CHAPTER 180: NIGHT RAID

The door to a private room in the Echoing Hearth was pushed open as Charles walked in from outside. Wang Yu and Edward had been waiting within for some time, though not for long.

Wang Yu set down the small booklet and the object he had been repeatedly examining. He turned to Charles, who wore an exasperated expression. "What happened? You're a little late. Did you run into something?"

Charles tended to be punctual except for when misfortune struck, like when he was kicked out of the Echoing Hearth by its proprietor.

With Wang Yu and Edward vouching for Charles, however, the proprietor barely tolerated his presence.

"Don't bring it up. My old man has been preoccupied lately with the upcoming changes to the Elder Council. He dragged me over and laid out a ton of instructions—he even wants me to represent the family in the vote when the time comes. I don't want to! I cut ties with the Ryders for a reason..."

Charles slumped into a chair in the private room and downed the fruit juice that had been ordered for him in advance.

"Hm, this isn't as good as the stuff from the academy banquet."

"If you don't like it, get out, you picky idiot!" a loud voice roared into Charles' ears, making him jump straight out of his seat in shock. That voice—wasn't it the proprietor's?!

Then, Charles frowned. The private rooms in the Echoing Hearth were supposed to be screened and soundproofed. Otherwise, he wouldn't have chosen this place to show his two companions the information he had obtained from Viscount Glenn's graveyard.

Charles nervously scanned his surroundings. He had criticized the proprietor's food publicly multiple times, claiming that it wasn't as good as other places in the capital. That had earned him several scoldings and even gotten him thrown out a few times.

But the proprietor was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Edward was smiling at him and Wang Yu rubbing his throat thoughtfully.

"Was that you, Wang Yu?" Charles narrowed his eyes.

"It was me. I've been modifying some aspects of my body. It seems that, by infusing fighting spirit into my throat, I can mimic other people's voices. It's pretty useful, actually," Wang Yu explained, raising his head. This time, his voice became Sieg's.

"Unbelievable. Your body is bizarre," Charles murmured. He sat back down.

"Let me show you what I got from replaying the past at Viscount Glenn's graveyard. I can barely believe it myself..."

Charles didn't dwell on the scare that Wang Yu had given him. He pulled out a Wheel of Fate tarot card and placed it on the table.

"The viscount had a habit of abuse—or outright torture, right?" Wang Yu asked.

Charles blinked in surprise. "That's right. How did you know?"

"There were some traces of necrotic energy on my body. Avia's magic was able to interact with the soul fragments a little—they were all young people who suffered greatly before their death."

Wang Yu turned to the projection produced by the Wheel of Fate.

The tarot card manifested a translucent three-dimensional vision of the past, almost like a hologram. The setting was the graveyard outside Viscount Glenn's window.

Several young men and women were tied up, with cloth stuffed into their mouths, and secured to chairs placed in the graveyard. Viscount Glenn and his wife each held something in their hands. They inhaled deeply and looked intoxicated.

"Yeah, there's no mistake about it. The viscountess was clearly drugged back then." Wang Yu nodded knowingly as he observed what Glenn and his wife held in their hands.

The two indulged in their inhalants for quite some time as their expressions turned dazed. It took a long while before they regained focus.

Meanwhile, the bound young men and women struggled, twisting in their restraints and desperately trying to free themselves—but in vain.

Glenn and his wife regained awareness, the drug-fueled high glittering in their eyes. They grinned widely, picked up whips, and began lashing the bound victims.

Though no sound was transmitted via the Wheel of Fate, the twisted smiles on Glenn and his wife's faces showed that they were laughing loudly. The trembling chairs painted a grim picture of the victims' agony.

Edward's fist slammed onto the table. If not for his conscious restraint, the wooden surface would have shattered under his strength. Veins bulged on his hand, his tightly furrowed brow and trembling muscles betraying his barely contained fury.

The scene continued. Glenn and his wife tormented their captives relentlessly. The mysterious substance sprinkled onto their wounds between lashes seemed to send them into an even greater frenzy.

As for the intoxicated, euphoric expressions on the nobles' faces—it was hard to imagine what kind of pleasure they derived from such cruelty.

The torture lasted a long time. At one point, the viscountess even had to take a break due to exhaustion.

The three Nightblades' eyes reflected the convulsing bodies of the victims. Edward's fury was undisguised, while Charles and Wang Yu remained eerily silent.

Finally, when the captives' chests no longer rose and fell, when Glenn's wife had her fill of entertainment, she waved her hand. From outside the frame, waiting servants stepped forward, buried the corpses, and placed pre-prepared tombstones over them. Then, the vision ended.

"Serves them right," Charles murmured, sighing.

"Yeah," Wang Yu agreed, idly fiddling with a small alchemical component.

Edward exhaled deeply. He said nothing, but his trembling fists revealed his inner turmoil.

"If people go missing in the capital, the Nightblades and city guards always investigate—especially if the victims are young. These victims must have been taken from outside the capital."

Charles put away the Wheel of Fate, his voice steady.

"The capital's shadow," Wang Yu stated with certainty.

"Most likely." Charles nodded.

To the average capital resident, the capital's shadow was a secretive place, but for nobles, it was a frequent haunt.

Such activities were commonplace in the chaotic underground city.

"Are all nobles like this?" Edward pressed his palm to his forehead, his voice tinged with barely restrained outrage.

"What, are you disappointed in the aristocracy of the capital?" Charles scoffed.

"In the north—at least among the nobles I know—this would never happen.

"It's simple. Nobles enjoy more resources than commoners, so they take on more responsibilities. Protecting the people of the north is duty and honor alike."

As the son of the Grand Duke of the North, Edward had a strong sense of duty. Defending his people was second nature to him.

"You're right. Don't let what happens in the capital shake your beliefs."

Wang Yu lightly rapped on Edward's chest, affirming his principles.

"Glenn's surely among the worst of the nobles, but not everyone's like him. I'm a noble too—technically, Wang Yu is as well, and Miss Avia as well. At the very least, at least half the nobles seem to be responsible and trustworthy."

Charles cleared his throat.

"That's right. We should judge people by their actions, not their status. Nobles aren't necessarily great or moral," Wang Yu concluded.

"Actions matter most—is that it?" Edward murmured thoughtfully.

"As for the killer, well, by law, we Nightblades are supposed to capture him, but..."

Charles shrugged, shifting the topic back to the killer. Now that they were aware of Glenn's sins, could they really consider the murderer a criminal?

"It's simple. We each have our own scales of justice.

"The real question is whether the killer was just trying to cause chaos or if he was punishing Glenn for his sins.

"If it's the former, we have to stop him. But if it's the latter..."

Wang Yu trailed off, giving the other two Nightblades a meaningful look.

"If this ends here, so be it. But if more attacks follow, we'll know the killer's true purpose." Charles rubbed his fingers together.

"That's all we can do for now," Wang Yu replied, nodding in agreement.

"But we should take note of that black smoke surrounding the culprit. It can obscure detection, just like the Lady of the Night's divine boons. The noble investigation teams suspect that it's related to the recent spike in the Lady of the Night's faith. You'll have to be careful. Not many know your identity, but keeping it completely secret won't be easy, either. Moreover, it might affect the Church of Nightfall as well."

At this point, Charles grew particularly serious. He had obtained a lot of new information through his own channels.

After a brief pause, Wang Yu nodded. "Understood. I'll inform them to stay alert."

When Charles told Edward that "at least half the nobles seem to be responsible and trustworthy," Wang Yu had caught what he had left unsaid—that the other half of the nobility were like Glenn, or were even worse than he was.

And when that privileged group—who possessed far more resources and power than ordinary citizens—began to rot from within, the consequences could be devastating not just for the capital, but for the entire kingdom.

Night had fallen by the border between Aleisterre and Selwyn. Their two armies were encamped on opposite sides of a canyon, their camps illuminated by scattered light—some from mana crystal lamps, but most from torches.

The canyon, deep and bottomless, served as a natural boundary between the two forces.

It had been formed during an ancient cataclysm when the ultimate weapon created in human history had shattered the very depths of the Abyss. That cataclysm had torn through the entire continent, leaving behind this chasm known as Sighing Canyon.

From the moment war broke out, the conflict had remained at a steady but unremarkable pace. There were frequent skirmishes of varying intensity, yet nothing ever culminated in a true decisive battle.

Neither side had received an order for all-out war from their respective empires, so they could only continue this prolonged standoff, holding their lines without letting their guard down, but rarely launching offensives that went beyond mere probing.

On either side of Sighing Canyon, though the armies of Aleisterre and Selwyn were locked in bitter opposition, there was an unspoken understanding between them—a strange reluctance to push the battle to its ultimate conclusion. Perhaps that day would come, but for now, neither side was willing to escalate the conflict.

Near the canyon's edge, a Nightblade who had been summoned to the frontlines was patrolling while also practicing a divine art newly introduced through the faith of the Lady of the Night.

His faith was still in its early stages, so he had yet to master the use of the Prayer Network. As he walked his patrol route, his lips moved constantly, silently reciting prayers to familiarize himself with the invocations of the Lady of the Night.

The Nightblades in the capital had been the first to embrace this faith, and had only slowly spread to the soldiers on the frontlines.

This particular Nightblade had been skeptical about the claim that the Lady of the Night's faith could grant immunity to mental corruption. After all, the Nightblades had long relied on the mark of Heaven's Gloom, inscribed into their minds by the royal family, as a final failsafe.

Though it was highly effective, this mark came with severe drawbacks. When subjected to extreme mental corruption, the mark would trigger a devastating backlash and turn its owner into little more than a broken shell.

Despite its flaws, no better alternative had ever been found—until now. If the faith were truly effective...

The thought lingered in the Nightblade's mind. At some point, he internally accepted and embraced this possibility.

"Lady of the Night, please grant me the ability to see in the dark."

Unlike prayers to other deities, this invocation was simple. The Nightblade attempted to perform what was considered the most basic divine art of the Lady of the Night's faith.

A faint surge of dark energy arose from the void, flowing like water and enveloping his eyes. It worked effortlessly on his very first attempt.

The night now became as clear as day. Before he could process this revelation, however, something strange caught his attention above Sighing Canyon.

Thin, nearly invisible ropes extended from the opposite side of the canyon, hidden within the darkness.

Figures clad in black clung to these ropes as they silently made their way toward his side of the canyon.

Through his enhanced vision, he saw that several of these infiltrators had already breached the Aleisterre side. Their bodies vanished from sight as they entered the forest near the canyon's edge.

"Selwyn troops? The canyon's edge is far from the main encampment, and there aren't any detection wards here—they exploited that weakness. Are they trying to start an all-out war? I need to alert the camp immediately!"

Realizing the situation, the Nightblade soldier prepared to act. But the instant he turned to move, a pair of silent hands—which had somehow slipped behind him unnoticed—struck without hesitation. A dagger plunged into his back, piercing his heart.

He tried to cry out, but a gloved hand clamped over his mouth, smothering his voice. With his heart punctured, his life drained away rapidly. His body crumpled, powerless.

The hands that had ended his life withdrew, revealing a figure that emerged from the void. The fighting spirit around the assassin's body left no doubt that he was a knight, one who had just activated his potential.

"Be advised: some of Aleisterre's soldiers seem to possess night vision. Be more cautious. A patrolling guard just sensed us, and there's a limit to how many I can eliminate. Speed up and proceed according to plan."

The words were transmitted silently through a special communication device. Then, the knight vanished back into the void.

No verbal response followed, but in the darkness, more and more black-clad figures emerged from the canyon's edge and the forest beyond. A night raid had begun...