Chapter 181: Suicide Attack, the War Begins

(While reviewing the previous plot, I discovered that the names of two background characters were repeated. I have corrected them; I wonder if you noticed.)

On a night when profound darkness swallowed everything visible, the dim lights of the Alastrelle military camp shone like a solitary beacon in the deep sea, drawing the gaze of strange, misshapen things from the surrounding wilderness.

Dressed in specialized night-garb, the death-squad soldiers moved through the brush-covered woods at the edge of the cliff, concealing their forms as best they could. These specially trained soldiers possessed formidable abilities, each honed to a singular, lethal purpose.

Their feet trod upon the vegetation without even a rustle, and though their bodies brushed against the branches and leaves, the slight swaying of the foliage did not disturb anything else in the vicinity.

"Peaceful Stride"—a technique unique to the assassins of Sewentan, involving a power that blended both battle-aura and magic.

The effect of these two forces combined was astonishing; as long as one maintained the pace of a slow walk, all influence the user exerted upon the external world was drastically diminished, including their very presence.

Under the cover of night, these death-squad members approached the Alastrelle camp with a bizarre, leisurely gait, as if merely out for a stroll.

Despite the lack of cover to hide their forms, a simple glance with the naked eye would struggle to capture their presence.

The equipment worn by these black-clad night-walkers was deceptively simple, consisting only of a strange, bifurcated dagger clutched tightly in their hands.

The design of the daggers was peculiar; the blade split in the middle into three prongs, and the grooves on the surface were not blood-letting channels, but rather strangely patterned inscriptions.

They were exquisite, making the daggers appear less like weapons and more like ritualistic sacrificial implements.

Time ticked away, the night grew more deathly silent, and the darkness shrouding the land deepened. The magical moon was unusually dim tonight, with clouds masking most of its light, making the approach of these night-walkers exceptionally difficult to detect.

Hoods covered the faces of the night-walkers entirely, and the black robes enveloping them obscured their physical features, making it impossible to distinguish age or gender.

The firelight in the camp dimmed further; it seemed the hour had arrived for the soldiers to rest. The long period of minor skirmishes without a full-scale war seemed to have led the Alastrelle army to lower its guard significantly.

The camp showed no reaction to the encroaching night-walkers. Four hundred meters, three hundred, two hundred, one hundred and fifty—the camp remained quiet, save for the occasional sound of footsteps, the clatter of weapons, and intermittent snoring.

The night-walkers moved slowly, but their constant, steady approach brought them ever closer to their destination: the Sighing Canyon outpost, the forward station of the Alastrelle army.

The daggers in their hands were primed, their muscles gradually tensing. It was going smoothly; time had lulled the Alastrelle soldiers into a state of minimal vigilance. The ease with which the previous patrolman had been dispatched was proof enough of that.

The official knight, who had submerged his form into the void through "Inner Concealment," kept his eyes locked on the camp, following the footsteps of the night-walkers as they neared the Sighing Canyon outpost.

Once the distance closed, these death-squad members would lay the first cornerstone of the war at the cost of their own lives.

The hundred-meter gap gradually shrank to zero. It was remarkably smooth; the approach of the night-walkers had not drawn even a flicker of attention from the camp.

When they were close enough to launch a strike that allowed no reaction time, all the death-squad members ceased their "Peaceful Stride," raised their strangely shaped daggers, and began their charge.

Even during the high-speed sprint, the night-walkers made little noise; the impact of their feet against the ground was exceptionally faint.

Although most of the death-squad members were between the rank of intermediate and high-level apprentice knights, their speed, honed by special training, far exceeded that of their peers.

The first night-walker successfully sprinted to the edge of the camp, the tent before him within arm's reach. Without hesitation, he slashed his dagger forward.

Though the dagger was strange, it was sharp enough to easily slice through the thick fabric of the tent, allowing the night-walker to leap inside.

He held the strange dagger high, his gaze sweeping the surroundings, his muscles coiled and ready to explode with force. No matter what, as long as he could kill one of these soldiers who had let their guard down, then...

A flicker of astonishment appeared on the face hidden beneath the night-walker's hood. The soldiers he had imagined resting with their guard down were nowhere to be seen.

The items in the tent remained—armor, blades—but the soldiers themselves were absent.

The torch in the center of the tent crackled, illuminating the interior. The audible, crisp snapping of burning firewood only served to highlight the deathly silence of the tent.

"Where are they?" The dagger in his hand hovered, uncertain where to strike. In that brief moment, the short, sharp question flashed through the mind of the first night-walker to enter the tent.

"This is bad." That was his second thought. When things are abnormal, there must be a demon at play. Though he did not understand what was happening, these rigorously trained death-squad members knew that when the unexpected occurred, the situation would become extremely troublesome.

The same scene greeted every night-walker who rushed into a tent. Their strange daggers found no target, and while the tents were filled with belongings, their primary objective—the Alastrelle soldiers—was nowhere to be found.

The Sewentan knight who had accompanied the night-walkers felt his sense of impending crisis deepen as he realized something was wrong. He could not fathom what had gone awry, but the fact that the camp was completely empty was undeniably abnormal.

"Withdraw from the camp immediately!" The order was issued in a rush of anxiety, and all the night-walkers who had breached the tents began to retreat rapidly.

But soon, the night-walkers, including the official knight, realized the situation had turned dire.

At some point, thick walls of earth and stone had risen around the perimeter of the camp. These exceptionally hard walls had enclosed the entire Sighing Canyon outpost, trapping the night-walkers inside.

The stone walls were not high, only about three meters, which meant little to knights whose physiques far exceeded those of normal humans on Earth.

One of the night-walkers, following his commander's orders, retreated quickly. Upon reaching the two-meter-plus wall, he leaped, kicked off the wall twice to gain extra height, and was nearly over the barrier in an instant.

"Whoosh, thud!" However, just as the night-walker was about to clear the wall, several arrows flew out from the darkness with incredible speed. The sound of them piercing the air was faint, nearly impossible to detect in the dark.

The arrows struck the night-walker with lethal precision. Possessing a strange concealment ability, the projectiles gave the high-level apprentice knight—who had his back to the source of the attack—no chance to react. His heart, neck, and other vital points were pierced through.

His corpse was pinned to the wall, and the strange dagger in his hand fell limply as life ebbed from the death-squad member.

The sudden, tragic death of their companion caused the night-walkers to react instantly: they had been lured into a trap. Though they did not understand how they had been discovered, it was clear the enemy intended to use the stone walls to encircle and annihilate them.

"How did these stone walls appear in such a short time... An earth-element magic array? No, that's impossible. The mana required for walls of this hardness couldn't be so low. I didn't detect enough mana fluctuation to drive a magic array earlier."

The official knight, who had been following in concealment, watched as the night-walkers scrambled for cover to avoid the enemy's fire, his mind racing to analyze the situation.

"Damn it, these stone walls were prepared in advance. If you just need to raise them, the mana required to manipulate the earth element is minimal."

He finally understood the nature of the sudden stone walls, but it did little to improve their dire predicament.

Relying on his "Invisible Man" inner concealment to remain hidden, the official knight collected intelligence. While the other night-walkers sought cover to hide their forms, he observed the direction from which the crossbow bolts had been fired.

On the stone wall across the way, a line of Alastrelle soldiers stood, holding Alastrelle military crossbows.

They were the same type that Avia had once used against Obi-Wan, but optimized over time; the "concealment" and "piercing" properties of these enchanted military crossbows had been further enhanced.

The bolts that had silently finished off the night-walker were fired from these standard-issue military crossbows.

The Sewentan official knight's pupils trembled slightly. Using a dark-vision spell scroll he had prepared, he pierced the gloom and saw one of the soldiers standing on the high platform. The face was hauntingly familiar—it was the patrolman who had "discovered" them and whom he had instantly silenced.

"I shouldn't have killed him... A misjudgment. It must have been an inner-concealment or a decoy spell. He was used as bait. This is trouble."

The hidden official knight finally understood how they had been discovered. That "careless" patrolman was nothing more than bait for the night-raiders. The moment he "slashed" the patrolman, they had already been exposed.

"Fire one round, then deploy alchemical incendiaries at the blind spots. Although my decoy's strength was weak, the fact that it was killed so easily suggests there must be at least one official knight among them. Proceed with caution."

Kevin looked down at the camp surrounded by stone walls and coldly issued the order to fire. To prevent the enemy from hiding behind cover, he added instructions on how to deal with those taking shelter.

Kevin was the captain of the Sighing Canyon outpost. A member of the Night's Blade, he had been transferred to the front lines after the war began. Due to his unique inner-concealment, he had been appointed as the overall commander of this outpost, the closest to the Sewentan army.

His inner-concealment was "Dual-Phase," allowing him to create a decoy that was identical to his true self in appearance and thought, though its physical attributes were only one-third of his own. Ordering this decoy to patrol was, in fact, the best form of surveillance.

When the decoy was killed, everything it experienced was transmitted to his memory.

The moment the Sewentan official knight killed Kevin's decoy, Kevin had already discovered the intruders.

A barrage of arrows rained down upon the Sewentan night-walkers trapped within the stone walls. The sharp, powerful bolts easily penetrated ordinary wooden cover.

Weak shelters were pierced through, and several night-walkers whose cover was too thin were turned into pincushions after the first volley.

After a few more volleys, the Sewentan night-walkers found no chance to escape. The Alastrelle soldiers, alternating between loading and firing, kept up a relentless barrage with almost no interval. For these apprentice-knight-level night-walkers, escape was a mere fantasy.

Even though most of the night-walkers survived the first wave by relying on sturdy cover, it was only the beginning.

Kevin's orders had already specified how to deal with enemies hiding behind cover: let roaring flames consume those in hiding.

Alchemical incendiaries contained in ceramic pots were thrown evenly by the Alastrelle soldiers from the high platforms.

The pots shattered upon contact with the ground, splashing the incendiary agent everywhere. The pungent odor of the alchemical solvent instantly permeated the entire camp.

The night-walkers sensed the impending doom, but there was no recourse; they could only grit their teeth and await the searing heat.

Then, several torches were tossed down from above. The highly flammable solvent coated every corner of the camp, and the moment the torches touched the liquid, flames erupted violently.

The scorching fire swept through the stone-walled outpost in a matter of moments. The tent fabric, the internal wooden frames, and even the equipment melted and crumbled beneath the inferno.

These were military supplies, but compared to the cost of killing the Sewentan night-raiders, such losses were of no concern at all.

The flickering glow of the burning encampment was mirrored in Kevin’s eyes, the flames as searing as the turmoil within him; beneath his cold, impassive exterior, his heart refused to settle.

This sudden night raid by the Sevintans would shatter the stalemate of the war, yet this fleeting victory brought him no joy, for the inevitable escalation into full-scale conflict would surely reap a harvest of unimaginable carnage.

Suppressing the agitation in his soul, Kevin cast a frigid gaze back toward the dancing firelight; the enemy’s fate was obscured by the inferno, and he dared not drop his guard, for the charred remains of those within served as a grim testament to the cost of complacency.

The alchemical fuel burned with a violent, rapacious intensity, consuming nearly all the oxygen within the stone-walled perimeter.

As the flames gradually waned, the alchemical accelerant spent, only smoldering embers remained to glow amidst the settling ash.

Kevin swept his gaze across the scene; the entire camp was blanketed in black soot, with stray sparks dancing in the updrafts, rendering the interior nearly impossible to survey.

Though word had been sent to the other military divisions, reinforcements would take time to arrive, and they lacked the luxury of accompanying mages—far rarer than knights—to employ detection spells.

He had no choice but to descend and verify the state of the Nightwalkers buried beneath the scorched debris.

"Stay alert, maintain the defensive formation, prioritize reconnaissance, and keep your guard up."

The soldiers raised their shields, clustering around Kevin to form a phalanx as they descended from the stone ramparts into the camp, still littered with smoldering ash and embers.

The men remained vigilant, their wary eyes scanning the shadows for any sign of a survivor’s ambush.

Kevin’s eyes flickered; he had sensed something amiss. Indeed, the flames had not been enough to slay the Sevintan formal knight who had struck down his decoy before the construct could even react.

The knight’s stealth art did not truly erase his existence, but merely rendered him difficult to perceive, and now, his movements had been betrayed.

The ash-covered ground easily revealed footprints under pressure, and the floating embers faintly outlined his silhouette as he drew near.

With a subtle gesture, Kevin alerted his men; the well-trained soldiers understood at once, feigning ignorance of the approaching knight while maintaining their formation, pressing forward through the camp with Kevin at their core.

As Kevin stepped past the hidden assassin, the Sevintan knight suddenly shed his concealment; his broken body, mapped with gruesome burns, lunged from the void, a strange, jagged dagger raised high to plunge into Kevin’s chest.

"Thwack!" Several prepared longswords thrust outward, piercing the knight’s body, his armor long since incinerated by the blaze.

The blades of the apprentice knights bit only shallowly into the formal knight’s flesh, but the true death blow came from Kevin’s readied thrust, which shattered the sternum and obliterated the Sevintan’s lungs.

The strange dagger did not fall; the knight, suspended by the blades skewering his body, wore a twisted, mocking smile.

"At the cost of my soul, let the corruption descend!" With a low, resolute vow, he drove the jagged blade into his own chest without hesitation; as blood flowed over the intricate, complex carvings on the fork-bladed dagger, an indescribable power began to manifest.

The formal knight’s eyes lost their luster, his soul stripped from his body and drawn into the steel of the blade.

His only purpose had been to draw near; the dagger was never meant for Kevin, but for himself, and those Nightwalkers, too, were the same...

Amidst the smoldering ash, the Nightwalker fanatics, clinging to their final breaths, raised their own strange daggers and plunged them deep into their own hearts.