Chapter 957: Severe Illness Demands Strong Medicine |
The instant Keinlaur appeared, whether as a slice or his true self, Cheng Shi knew their hypothesis had been confirmed completely.
This Supreme Inquisitor from Katouting hadn't merely allowed the Grand Tribunal to fail. He'd played the role of an irredeemable mastermind behind it all!
Before, Cheng Shi had assumed the Grand Tribunal's collapse was due to Keinlaur's lack of military acumen. But after witnessing the man's commanding ability, he now understood it was never about incompetence. Keinlaur was far too capable. Capable to the point of arrogance, having vastly overestimated his ability to turn the tide from the brink. He'd played a winning hand and forced it into a loss.
But now wasn't the time for analysis. Cheng Shi had to be ready to bolt at any moment, because the moment the first meteor crashed into the central army, the counter-strike would come immediately.
Keinlaur's slices could die as many times as they pleased. Cheng Shi, however, had only one life.
Whether the Vitality authority could withstand a direct meteor hit remained to be tested, but Cheng Shi had no intention of testing it with his own body. So as planned: run first, ask questions later.
He quickly slipped out of the chanting Elemental Judge formation. In a lineup where everyone was united in righteous fury against traitors, this kind of desertion stuck out like a sore thumb. Keinlaur spotted Cheng Shi immediately.
But the gray-haired old man didn't call him out. His gaze didn't even linger on the skulking judge, because he knew that in the flood tide of war, individual actions had negligible impact. No matter how much someone like Cheng Shi schemed, it couldn't change the outcome of the war.
So Cheng Shi slipped away clean. But when he reunited with Sun Miao, the wise man, who should have been waiting in place, was running toward him from a completely different direction. His expression was peculiar.
Guess who I saw?"
Cheng Shi's heart seized: "Keinlaur?"
"Exactly!" Sun Miao's eyes lit up. "Keinlaur truly intends to perform surgery on the Grand Tribunal with his own hands. I spotted him heading toward an Elemental Judge formation in an outlying sector, tailed him quietly, and heard him give the exact same orders as the ones you fabricated... nearly word for word.
If I didn't know the full context, I'd almost think you'd already witnessed this history."
"..."
'This is bad. The situation might be even worse than I imagined.' Cheng Shi's chest tightened. "Which direction? Also the central army?"
"Central army? No. Keinlaur doesn't even care whether Xiao Qi has usurped his position. His order was to bombard the right flank. If I remember correctly, a large portion of the right flank is garrison troops recruited from the Nature Alliance.
So it seems our Supreme Inquisitor doesn't just want to rebuild the Grand Tribunal's order. He wants to annihilate every admirer of the old [Order]... Ruthless methods, vicious style!"
The right flank!?
Two Keinlaurs appearing had already targeted half the battle line. Who knew how many more there were!?
'Shit. History might be even crazier than I thought. Keinlaur may not have just nudged the Grand Tribunal's defeat along. He may have personally engineered the entire thing!'
'Has he lost his mind?'
'Cutting off the head? On a good day, you're left with a bowl-sized scar. On the Land of Hope under the gods' watch, you could arguably survive that. But if you burn the whole body to ash...'
'Buddy, sure, the "virus" is dead, but so is the patient!'
Cheng Shi panicked. Without a word, he pulled out the [Corruption] container again to absorb his fear, then shoved Sun Miao along and charged toward the outside of the Grand Tribunal's battle line.
Sun Miao noticed the direction wasn't toward the rear as planned but rather cutting through the formation toward the war's front line. He frowned: "Plan's changed!?"
"Changed?
Everything's changed!
Keinlaur isn't just nudging this defeat along. He's trying to use the meteor fire rain to punch straight through the Grand Tribunal's rusty ship. I also ran into a Keinlaur, and his target is the central army!
Given this, there's no telling how many Keinlaurs are appearing across the entire battle line. I bet every single Elemental Judge formation is about to receive a visit from one!
Do you understand? In moments, the only color above our heads will be falling meteors!
God knows how many slices issued the order simultaneously!
Run! Run toward the War Legion! If he's committed to this, he'll have sealed off every retreat behind the Grand Tribunal's armies. The fire rain behind us will be even worse than at the front, because at the front, he still needs to personally crush the War Legion to restore his men's morale.
So the front line might actually be the safest place! RUN!"
"???"
'What?!'
Sun Miao froze. Even his stride stuttered involuntarily.
'Wait, what are you saying? Is this even official history?'
'Even unofficial accounts wouldn't dare write this.'
The [Corruption] container had absorbed his fear, but reason still told the wise man that Cheng Shi was right. It was time to run.
Seeing Cheng Shi's pace wasn't what it used to be, Sun Miao assumed his combat buff had expired. He didn't question it, just grabbed Cheng Shi and sprinted toward the front line.
This scene drew stares from the other knights, causing a stir in the ranks.
You could call these two knights cowards, but they were charging toward the very front.
You could call them brave, but their running posture looked exactly like people fleeing for their lives...
And so the two of them cut through formation after formation, drawing every knight's bewildered gaze, everyone wondering what the hell these two were doing.
Cheng Shi was nothing if not steady. He would never use his own life to investigate [Order] and [War]. So as they ran, he repeatedly reminded Sun Miao: if things went south, tear open the Void and flee immediately. This time he didn't dare hold anything back. He'd secretly tucked his tongue-switch into his palm, ready to vanish at a moment's notice.
But they hadn't run far before the very scene they dreaded arrived. A streak of crimson light flashed across the darkened sky, and then a meteor appeared in everyone's vision, plummeting from the heavens, dyeing the entire firmament a blazing red.
The meteor fire rain had come!
What was even more terrifying was that this meteor wasn't aimed at the central army, nor the right flank, nor even the Grand Tribunal's line at all. This meteor, trailing its long fiery tail, plunged under the horrified gaze of every soul on the battlefield straight toward...
The Tower of Logic's central army!
The Grand Tribunal had finally struck at the Tower of Logic, and on the very allied front that had been encircling the enemy together!
"Holy shit!"
You'd be hard-pressed to hear this kind of profanity from a wise man known for his composure. Keinlaur's divine masterstroke had stunned even the History School's Vice President into speechlessness.
Honestly, if Sun Miao had read this scene in an unofficial history, he'd have cursed the author for three days straight.
Because in all records pertaining to the Tower of Logic and the Grand Tribunal's wars from the mid-Civilization Era onward — no, add the Kingdom of War's founding history on top of that — not a single passage in any of these annals documented this absurd scene.
The Grand Tribunal striking not the remnants of the War Legion but the Tower of Logic. How had such critical information been omitted from all three nations' histories?
Sun Miao couldn't fathom it. Cheng Shi couldn't either. All they knew was that the only thing left to do was accelerate, because from the moment the first meteor fell, countless more emerged in rapid succession, piercing the sky, painting the entire Boro Highlands into something resembling hell.
In that moment, the firelight of war danced on every terror-stricken face, bringing eternal dread upon this land.
The entire encirclement line descended into chaos. Only the War Legion, witnessing what appeared to be divine intervention, erupted in thunderous cheers:
"How shall we survive? Through blood and fire!
For [War]! CHARGE!"
In that moment, the morale of [War]'s soldiers soared beyond the clouds!
...