CHAPTER 182: DRAWING ATTENTION

Viscous, pitch-black material gushed from the wounds where the Selwynian assassins' daggers had pierced their bodies.

Among them, the Selwynian knight boasted the largest eruption of this dark substance, which enveloped the entire group of soldiers who had come down to inspect the scene.

Kevan reacted swiftly. Allowing the Selwynian assassins to approach had been a deliberate tactic to lure them in. The moment he noticed the abnormal state of the impaled Selwynian knight, he had immediately chosen to retreat.

However, there was simply no time. The Selwynian knight had given up his life to close in on the Aleisterre soldiers, ensuring that none of them would be able to escape the sudden eruption of dark material.

Shadowy, intangible force burst from the knight's wounds and toward the surrounding soldiers.

It moved at astonishing speed. At such close range, only a handful of soldiers managed to raise their shields in an attempt to block the ominous substance.

However, the black substance ignored the shields entirely. There was no interaction, no resistance—it simply phased right through as if the shields didn't exist. It targeted the soldiers themselves.

Within mere moments, all the soldiers who had descended to examine the Selwynian assassins had been struck by the dark substance.

As soon as it made contact, that substance seemed to be absorbed within their bodies.

The next moment, without any warning, bodies collapsed onto the ashen ground of the camp in small clouds of black dust.

"Ugh..." Kevan clutched his forehead as he struggled to take a few steps forward. This attack clearly targeted his mind.

The marker left behind by Heaven's Gloom, meant to resist the void's mental corruption, was stirring within his soul. Piercing, needle-like pain by his forehead confirmed the nature of what he was struggling to resist.

As a member of the Nightblades, his willpower surpassed that of an ordinary soldier.

The black substance within him clouded his thoughts, rendering him dazed and in agony. Even so, unlike the others, he hadn't succumbed to mental collapse.

"Lady of the Night..." He gritted out the name of the deity to which he had just devoted himself. The searing pain in his mind made him struggle to form the necessary invocation.

"I..." At that moment, the other Selwynian assassins also plunged their daggers into their bodies, releasing more of the same dark substance that spread toward the remaining soldiers.

As the black substance reached Kevan, the only one among them still standing, it continued his assault on his soul.

His vision blurred. The night, which should have remained bright thanks to his enhanced vision, suddenly clouded over.

"Grant..." The stabbing pain in his mind reached its peak and then ceased to intensify. It was replaced by a strange numbness, a creeping lethargy.

"Me..." His lips trembled as he spat out one final syllable. His heavy eyelids slammed shut, and his solid frame, like the others', collapsed onto the ashen ground.

The Aleisterre outpost at the Sighing Canyon sank into deathly silence. Not a single spark of life remained. The smoldering embers, having exhausted all flammable material in the camp, gradually faded away, leaving only darkness and stillness.

After a long while, the silence was finally broken by the distant sound of approaching hoofbeats.

At a field hospital on the frontlines, a soldier dressed as a medic was reporting to a towering, broad-shouldered officer clad in full plate armor. An emblem of blazing flames was engraved on its back.

"General Black, all thirty-plus soldiers on duty have been confirmed dead. Cause of death: soul dissolution. The source of the attack remains unknown. However, one thing is certain—these men suffered an extreme mental shock before death. You should see their expressions for yourself."

The medic, who had deep, dark circles under his eyes, led Black Benn, the frontline commander of Aleisterre's forces, to a table draped in white cloth.

Without hesitation, he yanked the cloth away, revealing two relatively intact corpses—soldiers whose faces had not been disfigured by the lingering flames.

"These men must have experienced overwhelming terror before death. Supernatural fear is what killed them."

Black Benn, a grand knight known as the Flame Marshal, took a brief glance at the soldiers' grotesquely contorted faces before making a pronouncement.

The dead soldiers' expressions were twisted in absolute horror, as if they had faced something that shook their souls to the core. Their brows and facial muscles had strained so hard that skin had torn apart, leaving behind bloody gashes.

Their ghastly expressions and tragic deaths would unnerve any ordinary observer. However, for Black Benn, who had been through countless battles, this was nothing.

"If those Selwyn scum want war, then war they shall have. Do they still think sheer bravado and brute force can win them a war, like in centuries past?

"Their frigid wasteland's meager resources, their stagnating magical and alchemical sectors—it's impossible for them to triumph over us. Since they've initiated this decisive battle, we shall ensure that Selwyn is erased from this continent once and for all."

The Flame Marshal, Black Benn, spoke in a deep, authoritative voice, exuding an unwavering confidence that few could match.

"Order the Armory Division to coordinate with three standard battalions to establish fortifications on the frontlines. Deploy a team of military magicians specialized in earth magic to accelerate the construction."

"Understood!"

A waiting subordinate promptly acknowledged the command and left to relay the orders.

Black turned his gaze back to the medic with the dark circles under his eyes. "What about Kevan? He's a member of the Nightblades, isn't he? He should have survived. He's likely either catatonic or comatose. Can we extract any information from him?"

"Kevan, the outpost commander, is in a rather peculiar state. He is alive but unconscious. Notably, he has no lingering traces of the corruption seen in the other soldiers. Furthermore, the Heaven's Gloom marker on his soul was never triggered.

His condition is exceedingly strange. Rather than suffering from spiritual dissociation, it seems more like he's trapped in a nightmare. The reason he remains unconscious appears to be that... he refuses to wake up."

The medic pulled out a small notebook from under his arm, flipping through it to confirm the military physicians' assessments.

"Hmm... Take me to him." Black hesitated briefly before commanding to be led to Kevan's location.

They moved deeper into the camp where the more critical treatment areas were housed. The equipment here was far more intricate and expensive, and off-limits to regular soldiers.

However, as the chief physician of this field hospital and the army's frontline commander, neither the medic nor Black Benn were bound by such restrictions.

Inside a reinforced stone chamber forged by earth magicians, Kevan lay unconscious on a bed. Alchemical devices hummed softly beside him. Attending physicians made adjustments to those devices as they monitored and analyzed his condition.

"All tests indicate that Kevan's soul and body are completely intact. He simply refuses to wake up," the medic said, gesturing at various alchemical readings—fluctuating colors displayed in transparent glass vials, representing different aspects of his state.

Black took a glance at the readings, then turned his focus back to Kevan. He wasn't an expert in alchemy, so he ignored the instruments.

Kevan's eyes were shut tight, his expression contorted in pain. Cold sweat soaked through the towels laid beside him, staining them one after another.

"His Heaven's Gloom marker hasn't shattered, you say?"

Black examined the unconscious man, noting his tremors. He was twitching slightly, as if tormented by his dreams.

"It remains completely intact," the medic confirmed.

"Can we forcibly wake him, if he's merely dreaming?"

Black walked up to Kevan's body, drew a sharp dagger from his waist, and pressed it lightly into Kevan's shoulder. Blood immediately gushed from the wound, yet Kevan remained motionless, eyes tightly shut, showing no reaction to the pain.

"It's useless. You can't wake someone who's pretending to sleep. Right now, his body is completely shutting out all external information and sealing itself away."

The healer shook his head slightly, moved to Kevan's wounded shoulder, and cast a high-level healing spell. The wound from Black's casual stab slowly closed up.

"You'll either have to wait for the nightmare to end on its own, or use drugs to forcefully shock him awake. Because of his knightly physique, the usual stimulants used on ordinary soldiers won't work. If we want an effect, we'll need either a large dose or a much stronger formula—both of which will cause irreversible damage."

"It doesn't matter. Use it. The intelligence he holds is more important," Black replied indifferently.

"Understood." The healer let out an almost imperceptible sigh before turning to leave the tent to retrieve the medicine.

At that moment, Kevan's body, which hadn't shown any response to stimuli to date, suddenly convulsed violently. The iron-framed bed beneath him shook. His hand instinctively reached toward his waist, where his sword was sheathed.

"No! Stop!" A sudden, furious roar erupted from Kevan's mouth as his body shot up from the bed like a coiled spring.

His hand seized the longsword at his waist. With all his might, he swung it outward. His target was an enemy that didn't exist.

Kevan's longsword clashed midair against a thicker blade. Sparks flew as a piercing metallic hum rang through the tent.

In an instant, Kevan's blade shattered in two. The opposing longsword remained completely unmoved.

"Are you awake now? What were you trying to do?" Black's deep, commanding voice reached Kevan's ears, bringing him back to his senses and dispelling the lingering nightmare. He was still disoriented, his mind scrambling to understand what had just happened.

"I..." Looking at the broken sword in his hand and the Flame Marshal's drawn blade, Kevan was rendered momentarily speechless. Had he just attempted to attack his commander?

"It doesn't matter what you were doing. You're awake now, and that's what matters. I have a question for you—don't hide anything. Answer me honestly. Don't even think about trying to deceive my eyes." Black sheathed his longsword by his waist.

"Yes, sir." Still shaken from the nightmare and further unnerved by Black's presence, Kevan instinctively obeyed.

"You were subjected to a psychic attack. How did you resist the mental shock?" Black's gaze locked onto Kevan's eyes, his expression unreadable, his presence almost unbearably oppressive.

"It was... a new method developed within the Nightblades to handle mental corruption. It's called the Prayer Network."

Kevan hesitated for a moment as memories surfaced—his desperate prayer to the Lady of the Night, and his connection to what the Nightblades in the capital had called the Prayer Network.

"The Prayer Network? It's faith-related? Which deity? I don't recall the Nightblades ever incorporating divine magic from the faith of the God of Light."

Black's tone remained severe, his skepticism clear.

"It's a new deity that the Nightblades have begun to follow, the Lady of the Night. There's a registered church in the capital. This is a new divine technique," Kevan explained. The Prayer Network wasn't exactly a secret among the Nightblades or even externally. However, they only knew that it was connected to their new patron deity, the Lady of the Night. As for its creator, that remained unknown.

"The Lady of the Night... I see. Report all the intelligence you gathered before losing consciousness to my subordinates. Then, prepare for the upcoming battle."

Black issued a set of orders before turning and walking out of the tent.

"Yes, sir." Kevan saluted in response.

The medic suddenly stepped forward and patted Kevan's shoulder. His face was hidden behind special fabric that left only his eyes visible—eyes that flickered with a hint of regret.

"What's the matter?" Kevan asked uncertainly.

"It's nothing. Let's get you treated for the moment."

Black Benn strode through the military camp and turned into one of the tents, where a clerk was processing intelligence reports.

"Send word to the capital. Investigate the Nightblades' Prayer Network and the faith of the Lady of the Night. Find out who created the Prayer Network."