I loaded the Mysticism panel.

He began to call out the name of that master.

"Standing atop the cloud trails, one with the wind."

The mooring lines of the barges on the canal west of Ypres were all taut at the same time, stretched into a lyre that no one could play.

Further south in France, an entire cavalry brigade raised their horses' heads, all facing north.

"...He who once constructed a deep valley in a single breath."

Further along the snow line in the Rhine Valley, the snow that had accumulated all winter has melted away on its own.

The barometer in Dover kept dropping and rising for fifteen minutes.

The man tending the instruments changed the recording paper twice. On the third change, he put down his pen and told his colleague that this was just normal weather and to relax.

"The lungs have departed, the bones have become a flute, only the breath remains in the world."

After the three shouts were finished, everyone on the entire front line gasped simultaneously.

From the coast to the inland supply depots, hundreds of thousands of cavities swelled with the same breath.

In a field hospital at the rear, a wounded soldier choked on soup while drinking it and aspirated it into his trachea.

The two men carrying the stretcher simultaneously let go, and the stretcher crashed onto the frozen ground.

A pastor was reciting a prayer when he inhaled and forgot how to exhale.

That person was borrowing just this one breath.

The real body is separated from the New World by an entire ocean; only its aura can reach it.

So it borrowed that one breath from hundreds of thousands of people at the same time, and crossed the sea on that breath.

"stop!"

The order was transmitted from the front to a point thirty miles away, and when it returned, it read, "No one is allowed to go down."

At 8,000 feet, the seemingly endless column came to a halt.

The reins were pulled very tightly, and tens of thousands of horses in the lead simultaneously pulled their hooves back, creating a commotion that rolled half a mile above the clouds.

Unlike the minor skirmish at the last time, this time the expert in Gale Wind is serious.

When it arrived, there was a sound coming from under the clouds; it was playing a very long tune.

The sound comes from a flute made of bone, the tube of which is so long that you can't see the other end.

The wall of yellow-green poison gas that had been spread out was completely enveloped by this tone.

Even at 10,000 feet, the tornado continued to rise, becoming thinner and thinner.

Shadow held the double serpent staff upright in front of him, looking at the tornado that had been erected in the distance.

At this moment, another person appeared beside it.

The man was wearing a faded long robe, the hem of which was worn down, and there was ink stain on the cuffs.

"I was a scholar when I was alive," the man said.

Which subject should you choose?

The man thought about it for a long time.

"...I can't remember the names, but I remember the titles, every single one."

Just then, the first muffled thud came from underground.

Five thousand seven hundred and thirty spare valves were turned on along the eight-kilometer front, the sound of one valve after another chasing each other, forming a thin line running from west to east.

Everyone in the cellar opened their mouths at the same time: the engineering captain spoke, the legal officer spoke, and the nineteen-year-old messenger on the stone steps also spoke.

"He who lies hidden in a windless hollow, breathing with the stagnant air."

The first part of the honorific title had been formed. After reading it, the engineering captain leaned on the stone steps and vomited.

The legal officer was the only one with a little expertise on the field, besides that half-expert.

He didn't vomit, and instead did something he'd been doing every single day of his life:

I took out my pen and wrote down that sentence word for word in my notebook.

The time, location, and number of people present were also noted at the end.

He only started to feel afraid after he finished writing it down.

He looked down at what he had written and found that he could no longer recognize his own handwriting.

The windproof lamp in the cellar shook all night.

At that moment, it stood upright, and the color of the flame faded, turning into a gray that no one could name.

Hohenheim stood up.

In front of him was a palm-sized brass crucible, which was slowly melting.

Those hands, which had remained clean and tidy their entire lives, began to dissolve at this moment.

"His body has been given up, his bones have turned to dust, only his poisonous breath remains forever in the world."

This is the "sacrifice" that he, or rather it, prepared for itself.

The tornado high in the sky over Flanders also stopped at a certain height.

Then another flavor crept into that melody.

It has a rotten sweetness.

A sweet note began to appear in the bone flute melody of the master of fierce winds.

"It got in," the scholar said.

Something dirty got into the flute.

"Just spit it out, that's all," said the young man wielding the axe.

"You think you're so smart? Experts don't have mouths." The scholar glanced at the young man next to him.

"It took out the lungs, turned the bones into a flute, and all that was left was breath."

"It's borrowing someone else's lungs now."

"Borrowing in one breath, returning in one breath."

The tune was interrupted for a beat, then resumed for another beat.

This expert started coughing.

The cough from under the clouds fell to the ground, and everyone on the front line coughed in response.

In the trenches, bunkers, and rear stables, hundreds of thousands of people bent over at the same time, none of them knowing why they were coughing.

The tornado that had been pulled up loosened and dispersed, spreading out even more widely than before.

"The poison gas that Liefeng extracted is now being reversed."

The old scholar said softly, "Pour it back into its flute."

Richard understood.

It seems that the yellow-green gas is no longer some artificially released chemical substance/technique medium; the yellow-green gas has now transformed into the master himself.

Although he is an expert who has just stood up and has not yet had time to stand firmly.

"Poisonous gas can pollute the wind," the shadow said.

The old scholar turned to look at it.

"...You're actually smarter than the one from before."

Just then, a seal fell from the other side of the cloud.

The stamp was pressed onto one of the holes of the bone flute, and the tune immediately stopped.

It's completely severed; one moment it's still moving, the next it's gone.

"Second place," the old scholar said.

"Another one?" The young man gripped his axe tighter.

"They invited them."

This appears to be another expert from the Germanic side, someone who had been plotting this for a long time.

On the entire front, hundreds of thousands of people breathed a sigh of relief.

He was very unwilling, as someone forcibly pulled the breath out of his throat.

In that instant, from here to the Rhine, everything that should have been opened refused to open.

The locks on the Ypres Canal were stuck; the winches wouldn't turn, and even when the lock watchers tried to pry them open with iron bars, the lock gates wouldn't budge.

From crater number 27 all the way to the trench to the south, tens of thousands of people whose lungs had been filled with that stuff suddenly found themselves unable to cough it up.

I can't cough up what I want to cough up, and I can't vomit what I want to vomit.

Once the sealing wax is applied, it must not be opened again.

A flute with one hole blocked makes the rest of the holes useless.

The one from the Gale Tradition stepped back.

As it retreated, it smashed half of the cloud, and the things that had been tumbled out of the cloud fell down piece by piece.

The yellow-green clump regrouped.

"Who is this?" Richard asked the knowledgeable old scholar next to him.

"I cannot say his name, but I can tell you that he is in charge of 'a little further down'."

The scholar made a downward pressing gesture with his hand in mid-air.

"It's not good at creating wounds, but it's best at making them worse."

"Of course, the worsening of this wound is already a mystery."

For example, if someone falls down a slope, they could just get up, dust themselves off, and be fine.

It will push the rock next to you, and that rock will bring down a second one, and the second one will bring down a third one... until all the rocks on the hillside will roll down.

"That's why that master of the Gale tradition suffered such a great loss."

"First, we were caught off guard by the poison gas contamination from that newly promoted expert, and then this expert is the best at kicking someone when they're down."

"The two Germanic experts working together have completely ruined the Empire's countermeasures."

Richard, sitting in that wicker chair hundreds of miles away, memorized this analysis verbatim in his mind using the word "learned."

This seemingly endless team was recruited by the hunter from various places over hundreds of years.

Those that are too stupid or too weak will not be taken in, and even if they are, they won't survive the first winter.

Therefore, those who can speak on this topic tonight were mostly not ordinary people in their lifetimes.

This scholar, who could analyze human combat with great clarity, was at least a minor expert in his lifetime, and it's not impossible that he was a major expert.

"Sir," he asked, "so all of this was planned in advance by the Germanic side?"

"Yes, they are much more united over there than in Albion," the scholar said.

"The one who came to help today couldn't be more suitable; it doesn't even need to be present."

It's just waiting for you to make a mistake, then it'll give you a push.

Within the hunting party, the clash between the three experts was also being hotly debated:

"Lie Feng got the short end of the stick."

"We suffered a great loss."

Someone was laughing behind them, and the laughter echoed back and forth, continuing even when it reached places where it couldn't be heard anymore.

"How about we throw this guy down too?" the young man wielding the axe suddenly said.

He was referring to shadows.

"He led us here; the sky is full of people we can't afford to mess with."

"Yes, there are so many prey here, and we can only watch helplessly."

"Don't touch it. It's a messenger, and its location was given to it by the Hunter Master."

Before Richard could speak, the old scholar next to him spoke up in his defense.

"The hunter is not here."

After he finished speaking, the clouds fell silent for a moment.

"What's agreed upon in court can't be overturned after the court session," the old scholar said sullenly.

"That was in the courtroom, this isn't the courtroom."

"Then let's hold another hearing."

"Li Ting needs to stop, or he won't get anything tonight."

"Then we won't establish it."

"If you don't stand up, what right do you have to overturn it?"

The dozens of hands gripping the rope looked at each other, and no one let go first.

Richard sat in the wicker chair, his fingers loosening slightly.

When the hunter was in charge, this team of tens of thousands of people were united as one.

Once the hunter leaves, it's like dozens of ropes, each telling its own story.

No one can make decisions for anyone else, and no one is really willing to take action for a single word.

"Scatter," said the one standing at the front holding the reins.

"Stay away from those people, and no one is allowed to get close to them."

"So what are we going to do tonight?"

"Watch."

"Watching?"

"Keep an eye on it, and gather up anything you can reach along the way."

He wrapped the rope tightly around his wrist.

"When experts fight, the winner always needs to catch his breath."

When we catch our breath, some things inevitably fall down, and we pick them up.

This statement was passed down through the ranks without anyone objecting.

The team split into dozens of small groups, each group venturing into a different trench.

The horn was replaced by a dog's short bark to communicate: one bark meant go, two barks meant stop, and three long barks meant someone had been there before.

When they dispersed, none of them went towards the three giant objects in the middle of the clouds.

"Why isn't the Hunter here tonight?" Richard asked.

"They're probably waiting somewhere."

"What are you waiting for?"

No one answered.