Chapter 76

For two seasons, the River of Wails literally did not stop its lament.

The war sank into a swamp of endless attrition. Both empires poured vast national wealth and the lives of their youth into the great furnace called the battlefield as if pouring water into a leaking jar. Fields once golden turned into ash-gray wastelands reeking of rotting corpses, and the rivers, tainted with blood and filth, became deathly streams where nothing could live.

The nature of war itself grotesquely changed. Knights’ bravery and honor no longer decided victory. The protagonists on the battlefield were the instruments of death sold by the Black Banner Company.

“Kraaak!”

A veteran knight who had honed his aura for decades had his heart pierced by a round from an Aura Rifle that flew in from two hundred paces away before his sword could even reach him and fell uselessly. The steel shield formation of hundreds of heavy infantry was shredded by a single mana bomb dropped from the sky, erupting into a fountain of blood, flesh, and bone fragments that scattered through the air.

The war was no longer a fight between humans. It had become a one-sided slaughter: machines engineered by unseen merchants of death, and living hunks of flesh collapsing helplessly before them.

At that moment, in the secret laboratory of the Valerian Empire.

“No… no! In my head… the worms…!”

An archmage researching a shard of the Dragon’s Heart rolled the whites of his eyes, clawed at his own head, and then lunged at his colleagues, tearing into their throats. The lab had become an asura of madness and death. The curse emitted by the crystal shards broke through the sealing circles and gnawed researchers’ minds from within. Rather than controlling the power, they were being devoured by the monsters they had made.

The Kairos Empire was the same. Estate peasants starved under squeezed taxes to fund the war, and nobles fractured as they shifted blame for defeats onto one another. Emperor Alberto spent more days bedridden from stress and rage. The great cart of the empire creaked and raced toward the cliff of collapse.

Both empires were dying together in the trap Rian had set, gnawing at each other’s flesh.

And finally, atop the piles of corpses, a new master revealed itself.

Near the front, a vast refugee camp erected on abandoned territories of both nations. Tens of thousands who had lost everything clung to life day by day in hunger, disease, and despair—a living hell.

There, the shadow of the Ashen Worm cult fell.

At first it began like a small miracle. Mysterious priests appeared, handing out warm soup instead of rotten bread, and using strange powers to heal the sick whom even divine Magic could not cure. Despairing people called them saviors and began to follow them blindly.

But it was no salvation. It was the most cunning and cruel form of ‘farm’ management.

One night, a massive gathering took place in the central square of the camp. Tens of thousands of refugees gathered with torches to greet a priest they called their savior. He was a cult lieutenant, one of the Apostles of the Plague—the Decay’s Malak.

“My beloved flock!”

When Malak spread his arms atop the altar, ecstatic cheers erupted from the crowd.

“Behold! Those foolish empires are bleeding themselves to death! The world is rotten! Corrupt! Now the time of the great purification has come!”

At his gesture, the giant cauldrons that had held the soup given to refugees were brought to the center of the square. Instead of soup, the cauldrons contained a black, viscous liquid.

“Today, you will cast off your worn flesh and find eternal rest in the embrace of our great lord! Drink! This is the holy water that will lead you to the Ashen Paradise!”

Swept by fanatic faith, the refugees walked up to the altar in turn without suspicion and began to drink the black liquid.

And hell began.

“Kk… Kraaaargh!”

Those who drank convulsed and collapsed to the ground. Their skin darkened and bloated, then tore with a horrific sound as though something burst from within. From the rents in their flesh, black spores and nauseating worms spewed out like a fountain. Living bodies had been turned into incubators spreading the plague.

The square instantly became a living hell of screams and flung flesh. Those who hadn’t drunk tried to flee in terror, but it was too late. Dense spores that filled the air burrowed into their lungs and triggered the same horrific transformation.

Malak spread his arms with a rapturous expression as he watched the inferno.

“Oh… Great Ashen Worm! The first garden for Your paradise is finally complete!”

At that moment, in the Aster estate.

Rian watched all the atrocities unfolding in the refugee camp in real time through the Eye of the Abyss. Kael and Gideon standing beside him were pale and ashen, unable to face the scene.

Rian’s face showed no expression. He simply watched in silence the emergence of the ‘real enemy’ that had begun to move far faster and more horrifically than he’d anticipated.

“With the hyenas’ fight over, finally the maggots have begun to boil.”

Rian murmured softly.

“Gideon, is the ‘Purifier’ ready?”

“Yes, my lord… but… that is….”

Gideon couldn’t bring himself to continue. The ‘Purifier’ was the most inhumane weapon Rian had secretly developed to prepare for this worst-case scenario.

“Kael, summon the Shadow Blade.”

Rian rose from his seat and began donning the jet-black light armor custom-made to fit his body, stored in one corner of the lab.

“The play is over. From now on, it’s cleaning time.”