Chapter 46: An Enemy Plot?

"Hold on. Everyone, back up a little," Wang Yu said. As a trainee for the Nightblades, a specialized organization that dealt with the void and evil gods, though he hadn't yet been on many missions, he had learned quite a bit about the dangers involved in the process.

This goblin seemed to be muttering a prayer repeatedly to some kind of god...

It wasn't clear whether this chanting had any mental effect. Wang Yu was confident that it wouldn't affect him, but that might not hold true for the others. It would be safest to have them back off while he took a closer look.

Wang Yu stepped forward and dealt a fatal blow to the last two goblins who were barely still alive, splitting their heads open with his axe.

Then, he dragged the three goblin corpses off the top of the wagon and away from everyone else.

Elliot, who had been screaming just moments ago, now stared at Wang Yu while he dragged away the strange goblin bodies. A trail of green ichor was left in his wake.

"Why does our honored customer suddenly feel a little terrifying...? Ouch!"

He yelped as the hulking orc Emmon abruptly yanked off his iron armor and slapped something sticky and gooey onto his back.

"Ah, it hurts! Emmon, warn me beforehand! Aaaaeeeeugh!"

If Wang Yu had been watching, he would have recognized the salve right away—the Acid-Infusion Regenerative Potion, with incredibly strong potency and an even stronger burst of pain.

"If you were warned in advance, you'd have run around screaming like a lunatic. You're never quick about anything except when it comes to avoiding treatment," Vena replied curtly. Emmon's sneak attack had saved them all a lot of trouble.

"You cursed elf—and orc! I'll dock your pay!" Elliot wailed as he rolled around in pain.

Neither Vena nor Emmon paid any attention to their gnome boss. Despite his complaints, he had always paid them in full. They had never seen him actually dock someone's pay.

Then, both Vena and Emmon turned to Wang Yu, who was squatting by the roadside and examining the bloody goblin corpses. They were both curious about these goblins and the reason behind their strange behavior.

The fact that Wang Yu had noticed these all-but-invisible goblins in the first place spoke to his ability. There was no need to question what he was doing.

Indeed, it might be worth getting to know him better.

Wang Yu crouched down and carefully examined the goblin corpses. The bodies appeared to be fairly typical. They had weak muscles and short, spindly limbs, a build that suggested frailty.

The agility they had shown earlier was in line with a regular goblin's capabilities. They were quick on their feet, but not exceptionally so.

"Their physical attributes seem normal—so the problem must lie in what's affecting their minds, and that chant they were muttering," he murmured.

Once the goblins had stopped chanting that prayer, they had turned visible again, which was telling in itself. Even so, Wang Yu rigorously inspected the other parts of their corpses.

Their heads looked like typical goblin heads, though they had frenzied, crazed expressions on their faces that seemed to border on mania or fanaticism.

Hadn't they been exalting some evil god with intense, almost joyous, fervor?

What most stood out was the metal spike embedded in each goblin's skull. The spikes were etched with intricate engravings.

Wang Yu studied them closely, but he could only recognize a few of the runes used in wizardry.

Beyond that, there even seemed to be a magician's formation, tribal totems, and other symbols he couldn't identify.

"Should I try pulling it out?" Wang Yu wondered. After a moment's thought, he decided to reach out to grab one of the spikes—but stopped short of touching it.He belatedly realized that he should have inspected it further first.

He pressed his palm against the goblin's chest, releasing a formless ripple that radiated from his palm and spread throughout its body.

Since the goblin was already dead, Wang Yu's ripple encountered no resistance. It expanded and transmitted information about the internal state of the goblin's body to Wang Yu.

"Nothing unusual, as expected—hold on." Wang Yu frowned. The goblin's organs and bones seemed normal, but there was something by its heart that had blocked his ripple and prevented further probing. It was a significant anomaly in an otherwise standard body.

Without any hesitation, Wang Yu thrust his hand directly into the goblin's chest, tearing through flesh and grabbing at its heart. His fingers found something hard, which he yanked out.

He flicked the blood off it to reveal a small, round, disk-like object.

After all, it had latched onto the goblin's heart. Too large, and it would have killed the goblin in one fell swoop. It was engraved with an intricate design.

It looked like an emblem, or perhaps even a divine symbol. The insignia of the church of light looked similar.

The church of light's emblem was particularly useful. It contained trace amounts of gold and silver; if devotees ever found themselves in dire financial straits, they could even melt down their emblems...

The church of light's emblem was a beam of light piercing through dark clouds, whereas this was a magical moon surrounded by glittering stars.

It was clearly some sort of nighttime scene. There was an inscription at its base in the common tongue.

"To the queen of night, protector of the dark, we praise your name. Lady of the Night, Eunice...?" Wang Yu muttered.

The moment he did so, he realized that something was wrong. This sounded like a prayer. Normally, reciting prayers was harmless; without belief and the infusion of power, there was no way to communicate with a deity.

Even so, as he uttered the words, the spike in the goblin's skull trembled violently before launching itself straight at his head, glowing with an eerie light all the while.

Wang Yu's hand shot up, grabbed the spike in mid-air, and clamped down hard. No matter how much the spike struggled, it couldn't break free from his grip.

"What's this...?" Wang Yu muttered. He really had been a bit careless. Who would have thought that the spike would animate itself upon hearing the prayer? If he hadn't reacted quickly, he might have ended up just like those goblins with spikes through their skulls.

He held the spike tightly and kicked the two remaining goblin corpses away, just in case their own spikes got any ideas.

He watched as the symbols on the spike flickered with dimming light. It struggled desperately as it tried to aim at his skull, but Wang Yu's grip was firm. Eventually, the light began to fade. The strength of the spike waned. It seemed to be running out of power.

Just as Wang Yu thought that the spike had finally lost its source of energy, it flared one last time. With a snap, the spike shattered in his hand in a pile of fragments.

At the same time, a sphere of light shot out from the spike and toward his skull at blinding speed. It dove right in before Wang Yu could react.

"Tch, I thought so." Wang Yu sighed but smiled as he tossed the fragments aside. This was clearly a mental attack targeted at his mind, but Wang Yu wasn't afraid at all. Once it entered his mindscape, the tables would turn.

He calmed down and turned his consciousness inward, prepared to meditate. He was determined to find out what these goblins were. These creatures felt ominous, and were too strange to ignore.

He suddenly recalled what Sieg had said about the dangerous undercurrents in the capital.

They weren't far from the capital at all. If this had been no coincidence, he had to investigate the situation further.

He settled into his mindscape, finding himself standing atop a vast, mirror-like lake. He immediately sensed an unfamiliar presence, an intrusion.

"Hmm?" Wang Yu looked across the clear lake to see, in the distance, a colossal wooden throne. A massive figure sat on it.

Draped in a black dress as dark as the night, the figure's silhouette fell over the chair as she exuded an aura of calmness, of serene night.

"Is that... the Lady of the Night, Eunice?" Wang Yu frowned, puzzled. How had she ended up here in his mindscape? Was it because of the spike? But how?

"My follower, heed the will of the night. Do not be lost; understand its meaning..." A gentle, calm voice came from the shadowed giant.

As she spoke, a song began to play. It seemed to be in countless ancient languages that Wang Yu didn't understand. He liked the melody, but it was incomprehensible to him.

He only knew the common tongue—and had next to no expertise in any of the ancient ones. Whatever the will of the night was, he had no idea.

"Enough singing. Speak plainly!" he snapped, annoyed.

"Does my voice not disturb you?" the Lady of the Night asked, surprised.

"It doesn't," Wang Yu replied bluntly. He had long since discovered that nothing could affect his mindscape—or his mind itself, for that matter.

Although he couldn't use beneficial spells on his mind like Seeds of Wisdom and Brainstorm, his mindscape was essentially a bastion against the void. He was quite confident in his defenses.

"Well, I'm very pleased that my lone remaining follower is at least a human, rather than one of those vile goblins," the Lady of the Night replied, with a hint of relief.

Wang Yu was taken aback. Had she only had three followers, the goblins he just killed? And now, it appeared that he was the only one—hold on, when had he even pledged himself to this supposed Lady of the Night?

"You're mistaken. I'm not your follower," Wang Yu replied.

"Indeed? Then why am I able to manifest in your mind? You're the only one who knows of my existence now," she said slowly, her voice trailing off, confused and uncertain.

"I don't know," Wang Yu replied bluntly. He knew nothing about this. He should have been more surprised about the Lady of the Night, not the other way around! Just what were going on with these goblins? How had they come into contact with gods?

One of Wang Yu's great strengths was that he didn't get hung up on things he couldn't figure out. If he didn't understand something, he would simply ask someone else.

He had no idea who this Lady of the Night was, nor what the goblins were up to. He decided to set it aside for now; he would seek the advice of experts later—the Nightblades, whom he was heading right toward.

"You can stay here for now," Wang Yu said, deciding to ignore the Lady of the Night for the moment. After all, his mindscape was indestructible. She could do whatever she wanted.

He planned to go back and examine the goblins for more clues. As for this strange entity in his mindscape, he'd put her on hold.

"If you're willing, please place your faith in—" The Lady of the Night was rudely interrupted as Wang Yu left his mindscape.

"Faith in you? You might not seem like an evil god, but if I had to choose anyone, it'd be the god of light." Wang Yu shrugged and proceeded to retrieve the holy symbols from the remaining two goblin corpses, then pulled out the metal spikes from their heads as well.

He decided to bring these items to the capital for specialist analysis. Of course, he also knew a certain expert skilled with runes.

"There are many different types of runes on these spikes: wizards' symbols, spell formations, and even some ancient elven script. I'm not entirely sure what these totems are for, but I'll definitely study this further."

Avia beheld the metal spike that Wang Yu had given her, examining the intricate and complex engravings through a device that seemed to function like a microscope.

A look of excitement lit up her face. This was the first time Avia was seeing a crafted item with such complexity. The combination of different runic systems, all interwoven to serve the spike's purpose—the conceptual design alone was worth studying.

"Well, based on the runes I understand, perhaps about 90% of them, the purpose of this spike seems to be to drive those controlled by it into a frenzied state of worship for a certain entity.

"And from what you've told me, Wang Yu, this must be none other than the Lady of the Night, Eunice..."

"But what's the point of having goblins worship her? And isn't the main god of the night, well, the God of Eternal Night? What's with this Lady of the Night?" Wang Yu scratched his head in confusion.

"Your knowledge of runes is really terrifying, too..." Wang Yu said. He glanced admiringly at Avia, who had managed to decipher almost everything on the metal spike.

"Haha, it's nothing. I'm just really interested in runes, you see." Avia scratched her head in embarrassment, but was clearly pleased by Wang Yu's compliment.

A knock on the carriage door interrupted them. Both Avia and Wang Yu looked over as Emmon peeked in with a piece of battered armor.

"Mr. Wang Yu, please have a look at this." Emmon gestured to the armor in his hand.

Wang Yu glanced at it. His attention was immediately drawn to an emblem on the armor, above the left side of the chestplate. There was a symbol showing two crossed swords, beneath which was a griffin bearing swords on its back. This was the crest of Selwyn, Aleisterre's biggest rival in the ongoing war.

Somewhere along the border between Aleisterre and Selwyn was an inhospitable forest teeming with magical beasts and vegetation so dense it was nearly impossible to cross.

In a hidden ravine within this forest, several orcs, bound and gagged, were being transported from Selwyn into Aleisterre.

A group of tall soldiers, fully encased in black armor, were carrying these odd-looking orcs through the ancient woods.

Strangely enough, the magical beasts that normally roamed freely throughout the forest kept a wary distance from the black-armored soldiers, behaving as if they'd encountered a deadly threat. The usually brutal and unintelligent beasts avoided the soldiers with extreme caution.

The orcs, much like the goblins Wang Yu had encountered, had metal spikes driven through their skulls.

Their faces bore expressions of crazed devotion, though unlike the goblins, there was also a lingering look of bloodlust and savagery.

As they reached the edge of the forest, the soldiers set the bound orcs on the ground.

One of them asked, "This is all we have to do, right? Who's the god they worship, anyway?"

"This'll do. Once they break free from the ropes, they'll head straight into Aleisterre's territory. As for the god they worship, well, we're all supposed to forget about them, aren't we? I assume it's some sort of war god," another black-armored soldier replied.

"Good enough. There's significant pressure on the battlefield right now, and we need a breather. Once these ticking time bombs go off, we'll be able to punch straight through their battered defenses."

"Exactly. Hmm? Word just came from the Royal Magic Association—someone pulled out one of those divine anchors. Hah! Those naive fools. I knew those ignorant bumpkins would try to meddle with things they don't understand!"

A black-armored soldier burst out laughing. He gave a rough kick to the metal spike on one orc's head, causing it to scream and thrash.

"As we thought, those who remove these anchors will eventually become brainwashed followers of those gods themselves. By the time they figure it out, it'll be too late. Our plan will be complete by then. Now, let's go."

The black-armored soldier in the lead glanced at the orcs one last time, confirming that they were ready, before signaling the others to leave.

Once the black-armored soldiers had left, a red glow began to emanate from the metal spikes embedded in the orcs' heads. They began to mutter incoherently, their muscles swelling as veins turned their eyes crimson.

Now consumed by rage, the orcs effortlessly broke their bindings, scanned the area with bloodthirsty gazes,and charged into Aleisterre's territory with frenzied determination.