twins repeated, and Lucienne left the house, heading for the large building at the center of the city where all the city’s public affairs took place.

As Lucienne walked, her smile faded, replaced with a worried look. She bit her nails, trying to come up with a way to word her report that will make her be taken seriously. Even if her information was correct, it was worthless if she was simply ignored.

“Whatever… It’ll be what it’ll be. I’ll do my best, and if they don’t listen, then…”

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Unwilling to leave their home, unable to face reality, the vast majority of the people in the city closed themselves in their houses and locked their doors. After all, as long as the doors, the monsters outside could not come in. They’d come and pound on the door, look in the window, and then leave— or that’s what their desperate minds imagined.

Reality was far crueler. The undead simply broke down the door and marched in on steady feet. Whenever they found someone hiding in the house, they merely swung their weapons and ended that someone’s life without any fanfare. There was no howling, no taunting, just violence.

“Stop, stop! Arrgh!”

Life after life was extinguished as the undead army moved through the town unobstructed by anything except a token resistance raised by a handful of templars and a few dozen townsfolk. But that only meant they were the first ones to die—compared to the thousands and thousands of undead, the few defenders were worth nothing.

In less than one night, when the moon was still high in the sky, the city had fallen silent, and every life within it that had been burning bright just the night before was all gone, as if a cloud had passed over the stars in the sky, leaving only darkness behind.

Unlike a passing cloud, the darkness that remained in the city would not go away on it’s own—the stars had been extinguished and became something darker than the night.

The undead army’s numbers swelled again and headed toward the huge forest that marked the end of human territory.

That mark meant nothing to the undead.

A dark shadow darted out of the forest and stopped in front of a black and white figure that stood near the back of the undead army, slowly falling to their knees. A voice that was difficult to distinguish the gender came out of the bony skull.

“There is no sign of any barriers in the forest, my king.”

The black and white figure stirred. White bones, inky black armor. It stood taller than every other undead present, almost double the height of the massive skull lich kneeling in front of it. It’s eyes glowed with a black, deathly flame.

“Good. Let us go forth and destroy that tower— that figure of our defeat.”

The skull lich bowed lower and backed off, leaving the king surrounded by the rest of its army, yet so alone. The undead king reached up toward the sky, reaching for the largest moon. “Soon, our shame for our first defeat will be washed away… with that thing’s fall, it will be complete, and we can continue on our path…”

Then it closed its fists, as if to grasp the moon. “We will take this continent at long last.”

Mere lesser undead did not need verbal orders. As long as they were tethered to a greater undead, a skull lich or something even stronger, they acted according to their tether’s thoughts. As long as the liches knew what was to be done, the army moved as a seamless whole.

As the undead king’s orders spread through the higher ranks of the undead army, the huge mass of undead that had been resting and recouping began to move. In less than a month, the army had blazed a trail of destruction from Amaranthine Point south toward the border. Like little streams gathering in a single river, undead from desecrated zones all over the land flowed toward the path of destruction, joining and bolstering the undead force.

The huge army did not go out of its way to destroy the rest of the human cities, but every city within a day’s reach of its path was left in ruins and empty, its population conscripted. For now, its goal was merely the tower, the symbol of their defeat a thousand years ago. To regain their honor, that tower must fall.

Everything else mattered little in comparison.

The undead army began to move south once, entering the forest. They were like a river flowing toward vampire lands.

High above them, a single bat rode on the winds, staying aloft, and watching with their beady eyes the movements below. After the first few undead entered the forest, the bat watched for a bit more before disappearing in a bloody mist that faded away into nothing.

At the same time, the army’s steps activated formations that had been sprinkled throughout the forest just days prior, and far away in a certain vampire city, an arcanist paused mid stroke with her pen before she stood up, put on her coat, and headed for the council building at the center of the city.

At the entrance, she ran into a few of her colleagues and they nodded to each other in greeting. Their expressions were grim.

“To think that woman was telling the truth… we have quite the trouble on our hands…”