The sudden raid ended quickly.
Though it had seemed fierce and overwhelming, Ryan's casualties were light. A headcount afterward revealed only twelve dead, and even fewer wounded.
This was largely because the Ryan forces had detected the attack early, and the enemy had retreated with decisive speed.
Evidently, their sole objective was harassment. These desert dwellers had not abandoned the field; instead, by some unknown means, they had concealed themselves again, launching an ambush roughly every half hour.
The desert was their home ground, after all. The Ryan troops enjoyed no geographical advantage whatsoever.
At the war council, the Silvermoon Knight rubbed the bridge of his nose.
A nagging headache tortured his nerves. As an old man with one foot in the grave, he should never have been subjected to such exhausting strain.
Ever since their first assault on Sweetdew City had failed, matters had spun out of control.
Yet things had come to this, leaving the Silvermoon Knight no choice but to rally his spirits and discuss the next course of action with his officers.
The desert dwellers would never grant them respite. Rather than waiting until his soldiers collapsed from sheer exhaustion, it was better to strike again before they wore out completely. Win or lose, this would be their final battle for Sweetdew City.
Alan stood quietly off to the side. As a mere squire, he had no right to voice an opinion.
Yet as he listened to the officers debating how to pay back the enemy in kind—whether through night raids, poison, or underhanded schemes—a chill ran through him. Even though such talk sounded like hot-headed venting, and came straight from the mouths of black knights, Alan could not shake a sense of unease. For the first time, these fellow countrymen of Ryan felt unfamiliar to him.
He recalled clearing the battlefield earlier. When the brother of the youth slain by desert infiltrators came to claim the corpse, a faint smile had lingered on his face, as though he believed his younger brother had deserved to die.
Originally, Alan had reasoned that killing a coward who feared battle for the sake of family honor and victory was merely an overreaction, not a fundamental breach of principle.
Yet the Silvermoon Knight's earlier words kept echoing in his mind.
*If war can serve as an excuse to override sacred doctrine, then can imperial power do the same?*
In an instant, ten thousand excuses flashed through Alan's mind.
To preserve imperial rule, had the royal house of Ryan ever committed acts contrary to divine law? If one invoked the interests of the majority or the greater good as a pretext, telling oneself it was an unavoidable necessity, could every evil be swept beneath the rug?
Alan felt utterly lost. He prayed for the gods to enlighten him, but the Lord of the Dawn offered no answer.
At this moment, Alan did not yet know that in the near future, he would witness the divine descent of the Lord of the Dawn with his own eyes. Nor did he know that he would become the empire's youngest legend, only to watch his master depart this world.
***
At that very same moment, Anbaixiu was admiring his handiwork with smug satisfaction.
He had thoroughly overhauled Sweetdew City's defensive magic circle. No one had stopped him throughout the process; in fact, he had received Hoffman's full backing.
It was only after witnessing Anbaixiu cast spells with his own eyes that Hoffman had bought the bizarre claim of a golem puppet awakening self-awareness. No golem puppet could cast magic; not even the most exorbitant creations sold by the City of Alchemy possessed the ability to wield spells.
They could use mana power reactors for propulsion and fire miniature magitech shells, but those were merely pre-programmed spell matrices functioning strictly according to design.
Yet Anbaixiu had unleashed a flurry of spells right in front of Hoffman, demonstrating spellcasting mastery surpassing that of any legendary mage Hoffman had ever encountered. There was no way such a formidable golem puppet could exist in this world—if the City of Alchemy had possessed such technology, they would have unified the entire continent long ago.
A self-aware golem puppet who was also a dragon knight, gifted with peerless magical prowess—Hoffman could only conclude it was divine providence, sending him salvation at the darkest hour of his life.
Consequently, when Anbaixiu offered to repair the defensive magic circle, Hoffman gave his absolute support.
Hoffman had then watched Anbaixiu give the mages responsible for maintaining the circle a blistering tongue-lashing. Those normally arrogant spellcasters had been unable to utter a single word of rebuttal, hanging their heads and admitting fault like humbled apprentices.
Under Anbaixiu's direction, this pack of slackers was put to work completely revamping the defensive circle.
Fully restoring it in a matter of hours was out of the question. A city-wide defensive formation designed to withstand legends was extraordinarily complex, costly, and precise; repairing it once breached was an ordeal of the highest order.
Even if Anbaixiu dragged out his Golden Throne, he could never finish repairs in such a short window. Therefore, he chose to construct an entirely new magic circle over the existing framework.
He tapped into the original array solely for its power reserves, channeling them to produce the outcome he desired.
After several hours of frantic labor, Anbaixiu activated the new formation. Following a brief shimmer of shifting light and shadow, it seemed as though nothing had happened at all.
Hoffman was bewildered, but once he followed Anbaixiu's instructions and stepped outside Sweetdew City, he finally grasped the array's true function.
The sprawling expanse of Sweetdew City had vanished into thin air.
Where the city had once stood, nothing remained but a sea of yellow sand reflecting a golden gleam under the twilight sun. It looked no different from any surrounding dune; even Hoffman, a dwarf raised in the desert, could not spot the slightest flaw.
"I harnessed the desert's mirage effect to enhance the illusion," Anbaixiu explained. "To outsiders, Sweetdew City is no longer here. It appears over there instead, about three kilometers away."
Anbaixiu led Hoffman to the projection's location, where a lifelike duplicate of the city indeed stood before his eyes.
Unless one stepped inside, the naked eye could detect no difference whatsoever.
"Incredible! I've never seen an illusory projection on such a grand scale!" Hoffman exclaimed in astonishment.
Anbaixiu took quiet pride in his work. Normally, a colossal illusion of this magnitude was beyond his capabilities as well. Yet after mastering the spell *Leira's True Mirage*, his understanding of illusion magic had advanced by leaps and bounds.
By leveraging the desert's natural environment and the vast mana reserves of Sweetdew City, he had pulled off this miraculous spectacle.
Once his admiration subsided, Hoffman frowned thoughtfully and said, "Does Your Excellency intend to turn this illusory city into our battlefield? But the moment the Ryan forces launch their assault, the trick will be exposed."
On the surface, it seemed useless; a single stray arrow loosed at the phantom city would reveal the deception. The Ryan soldiers were not fools, and they would not be duped for long.
"The ones I need to fool aren't the ordinary soldiers, but that old fossil, the Silvermoon Knight," Anbaixiu replied. "In the coming battle, he is bound to unleash another strike of his sword, and none of us can stop it. Therefore, I'm going to use this city to bait that strike out of him."
Every one of Anbaixiu's plans revolved around exhausting the Silvermoon Knight's physical strength. As long as the old warrior was worn out, Sweetdew City was guaranteed to hold.
This false city lay directly in the path of the Ryan army's advance. While its position differed from the original by a few kilometers, desert terrain made judging distances notoriously difficult. Anbaixiu was willing to wager that upon spotting Sweetdew City, the Ryan forces would overlook that minor discrepancy.
It was a pity that his Dice of Fate remained sealed by the Goddess of Fate. Otherwise, Anbaixiu could have turned this gamble into an absolute certainty. As things stood, he could only rely on luck.
Scumbags were always like this: indifferent when times were easy, yet begging for a lavish dowry the moment trouble arose.
Hoffman grasped Anbaixiu's intent and immediately built upon the idea. "If that is the case, it cannot be a completely empty city. We must deploy sufficient troops outside—enough to make the city look difficult to storm. Only then will the Silvermoon Knight feel forced to draw his blade. Otherwise, they will see through the ruse immediately."
Anbaixiu knew nothing of military tactics, so he naturally deferred to an expert like Hoffman.
Before long, Sweetdew City dispatched a detachment of dwarf iron guards to construct fortifications outside the phantom walls.
They spared no effort, carving out a complex, rugged defensive perimeter before the false city that appeared impenetrable even to an untrained eye.
With this defensive buffer in place, their chances of deceiving the Ryan army soared.
By the time preparations were complete, darkness had fallen. Bereft of the sun's brilliance, the desert returned to its mundane guise, stripped of its golden filter and turning stark and austere.
Lights gradually flickered on within Sweetdew City, shining conspicuously in the encroaching gloom.
Even without divination, Anbaixiu was certain that Ryan would launch another offensive tonight. They had bypassed the main front lines specifically to carry out a blitz on Sweetdew City, and they had only a single day to succeed.
If the battle dragged on, their army would be encircled by dwarf legions converging from every direction.
No matter how formidable the Silvermoon Knight was, he could not carry ten thousand men away on his back. A delay would spell catastrophic casualties.
Tonight was their final chance.
If they succeeded, they would secure Sweetdew City and take the Dwarf Kingdom by the throat. If they failed, their only choice was an immediate, desperate retreat to break out of the encirclement.
Anbaixiu lay atop a sand dune outside the city, gazing up at the unnervingly massive moon. His thoughts drifted to Catherine, wondering where she had vanished to for the better part of the day.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he sensed an approaching presence.
Sitting up to look, he saw the very person he had been thinking about.
The young elf was bathed in silver moonlight. Though wrapped in bulky garments, she still radiated an aura of sacred nobility—truly living up to her status as a chosen of the elven gods. Anbaixiu sometimes mused that if Catherine were simply to deliver a speech between the two battle lines, the opposing sides might sit down and negotiate peace on the spot.
Catherine walked up to Anbaixiu and naturally took a seat beside him.
"How did you find me?" Anbaixiu asked.
Catherine pointed toward the sky, where a giant eagle circled in the darkness, flying so high that it was nearly impossible to spot without keen observation.
"Rangers really have it convenient," Anbaixiu remarked wistfully.
Catherine chuckled softly. "Aren't you a ranger too? If I hadn't shared my power with you, how could you have pulled off playing the dragon knight?"
"Fair point. But why come looking for me now? Didn't you decide not to get involved in this war? Once the fighting starts, if the Ryan army catches sight of you, it will turn into a massive diplomatic incident."
Anbaixiu's question fell into a momentary silence.
When Catherine finally answered, her words caught him completely off guard.
Looking at Anbaixiu with absolute earnestness, she said, "I truly shouldn't take part in this war. But I suddenly wondered... could it be that the gods wish for me to help you?"
Chapter 224