Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Earl’s Crisis

Red Moon Province had already fallen into chaos. All the powers were busy dealing with the rifts and the monsters pouring out of them, leaving them with no time to care about anything else. The signs of a great upheaval had already appeared.

Faced with this situation, Ling Feng was the first to speak. “This is a catastrophe,” he said, “but it is also an opportunity for our church.”

As soon as he finished, everyone was stunned. Then several of them thought of the reason at once, and their eyes lit up. Atter said, “Does the archbishop mean that our church can use this chance to spread the faith and win new believers?”

Ling Feng nodded. “Exactly. In the face of disaster, people always hope to find spiritual sustenance. When their old beliefs can no longer support them, they will seek a new faith. And we, as believers in the Father God, have a duty to guide those lost lambs and give them the will and hope to live.”

At this, everyone’s eyes shone with excitement. Indeed, this was the perfect moment to develop new believers. The effect of preaching amid calamity was far beyond that of ordinary times, especially since the Father God Church truly had a god in its midst. Moreover, the sacred light of the holy knights was especially effective against the rift monsters. If these advantages were used well, the number of believers in the Father God Church would surely surge explosively.

The plan immediately won everyone’s support. According to the church’s teachings, they could not simply ignore the afflicted places. Even if they could not send aid too far away, they still had to help the towns near River Town, and those towns all had branch churches of the Father God Church.

After a brief discussion, Link decided to send out twenty-four holy knights first to support the towns with branch churches. Two would be sent to each of the six towns, and three to each of the four cities. The disaster in those places was not severe; they could already hold out on their own, and a few holy knights would be enough to turn the tide.

However, Link also told the holy knights not to act like showy heroes. They could help, but on the battlefield they should not charge recklessly to the front. They were to cooperate as much as possible with the local armed forces. If the local authorities were unwelcome or plotting against them, they should instead help the people who truly needed aid. If they really did not know what to do, they were to find the local branch church leader and let the church administrators assign the tasks.

In short, they were to act according to circumstances and not try to prove themselves.

Although the holy knights were all fanatics who regarded their faith as everything, they were not stubborn fools who could not adapt. Moreover, every place they were going had a branch church, so there was no fear of them being cheated or set up.

Once the holy knights had been dispatched, Link and the others turned their attention back to River Town’s disaster relief and reconstruction. Early that morning, the young and strong townsfolk, led by the church, had already begun cutting timber, repairing houses, and rebuilding their homes. River Town had never lacked lumber, and although the town had been damaged, there was still plenty of usable material left behind. With the holy knights and the Great Church of the Holy Light providing healing, the townsfolk worked with unprecedented vigor. In just one morning, the frames of nearly a hundred new houses had been erected.

At the same time, Link asked the merchants under the church’s name to bring back as much grain as possible. But since those shops had only just opened, their supplies were limited and most were in other towns anyway, so no one expected much. They simply gave the order in the hope of a small gain.

They remained busy until noon, when Bai Ling returned alone, while Saga was nowhere to be seen. Bai Ling told Link that Bas City had been attacked by a sudden assault the previous night. Saga had been badly wounded while protecting Earl Losa and had remained unconscious ever since. By morning, since Saga still had not awakened, Bai Ling came back first to report.

Saga was one of Link’s key protégés, a future Golden Saint, and could not be lost. So Link did not even eat lunch; he rode Bai Ling straight to Bas City.

On the way, Bai Ling relayed everything that had happened the previous night through their mental link, and only then did Link learn that Saga had endured a deadly struggle no less perilous than the calamity they had faced the night before.

Late last night, when everyone had mostly gone to bed, a group of mysterious men in black, each roughly at the third rank in strength, quietly arrived outside the lord’s mansion. One of them took out a magical scroll and unrolled it, and then a temporal rift opened directly outside the mansion.

In an instant, countless rift beasts surged out of the other dimension. Under the black-clad men’s command, they stormed into the mansion. Blood flowed like a river, and the dead and wounded were everywhere. The night watch inside and outside the mansion were all killed by the black-clad men and the rift monsters.

Fortunately, Bai Ling had been awake at the time and noticed the intruders as soon as they arrived. It woke Saga, and after hearing the commotion, Saga immediately put on his saint cloth and rushed to Earl Losa’s room.

At that moment, it had been a race against death. A group of black-clad men had already reached the room and were preparing to kill the unready Earl Losa. Seeing this, Saga said nothing and unleashed Mount Lu Rising Dragon. After months of training, his strength had increased again, reaching the peak of the third rank and approaching the fourth. If used at full power, that one technique could rival the full-force strike of a fourth-rank expert at the peak of his level. Though it had been hurled in haste this time, its power was still no weaker than that of a mid-fourth-rank master.

As a result, all three black-clad men there were sent to their graves beneath his fists. But the Earl’s room was also smashed to pieces by that overwhelming force and reduced to ruins.

Still, Earl Losa was no weakling. Before the room collapsed, he had already escaped and come to Saga’s side. Looking at the ruined chamber, Saga could not help but say awkwardly, “I’m sorry, my lord. I did not mean to.”

Earl Losa was an old hand at life. How could he not understand what Saga was embarrassed about? He immediately chuckled and said, “There is no need to blame yourself, young brother. If not for you, I’m afraid I would already be dead. What a disgrace it would be, for a fourth-rank expert in the early stage to have enemies sneak right to my doorstep without even knowing it.”

After a pause, he said in a grave voice, “We can talk later. For now, let us cut our way out. My son is spending the night in the military camp tonight; he should be safe. We will fight our way to the northern camp and meet him there, then come back and deal with these damned assassins!”

At the end, a fierce light and anger flashed in his eyes, making it obvious that he was furious at the enemy’s assassination attempt.

Brand controlled the military power of Bas City and spent more than half of each month in the camp. Coincidentally, he was in the northern camp tonight. With the camp’s tight defenses and numerous experts, Earl Losa did not believe that the black-clad men could possibly sneak in. His son Brand was certainly safe, and odds were high that he had already heard the commotion and was preparing to bring troops to their aid.

After hearing the earl, Saga nodded and was about to call Bai Ling over to carry them away. But before he could speak, a sudden change occurred: a red barrier sprang up and sealed off the lord’s mansion. No one inside could get out, and no one outside could get in. Bai Ling was trapped outside as well.

This made both Earl Losa and Saga change countenance at once. Although there were still a few fighters inside the mansion, most had already been killed. The black-clad men were not especially powerful, but they had the support of rift monsters. To deal with them, relying only on the two of them was clearly unrealistic.

When they failed to smash through the barrier, Losa and Saga had no choice but to grit their teeth and fight to the death, rallying the remaining guards inside while battling the enemies who kept coming.

After the first assassination attempt failed, the black-clad men withdrew to the rear and continued sending rift monsters to attack Losa and Saga. These monsters were different from the ones that had attacked River Town; they were a group of hideously ugly ghouls. Not very strong, but tenaciously alive, they often survived even after their bodies were blasted apart. Only when the brain was completely destroyed would they finally fall.

Against such troublesome foes, both Losa and Saga felt the strain acutely. Strong as they were, they were not tireless iron men. Faced with an endless stream of enemies, their strength would gradually run dry.

During the battle, they encountered many guards inside the mansion, but those guards were not strong enough and fell after holding out for only a short while. The true experts were either not in the mansion or had been buried beneath the ghouls when the black-clad men first attacked. By now, there were scarcely a few useful reinforcements to be found.

After holding out for about fifteen minutes, the two of them were already panting from the unending waves of enemies, having circled the enormous mansion no fewer than ten times. The entire lord’s estate was in shambles, with no trace left of its former grandeur, only ruin and the weight of age.

Seeing his home destroyed, Earl Losa was both furious and helpless, and could only pray that the people outside would find a way to break in soon. Outside, Brand’s forces had already surrounded the area layer upon layer, yet they still could not break the barrier and could only watch helplessly as the black-clad men ran rampant.

“Damn it, what is this red barrier? Where did those bastards come from?” Brand stared at the unbreakable barrier, his face dark as ink.

The deputy generals beside him exchanged glances, all at a loss. After a long silence, one of them said, “General, this will not do. Why don’t we find the church mages? Those hypocrites may be detestable, but they do have some skill. They might have a way.”

Brand pressed his lips together after hearing this, then said coldly, “Go and bring those people here. Tell them that if they refuse to come, I will send troops to ‘invite’ them myself!”

The deputy took the order and left, each heading off separately to seek reinforcements, while Brand continued commanding his men to assault his own family estate.

Inside the estate, Saga and Losa had been driven into a corner. Beside them were still a few surviving guards, though these men were badly wounded and could fall at any moment.

To steady morale, Losa kept shouting, urging everyone not to give up. Even so, it was no match for the ceaseless tide of enemies. One by one, the guards fell. In the end, Losa himself was pierced through the shoulder and clawed across the chest, leaving a wound deep enough to show bone, and he immediately lost the ability to keep fighting.

“Damn it...” Losa looked at the enemies around him unwillingly. At last, he gave a long sigh and said to Saga, “Saga, young brother, I can’t go on. Hand me over to those bastards and run for it yourself. They came for me; there is no need for you to throw your life away for my sake.”

Hearing this, Saga fought the incoming enemies while saying, “No, I can’t leave. My lord, please hold on. Do not give up. Young Master Brand is already leading the army here. If we can endure a little longer, we will be saved. Rest assured, even if I must stake my life, I will not let them harm you.”