Marching Out!

"What do you mean?" Old Saman glared at Neo. "I just didn't want you ruining the funeral you've prepared so meticulously, so I came specially to give you a word of advice." "You think I'll believe you?" "What do you think?" "I will. Of course I will." Old Saman took half a step back, his overwhelming aura completely retracting, turning back into that ordinary little old man who managed the cemetery. "I believe what you say." Then, Old Saman sat down on a chair and pointed at Alfred. "Come, let's keep playing. Remember to play this tune at my funeral." "I'll record your performance and play it at your funeral." "Pah, don't! Even if I'm dead by then, I'll still have some dignity to maintain!" Neo walked out of the cabin. Karen nodded to Alfred, who bowed slightly in return, and Karen followed Neo out the door. Old Saman asked Alfred, "Do you know why I believed him so readily?" "I don't." "Because I could sense that his hands were truly itching to pick a fight with someone." "I don't think he could necessarily beat you..." "See? Even you say he wouldn't *necessarily* beat me." "Naturally," Alfred chimed in immediately. "Yet reasonably speaking, how could an ordinary Whip of Order squad captain ever beat me?" "Er..." "Yet you, and even I, felt there might be variables here. That's the biggest issue." "Your reasoning makes a lot of sense." "I'm also doing this for Mrs. Lake's sake—to spare her from having to curse this naughty old fart for giving her extra work while doing my mortuary makeup." "Shall we continue playing, then? Without recording, purely for the art of music?" Old Saman waved a hand. "Let's take a break first." "All right, a break it is." "Tell me a few more of those slang phrases so I can write them all down and savor them in my coffin later." "Very well." Alfred pulled out a yellow notebook filled with transcriptions from the black notebook back home, identical down to the crossed-out marks. Seeing Alfred look so solemn, Old Saman couldn't help laughing. "I really don't understand your enthusiasm. What's the point of preaching to a dying man? Do you expect me to crawl out of my coffin and become a believer?" "If your devotion moves the Lord, the Lord may grant you that honor." "But I've dedicated my entire life to the god Pamires. I don't feel like switching now." "That doesn't matter. There is always the next life." "What did you say?" "Next, allow me to explain what is meant by 'the breath of the earth.'" ... When Karen stepped outside, he saw the captain already sitting in the driver's seat of the VIP car. Opening the passenger door, Karen climbed in—a seat almost nobody usually took. Neo turned his head toward Karen. "You can go home." "Then why are you waiting here, Captain?" "Because you have the car keys on you. Did you really think someone would steal a Church vehicle? You actually pulled the keys?" Karen took out the car keys and handed them to the captain, but didn't get out. "Really not getting out?" "I'm very curious where you're heading now, Captain." "I plan to hit a bar for a drink. I recall you don't like drinking." "It's not good to drive after drinking." The captain gave a noncommittal response, started the engine, and drove out of the cemetery. Once on the open road, Karen asked, "Captain, is Saman very formidable?" "You already took his gift, and you're still asking me if he's formidable?" "I only took his old refrigerator." "I'll give you one more chance to rephrase that." The captain lifted his right hand from the steering wheel and wagged his fingers up and down. "I only took a spatial sacred relic from him." "An upgradeable spatial sacred relic." "Right. Yes." "Seems you have someone around you with an eye for quality," Neo said with a chuckle. "Whether it can be upgraded dictates a tenfold difference in value on the black market." There was no person with an eye for quality at home, but there was a cat and a dog who did. "He felt he didn't have much time left, so he gave those things to me in exchange for me cooking dinner for him every evening a while back." "Mm. Mastering an extra skill really does give you a huge advantage at critical moments." "Indeed, Captain. After all, skills weigh nothing on your back." "Heh, but they can easily distract you." "Yes, quite true." Karen felt the captain's words held a deeper meaning. It could refer literally to cooking, or to his magical arts, or even more likely to his identity. Because Karen had so many attributes, he couldn't pin it down immediately. Just then, a flock of crows appeared in the sky ahead. Neo stopped the car, observed the direction the crows were flying, then turned the steering wheel to make a U-turn, following the crows' flight path. After driving some distance, Karen sensed that the captain had likely confirmed the crows' destination, as he stopped waiting on them, accelerated, and overtook the flock. Sitting in the passenger seat, Karen glanced out the window from time to time, watching as the captain drove north through the city, into the suburbs, and continued north along a railway line before veering off downhill away from the tracks, heading northeast. If they kept driving in this direction, Karen figured they would reach the coast soon. The VIP car was indeed well-built. Even though there was no proper road here—only jagged rocks everywhere—the car showed no signs of rattling apart despite the jolting, its engine humming along with powerful output. Well, cutting corners on other vehicles resulted in a fine at most, but if anyone dared let quality issues slip into a church VIP vehicle, they could be sent straight to meet God. After traveling a while longer, a highway appeared ahead. It was very strange—a dead end that didn't connect to any other road at this terminus. Once the car drove onto it, though, the ride became much smoother. Up ahead, however, a guard post emerged, flanked by numerous priests in clerical robes. "Sit with some authority," Neo said. Karen leaned back, deliberately relaxing his posture instead of sitting bolt upright, hands resting before him and his gaze focused. Through his mask, all anyone could see were his eyes anyway. Neo, meanwhile, leaned on the horn in rapid bursts, poked his masked head out the window, and waved frantically for them to get out of the way. Seeing this, the priests at the guard post assumed an important figure's private vehicle had arrived. Far from daring to signal for an inspection, they hurriedly stepped back and raised the gate barrier. Just like that, the VIP car sailed straight through the checkpoint. "Captain, where are we having that drink?" "We're not going for a drink yet. The drinks can wait. First, I'm taking you to see the appetizers." "Huh? Right... okay." After continuing for some distance, the highway led toward a precipice. Karen instinctively reached up and grabbed the grab handle overhead; he had a bad feeling about what Neo was about to do. Neo's hands released a black luster, and the steering wheel lit up in turn. Immediately afterward, light began coursing across the entire body of the car—the formations inside the vehicle had been activated. Then Neo floored the gas pedal, accelerating hard and hurtling straight toward the cliff edge. *Hum!* The expected sight of the vehicle launching into midair never happened. The moment they flew off the cliff, Karen sensed the light and shadows shifting rapidly outside, only to find the car cruising along yet another highway. To the right was the open ocean, ahead stretched the endless road, and to the left ran several other roads where carriages and motor vehicles traveled side by side. The carriages moved no slower than the automobiles; the horses pulling them had eyes glowing with a faint red light, clearly anything but ordinary mounts. All in all, the place exuded a bustling, deadly air, like a military base. Neo veered right, pulling off the road. After driving across the beach for a while, he brought the car to a halt before a massive cluster of coastal rocks. "Get out." Karen got out behind Neo. Watching the captain scramble up the rocks, Karen climbed up after him. Eventually, they reached the summit of the rocks. When Karen poked his head over, he saw an immense cavern mouth on the shore ahead, its height rivaling the Saint Torr Building, a landmark of Wien's city center. At this moment, a deep shudder reverberated from within the pitch-black cave mouth; even from this distance, Karen could feel the tremor. Before long, an infantry formation marching in lockstep emerged from the cave. Every foot soldier wore black armor, bore an enormous black shield, and carried a saber at his waist. The sunlight washed over them, glinting with a chilling, formidable gleam. Behind them came an archer formation. Each soldier held a black longbow and carried three quivers of arrows on their back. Though their armor was also black, it was noticeably lighter and thinner. Following them were contraptions resembling catapults. Close behind was a phalanx of carriages resembling chariots, yet not quite chariots, for stacked upon every carriage were black coffins piled high. Mesmerized by the spectacle, Karen turned his head and saw the captain holding a telescope made of crystal. As if feeling Karen's gaze, the captain snapped the telescope in half with a crisp *clack* and handed one half to Karen. "Thank you, Captain." "Don't worry about it. Crystal is cheap; the lenses are what cost money. Just channel some spirituality into it." Karen brought the monocular to his eye and channeled spirituality into it. Instantly, an immersive sensation washed over him. Not only did it magnify distant sights, but it also seemed to bundle light and shadow, allowing him to take in his target area with maximum clarity. Shields, sabers, armor, longbows, arrows... Karen matched each piece of gear against its price in the point coupon store and couldn't help marveling: this army was unequivocally built on an astronomical mountain of point coupons. Naturally, considering that all of it had been forged in the Church of Order's internal workshops, the actual manufacturing cost was bound to be far lower than retail prices. Although the armed forces of various nations had entered the era of firearms—Karen had seen the ironclads of the Wien Empire's navy more than once at York Harbor—the army marching out from that cavern mouth was enough to plunge any country's military into utter despair. Even if they still wielded cold weapons, the gear in their hands went far beyond the distinction between hot and cold arms. The mid-tier Order shields carried by the shieldbearers were inscribed with formations; even if a cannon fired point-blank at them, the shell would simply bounce off without scratching the shield. And the longbows and arrows held by the archers could reach distances many times farther than bullets, complete with pinpoint precision targeting. Those catapults were even more terrifying: they could fling "plague," "calamity," "bloodthirst," and "brutality." A single strike on an enemy position would turn an ordinary army into raving lunatics slaughtering their own comrades, and those negative afflictions were contagious. Then Karen noticed the emblems stamped onto their armor and recognized them: this was the Third Knights. This was an active-duty knight order. The reserve garrison consisted of veterans discharged from different corps, so their original armor was retained upon reassignment, leading to various insignia coexisting in a single garrison camp; an active-duty knight order had no such patchwork. "Why do they have coffins too?" Karen couldn't help asking. In the documents he had read before, only the First Knights was composed of those who had experienced "resurrection from the dead," universally hailed as the indisputable strongest knight order. "Every knight order has a certain quota allocated to execute high-mortality missions, such as scouting, breaking formations, and rearguard action." "A suicide squad?" "Heh. A certain-death squad." "Right, well said, Captain." "See that flagpole on the carriages? That's one of our church's sacred relics. Those corpses have all been treated, their internal spiritual power realigned. When the commander issues the command for 'Awakening,' the flagpole will ignite to help the caster transfer the toll of Awakening." "Ah, so that's how it works." "Still, the cost of Awakening is immense. The higher the rank and the more powerful they were in life, the heavier the price. Rumor has it that the First Knights still preserves the remains of quite a few Temple Elders." "Just thinking about that is terrifying." "Heh. If even our own people find it chilling, imagine how other churches feel. The strength of the Church of Order lies in its iron fist: the dead can become combat power, and the living, once fallen, can swiftly become combat power too. With certain special techniques, even slain enemies can be turned into combat power. Who would ever want to face such an opponent? Who would dare?" "If it had failed to grow, that would be one thing. But now that it has grown into this, it's truly horrifying." "Do you know what our church relied on to rise?" Neo asked. "It relied on... Light." In the era when Order rose, the Church of Order was virtually a blade wielded by the Church of Light. Whenever Light wished to punish someone, the Church of Order was always the first to respond and immediately launch a campaign of conquest—not by shouting slogans, but by charging headlong into battle. In the previous era, the God of Order had slaughtered and suppressed numerous deities, many of whom had been certified as "evil gods" by the God of Light. In short, that was the era when Light and Order were closest. Only, once the Church of Light declined, it could no longer control a blade growing sharper by the day—and might even be wounded by it. Many records had been altered or deleted, but the marks of erasure were themselves evidence. If Order had done nothing when Light fell, why deliberately purge the ties between Order and Light afterward? The fact that Light's decline made it unworthy of Order could not have been the sole reason, because Order could easily have inherited the "legitimacy of Light" to rule the church world with even greater justification. Yet the Church of Order had chosen not to do so. Neo chuckled. "Order needed the guidance of Light. But once Order matured, anything that dared place itself above Order became a target to be crushed." "This is my first time seeing a knight order on such a scale," Karen remarked. "The knights haven't even come out yet." *Woooooo...* A low, muffled neighing resounded as cavalry burst forth from both flanks of the cavern. These knights bore lances and carried sabers at their waists, towering and majestic. Their mounts were likewise clad in armor, yet varied wildly in form—many did not resemble regular steeds at all, looking more like deliberately bred monster beasts. More than half of them had eyes glowing with eerie, unnatural hues, revealing them to be dead steeds or modified beasts. Not through Awakening, but through modifications engineered upon their skeletal frames. Among them were many drake lizards—the very meat the captain loved to eat roasted—reputed to carry the bloodline of ancient dragons. When these riders appeared, Karen felt as though nothing in the world could stand in their path. "Didn't expect the Church of Order to have this side to it, did you?" "Indeed, Captain. I'd only read about it in records before, so I had a conceptual understanding, but this is my first time seeing it with my own eyes." "Just like how our Whip of Order squads are organized into twelve-man units, the Twelve Knights of Order also trace back to the Twelve Order Knights. Legend has it that each of the original Twelve Knights once personally served as commander of a knight order. "The Twelve Knights, along with their subordinate garrison forces, have zero overlap with us. Even a regional bishop cannot mobilize a single one of them without orders from the Senate. "Strictly speaking, the founding and expansion of the Whip of Order was based on this very reason. The church's daily operations require violent enforcement to maintain, but the church's corps cannot be mobilized on a whim. So they could only continually reinforce and enrich the forces at their disposal under the banner of the Whip of Order." "Do other orthodox churches have corps like this?" "Certainly. In this era, the gods do not walk the earth and no divine wars break out, so church corps are bound to downsize and wither. After all, divine wars are not fought by gods alone." "So, Captain, what are we doing here...?" Karen looked at himself, then at the captain. The captain was a traitor. Coincidentally, he seemed to be a traitor too. Two traitors lying prone here, using special telescopes to spy on the army—no matter how one looked at it, this was espionage work. Had the captain brought him here specifically to spy? Wait... Karen suddenly remembered that the captain had told him to get out of the car earlier; it was Karen who had insisted on staying. "Aren't you curious?" Neo asked. "Curious?" "Curious why that cage space collapsed? You must have gone into the communication room with that Holy Child. You witnessed his report, didn't you?" "Yes, I did. I saw him report to the Hierophant of the Church of Pamires that there was a traitor within the formation maintenance team." "Mm. And yet, the cage space still collapsed." "So I suspect there's a traitor involved..." "Then who do you think that traitor is?" Neo suddenly reached out, pulling Karen close, and muttered in a low voice: "Order Black Mist!" The next moment, black mist enveloped both Karen and Neo, rapidly assimilating into the surrounding environment and concealing their figures. At the same time, a pterosaur appeared in the sky, carrying a middle-aged man. Circling downward, the pterosaur landed right before the army. *Swish! Swish! Swish!* Soldiers across the entire army saluted the newcomer: "Hail, Corps Commander!" "Hail, Corps Commander!" The middle-aged man crossed his hands over his chest and said solemnly: "Praise Order!" Once the pterosaur descended, Neo withdrew his arm from Karen. "Are they marching out against the Church of Pamires?" Karen asked. "Of the Twelve Knights of Order, the First Knights cannot be deployed casually. Among the remaining eleven, one is always stationed at the worldly entrance to the Temple of Order, and another guards the Holy See. "Three knight orders are held in reserve for mobile deployment, while the remaining six are garrisoned across the six foremost regions. The Third Knights is the one stationed in the Wien Region. "The Seventh Knights was likely one of the mobile orders for this rotation. But even if something happened to them, the Senate still has two mobile orders ready for immediate deployment. There would be no need to touch the Third Knights stationed in Wien. "Remember, the Church of Pamires is merely a mid-sized church, famous for crafting spatial tools rather than waging war. A single knight order would be more than enough to wipe them out twice over." Just then, violent energy ripples broke across the ocean surface in front of the cavern, and a colossal platform slowly rose from beneath the waves. *Hum!* A terrifying vortex surged outward in all directions. Immediately following, a massive blue light gate manifested atop the platform. The Corps Commander strode onto the platform and stopped before the blue light gate. A woman emerged from the light gate. Karen raised his scope to look: the woman was clad in a blue gown, and before her hovered two large blue gems spinning slowly, radiating a sacred, gentle aura. "It's her?" Karen recognized her. She had appeared earlier that day in the communication room. Though her projection had been blurry at the time, he had mistaken the two spinning gems for her chest under the distorted light and wondered how the Church of Pamires's Chief Executive could have such an outrageously massive bust. "You know who she is?" Neo asked. "She's the Chief Executive of the Church of Pamires." "Oh." "Captain, can you read lips? What is she saying?" Karen saw the Chief Executive speaking, but at this distance, hearing her was impossible. "She's saying: 'Honored Corps Commander, the Church of Pamires is fully prepared!'"