Within an ornate palace, Heki Stone and Hoffman Ironfist sat facing one another. Between them stood two goblets: one filled with fresh blood, and one with wine the color of fresh blood.

Though they differed in nature, taste, and status, the two dwarves were still firm friends.

Hoffman Ironfist raised his cup. "To a future without needless sacrifice."

Heki Stone lifted his own in response. "Of course. Rest assured. My friend will see to everything."

They drank deeply. A faint tint of crimson stained the corners of their mouths.

Once the wine had loosened his friend's tongue, Heki began, "The situation at the front… I've heard it's not going well."

Hoffman Ironfist didn't try to hide the news. He nodded. "That's right. The Lyon Empire's butcher has personally taken the field. We couldn't hold the front. Our planned retreat had to be accelerated. We've abandoned much and lost much in the process."

Heki's grip trembled. His voice shook. "You mean… the Silvermoon Knight?!"

Hoffman Ironfist sighed. "Not just him. The Imperial Guard appeared alongside him on the main front. In a single day, they shattered our army. If not for a sudden sandstorm halting their advance, they'd already be at our gates.

"We'll evacuate the royal palace within two days and retreat through the underground passages into the other half of the desert. We can only hope the sandstorm barrier will hold them back."

The blood in Heki's cup suddenly lost its flavor.

The Silvermoon Knight, combined with the Lyon Empire's Imperial Guard, was like an unstoppable blade. There was likely no nation on the continent capable of standing against such a force.

Heki Stone had seen the Silvermoon Knight's power firsthand.

There had once been a city devoted to an evil god filled with nearly thirty thousand inhabitants, all fanatical cultists. Back then, Heki had only recently become a vampire. Such cult cities were among the few places in which he could survive.

Unfortunately, that was where he encountered the Silvermoon Knight.

He remembered seeing only a pure, radiant moon. Then, half the city was gone.

That terrifying holy light erased half of a city of tens of thousands—and the other half had deliberately been spared. The slash had destroyed the evil god's temple and the vast army of cultists gathered there.

Even after advancing to a legend, Heki still felt a chill at the memory of that moonlit strike.

Upon hearing Hoffman mention the Silvermoon Knight, he couldn't help but ask, "That knight must be over a hundred and fifty by now. Lyon forbids life-extending potions, doesn't it?"

That was a law laid down by Arthur Lyon, the founding emperor. He believed that if humans became obsessed with immortality, the entire nation would descend into chaos. If emperors refused to die and the ministers followed suit, the empire's ambitions would surely turn toward prolonging life.

Life-extension potions diminished in effectiveness over time, and magical longevity carried terrible costs.

If Lyon's nobility devoted themselves to prolonging their lives, the burden would inevitably fall upon the common people. Arthur Lyon had resolved to stop this cycle. He himself lived little more than a century, a short lifespan for so powerful a paladin.

And because the emperor had led by example, the Lyon Empire produced no immortals for generations.

Perhaps it was this devotion that made Lyon an empire of genuine followers of the Lord of Dawn, rather than hypocrites hiding their selfish desires behind the banner of light. Arthur Lyon's sacrifice earned his empire a vast wealth of divine favor, resulting in an abundance of paladins and clerics unmatched by other kingdoms.

No life extension by magical means—that was a law of the Lyon Empire upheld by every emperor since Arthur Lyon himself. The Silvermoon Knight was a paladin as well, and would not have broken it. By all rights, he should already have been at death's door. And yet he still rode into battle and continued to crush the Dwarven Kingdom's legions head-on despite his advanced age. It was absurd.

Hoffman Ironfist shook his head helplessly.

"In any case, we've stopped placing our hopes on the front lines. All we can do now is rely on the sandstorms that separate the two halves of the desert and pray that the migration from Alkhemia goes smoothly."

Heki Stone quickly said, "It will. As far as I know, my friend has already found a solution to the elves' problem."

"That friend of yours is remarkable," Hoffman said with a sigh. "Resolving the elven crisis would earn him a dukedom anywhere. But it seems that he's too busy to deal with local issues for now."

Heki frowned. "What issues?"

"From what I hear, Alkhemia's freedom of religion has gone too far. Worshipping evil-aligned gods is bad enough, but there are allegedly even followers of Hell."

"Followers of Hell?" Heki's brow furrowed. "I'll look into it. That is a serious problem."

The Lords of Hell were not deities, but might as well have been in terms of sheer power. If the Lords of the Nine Hells acted together, they might easily be able to take down even a powerful god.

The problem was that uniting beings who embodied every form of ultimate evil was extraordinarily difficult.

The true danger of infernal worship lay elsewhere: their absolute hostility toward the mortal world.

Consider evil-aligned gods. Evil gods still needed mortals as vessels to promulgate the ideals they stood for: concepts like deceit, murder, and suffering. Their wickedness unfolded on the mortal chessboard. Their disasters were still constrained by the laws of the natural world.

Hell was different. It was another plane entirely.

Its denizens desired nothing but destruction: to see all mortal life extinguished and the world itself absorbed into Hell.

The devils of Hell tempted and corrupted through roundabout means. Demons were incarnations of annihilation, whose sole goal was to destroy everything they saw.

Infernal worship was thus uniquely destructive to the very foundations of the mortal world.

Even the Golden Kingdom, which promoted freedom of religion, strictly prohibited any worship of the infernal plane.

Among the Nine Kingdoms, only Alkhemia tolerated it, likely because its alchemists were true unbelievers who placed knowledge above morality and faith alike. To them, all theists were fools, regardless of whom or what they worshipped.

Alkhemia's infernal worshipers were now a serious problem. No matter how Ambrose sought to avoid the outbreak of war, neither dwarves nor elves could tolerate their existence.

Hoffman Ironfist said gravely, "Infernal worship must be eradicated. Speak to your friend again. This is a line that cannot be crossed. Even if we ignore them for now, I suspect those cultists are already preparing to counterattack."

Heki outwardly agreed, but didn't take the problem to heart.

Infernal worship was rare and highly reviled throughout the continent. Chances were, the local lords would wipe them out even without the dwarves' intervention.

What truly unsettled him was the Silvermoon Knight. After finishing his drink with Hoffman, Heki hurried back to his underground palace, opened the Necromantic Codex, and sent out an urgent warning to the group chat.

[Human-Hater: Breaking news. The Lyon Empire's Silvermoon Knight is still alive! That old monster is at least one hundred and fifty, and he's still taking to the field. He wiped out an entire Desert Dwarf legion with ease!]

[Black Rose: Impossible. He couldn't have lived this long unless he broke the prohibition on magical life extension.]

[Human-Hater: My intel is solid. The desert dwarves' King's Hand told me about him personally. If not for a sudden sandstorm stopping Lyon's advance, the royal palace would already have fallen. They're accelerating their evacuation now. Gareth, you're a wanted criminal in Lyon. Have you ever fought against this Silvermoon Knight?]

[Dullahan's Crown: Never heard of him. He probably hadn't been born by the time I fled the Lyon Empire. Still, if he's that strong, I'd like to challenge him for myself.]

[Black Rose: Gareth, don't be reckless. The Silvermoon Knight is the strongest paladin in Lyon's history, stronger even than Emperor Arthur Lyon himself. If he possessed royal blood and could wield the draconic armaments, my subterranean undead empire would already be gone.]

[Dullahan's Crown: He's that strong? Arthur Lyon personally slew the Draconic Tyrant and drove all dragons from the land. Even I respect him as a true hero. But I haven't even heard of this Silvermoon Knight before.]

[Pale Little Skeleton: I told you not to be reckless. Don't go looking for trouble with the Silvermoon Knight. He won't come hunting you in the Dragon Graveyard anyway. He's one hundred and fifty. Give it a few more years and he'll be a pile of bones. We have an infinite lifespan. There's no need to fight him.]

Once Alabastra spoke, Gareth fell silent. He was still dissatisfied, but he knew she was right. Undead could live eternally. This so-called "strongest paladin" would eventually be replaced by another.

Fighting every generation's champion would be exhausting.

[Human-Hater: By the way, where's Tiga? He doesn't seem to be around today. I sent him a private message but didn't get a reply. What's he busy with?]

[Black Rose: The elven issue, obviously. He seems to have found a solution. At this point, he's probably busy experimenting.]

[Human-Hater: He'd better hurry. The dwarves are moving up their migration plans. Without his coordination, something could go wrong.]