Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1898, 1870. Dead.
Watching the departing figures of a group of warhorses gallop away, Lan En frowned slightly.

Meanwhile, Dolores and Torisa, standing nearby, were staring at what seemed like an empty hand... but he was still holding Dish's head in his hand.

However, even though the veil of concealment had consumed most of its power, it still allowed the Black Blade Assassin to maintain a relatively high level of stealth.

In the eyes of the other two, apart from the suddenly appearing severed limb, Lan En's movements seemed to be random and without any basis.

Until the Witcher used the hand holding the knife to remove the veil of concealment from Dish's head through his fingers.

Only then did her slender, tall figure, missing a lower leg and with an arm twisted in reverse after being smashed, come into view.

"Black Knife Assassin!"

Dolores gasped in surprise.

Now that they were no longer on a bumpy, swaying horse with a black cloth covering their faces, and the veil of concealment had been removed, Dolores immediately recognized the identity of the person dressed like this.

The black-clad assassin was dressed entirely in black, as were the warhorses. When they galloped towards them, it was difficult to distinguish the positions of the men and horses.

Lann noticed that Dolores knew this group of people.

As he flicked his sword, completely dispelling the black and red death energy that had been wrapped around and dissipated on the blade, he sheathed the sword and frowned as he asked Dishi, whose head was being held in his hand.

"While your reminder was helpful, your people left far too hastily." The Witcher had frowned in confusion precisely because of this. "I said, what... exactly did you do?"

Perhaps it was because he had already watched his comrades ride away on their warhorses, leaving him with no more worries. Or perhaps it was regret for his rash approach, intending to execute Lan En at close range, which led to his current predicament.

"What did you do?" The black-knife assassin, who would normally seldom utter a word, now chuckled hoarsely. "Ha! Faded One, if you want to know, why don't you go see Rodel?"

"We did it! We did something you could never undo!"

"Times will inevitably move forward! The period of stagnation is over!"

Dish's words were so outrageous that even Lann and Dolores were a little stunned, not to mention Torisia.

Since even the Black Knife Assassin said the focus was on Rodel, Lan En and his group immediately continued towards the royal city. After a while, they arrived at the center of the Golden Dynasty.

But as soon as they arrived at Rodel's magnificent gate, they could clearly see the unusual atmosphere.

Pilgrims and out-of-town lords who used to line up to enter were now kneeling on the long, steep staircase leading to the gate.

Those holding the golden tree flag rested their foreheads on the pole, while those without a flag knelt and bowed their heads in prayer.

Everyone was filled with anxiety and fear, which was evident in their expressions.

Lann held onto Dish and walked at the front. Dolores thought the Black Knife Assassin was too dangerous, even if Lann tore off her veil of concealment.

Therefore, she did not recommend using the Red Dewdrop Chalice on the captured black-knife assassin.

Torisha simply used the perfumer's powder to perform basic treatments, stop the bleeding, and correct the bones.

However, when Torisa tried to stop the bleeding from the wound on Dishi's severed lower leg, she was surprised to find that the wound looked like a layer of dehydrated dead wood.

There were no signs of life, so naturally there was no bleeding.

Although she held the Red Dewdrop Grail Bottle, which was used in a ritual to 'receive the blessings of the Golden Tree,' Torisha looked at the wound and inexplicably felt that if Dolores had made the black-knife assassin drink from the Grail Bottle, the leg would probably never grow back.

Surprised, the perfumer also felt a chill run down her spine.

...What exactly is that black and red power?
Even the Holy Grail cannot restore it, nor can its effects be removed.

The three of them walked over the crowd of people who were crawling on the ground in fear and prayer, and went straight up to the top of the magnificent staircase and the main gate.

At this moment, two large trees still guard the entrance, standing watch day and night.

However, the spirit of the Great Tree Guardians, which is usually strict but still in a normal state, has now been honed and elevated to a state of war!
With the two of them guarding the gate like this, a normal person walking between them would probably feel like they're walking with the barrels of two cannons pointed at their foreheads!
With each step forward, the cannon barrel, thicker than a human head, rotates one degree accordingly, but always remains pointed at the head of the person approaching!

The sharp spirit of the Tree Guardians, elevated to a state of war, still held some sway over Torisha, but neither Lann nor Dolores were particularly affected by it.

What struck them as odd was the equipment on the Tree Guardian's left hand.

The original tree guardian would hold a large, round, golden shield in his left hand. The shield was so large that when he held it to his side, it could protect both the man and his warhorse's flanks.

It is a very practical type of cavalry combat equipment.

But now, under the golden light of the tree, the two tree guardians each hold only a torch in their left hand.

It was a torch made of twisted steel wire, which, in Lann's view, possessed abundant golden blessing power. However, at the same time, the Golden Dynasty, which was always precise and meticulous in its decoration and heraldry, left no mark on this torch.

The signs of hasty and rough workmanship are obvious.

The tree guards simply held up torches to illuminate the entrance of the gate. They had all seen the Faded Ones before, so they could enter without saying a word.

As he entered, Lan En held the veil of concealment that he had torn from Dixi's head in his other hand and looked down at it.

Sure enough, the thin veil, which was as light as nothing, cast a shadow in the torchlight, making it appear much more real.

It seems that although the Golden Dynasty was dealt a major blow tonight by a group of invisible black-knife assassins, it remains powerful.

On the very night of the attack, they immediately developed a device specifically designed to break through stealth capabilities.

Based on Lan En's intuition, the torches held by the Tree Guardians seemed to have been blessed through prayers from the Golden Tree, granting them this ability. Invisibility, in the end, is just an ability.

Those who cannot see will never see, but one can be like Lan En, whose 'vision' is far enough to see through most forms of invisibility.

At the same time, it can also be like the countermeasures that the Golden Dynasty came up with in half a night, specifically to break through.

The difference is like information warfare in the technological age.

Of course, you can use your superior technical skills to directly infiltrate the enemy's communication network.

However, if you can directly obtain the other party's communication key, then you can directly connect to the communication network without any problem.

The border region was, after all, land that had been completely conquered by the Golden Dynasty; they simply hadn't expected anyone to dare to do such a thing.

Once the type of technology used by the enemy to invade is identified, it is easy to devise targeted countermeasures based on the experience gained during the Titan Wars.

Therefore, offensive actions launched solely based on the suddenness of a particular technology, rather than on overwhelming strength, are often only most effective on the first occasion. Subsequent attacks will then be immediately countered.

But it was clear that the Golden Dynasty's opponents only wanted to get their business done within that one night.

Upon entering Rodel City, the three of them simultaneously widened their eyes, while Dishi, who was being held by Lan En, gave a sinister laugh like an old witch.

The once neat rows of white buildings and golden roofs in Rodel City now resemble a poorly constructed block castle, with a small section leaning and collapsed.

That was the terrain collapse caused by Fulsanx's Crimson Lightning Blade with a single swing.

If it weren't for the angle, perhaps the entire Rodel building, and the land on which it stands, would not have been saved.

Lan En and his group headed towards the inner city of Rodel.

Along the way, screams and cries for help echoed from the ruins and crooked buildings.

Blood and bits of flesh flowed from the remains, not much, but it was glaringly conspicuous in the mostly white city of Rodel.

The once strict and orderly capital of the Golden Dynasty is now stained with the blood of turmoil.

However, because the number of cases is small and the severity is not high, people are not particularly panicked.

They also didn't realize... what kind of situation they were in now.

"Kill me! Ah!"

At the intersection where Lan En and his group passed, a nobleman was shouting in pain to the people around him who were helping him.

The ground here is cracked, and the man's two legs are inside the cracks from the knees down.

However, landslides are often accompanied by shaking, and cracks may open one moment and then close up again the next.

The person fell through the crack in the middle, and the crack closed, crushing his legs inside.

Such people can be considered lucky in earthquake-level disasters, after all, earthquake fissures can devour people. Sometimes, large earthquake fissures can even sink a village in seconds, and then the land will close up again as if nothing happened.

Those who witnessed all of this were horrified, and for a long time to come, they will feel that beneath that now-closed ground, the cries of the injured and the dead continue to lament.

In comparison, the nobleman who only had his calves crushed after encountering the fissure in the ground, without even his knees being affected, was incredibly lucky.

But for the people of the Golden Tree who had lived under the Golden Law for countless years, the pain of having their legs crushed was simply too much to bear.

It's far worse than a clean death.

So this nobleman who had survived by sheer luck felt that it would be better to die and quickly join the queue at the Golden Tree.

He was yelling that he needed to get a quick and painless end.

Those who were helping the rescue were not surprised and expressed their understanding.

After all, even though it was a divine dynasty, those powerful restorative spells and the Red Dew Holy Grail were not something that just anyone could possess.

In addition, the people of the Golden Tree now generally have a low tolerance for pain, so executions that are not taken seriously by either side are becoming increasingly common in the royal city of Rodel.

Toricia and Dolores were not surprised by this.

However, Lan En frowned as he looked at the scene before him, feeling that he still couldn't quite adapt to the common sense of the Golden Dynasty.

They continued walking towards the center of the royal city and arrived at the location of the Golden Tree Cathedral.

At this point, there were no other people in the cathedral, at the very least, only the Knight of Rodel.

Everyone stared blankly at the center of the cathedral. When Lan En and his group entered, they even had to push aside the figures in front of them to get inside.

Because nobody even glanced at them; it was as if everyone had gone mad.

As Lan En squeezed into the crowd, searching for the velvet ball and the Qilin among a group of figures no shorter than himself, he heard a sentence that made the already tense atmosphere feel suffocating.

He is... dead.

(End of this chapter)