CHAPTER 397: CHAPTER 269: THE RIGHT EYE OF BALISTAN_2

However, these matters were unrelated to his purpose today; he needed to find someone.

"You’ve worked hard."

Lance approached Balistan, who was removing his armor. Wearing armor was a burden, and even veteran soldiers familiar with it would remove their armor after combat, shedding their tension along with it.

"My Lord, nothing unusual has happened these past two days, the brothers stationed here..." Balistan assumed his Lord had approached him about matters at the front, but he was cut off as soon as he began to speak, when the Lord raised his hand.

"I’m not here for that. Sit down first, and we’ll talk."

Balistan sensed that something was amiss, but he said nothing and casually set his armor aside to sit down.

It was only then that Lance spoke slowly, "I may have found a way to heal your right eye."

Lance had tried to treat his missing right eye before, but clearly, the elementary ’Flesh Reconstruction’ was incapable of reassembling such an intricate structure. Only after the Wizard was upgraded through Sacrifice did he gain some confidence.

Logically, one should be delighted by such news. After all, it was an injury that money couldn’t heal. The possibility of recovery was undoubtedly good news.

But Balistan’s reaction was beyond Lance’s expectations. Upon hearing the news, he fell silent, appearing somewhat despondent.

"Speak."

Lance understood there might be a story behind this eye.

"I gouged out this eye myself."

Balistan’s first sentence plunged Lance into a fog of confusion. He couldn’t understand the situation.

"When I was young, my intense craving for power far surpassed that of others..."

In his youth, Balistan wasn’t as composed as he now appeared. On the contrary, he had ascended the ranks without experiencing a single battle, leveraging his strong social skills to flatter his superiors and his knack for paper-based strategizing during mock fights.

As fate would have it, a battle broke out, and he seized the opportunity to gain command—a privilege others envied.

At that time, he hadn’t realized how suspicious and threatening the upcoming battle was.

Because at the time, all he could think about was the glory of the impending victory and his promotion.

"No matter how eloquent or persuasive I was, none of it meant a thing on the battlefield."

Balistan recounted how, in that battle, his hunger for military glory had clouded his judgment, making him completely oblivious to the disparity in strength between his forces and the enemy’s.

Moreover, preoccupied with currying favor with his superiors, he paid no attention to the common soldiers.

This resulted in a lack of authority over them, and they responded to his commands passively.

Even more fatally, he had never experienced combat firsthand, a fact despairingly evident in his command abilities during the battle.

If the tide had been in their favor, he might have muddled through, but once they faced adversity, his true incompetence was laid bare.

His orders to attack were met with hesitation, and his orders to retreat devolved into a rout.

His chaotic command doomed everything.

"It was a rout, a massacre... a debacle so profound it could serve as a cautionary tale in textbooks, an utterly disastrous command."

A rarely seen terror crossed Balistan’s face. He searched for words to describe that battle but could only speak in vague terms.

Perhaps even he couldn’t recall the details, for when he awoke, he was already in the army’s field hospital, with no memory of how he had gotten there.

During his recovery, every night Balistan would see the ghosts of the fallen soldiers return to haunt him. Their mutilated spirits would continuously gnaw and claw at his body.

They’d whisper chilling accusations, blaming him for the disaster. He was responsible for the campaign’s failure; he had to answer for the slain soldiers.

"I don’t know if it was a dream, but why did I wake up with scratch marks on my arms?" Balistan asked, his expression bewildered. He, too, couldn’t distinguish reality from hallucination.

This condition made it impossible for him to sleep. Each night, his terrified screams and incomprehensible whimpers startled the exhausted medics awake.

All of it tormented him until one day, he couldn’t bear it any longer and actually gouged out his own right eye.

On the brink of madness, the intense pain brought him a Revelation. His eye hadn’t been taken by war, but by his own ludicrous pride and incompetence.

He was soon discharged from the hospital, not because he had healed, but because he had become the main person held responsible for the failure of that battle.

He shouldered all the blame. His rank of Commander was disgracefully stripped from him, and he was demoted. He survived only because those in higher positions needed a scapegoat.

But Balistan was indifferent to this. He returned to that battlefield, where not all the corpses had yet been cleared.

The ground was strewn with bones, stained reddish-brown by blood that had seeped into the soil. Vexing black birds circled overhead, some perching on distant, dead trees to observe the man.

Scenes from that day replayed in his mind. He knew his rashness had led to those soldiers sacrificing their lives.

And now, he had returned precisely to confront them. He buried their bones, erected headstones, and poured wine over them.

He did this not seeking forgiveness, but only hoping they could rest in peace.

At last, he could sleep peacefully. Perhaps he could find some solace within the dreamless Abyss.