Chapter 126: Deadly Night (6)

Alius and Belton, along with about a dozen other priests and over a hundred soldiers, marched through the castle village. The villagers watched from a distance, their expressions wary, and avoided getting too close.

"What are the priests doing so early in the morning?”

"And why does the atmosphere feel... tense?"

The group’s expressions were grim. It was no wonder, considering the fierce battle fought the previous night. They passed through the village, ascended the hill, and arrived at the gates of Grental Castle. Their objective was to persuade the castle’s knights and soldiers to cooperate and uncover evidence proving Hudel’s ties to the cult. The castle gates, however, were firmly shut.

Belton studied the structure and muttered under his breath, "This is odd. There’s no reason for the gates to remain closed at this hour."

Two gatekeepers cautiously peeked over the ramparts above the gate.

One of the priests shouted at them. "In the name of Saisha, open these gates at once! Grental County stands accused of collusion with cultists. Delay any further, and you too will be accused with heresy!"

The priests expected the gatekeepers to panic and comply immediately. Accusations of heresy were a terrifying prospect in the empire. However, the reaction was far from what they anticipated.

“

Hah

!"

"Filthy pagans!"

The gatekeepers unleashed a barrage of arrows instead.

"What the!”

"They’re attacking us?"

The priests scrambled to erect divine shield spells, their specialty. The arrows bounced harmlessly off the glowing barriers.

One of the priests looked up at the gatekeeper, his voice tinged with disbelief. "Dalrin, how could you shoot at me? I officiated your wedding!"

The gatekeeper hesitated, bowing his head apologetically. "I-I’m sorry...!"

Realizing his lapse, he quickly straightened up and yelled, "I mean, my loyalty lies with my lord alone!"

His tone wavered between formal and casual, betraying his inner conflict. It was clear the situation was awkward for all involved. After all, these were neighbors now forced to face each other as enemies. The gatekeepers disappeared from view, retreating behind the walls.

Belton and the other priests exchanged grim looks. "Could the entire Grental Castle have fallen to the cult?"

"If so, this is a worst-case scenario..."

That grim prediction soon proved true. A group of knights appeared atop the ramparts.

"Well, well, it’s been some time, Priest Belton," said Ancent, the strongest knight of Grental County and a red-tier aura user.

Behind him stood several other knights and a 5th circle mage, Camiros.

“Sir Ancent..." Belton’s expression darkened. "Don’t tell me... you too have fallen to the cult?"

Ancent, a man in his thirties, gazed coldly down at Belton and smiled. "Who are you calling cultists? Lord Tesranach is the one true savior of this world!"

It was undeniable now. Everyone in the castle had succumbed to the cult.

Belton let out a bitter sigh. "I made a grave mistake..."

Belton had assumed the cult’s forces were exhausted after the previous night’s battle, so he had brought only priests and soldiers. Karnak’s group wasn’t with them. With aura users and a mage among the cultists, a direct confrontation would be hopeless.

"Retreat!" Belton commanded.

The temple soldiers hesitated briefly but began descending the hill.

“

Hmph

! Do you think we’ll let you leave so easily?” Camiros, the mage, raised his staff with a sneer. "Come forth, mist! Spread and shroud the world in your veil!”

***

The priests scrambled down the hill and entered the castle village, only to freeze in shock. The streets were utterly deserted.

"What... what is this?”

"Where is everyone?"

The bustling crowds they’d seen earlier had vanished, leaving the village eerily empty, as if it had been haunted by ghosts.

Belton clenched his teeth. “Damned cultists. What are you unto?!”

Strange sound began to echo from all directions.

Fwoosh...

A thick mist started to roll in, growing denser by the moment. It soon became so opaque that even the buildings across the street were reduced to vague, blurry outlines. At this rate, they were bound to get completely lost in the fog.

Alius raised his staff. "Hatoba, grant us your light to illuminate the path!"

A brilliant radiance cut through the mist, casting light in all directions. The faint glow revealed the outlines of the village once more. Beyond that dim boundary, something was approaching.

"Tesranach, deliver us...”

"Save us..."

The missing villagers were reappearing, their eyes glazed and vacant. They muttered strange phrases as they staggered toward the priests. Like others during the previous night, its was clear that they were high on drugs.

“More cultists?”

"But... Aren’t there too many of them?"

The priests stopped mid-conversation, stunned. No matter how widespread the cult’s influence was, it didn’t make sense for the entire population of castle village to be cultists. The more likely explanation was that the innocent townsfolk had been drugged and placed under some form of mental control.

"If that’s true... then could it be...?"

A terrible realization swept over the group, sending chills down their spines. The people they had mercilessly cut down the night before—what if they weren’t cultists at all? What if they had been innocent, devout followers of the goddesses?

"

Aah...

Saisha, forgive us...”

“How can we atone for our sins...?"

Seeing the priests falter, Alius raised his voice. "Pull yourselves together! Escaping this place is our first priority!”

***

"Thanks to the daylight, the power of necromancy was greatly weakened. The villagers under mind control weren’t as strong as the cultists we faced last night. That made them manageable," Alius explained, his tone heavy.

He let out a small sigh of relief. "Also, we got lucky. One of the cult’s mages made a critical mistake."

The mage had blanketed the entire village in thick fog, likely intending to trap the priests. Ordinarily, they would have gotten lost in the dense mist, unable to see even a step ahead. But the priests of Saisha were locals, just like the cultists. They had spent their entire lives in this land, regularly traveling to and from castle village as part of their daily duties.

No mere fog could make them lose their way. In fact, the mist disoriented the controlled villagers instead, causing them to lose track of the priests’ movements.

"And so, we barely managed to escape the village and return to the temple," Alius concluded.

Karnak, who had been silently listening, turned his gaze to the distant silhouette of Grental Castle on the hill.

So, the entire castle has fallen?

As he focused his mind, he began to sense the death energy emanating from the area.

Well, they’ve gone all out.

It had been hard to notice due to the distance, but now he could sense that the entire castle was covered with necromantic domains. If the aura was this overwhelming from here, the scene up close must resemble something straight out of a storybook—the lair of a demon king.

One of the priests, who had fled with them, shivered as he murmured, "We have no idea what they’ll do next..."

Serati shook her head. "It’s obvious what they’ll do next."

Hadn’t they only managed to escape earlier because the sun was up?

"They’ll wait for sunset and attack again once it’s dark."

The soldiers’ expressions hardened. The memory of the previous night’s grueling battle was still fresh in their minds.

The priests began murmuring anxiously. "What do we do?”

"Should we consider temporarily abandoning the temple and retreating to Kallat City?”

"What nonsense is this? Are we, servants of Saisha, to surrender to filthy cultists?”

"But all they’re after is destroying evidence. As long as we keep the prisoners secure...”

"This has already escalated far beyond evidence!"

Belton raised his voice to quell the rising debate. "Leaving the temple is out of the question!"

It wasn’t just pride or religious conviction driving his stance. It was literally impossible. The temple was a large structure with over 100 priests and soldiers.

"What do you think will happen if we try to move such a massive group all at once?"

The temple itself was well-fortified, equipped with holy wards and designed for defensive standoffs. On the open road, however, they’d be sitting ducks for the cult’s ambushes. That would be a massacre waiting to happen.

"We have no choice but to stand and fight here."

Thankfully, while many of the soldiers were injured from the previous night, very few had been killed. And priests, after all, were experts at healing the wounded and sending them back into battle. With Karnak’s group on their side, Belton was confident they could hold out for at least a few days.

He encouraged everyone, his voice steady with determination. "We wait here until the Brigade of Purification arrive. That’s our best course of action.”

That night, the undead returned, just as Serati had predicted. However, her prediction wasn’t entirely accurate. The attackers consisted of little more than a horde of zombies and low-grade monster corpses.

The numbers weren’t overwhelming either—around 100 at most. For soldiers under the protection of divine spells, they weren’t a particularly daunting threat. But the strategy made no sense. By now, they knew the cultists’ forces included a red-tier aura user, a fifth circle mage, nine regular knights, and nearly 100 soldiers stationed at Grental Castle.

On top of that, there were bound to be hidden necromancers and numerous worshippers of the Black God. Why, then, were none of them showing their faces? Why were they sending these minor undead instead?

"I don’t get it.”

"Why waste their strength on something so pointless?"

Confusion rippled through the defenders.

Only Karnak realized the answer, the corners of his lips curling into a dry smile.

I was puzzled by this at first too.

After interrogating Lehein and Sepedes, the behavior of the cultists had finally started to make sense to him. These necromancers were, first and foremost, worshippers of the Black God—a secretive and compartmentalized cult.

This is the inherent flaw of their fragmented structure.

The regional leader, Count Hudel, was absent. The bishop, Lehein, who had been acting in his stead, was captured. Even Sepedes, the most pragmatic among them, had been taken prisoner.

Which left... A handful of mid-tier managers who barely knew each other’s faces, now forced to act as leaders despite being utterly unprepared.

—We must wait for Count Hudel to return!

—No! We need to strike down these pagans and rescue our comrades!

The cultists had split into factions. One group barricaded themselves inside Grental Castle. The other, smaller and weaker, decided to drag a few zombies to the temple and launch an attack. The latter group was woefully underpowered. After all, their main forces—Lehein and Sepedes—had already been wiped out the night before, along with the bulk of their army.

Which was why the cult’s assault that night was nothing more than a weak, half-hearted effort. Night after night, the undead horde descended upon the temple. The attackers remained nothing more than small groups of zombies and low-level monsters. Naturally, the defenders repelled them without much difficulty.

However, the daylight offered no opportunity to march on Grental Castle. The current strength of the Saisha temple was insufficient for such an undertaking. The temple’s forces weren’t strong enough to claim an advantage during the day, nor was the undead army formidable enough to decisively overwhelm them at night.

Certainly, if Karnak’s group had decided to fight with their full power, the situation might have shifted dramatically. But they deliberately stayed at the temple, avoiding direct involvement.

"If we go all out, it’ll cause problems," Karnak mused.

He needed to wait until Count Hudel returned. Only then could they capture him and extract the information they required.

"But what if the situation resolves itself before he gets back?"

If that happened, the enemy would disappear into hiding, making them impossible to track down.

"Until then, we need to keep a low profile too."

***

A week after the cultists of Grental’s territory began their insurrection, a lone carriage rumbled down the main road. Count Hudel was returning home in the carriage, his business in the capital concluded.

As the carriage entered his territory, Hudel opened the window to take in the familiar view. The castle would soon come into sight. It had been a while since he’d been home, and he was looking forward to resting and recovering from the journey.

He turned his gaze toward the castle—and froze.

"What?"

Hudel blinked in disbelief. Black miasma coiled ominously around Grental Castle. Dark clouds loomed overhead, wraiths flitted through the air, and thick fog enveloped the nearby village, casting an oppressive, eerie atmosphere over the entire area.

A groan escaped Hudel as he stared in shock. “What’s going on over here?"