Chapter 311: War of Mortals (Part 1)
One of the remaining prisoners turned and ran.
Zero’s expression shifted — not to anger, but to something closer to mild disappointment, the look of a student who has presented an obvious answer. She crossed the distance between them without appearing to accelerate, entered the man’s body as a beam of light, and the prisoner stopped.
His eyes went white. His body began to change — not in pieces but all at once, a single sustained alteration that moved through him from the inside out, collapsing and restructuring the arrangement of limbs and features until the person standing in the field was no longer a captured spy from Wolfsheart but the white-haired Purified, breathing steadily, her expression composed. Mayne had witnessed this transformation enough times that he knew it was coming, had braced for it. He had never found a way to prevent the cold that came with it regardless.
What happened inside the body during that alteration, he did not know. Only the Pope, and perhaps Zero herself, understood the full mechanics. What he knew was that it was not merely replacement. Whether it was also execution, he preferred not to consider.
Zero returned herself to her own form, drew a slow breath, and turned back to the last prisoner.
He was a boy — fourteen or fifteen at most, and clearly a country boy. The shock in his face was the specific shock of someone who has not yet accumulated enough experience to process what he has just watched, and who has no preparation to draw on.
“You’re the only one left now,” Zero said. Her voice was gentle, unhurried. “Eyre.”
The boy’s mouth worked. “How did you — how do you know my name?”
“God told me. You were a farmer’s child. You lived outside the city until the Wolf King’s order forced your village into Wolfsheart — labor, construction, supply transport. Forced conscription. They drafted you into the scouts rather than release you because of your age, and they planned from the beginning that you would be expendable. They didn’t even let you into the camp when you returned with your intelligence report. Your captain listened at the gate and sent you back.”
The boy had gone very still.
“Your father fell from the walls while filling a gap in the stonework. Your mother, after trying to find the overseer responsible, was beaten and has not recovered. Your brother is in the same position as you were — a conscript, a consumable. They didn’t let you back into the camp because there was nothing left of your family to protect. If you had known, you might have refused to return.” Zero reached out and touched his cheek. “Are you certain you want to fight for rulers who never regarded you as anything but livestock?”
“That’s — you’re lying,” the boy said. His voice had broken halfway through. “You’re lying to me. You have to be.”
“God does not lie.” She shook her head. “And in the bottom of your heart, you already know I’m telling the truth. The Church is trying to end exactly this — the casual obliteration of people like your family. We want to build something different. Something God watches over.”
The boy’s knees buckled. He went down onto them in the dirt, and his head dropped, and the sound he made was not the sound of a soldier but of someone much younger than fourteen.
“What should I do?” he managed.
“Follow your heart. Only God can issue the ruling.”
“I was wrong.” He was sobbing, attempting speech through it. “I’ll tell you everything. I’ll do anything — if I can save my mother—”
“Such a good child.” Zero patted his head. From her pocket she produced a plant with slender, narrow leaves, held a portion toward him. “Eat this. It will help you sleep and settle your nerves.” She tore half a leaf from the stem and placed it between her own teeth, chewing deliberately, her expression mild. “Just like me. When we take Wolfsheart tomorrow you may be able to see your mother again.”
Mayne recognized the plant. Peacefully Sleeping Bracken — one of the components of Dream Water, harmless to witches, lethal to ordinary people without the Winterflower antidote. He recognized it and said nothing. He was watching Mayne watching the boy, and the boy did not know what he’d been given, and the expression on the boy’s face as he chewed was something that belonged to a different scene entirely, one where the person handing you medicine meant the thing they said.
It took half an hour. The bracken worked through the boy’s body with patience, and toward the end his hands had torn open the skin of his own throat before the blood and the convulsions gradually subsided. When it was over the field was quiet. The autumn wind moved through the grass.
Zero turned from the body and walked toward Mayne.
“Your Excellency. How did you find the trial? Does it have the same elegance as Excellency Heather’s work?”
“Why deceive him into eating the bracken?” Mayne’s voice was flat. “If the situation was as you described, we could have gained a true believer. Heather would have recruited him. Instead you made him die believing he was finally doing the right thing.”
“If the situation of his family had actually been as I described, I would have recruited him,” Zero said. She was entirely without embarrassment. “But I don’t know what actually happened to his parents. That was all improvisation. The moment he realized I’d lied, he would have turned on the Church — a genuine grievance tends to produce genuine enemies. This way is cleaner.” She tilted her head. “I serve the Church wholeheartedly.”
A man who served the Church wholeheartedly would have waited in the tent for orders, Mayne did not say. He turned away. “The assault begins shortly. Move according to the plan. The Wolf King and the Queen of Clear Water—”
“—must die, Your Excellency. I know.” Zero’s tone was perfectly cooperative. “Isabella and I together should be more than sufficient.”
The horn sounded.
One long note, then another, rolling across the open ground between the army and the walls in the autumn wind, and then the world began.
A mile distant, the Siege Beast’s frame ignited with a field of magical light that built toward the brightness of noon and then surpassed it. When it discharged, the iron spear left no visible trajectory — it crossed the distance in the time it took to look away and look back, and the wall at the point of impact did not crack or chip: it dissolved, the stone reducing to powder at the point of contact, the soldiers behind the wall killed not by shrapnel but by the fact of the spear’s passage. Three volleys. The city gate ceased to exist. The surrounding walls came apart in sections.
The rate of fire was ordinary — equivalent to any catapult, no faster. But a catapult required your enemy to be within range, and a catapult allowed the defenders to read the trajectory and move. The Siege Beast fired from two miles. No one inside those walls could locate the source, predict the next impact, or do anything useful in the interval between shots. The defensive line was collapsing without the army having moved.
Then a different sound — not the crack of the siege weapon but something from behind the walls, something that started below hearing and arrived as pressure before it arrived as noise. A fireball climbed above the ramparts, black smoke boiling under it. The ground transmitted the shockwave through Mayne’s feet before the sound reached his ears. A section of wall, already compromised, came down in a sequence of collapses, each one pulling the next, until the gap was large enough to drive a wagon through.
The horn again.
The Army of Judges advanced. From the hilltop where Mayne stood they looked like a tide finding its lowest course — a reddish-gold current pouring through the gap in the wall, absorbing whatever it encountered, the God’s Punishment Army climbing the rubbled sections beside the gate with the flat indifference of men who had long since made their peace with the fact that the men on the other side could not hurt them.
Inside Wolfsheart, the defenders would now have to buy time with their bodies.
There was no other currency available.
Chapter 311 War of Mortals (Part 1)
Seeing this scene, one of the other prisoners turned and ran away which caused Zero to look somewhat disappointed.
She turned into a ray of light and entered the fleeing captive’s body, who immediately stopped his steps. The captive’s eyes turned white, and his body began to undergo strange changes – this wasn’t Mayne’s first time seeing such a scene, but no matter how often he saw it, he couldn’t prevent a chill from arising within his heart.
A dim ray of light burst out from within the captive’s body and his body began to twist and deform until finally changed into the very appearance of the Purified who had entered him.
He knew that this wasn’t a simple act of replacing and slaughtering, but what exactly happened during this transformation process, Mayne was afraid that only the Pope or the people involved could fully understand.
Zero took a deep breath and went back to the last prisoner.
He was the youngest of three captured spies, probably only fourteen to fifteen years old. His young and inexperienced eyes were filled with shock and fear, unable to accept what had happened just now.
“Now, you’re the only one left,” she whispered, “Eyre.”
Hearing these words, the trembling boy who had originally wanted to pick up the machete froze in shock and started to stammer, “H-how…”
“God told me everything. Actually, you were merely a farmer’s child living in the outskirts, but because of the Wolf King’s order, you and the other village people were forced to move into the city, and became responsible for repairing the city walls, creating the military supplies, transporting the
army’s provision and so on. In other words, forced labor. Instead of letting you go because of your young age, they rather decided to recruit you into the investigation troops. In reality they’ve planned for you to emerge and perish on your own,” she reached out and touched his cheeks, “The best evidence for this is that at the time you sent back the intelligence about the large military operation of the Church, the captain of the guards didn’t even let you enter the camp. Instead, after listening to your report he immediately sent you back to us, right?”
“I…” Eyre opened his mouth, but couldn’t find any words.
“Of course, they couldn’t let you enter, because your family had already ceased to exist. Your parents were accepted, while your brother was the same as you, merely consumables for the Wolf King. So, if you were allowed to return, wouldn’t it make all the other scouts know about it?” Zero said, “Your father fell to his death while trying to fill a gap in the wall. Your mother, trying to find the workplace overseer had to suffer punishment with a whip and is now on the verge of death. In a world where God doesn’t examine everything, evil always wantonly flows around like sewage. Are you sure you really want to fight for such a ruler?”
The young boy stared with wide eyes at her, unable to mask his sorrow, “This… is impossible, you’re lying to me!”
“God never lies,” the Purified shook her head. “And in the bottom of your heart, you know that I’m telling the truth. The root of all this evil is the nobility. They never regarded you as one of their own kind, they merely see you as livestock. What the Church is trying to do is to put an end to all this evil and injustice, they want to build a new world under the care and watchful eyes of God.”
With a plopping sound, Eyre sank to his knees, lowered his head and began to cry bitterly, “What should I do?”
“Follow your heart, only God can issue the ruling.”
He choked with sobs and said, “I was wrong. I am willing to tell you everything I know, I will do anything I can to save my mother.”
“Such a clever child,” Zero patted his head then took out a plant with slender leaves from her pocket and held it in front of him, “Eat this, and you will have a good sleep. It will also help you stabilize your mood.” She tore off half a leaf, put it into her mouth, and began to chew, before saying, “Just like me. Wait until tomorrow, after breaking through the walls of Wolfsheart City you might be able to see your mother again.”
Mayne puckered his brows, the Peacefully Sleeping Bracken was something used in the making of Dream Water. It didn’t show any effect on witches, but when taken by ordinary people it was a very severe poison, which required that they intake the Winterflower to neutralize its toxicity. Sure enough, after eating it, it didn’t take long until the prisoner’s face turned ashen. He forcefully gripped his throat, and looked with an expression of absolute disbelief at the smiling Purified, only able to release some incomprehensible ‘och och’ sounds. His own fingernails quickly tore open his skin and blood vessels before the blood that came splashing out dyed his neck bright red. His painful struggle continued for half an hour until his body gradually turned limp and he finally stopped breathing.
“It’s such a pity that God didn’t forgive your sins,” Zero said while smiling. Then she walked over toward the Archbishop and bowed in greeting, “Your Excellency, how do you feel about the trial? Did it have the same elegant manner of Excellency Heather?”
“Why must you deceive him into eating the Peacefully Sleeping Bracken?” Mayen asked with a heavy tone, “If it had been Heather, we could have added one devote believer to our ranks. Rather than making him kill himself while thinking he is moving back on the right path.”
“If the situation of the captive’s loved ones were like I had said, I would naturally have recruited him as a believer, but unfortunately I do not know what really happened to his parents. Those words of mine were nothing more than me talking nonsense.” She said in a carefree voice while shrugging, “The moment he discovers that my words were all lies, he would obviously turn against the Church. Believe me, I serve the Church wholeheartedly.”
If you served the Church wholeheartedly, you would have properly waited for my orders in the tent, Mayne thought while impatiently turning his head
and stating, “The attack will begin soon. You must immediately prepare yourself and move according to the plan, the Wolf King and the Queen of Clear Water —”
“—Must die, Your Excellency,” the Purified said, “If it was me alone, I might not have been able to do it. But since even Isabella has come with me, they absolutely won’t be able to run away.”
“Woo-woo-”
The bugle horn’s trumpet, which was the signal to attack, rolled across the horizon. Under the pressuring dark clouds and in the middle of the rustling autumn wind, it raised the curtain to the second act of the siege against Wolfsheart City.
One mile away, the frame of the ‘Siege Beast’ that launched the spears gave out rays of magical light. The moment the light was as bright as the sun, the iron spear suddenly burst straight toward the walls. Flying as though it had been thrown by a giant’s hand, it reached a speed that made it difficult to sight, and a moment later was followed by an earsplitting roar.
After crossing such a long distance the spear had hardly lost any of its might. The moment it hit the wall, it crushed the stone into powder. Even the housesized boulders were easily pulverized and the soldiers standing behind the wall were coincidentally also shot dead. After merely three rounds of fire, the city gate was completely smashed, and the surrounding walls utterly broken.
Even though the firing rate of the Devil’s siege weapon was equivalent to an ordinary catapult, its range was several times further. Against this kind of offensive, it was absolutely impossible for the garrison force to try and strike back. Unable to see the trajectory of the launch, they weren’t even able to determine where the next attack would be hitting, The Church’s army hadn’t moved, yet the defensive line was already in imminent danger.
Just then, a world-shaking loud boom suddenly sounded behind the wall!
Seeing a massive fireball soar into the sky, the people on the battlefield all felt the earth starting to shake beneath their feet. Then, accompanied by black smoke and fire, the wall collapsed with a loud rumble. Finally creating an opening in this mottled wolf’s tooth.
The sharp horn sounded again, the mixed forces composed of the Army of Judges and God’s Punishment Army initiated their charge against the city wall. Looking at it from afar, they looked like a flowing reddish-gold ocean, mercilessly swallowing everyone who even dared to stand against it.
Now Wolfsheart’s defenders would have to rely on their own flesh and blood in order to withstand these soldiers who stood apart from the mortal world.