### Chapter Seventy-Four: Bathing in Fire (Part Six)
The sunrise was like a bear’s fire.
The blazing sun surged forth from the back of Yellow Mountain’s spine like boiling steel, slicing the darkness between heaven and earth. Golden-red sunlight spilled over the dusty sandy seas, shimmering like bl**d-stained waves, gradually illuminating the gloomy horizon.
One kilometer west of the town, a torrent of Golden Armored Knights had formed a massive lineup, their footsteps clanging together with the sound of thundering hooves, already arrayed along the sandy slopes. Old Sword Saint Ryan, Fat Granny Aphel, and a young bishop named Aresta rode their armored Floris horned beasts, pulling the reins to halt.
“Whoa—”
The massive horned beast snorted loudly, its hooves coming to a stop as the three gazed forward, their eyes piercing through the bl**d-tinged sands, faintly making out the distant outline of Meiser Town.
Clomp, clomp, clomp…
On either side of the formation, the solemn-looking Captain of Knights waved his arm, ordering a squad of twenty scouting knights to break away from the ranks; they raced off ahead with their beasts, preparing to charge eastward. Just before they descended the high slope, the young Bishop Aresta suddenly shouted, “Stop! Wait just a moment—”
The Captain of Knights immediately raised his hand to signal the squad to halt, a hint of confusion on his face as he looked towards the young bishop. Meanwhile, he heard a somewhat noisy discussion arise from behind him.
“That’s…”
“Is it fire?”
“It’s on fire…”
“It seems the town is burning, what’s going on…?”
On fire…?
The Captain of Knights suddenly realized the issue, his battle-worn face growing even more serious. He hadn’t paid much attention before, merely brushing off the townsfolk and remnants of heretics as inconsequential, but now he instinctively turned his gaze back towards the town.
There, under the blazing sun, the crimson sun seemed to flicker with bl**d-like flames, engulfing half of the town, the flickering tongues of fire almost melding with the sky. Due to the distance, it was hard to discern without looking closely.
“The daylight today bodes ill…”
The elderly Old Sword Saint sighed from a short distance, and the Captain of Knights overheard, glancing back at the town for a moment. He didn’t take the old man’s words to heart at first, but he did sense that something was indeed off. He signaled the scouting team to remain at their position and rode towards Bishop Aresta, who was leading this cleansing operation, saluting respectfully from his beast’s back. “My Lord Bishop, shall we change our strategy?”
“…Look at the color, that’s Infernal Fire! A temperature to fear.”
Before Aresta could reply, Fat Granny Aphel spoke up, holding her enormous war hammer at her shoulder, glancing over. “Mr. Ryan, we definitely took out that powerful female heretic in the Sands Valley, right?”
“……”
Old Sword Saint Ryan fell silent, a deep look in his eyes as he pondered something.
“Ha! She was ripped to shreds! Have you ever heard of a heretic of the bl**d sacrifice stage surviving an attack like that? Does she think she’s some immortal centipede? The believers in the town must surely be someone else; that fire doesn’t look like it was started by just any common bug. Could it be that jester? No, the jester is dead in the Western Continent now… then who could it be? Ha! How interesting…”
As Granny Aphel speculated, she took large swigs of her drink, her demeanor wild and unafraid. She swung her war hammer with a flourish, the wind whipping around her, causing even the beast underneath her to sway and whinny.
“…Lawrence.”
The young bishop waited a moment, noticing that the two esteemed Pope Knights had no intention of voicing their views on the matter. He then fixed his gaze on the Captain of Knights named Lawrence and said, “Continue the exploration. No need to probe from the outskirts; head straight into the town, stay safe… Have your people release the white birds and prepare the Light of MaFa. Signal if anything happens!”
“Understood!”
The Captain of Knights bowed once more. “May the Deity be with us.”
“May the Deity be with us.”
The young bishop returned the courtesy, and after a brief moment, the sound of beast hooves began to fade away. He watched the scouting knights kick up dust as they galloped through the yellow sands and raised his right fist high behind him.
“Graceful Scales, heed my command! Draw your swords and advance—”
“Roar!”
Clang, clang, clang, clang—
The knights drew their blades, and their firm footsteps resonated across the barren land. Soon, the golden tide rolled down the slope, slowly heading towards the town.
…………
In the ash-laden Meiser Town, Infernal Fire crackled and popped.
Crimson tongues of flame licked at the crumbling mud huts. The wooden poles that had held laundry were now toppled, and the bleached and patched clothes fell onto the flames, quickly being reduced to ashes. The intense fire burst through the round windows, staining the mud walls black, which rapidly turned to bright red before collapsing in a cacophony of sound.
On the town’s central dirt path, countless foul corpses had piled up into two small hills.
One hill was composed of numerous bodies that looked like they had died not long ago, still oozing bl**d. Most of them were white-haired and blue-eyed townsfolk, who up until last night were full of life. Now they lay there with empty, gray eyes, devoid of any spirit, like butchered meat in a slaughterhouse, their insides exposed, haphazardly stacked together.
The other hill, however, presented an even more harrowing sight.
Not far away, the second hill was similarly made up of countless corpses, yet these bodies were grotesque beyond belief, as though their necks had been violently snapped, their bl**d drained, leaving skin stretched tightly over bones. Their eyes bulged out, some already popped out, their faces twisted into expressions that no longer resembled humans, crumbling together as they awaited decay… or perhaps, they’d never even get the chance to decay and would simply return to dust.
A short while later, another dried corpse arced through the air, ‘thud’ landing on top of the corpse hill.
They…
were all that remained of the town.
After a night of slaughter, the female villain named Ailna had her cloak soaked dark red with bl**d, with her hair matted with the stench of rotten flesh, her once-beautiful face now morphed into that of a ghastly demon, sending chills down the spine with an unsettling aura from deep within.
She discarded a withered corpse and returned to another “fresh” corpse hill, dragging out a small, bloodied child, pulling her toward the space between the two corpse hills, stopping in front of a floating bl**d egg.
Then, she lifted the tiny child high into the air, clutching her neck, squeezing just enough to hear a sickening crunch as the child’s little head twisted at a ninety-degree angle, the severed neck bones jutting out painfully. The woman swiftly raised her other hand, her eyes glimmering with a red gleam.
In the next moment, thick bl**d gushed from the child’s neck, swirling like dark red silk that frantically surged into the egg, absorbed in an instant, melding into its form.
Ailna looked at the child’s lifeless eyes, her expression calm, devoid of any significant emotional upheaval.
But she recognized who it was.
The granddaughter of the Old Mayor.
The little girl named Betty who loved sneaking into the cellar to read books.
Ailna had an impression of her.
She could recognize nearly all the townsfolk who had fallen victim to her own hands; she could name them all.
…But so what?
Seeking light in one’s darkest hour often comes with an extraordinarily heavy price.
And that price might be darker than everything before her.
Ailna was unmoved.
“Go. Go to that peaceful, serene place that everyone yearns for, transform into a free-spirited spirit… and forever break free from the heavy shackles of this mortal realm.”
She stared at the little girl’s pale face, watching it grow increasingly shriveled and ugly, and after a moment of daze, she murmured softly, as if caught in a dream.
“How I envy you all…”
Thud—
The little girl’s corpse was flung into the other pile of bodies.
The woman slowly turned away amidst the heavy stench, then looked up.
In the sky above, a few lightly golden birds circled.
Swish!
The Light of MaFa broke through the bl**d-red flames, gradually ascending from the west.
Meanwhile, the distant sound of galloping hooves, accompanied by a slight tremor of the earth, had already begun to echo.
