Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 230 Wolf Mage
The sun is hanging far away in the sky and night is about to fall.

A team of church priests and inquisition knights dressed in pure white robes set up a temporary overnight camp on the open flat ground beside the road.

Several bonfires were soon lit in the camp. Several knights of the Inquisition took off their heavy armor and busied themselves around the fires, adding firewood and boiling water.

The young deacon walked over to a middle-aged priest with a pot of hot water in his hand. "Sir, we've run out of tea. Please have some hot water..."

The middle-aged priest frowned slightly and said impatiently, "We should be able to reach Jackdaw Town tomorrow, right? We've been sleeping in the open air all this way, and it's really tiring."

The deacon sat cross-legged beside him and whispered, "Yes, if we set out at daybreak, we could reach Jackdaw Town by noon at the earliest... But I still don't understand why we didn't stop into Grizzly Castle to rest when we passed through. Isn't Earl Fagan of Grizzly Castle a devout believer in the church?"

"Count Feigen? Humph, he's a devout believer, to be sure... but he previously offended the Union due to some incident, and had to personally travel to the capital of Saint Valen to mediate his own case. He just returned to the territory a few days ago and was immediately placed under surveillance by the Union. He's in such an awkward position right now, how could he have the time to receive us?"

The young deacon suddenly realized and couldn't help but ask, "So... is our mission to Jackdaw Town related to Count Feigen's affairs? The Union is shielding the necromancer and allowing him to secretly conduct bloody and evil magical experiments..."

The priest nodded and succinctly explained the real purpose of their trip - nominally a routine tour of missionary work to the border of Saint Valen, but in reality a secret investigation into the blasphemous incident involving the necromancer. After all, there were witch hunters involved, so the rumors were likely not groundless.

"Although the Divine Punishment Sect's style of action is extreme, they will never easily let go of any evil wizard who blasphemes our Lord. Although most people do not support their behavior of destroying the peace covenant on the surface, they absolutely agree with it in private." The middle-aged priest said with a serious face.

Moreover, according to sources planted by the Church within the Federation, this necromancer entrenched in Jackdaw Town has another secret identity unknown to the public - he is the author of the magic research paper that was anonymously published in the Federation Bulletin not long ago, openly slandering the Church's Bloodline Divine Gift Ritual and claiming it to have the same origin as the Demon Race's evil berserk secret potion!
An undead wizard who was proficient in high-level alchemy and had successfully cracked and replicated the formula of a blood-strengthening potion, actually disguised himself as a low-level spellcaster and hid in the border areas of the Southern Kingdom, successfully avoiding the church's long-standing focus on similar targets. No fool would believe that there was no secret conspiracy involving the top leaders of the Federation.

If it weren't for the attack by the anonymous witch hunter, and if Count Feigen was not involved and targeted by the Federation, the Church would not have been so quick to connect the author of the paper under the pseudonym "Kel'Thuzad" with a low-level necromancer hiding on the border of Jackdaw Town.

"But if we do this, we will directly intensify the conflict with the Federation. It is not easy to catch the spellcasters who are secretly protected by them and find sufficient evidence to convict them..." The young deacon's tone was filled with deep worry.

"Evidence for conviction? No, we don't need to go through tedious investigations and report to higher authorities, nor do we need to inform the Federation's two-faced magic politicians in advance. Any magician who blasphemes the glory of the gods and attempts to get his hands on the glorious authority, my Lord has directly sentenced him to a crime. We are merely agents of judgment." The priest responded with a chuckle.

Apart from a few young deacons and priests who were unaware of the key inside information, the rest of the team members were basically Bloodline Knights secretly planted by the Divine Punishment Sect. There were seven mid-level and one high-level knights, and the middle-aged priest in charge of the team was a high-level combat priest who retired from Blackrock City several years ago.

"Alright, I'm telling you the truth because of your devout faith in my Lord. After all, you've always been by my side, and I've always been optimistic about your future." The middle-aged priest patted the young deacon on the shoulder and said soothingly, "Tonight is our last night camping outdoors. Once we reach Jackdaw Town tomorrow, we won't have to suffer any more."

After a simple dinner, the group gathered around the campfire and completed their daily prayers led by a middle-aged priest. The high-ranking knight commander, who had been silent all the time, randomly selected a few judges to take turns keeping watch. The remaining priests and deacons all went into their tents and went to bed early.

The young deacon was no exception. After forcing himself to read a few pages of canon text by the campfire, he tiredly returned to his tent, extinguished the oil lamp, and lay down.

He was in a daze and didn't know how long it had been when he suddenly heard a slight muffled sound of something heavy falling to the ground - as if someone had accidentally tripped while getting up at night. However, he did not hear the person's cry of pain, but soon a second sound was heard.

This time, he also heard the crisp sound of metal armor touching the ground. Although it was not very obvious, it was definitely not an auditory hallucination.

People kept falling. Were they the Knights of the Judgment on night watch? Only they would wear armor at night...

The young deacon suddenly opened his eyes, turned over and got up, and subconsciously groped around the camp bed in the dark, but did not grab any suitable weapons. After all, he was only an apprentice priest, and was not very proficient in even the simplest healing prayers and glorious spells.

But I finally touched a hard object, which was an extinguished metal oil lamp.

He slowly approached the door curtain of the tent and was about to lift a corner to secretly observe the situation when the roar of the high-ranking knight commander was heard outside, "Enemy attack! Knights of the Judgment Army! Meet the enemy! Gather around me quickly!" The warning roar broke the tranquility of the late night, and the camp instantly became boiling.

Immediately afterwards, there was a loud bang, and the dry mud ground began to tremble slightly.

The Knight Commander's voice of shouting and giving orders suddenly stopped!

Amidst the noisy screams and curses, the beast's muffled breathing was clearly audible, forcing the young deacon to finally lift a corner of the tent curtain... The Knight Commander, a high-ranking member of the Inquisition, was trampled to death by the sturdy feet of a terrifying, human-shaped beast. In his panic, blood gushed out from the gaps in his armor, which was only half-donned, and soaked the originally dry ground around him.

This terrifying humanoid beast standing upright, three or four meters tall, is the attacker!
His body was covered with thick black fur, his limbs were extremely strong, and with a casual wave of his claws, he swept aside a judge who was rushing towards him with a sword in hand, leaving three deep scratches on his hard steel breastplate.

The strangest thing is its animal-shaped head, which is actually a huge gray-black wolf head with triangular wolf eyes emitting a faint blue light. A blood-red tongue and sharp teeth can be seen in the slightly open long mouth, and pointed ears are facing the sides of the head.

"Werewolf! How could a werewolf appear here?" The young deacon couldn't help but let out a low cry, which immediately attracted the attention of the wolf-shaped beast. When it turned around, its face showed a strange expression that only humans have - ridicule and disdain.

Two more Judges rushed forward, but their resistance was completely futile in front of the wolf-like beast. With one swing of its claws, it ripped open the chest and abdomen of a knight, and blood mixed with internal organs flowed hotly to the ground.

Another knight was grabbed by the neck and lifted up directly, then brought to the blood-red mouth and bit down. The sound of flesh and bones rubbing against each other was heard immediately, making the others around shudder.

"It's an evil wizard! It's the wizard's transformation!" The middle-aged priest also ran out of the tent and joined the gathered army of judges, and was surrounded and protected by them.

He stared at the werewolf standing in the center of the camp with his eyes red, chanted a prayer silently, and clasped his hands together to release an attack spell, but suddenly his whole body trembled, and he spat out a mouthful of blood as if the spell had backfired.

"Anti-magic field! They've set up an anti-magic field around the camp!"

The young acolyte then discovered that the reason why the high-ranking knight commander was so easily killed by the evil wizard who transformed into a werewolf was that he could not activate the bloodline ability in his body at all. No wonder the opponent dared to attack a group of bloodline knights on his own. It turned out that it was an anti-magic field buried nearby in advance.

He has other helpers nearby, who are also equally powerful and strange spellcasters!
"Leave the High Priest behind!" a Knight of the Inquisition roared gravely. "Ignore the deacons and priests; disperse and flee! All knights remain to fight and hold back this evil wizard!"

After saying this, he rushed towards the werewolf with his sword, followed closely by two knights of the Inquisition who had not yet had time to put on their armor.

Four or five Inquisitors had already fallen in the camp, all killed by the werewolf wizard who had ripped open his stomach with his sharp claws. The remaining knights changed their strategy and used the cover of the tents to launch a siege and fight, trying to buy more time for the others to evacuate.

The young deacon immediately rushed out of the tent, rushed to the middle-aged priest and helped him up. The priest was obviously affected by the backlash of the anti-forbidden magic field. His face was pale and his body was shaky. He could only put all his weight on the thin deacon's shoulders and walked out of the camp slowly and with difficulty.

"Escape towards Jackdaw Town! Along the main road, there are some warehouses and post stations. The attacking spellcasters dare not attack us openly in front of civilians unless they want to start an all-out war!" The middle-aged priest vomited blood again and gave the order weakly.

The shouts of battle gradually faded away. The deacon supported the priest and groped his way to the main road in the dark moonless night. However, he was quite alert and did not walk directly in the middle of the road. Instead, he carefully walked through the dense bushes on the side of the road.

If the attacker is a high-level spellcaster, he will certainly use the flying spell to search for the fleeing priests and priests along the way. On a night without bright moonlight, it is not easy to spot their traces from high above.

After walking a few hundred meters, the lights of the campfires in the camps beside the road gradually disappeared from sight. The deacon breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the enemy did not pursue them in the direction of their escape, or perhaps the knights of the Inquisition could still hold out for a while longer.

(End of this chapter)