Chapter 93 A Stab in the Back

Shortly after the Festival of Heaven drew to a close, the weather turned sweltering.

Compared to his hometown of Glaslova, the summer here was far less humid and stifling, yet the air seemed heavy with the unmistakable scent of looming gunpowder.

Along the contested frontiers where the Coalition and the Alliance bordered each other, a string of violent skirmishes had already erupted. Total war hung upon a hair-trigger, threatening to engulf the continent at any moment.

Even the City of Heaven had lost its accustomed tranquility. For days on end, the Coalition high command had been locked in marathon councils, while military transports rumbled incessantly through the broad thoroughfares.

While everyone else scrambled in frantic haste, Richie was no exception.

He had just returned from the Materiel Procurement Office, a bureau freshly cobbled together by the Resistance high command, who had thrust him into the director's chair.

Richie was acutely aware of why they had placed him there.

Among the Monstoke exiles, his personal prestige carried the greatest weight. Whatever their reservations, the Coalition leaders had to defer to his unique standing, meaning he alone stood a realistic chance of squeezing valuable resources from the allied coffers.

He harbored no objection to serving his homeland, but the requisition list delivered by high command was simply staggering in scope.

At heart, Richie remained an ordinary townsman; ingrained habits of thrift were not so easily discarded. To his mind, any expenditure reaching into the tens of thousands was already a fortune, and anything in the millions was downright astronomical.

Yet the requisition ledgers laid before him, one after another, demanded funds calculated in the hundreds of millions. The first time he laid eyes on those figures, his heart had leaped into his throat.

Still, upon deeper reflection, he dared not complain that the figures were exorbitant.

Six sprawling refugee enclaves now housed more than two million displaced citizens, flanked by approximately three hundred and fifty thousand evacuated regular troops and nearly seventy thousand knights.

Although substantial supplies had been salvaged during the great retreat to the rear, they could not long endure such relentless, day-to-day depletion.

Even though the Resistance had cleared tracts of wasteland that spring, erected workshops, and restarted mining operations, sustaining so immense a civilian population alongside a standing army was an extraordinarily daunting endeavor.

Over the past few days, he had worn himself out running from one bureau to another, yet the results had been dismal. Everyone treated him with lavish courtesy, yet none would budge an inch. Their excuse was painfully straightforward: with war looming on their doorstep, the Parkington Holy Kingdom was scrambling to finalize its own defenses and possessed zero surplus to bankroll others.

His sole achievement was wringing a promise from the Coalition to allocate a fraction of the grain quota detailed on the requisition sheet. After all, while military hardware and funding could be haggled over, bread was a matter of basic human survival, leaving no room for evasive platitudes.

Having worn himself ragged for days only to secure such meager scraps, Richie felt thoroughly disheartened. Thus, well before official duty hours ended today, he had quietly slipped back to his quarters.

The moment he stepped into the garrison compound, an uncharacteristic commotion reached his ears, punctuated by deep male voices. Straining his ears, Richie instantly recognized the speaker—it was General Haigert.

Having forged deep bonds with Haigert through trials of blood and fire, he was naturally overjoyed.

"What brings you all the way here?" Richie called out before he even crossed the threshold of the main hall.

"Who else would I come for if not you? You’re the grand God of Wealth now," Haigert replied without the slightest pretense, laying bare his intent at once.

Reunited after a long parting, the two embraced with hearty warmth.

General Haigert had not traveled alone; he had brought several of his corps commanders along, among whom was Mosalai.

Catching sight of Mosalai, Richie felt a sudden pang of guilt. Having bedded the man's wife, his posture naturally wilted somewhat. Fortunately, after days of humbling diplomatic rounds, his hide had grown considerably thicker, and he managed to maintain an unflinching facade before the gathered company.

"The high brass certainly knows how to turn the screws," Richie remarked with a wry grimace. "The requisition list barely landed in my hands, and already they’ve dispatched you to breathe down my neck."

Just as the Parkingtons showed deference solely to his reputation, within the ranks of Monstoke, the only souls whose requests carried genuine weight with Richie—aside from Unit 105 and a handful of confidantes like Velia—were Haigert himself.

"While that may be what the high command desires, I have no intention of dancing to their tune," Haigert answered with his habitual breeziness. Though he had climbed steadily up the ranks to become the undisputed vanguard of the younger generation, he carried himself with the same roguish informality as ever.

"Don't tell me you traveled all this way just for a holiday?" Richie scoffed. While Haigert was a stalwart ally, the man was hardly the type to stir without an eye for profit.

"Where is the requisition ledger Theater Command sent you?" Haigert asked, gesturing with two fingers.

Richie carried the document on his person at all times; since it was hardly a classified secret, he handed it over without hesitation.

Haigert skimmed through it, his thumb flicking against the parchment with a crisp snap. "I take it you’ve been running yourself ragged for nothing these past few days?"

"Hit the nail right on the head," Richie muttered dejectedly. By his third day, he had realized he simply wasn't cut out for bureaucratic diplomacy.

"Naturally. The Parkingtons are hardly fools. The moment they laid eyes on this ledger, they understood the whole game."

Haigert wore an ambiguous smirk, his tone laced with pointed nuance.

Richie's expression shifted. He had not imagined any hidden intrigue behind the matter, but hearing Haigert's insinuation, a prickle of unease washed over him.

"The materiel requisitioned here isn't excessive—just enough to sustain our forces for a full year," Haigert explained, resolving Richie’s confusion. "However, this is completely the wrong way to extract aid. This grand manifest should have been carved up into a dozen separate requests, submitted piecemeal over time. Out of deference to your name, the Parkingtons would have readily granted the greater portion of each requisition."

So that was the trick. Another realization immediately struck Richie: while his own ignorance of administrative statecraft was excusable, could the seasoned figures in high command truly have been equally blind?

Even if the handful of generals at the pinnacle had overlooked it, surely the experienced staff officers would have spotted the flaw. He refused to believe Haigert was the sole intelligent mind in the entire Republic.

In other words, thrusting this monolithic ledger into his hands had been a calculated trap.

"What kind of scheme are they playing at now?" Richie's brow furrowed in irritation. Nothing disgusted him more than internal factional cannibalism. To his mind, had even a fraction of the cunning spent on domestic intrigue been directed against the Varedin invaders, the Republic might never have suffered such a catastrophic collapse.

"Wherever men gather, strife is inevitable. These sordid squabbles are impossible to avoid." Having clawed his way to his current prominence, Haigert had long since seen through the theater of power. Leaning back, he casually crossed one leg over the other. "Remember Gerold, that noble scion you once dueled? His grandfather, Elwin, took over the late Commander Bosrova’s former faction. Now that Old Bloom has assumed Bosrova’s supreme seat, Old Man Elwin resents him to his very marrow. Unfortunately for him, the matter was sealed in stone: Bosrova settled the succession before his demise. His prestige was monumental; no one dared challenge him, and because he died with such tragic heroism, his final decrees were honored without question. Old Elwin can only resort to underhanded maneuvers like this to vent his spite."

"The old fossil is targeting me?" Richie snapped, jumping up as though pricked by a needle.

"Not necessarily," Haigert replied, casting a wry glance at Richie. Inwardly, he thought: With your present standing, what would possess that old schemer to touch you directly?

Tossing the parchment back into Richie’s grasp, Haigert continued, "It’s a dirty maneuver. Before drafting this ledger, Elwin summoned all the field commanders and urged them to submit their wish lists. He played the benevolent patron, leaving you to break your neck begging for the goods. If by some miracle you secured everything on the list, he’d rejoice, as his faction would reap the rewards. If you failed, he lost nothing and could easily fan the flames of discontent among the commanders. I’m sure you can guess the venom he’d spout."

Richie could guess with sickening ease. Malone and his own father, Yarno, had already been smeared with similar slanders: accusations that those lounging in the safe rear indulged in decadent luxury while frontline warriors bled in misery.

Human nature possessed an inherent frailty: men could not stomach seeing their peers prosper while they suffered. Through such vicious propaganda, Yarno’s former faction had been thoroughly blackened. While Richie and Malone had braced for a ferocious retaliation from Yarno’s old stalwarts, the ruined reputation caused the faction to fracture and disintegrate from within. Aside from scattered petty provocations—such as the shooting at the restaurant—the anticipated counteroffensive had never materialized.

Just as Haigert observed, the tactic was vile and venomous, leaving its target trapped in an impossible quandary—unable to swallow the bait, yet unable to strike back directly.

"You must have a way around this," Richie sighed, abandoning all pretense of deep contemplation. Haigert hadn't journeyed thousands of miles just to pay a social call.

"There is a way..." Haigert’s voice dipped into a grim, self-deprecating chuckle. "Though I never imagined I’d be forced down this path. Truth be told, I agonized for a long time before coming to see you... The Junior Army is about to fracture."

"How could that happen?" Richie exclaimed, genuinely shocked. Nor was he alone in his astonishment; within the hall, Calli, Velia, and the leading officers of the Independent Brigade shared the exact same disbelief.

Though the Independent Brigade did not formally fall under the banner of the Junior Army, their destinies were deeply intertwined—sharing triumphs and disasters in lockstep.

"Old Bloom and Old Campbell have had bitter disagreements over numerous matters lately," Haigert explained, a flicker of genuine anguish crossing his features. "The current impasse mirrors the old rift between Bloom and Bosrova—two men who had also once been the closest of friends." Haigert was deeply troubled; when he first enlisted in the Junior Army, it was out of sheer reverence for Marshal Bloom.

Between the two supreme founders, Marshal Bloom commanded far greater affection and loyalty among the ranks. Emotionally, Haigert had zero desire to part ways with the venerated marshal, let alone stand in opposition to him.

His chest felt suffocatingly heavy. Haigert harbored a torrent of grievances he burned to voice—words he could never utter before his own subordinates, yet could safely confide in Richie.

"Old Bloom is an incorrigible saint—the trouble is, he carries his virtue to a fault. He regards the Junior Army as his own flesh and blood. And being such a selfless patriarch, whenever food runs scarce, he invariably deprives himself and his own children to feed outsiders." Haigert struggled to find words to characterize such conduct; one could only say the old marshal's noble ideals bordered on sheer lunacy.

"Do you still acknowledge yourselves as his children?" Richie teased gently.

To his surprise, Haigert answered without a beat of hesitation: "Without question."

Yet his tone hardened immediately: "The Junior Army is indeed Marshal Bloom’s child, but we have grown up. We have come of age, built our own households, and now have families of our own to protect."

Mulling over the words, Richie realized Haigert was entirely right.

The Junior Army had indeed matured; it was no longer the embattled, radical fringe faction of years past. Haigert’s contemporaries had all risen to become company commanders or field officers at the very least, bearing solemn responsibility for the lives of the soldiers under their command.

Turning the thought over in his mind, another realization dawned on Richie.

Over the past few days, he had worn himself out running errands, yet he had never stopped to consider: for whom was he truly exhausting himself?

He had naively assumed he was serving his country, yet the concept of 'the nation' was far too abstract. Years ago, in the name of the 'national interest,' Bosrova had sought to strip his family of their industrial workshop and gift it to aristocratic parasites in exchange for political support.

Having suffered such a bitter injustice that ignited an uproar across the realm, why had he failed to learn his lesson?

"So you intend to divide the household?" Though inexperienced in political games, following Haigert’s metaphor made the conclusion crystal clear.

"It’s vastly preferable to endless, toxic squabbling," Haigert replied with weary resignation. If the other faction were genuinely committed to the revival of Monstoke, enduring a degree of hardship might be justified. But when they knew with absolute certainty that those people were self-serving scoundrels, continuing to yield was utterly indefensible.

Haigert’s conviction was well-founded.

The staggering casualties and the humiliating surrender of Monstoke had bred pervasive defeatism and war-weariness among many. Because the Junior Army was radical and its ranks composed of younger blood, this demoralization was far less pronounced. Moreover, having acquitted themselves with distinction during the second campaign, widespread postwar promotions had kept the Junior Army's morale fiercely intact.

As a result of this divergence, the demoralized, spiritless elements had all gravitated toward Elwin’s camp.

Crucially, during the sweeping military overhaul carried out not long ago—which upended structural traditions upheld for seven centuries—knights had been granted the freedom to apply for transfers to their preferred combat units.

Through that grand sorting, Elwin’s faction had degenerated into a dumping ground for deadweight and cowards; anyone possessing drive and courage refused to remain there. Under such circumstances, for Marshal Bloom to show partiality toward that worthless rabble was intolerable—bluntly put, it was criminal negligence.

"The reason I came to see you today is to request that you secure a shipment of supplies directly for us. In a way, it solves your dilemma as well." Haigert’s brass was legendary.

Yet his logic was unassailable: his personal presence in the City of Heaven offered Richie an elegant escape from his impasse.

Had Haigert returned empty-handed, should anyone attempt to slander Richie, Haigert could step forward to testify to Richie’s tireless efforts, deflecting the blame squarely onto the allied nations. Yet that was an unlikely outcome anyway: Elwin and his sycophants were spineless cowards who bullied the weak and feared the strong; whenever matters touched upon the Coalition powers, they wouldn't dare utter a single peep of protest.

Naturally, Haigert preferred to secure the requested supplies. In that case, Richie’s predicament would vanish just as effectively.

At most, Elwin’s lackeys could snarl that Richie was practicing favoritism. Yet that 'favoritism' was hardly private graft: the materiel would not line Richie's pockets, but go directly to Haigert; and Haigert was not requisitioning goods for personal luxury, but to slaughter Varedin invaders.

In the eyes of the public, this hardly constituted an offense—at worst, a matter of preferential allocation. Given the Junior Army’s fierce renown and heroic performance during the second campaign, the vast majority of citizens would deem such preference entirely justified.

Richie understood Haigert’s logic, yet he could not help but retort: "You still need more supplies? Your corps is already armed to the teeth!"

Back when the Coalition first extended aid to the Republic, Haigert had used Richie’s connections to reap the lion's share of the spoils; his corps had been among the very first to field the formidable Dragon magitech armor.

Furthermore, during the retreat to Stein, the Coalition had financed the construction of several factories originally earmarked for the Independent Brigade; once the brigade was reassigned to garrison the City of Heaven, all those facilities had fallen into Haigert’s hands.

"You clearly haven't read the latest military gazette," Haigert chuckled, radiating triumphant swagger. "Following the reorganization, I received another promotion, and Mosalai and the others rose alongside me. The hardware you secured for me before is only enough to outfit a single corps." It had taken him over a decade to claw his way to brigade commander, yet in a mere two years of blood-soaked war, he had vaulted to theater commander. Truly, nothing accelerated advancement like raw battlefield merit.

Richie had assumed the veterans of Unit 105 were climbing at breakneck speed, yet Haigert had outpaced them all. Of course, his own meteoric rise was hardly sluggish, leaving him with no cause for envy.

"How many corps do you need to equip?" Richie cut to the chase; between the two of them, beating around the bush was pointless.

"Mosalai, Claude, Jason, Glom, Famila, and Bernie. We already drafted the budget before setting out; I'll hand you the requisition breakdown in a moment." Haigert displayed not an ounce of bashfulness; he and Richie were thoroughly tied to the same mast.

"So Silvia and Warren departed in the end?" Richie murmured with a soft sigh.

During that fateful retreat, Haigert had initially intended to extract scattered auxiliary regiments before marshaling his strength to relieve Theater Commander Warren. Unbeknownst to them, the Varedin forces had struck first, crushing the Second Theater’s main army in a devastating assault where General Warren fell in battle.

Though the remnants of the Second Theater temporarily submitted to Haigert as the senior officer on the field, Richie had sensed even then that a profound chasm had cracked open between them.

Silvia was an ardent disciple of the late commander and had clashed openly with Haigert during the crisis; another brigade commander bore the name Warren as well, whose blood ties to the fallen general were glaringly obvious.

In most realms, knights refrained from keeping their offspring by their side in the field, as it bred favoritism and compromised discipline; yet within the Second Theater, an exception had formed—Mosalai kept his daughter Didi in his ranks, which was clearly part of an established local custom.

Though this outcome had been predictable, Richie still felt a profound sense of helplessness.

Silvia and young Warren were stalwart members of the Junior Army, prized young commanders groomed as the future pillars of the realm alongside Haigert. Now that the two founding marshals of the Junior Army were locked in discord and the younger vanguard was fracturing into rival camps, the organization’s total schism seemed imminent.

Weighing the dispute, Richie found it impossible to assign blame.

Undeniably, Haigert had harbored calculated self-interest during the disaster, yet with the limited forces at his disposal, rescuing the encircled main army had been an impossible fantasy; his tactical retreat had been the correct military call. As for Silvia and young Warren, their refusal to march beneath his banner was equally understandable.

Such was reality—brutal, cold, and utterly intractable.

"My requisition list was drawn up before we departed, before we learned of recent developments," Haigert resumed, leaning closer. "On the road here, I caught wind of what transpired at the Festival of Heaven. Word has it you stole the entire show, battering hundreds of contestants into the dust single-handedly, radiating an aura rivaling a Glorious Knight..." Before he could finish, Richie cut him off. As old comrades, Richie knew the rogue was buttering him up for a reason, and he could easily guess what Haigert was angling for.

"You can put that thought right out of your head," Richie warned. "The Coalition has elevated the security classification of the Wisdom King and the Flying Yaksha to the supreme tier."

Hearing this, Haigert pursed his lips. While anticipated, the refusal still left him visibly crestfallen.

With an old comrade arriving from afar, Richie was bound to play the gracious host.

Haigert harbored a visceral aversion to the highbrow aesthetic pretensions of the Parkington Holy Kingdom; he would far rather spend an evening drowning beers in a dingy, smoke-filled dive than stand draped in finery in a glittering salon, exchanging hollow pleasantries over violin solos.

In truth, Richie shared the exact same preference. Yet influenced by his family, he had harbored an eager fascination with high society since childhood; now that he possessed entry into those gilded circles, he endured the stifling etiquette as best he could, despite feeling perpetually ill at ease. Only in Haigert’s company could he let down his guard and return to his unvarnished self.

Finding an establishment meeting Haigert's tastes within the City of Heaven was an utter impossibility. When Richie first arrived, he had been astonished to discover that this imperial metropolis possessed no winding back alleys—yet the raucous taverns Haigert favored flourished almost exclusively in shadowy, subterranean warrens.

Lacking such dives within the city walls, their only option was to venture beyond.

Though technically the local resident, Richie was far less versed in the region's seedy geography than Haigert.

With Jenny at the steering wheel of the carriage, Haigert navigated their course toward an outer satellite municipality.

Glancing at the roadside markers, Richie learned the place was dubbed Auriga City—named, without question, after the constellation Auriga.

The carriage rolled straight into the satellite city's bustling core. Similar to the central plazas Richie had briefly glimpsed during his arrival, this was a colossal, multi-tiered commercial bazaar where shops and stalls were packed cheek by jowl.

Compared to the pristine Cygnus City where his mother and the others resided, this quarter appeared somewhat dilapidated, yet it was delightfully free of aristocratic pretension.

Alighting from the carriage, they dismissed Jenny, bidding her return to fetch them the following morning. Richie and Haigert then set off toward the thickest clamor of the bazaar.

One hardly wore dress uniform to prowl lowbrow drinking dens. For the first time since earning his spurs, Richie donned ordinary civilian clothes from his earlier days.

Even in common garb, the two cut striking silhouettes; a single glance told the locals they were outsiders.

Richie stole a glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, two shadows were trailing them at a distance.

Following the recent assassination attempt, the Parkington Military Intelligence Bureau had abandoned their strict five-hundred-meter perimeter rule. While their agents maintained a discreet distance outdoors, whenever Richie entered a crowded public venue, an operative invariably trailed inside to keep visual contact.

Haigert appeared remarkably at home here, sauntering forward with his hands casually buried in his pockets while Richie followed in his wake.

The sprawling market complex spanned roughly two city blocks, crammed with an eclectic chaos of merchandise. To the Richie of today, the wares hawked by these stalls held zero appeal.

Night had already fallen, setting the rows of storefronts ablaze with glowing lanterns and gas lamps.

Though semi-open to the elements, the dense clustering of buildings and the labyrinth of elevated walkways linking every tier transformed the complex into a unified hive—resembling a monstrous covered cavern spanning two city blocks, with shops functioning as subdivided stalls.

The deeper they ventured, the dimmer the illumination became. To Richie's surprise, a cluster of heavily painted women appeared under the flickering lanterns. He had naively assumed that the holy empire harbored no such trade as prostitution.

Perhaps because his gaze had lingered a second too long, several courtesans promptly swarmed around them.

"Looking for some fun, handsome? Let big sister show you a trick or two—guaranteed to make you a legend among the girls later!"

"Come with me instead! Twenty percent off for your first round—what do you say?"

"Don't I look gorgeous? What are you waiting for? Come over here, darling!"

The women purred and cooed, swaying their hips and flaunting their figures in brazen, practiced seduction.

"Fancy a taste of that?" Haigert paused, eyeing Richie with a mischievous smirk.

If Richie lacked anything in this world, it certainly wasn't women—and every maiden in his entourage was a peerless gem. Knowing Haigert was merely poking fun, he nudged him forward with an impatient roll of his eyes.

"Look at that—still a virgin boy! Look how thin-skinned he is!" the courtesans cackled after them.

"What miserable eyesight," Haigert muttered under his breath. The rogue before him had bedded more women than most men could dream of; his sword had weathered countless tempests—how in the world could anyone mistake him for a virgin greenhorn?

Of course, such banter could never be voiced aloud. The Monstoke leadership held a strict consensus on one point: Richie's heroic public image must be fiercely guarded. Even Elwin’s slanderous faction dared not breathe a whisper of scandal regarding Richie’s private affairs.

The heart of the commercial complex was dominated by drinking houses. Haigert led Richie into a squat tavern tucked between two galleries.

Featuring a weathered, heavy wooden counter and a line of tall stools resembling chopped timber stumps, the tavern’s rustic decor felt strikingly reminiscent of the neighborhood taprooms near Richie's old home.

"Two bottles of sparkling cider," Haigert called out, slapping a banknote onto the wooden counter.

Such was the local etiquette in Parkington: patronizing an unfamiliar establishment required upfront payment for the initial pour, while subsequent rounds could be tallied upon departure.

"No need for two whole bottles—just pour me half of yours," Richie declined with a shake of his head.

"Nonsense! A real man must know his drink," Haigert barked, giving him a hearty slap across the back.

Richie pressed the matter no further, taking a seat on the stool beside him.

"I’ve submitted an official request for transfer to the eastern front—to reinforce the Free City of Capech," Haigert murmured, resting his forearms against the bar. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper: "I haven't breathed a word of this to a single living soul."

"Have you lost your mind?" Richie nearly gasped aloud. "I'm telling you, that place will turn into a death vortex!"

"I know," Haigert replied with uncanny serenity.

"Tell me—what could possibly possess you to make such a move?" Richie pressed urgently.

Haigert offered a wry, bitter smile. "I joined the Junior Army out of reverence for Marshal Bloom; locking horns with him now tears me up inside." He tapped his chest, a flicker of pain shadowing his eyes. "And the tragedy of Theater Commander Warren haunts me day and night. I won’t deny I prioritized my own forces back then, but I never foresaw the catastrophe would be so absolute."

Richie fell into somber silence, unable to offer any soothing platitudes.

"My promotion was pushed through by Campbell," Haigert continued, his eyes suddenly flashing with razor-sharp intensity. "To be frank, that wasn't what I sought. In hindsight, I realized Campbell’s true scheme: by thrusting me to the pinnacle, he was stringing me up over an open fire."

"Why would he do that?" Richie asked, bewildered. He had always assumed Haigert marched in Campbell’s camp, yet the fury radiating from Haigert just now was unmistakable.

"Who can tell?" Haigert shrugged helplessly. The barkeep slid two chilled bottles across the counter; Haigert popped the cork on one and nudged the other into Richie’s hands.

"Is this merely your gut instinct, or do you have hard evidence?" Richie probed, seeking to calm him. He could see how Campbell might exploit Haigert’s rising star—and while being manipulated was infuriating, an extreme gamble like fleeing to the deadliest front seemed unwarranted.

"Silvia told me herself," Haigert revealed quietly. "Campbell has been secretly courting her and young Warren behind my back—and he’s been extending feelers to recruit key figures in Elwin’s faction as well."

"Silvia?" Richie’s eyes widened. "She’s been at your throat from day one!"

Haigert’s lips curved into an enigmatic smile. "I have a few secrets to share with you, and this is the first." Leaning in until his lips brushed Richie’s ear, he channeled a thin thread of aura to focus his voice straight into Richie’s auditory canal: "Silvia is completely trustworthy. She has been my lover for years—we merely put on a show of mutual hatred before outsiders."

Richie’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. If an espionage operative pulled such an act, he could understand it, but what conceivable reason did two prominent knights have for such theatrics?

Reading Richie’s disbelief, Haigert explained, "Initially, it was to avoid endless nuisance—I had no desire to fight pointless honor duels every week. A knightly couple remaining secret lovers for years without public acknowledgment is hardly rare in our circles. Later, through sheer coincidence, Silvia caught wind of a plot aimed at my neck. Forewarned, I not only dodged the trap but turned it to my advantage, reaping handsome gains. From that day on, we decided to keep up the charade."

Listening to Haigert’s confession while recalling his encounters with Silvia, Richie had to marvel at their theatrical genius. Not a single slip had betrayed their clandestine intimacy.

With this revelation brought to light, Haigert’s true design became immediately transparent.

Fractures were tearing through the Resistance command, placing Haigert squarely atop the churning crest of the storm. Worse still, in the eyes of onlookers, he possessed a powerful patron, when in reality that patron was an insidious hand preparing to shove him into an abyss. Volunteering for the Free City of Capech meat grinder was his calculated gambit to break free of the domestic quagmire.

Richie even surmised that Haigert’s meteoric rise had provoked bitter jealousy among the old guard. Compounded by his undeniable moral liability in General Warren’s demise, malicious voices were bound to whisper behind his back. Deploying to Capech would shut every critic's mouth. Should he survive to return in triumph, every slanderous murmur would vanish like mist before the sun.

"I stand with you," Richie promised solemnly. "I’ll pull strings with my contacts in Capech on your behalf." Though Richie had never set foot in Capech, his influence within its artificer guilds and trade syndicates far eclipsed his standing even in the Parkington Holy Kingdom.

"There’s no need for special patronage. I have another motive for heading to Capech: I want to witness how the true titans of this world wage war." Haigert shed his customary indolence, his countenance hardening with solemn gravitas.

Richie stared at him, Haigert's words instantly evoking memories of the old librarian, who had once remarked: "However brutal the conflict in Monstoke may seem, it remains nothing more than low-tier warfare."

Though that harsh assessment had stung at the time, having witnessed so many Heavenly-stage knights and the titanic might of the two continental empires, Richie had come to accept the bitter truth of the old master's words.

"As your rank rises, your horizons certainly broaden!" Richie quipped, yet his admiration was entirely genuine. Compared to schemers like Elwin and Campbell who squandered their genius on domestic feuds, Haigert had broken free of Monstoke’s petty confines, fixing his gaze upon a far vaster horizon.

Haigert smiled—a genuine, unburdened smile.

The night deepened. While revelers continued to carouse in the taverns, the vast majority of the garrison quarters had surrendered to slumber.

On the second floor of the western wing, the second door from the end belonged to Velia. The long-parted husband and wife had retired to their chamber early.

From the instant she laid eyes on her husband that afternoon, Velia's heart had been plunged into chaos. Now that the door was closed behind them, she was utterly at a loss.

The room was modest in size, dominated by a broad bed fashioned from two single cots pushed together—a thoughtful gesture arranged by her comrades.

Sliding the timber bolt into place, Velia steeled her resolve. Certain reckonings could not be deferred forever.

The lamp switch was right beside the doorframe. She had instinctively reached to extinguish the light, yet having made her peace with fate, she left the lamp burning brightly and walked over to the bedside.

"Congratulations on finally breaking through your bottleneck," Mosalai murmured.

Though offering congratulations, his voice was utterly devoid of joy, heavy with hesitation and faltering awkwardness.

Velia let out a silent, weary sigh. Just as she had feared, there was no hiding the truth; her husband had already deduced what had transpired.

His reaction was entirely true to form: whenever confronted with monumental crises, he invariably became paralyzed by indecision.

"Is our daughter... well?" Mosalai asked haltingly, his tongue feeling stiff and clumsy in his mouth.

"She is well. She is untouched—at least for now, she is safe," Velia answered with equal difficulty.

Fortunately, Mosalai grasped her meaning: their daughter had not yet been taken by that young rogue, though for what reason remained a mystery.

Silence descended once more, thick and suffocating, for there was nothing left to say.

Without a word, Velia began to disrobe. Since the secret was destined to be laid bare, it was better to face the inevitable at once.

It was midsummer; wearing only a couple of light layers, she was stripped bare within moments.

Like Richie’s other women, she wore protective leather intimate garments beneath—a structured brassiere and close-fitting undergarments lined with soft cotton padding over her sensitive zones.

Beholding his wife standing naked before him, Mosalai felt a sudden dryness seize his throat and a fierce heat ignite in his loins—a sensation he had not experienced since the heady days of their honeymoon.

Stripping himself bare with frantic haste, he stepped forward, scooped her into his arms, and laid her upon the mattress.

Velia parted her thighs and closed her eyes, bracing herself for a savage, accusatory slap across her cheek.

Seconds trickled past, yet the anticipated blow never fell. Instead, she felt her husband's hands tenderly caressing her intimate contours.

Since falling into Richie’s grasp, Velia had endured rigorous conditioning; having been administered alchemical stimulant serums, her flesh had become excruciatingly sensitive. Though her husband’s touch was gentle, it ignited a feverish, restless heat deep within, coaxing moisture to blossom from her secret depths.

A wave of humiliating mortification washed over her; in that agonizing second, she wished the ground would swallow her whole.

Yet while Velia burned with shame, Mosalai’s heart was gripped by a turbulent tempest of his own.

As her husband, he knew every contour of Velia’s flesh intimately. From the moment she began disrobing, he had realized her body had undergone a profound metamorphosis.

Having borne a child, Velia had always possessed a mature, voluptuous figure, yet never had she bloomed with such lush abundance. Her breasts were swollen like two taut, heavy globes, brimming with the ripe fullness of when Didi was newly born. Her hips had filled out immensely; because knights exerted tremendous physical effort and burned fat incessantly, even motherly female knights possessed firm, lean frames devoid of excess padding. Yet now, the contours of Velia’s hips and derriere were lavishly rounded, yielding cushions of pillowy softness to his touch.

What struck Mosalai with the most visceral shock, however, was her intimate threshold.

Her mons was completely bare of hair. Where once a dense, dark grove had grown, the skin was now hairless, porcelain-smooth, and glistening—far plumper than before, swelling into a rounded mound that felt pillow-soft yet vibrantly resilient beneath his fingertips.

Even more conspicuous was her pearl of pleasure, swollen to the size of a crimson peanut, burning with engorged blood. Mosalai knew it was her supreme point of sensation; in years past, brushing it a few times would have her giggling breathlessly and drawing her knees together. Yet now, even as his fingers grazed that engorged jewel, her thighs remained wide, trembling violently.

Yet it was not for lack of sensation, for he could feel her entire frame shivering with tremors, her intimate passage contracting in rapid, undulating spasms that had never existed during their marriage.

Slipping a finger into her passage, Mosalai encountered an immediate, startling shock: his digit was seized by an intense internal suction, an irresistible muscular force drawing him inward.

His wife had always been tight; in their private bedroom banter, he used to tease that her gate was forged of bronze and iron, yet that tight embrace had only gripped his full length, never constricting a single finger. Now, however, the velvety passage clamped around his digit like a hungry vice.

While the front had tightened, the rear had softened. Slipping his finger free from her passage, Mosalai tentatively pressed it against her rear threshold.

He had not expected to penetrate at all, yet to his astonishment, the rear gateway yielded as smoothly as the front, swallowing his entire digit at once with a reflexive suction that surpassed even the front passage.

Beholding his wedded wife cultivated and remodeled into such an exquisite sensual instrument by another man, Mosalai felt a suffocating pang of humiliation and inadequacy. Yet perversely, that very realization ignited a feral, blinding surge of lust within his veins.

A wild, ravenous heat surged through his core. He lunged over his wife, driving his hard length straight into her welcoming warmth.

He began to thrust with desperate, frantic vigor.

He spared no strength, burying himself deep with each plunge and slamming against her lush derriere with a resounding cadence of clashing flesh.

The rhythmic slap filled Mosalai with a bizarre, intoxicating satisfaction—a primal gratification that eclipsed even the fervor of their newlywed days.

With a moment’s reflection, he understood why.

Winning Velia’s heart in their youth had cost him little effort; courted and won with effortless ease, the victory had felt almost dreamlike, joyful yet lacking fierce emotional weight. Tonight, however, he tasted the desperate thrill of reclaiming a lost treasure.

What was reclaimed after near loss was treasured a thousandfold more dearly. Perhaps for that very reason, the embers of wrath in his heart began to dissolve.

In truth, long before setting foot here, he had already contemplated this painful reality.

Velia had languished at her cultivation bottleneck for years. In peaceful times, remaining stagnant was of little consequence, but in total war, the slightest margin of strength meant the difference between survival and slaughter—let alone a full rank disparity.

The preceding campaigns had proven that grim truth in blood.

Before the invasion, Monstoke boasted one hundred and forty-five Honor Knights and half a million knights; today, barely sixty-odd Honor Knights survived, and the total roster of knights had dwindled to seventy thousand. That catastrophic attrition demonstrated the paramount importance of raw power.

Further carnage was inevitable; even if the Varedins did not press their assault, the Resistance must shed oceans of blood to liberate Monstoke. Knights' blood would soak the earth anew, and only the powerful would live to see the dawn.

As Mosalai drifted in melancholy contemplation, he felt his wife stir beneath him. Her lush hips arched off the mattress, her abdomen heaving as her passage clamped down with fierce, rhythmic undulations that intensified with every passing heartbeat.

Never in his life had Mosalai been welcomed by such divine friction; the exquisite milking nearly shattered his restraint on the spot. Though he gritted his teeth to hold back the tide, he knew his endurance was waning fast.

He recalled banter among carousing comrades about women blessed with mythical 'exquisite vessels'—sensual constitutions capable of elevating a lover to the heavens, yet equally capable of draining a man into an early grave. To possess such a maiden was deemed both a miraculous blessing and a terrifying curse.

A blessing because he tasted ecstasies unknown to mortal men; a curse because his vital marrow was devoured before his prime.

Mosalai now realized those legends were entirely literal. In the past, his lovemaking with Velia lasted half an hour to forty-five minutes with ease, yet now, with the subtlest modulation of her inner walls, he was brought to the brink of spilling his essence.

Nor was that all: lore claimed that women endowed with such vessels harbored insatiable desires. Velia had always possessed an ardent appetite; in their youth, he could barely satisfy her cravings, and after bearing Didi, her passions had surged higher, straining his stamina to its limits. Now, unleashed by Richie’s transformative cultivation, if she gave full rein to her hunger, she could grind him into a pile of dry bones.

While grinding a man to bones was a colloquial exaggeration, he had indeed witnessed men hollowed out by such voracity. The unrivaled master of that art had been Lina, the crimson-haired siren who bore colorful monikers like the 'Juice Extractor' and the 'Essence Queen.' An officer in his brigade had once fallen under her spell; after a single week in her quarters, the poor fellow had emerged sallow-faced, gaunt as a walking skeleton, taking half a year of convalescence to recover before fleeing from women in terror ever after.

As if to substantiate those very tales, the suction gripping his shaft intensified tenfold. A jolt of electric numbness shot up his spine, and his hot seed erupted in a frantic torrent deep within her.

At first, wave upon wave of blissful release washed over him, but as the spasms continued, panic took hold: his member kept pulsing and throbbing, desperate to pour out more, yet his reserves were thoroughly drained. It felt as though his very lifeblood was being wrung from his loins.

Little did Mosalai suspect that Velia was enduring an exquisite torment of her own—an agonizing, feverish itch clawing at her inner depths.

She had harbored no intention of deploying sensual arts, but once her husband began thrusting, everything felt disastrously amiss. Mosalai’s manhood was respectable, yet that depended entirely on the benchmark. Having grown accustomed to Richie’s colossal shaft—as thick as a child’s arm, crowned with a massive head that stretched her passage to its very seams—and his peerless mastery that could drive her to weeping ecstasy without even moving, her senses were hopelessly altered.

Furthermore, Richie’s length was extraordinary, reaching deep enough to kiss the very threshold of her womb.

By contrast, though her husband's movements were vigorous and the clashing of his hips against her derriere produced a thunderous rhythm, the shallow friction only stoked the agonizing itch without scratching it, driving her half-mad with frustration.

Worse still, her husband lacked the reach to touch her innermost core, where the maddening heat burned fiercest. The deeper the sensation was denied, the thicker the torment accumulated, until, unable to bear the torture any longer, she clamped her passage to coax an early release from him.

She had never imagined that the moment his hot seed flooded her walls, an intense chemical reaction would detonate within her meridians: rather than quenching the fire, it amplified the agonizing itch tenfold.

In a flash of insight, she comprehended the dark truth: this was the lingering work of the alchemical stimulant injected into her veins. A surge of indignation flared in her heart—that young rogue was truly diabolical! Having conquered another man’s wife, he had branded her flesh so thoroughly that he alone could quench her thirst.

Yet alongside her resentment lay utter resignation: she knew with devastating certainty that even without the serum, she was hopelessly bound to Richie’s colossal member for the rest of her days. No ordinary man could ever satisfy her hunger, let alone bring her to rapture.

After an indeterminate interval, Mosalai finally collapsed off her body, his spent manhood limp as a dying caterpillar.

In that brief bout, he felt hollowed out to his marrow. Worse, he could sense that his wife remained entirely unfulfilled—a humiliation more bitter than any defeat for a man.

Curling beside her, Mosalai pulled her plush body into his arms. He had to concede that her fully awakened, ripe flesh exerted a lethally addictive allure; had his spent length possessed the strength to stir, he would have remained buried within her warmth all night long.

With his manhood out of commission, Mosalai substituted his fingers. Spurred by the bitter knowledge that Richie had reshaped her flesh, a jealous fire flared within him, unconsciously hardening his touch.

Velia endured his rough caresses without a murmur; in truth, she desperately welcomed the harshness.

Her intimate depths were burning with unbearable itchiness; the sharp sting of his fingers served to dull that maddening torment.

Oblivious to her plight, Mosalai assumed she was submitting out of guilt for her betrayal, and his heart softened in response.

As tenderness returned, his strokes grew gentler—yet to his surprise, Velia caught his wrist, guiding his hand to press firmly once more.

If a lingering thread of bitterness had remained in his chest, in that second it melted away completely.

Memories of their youth flooded back unbidden.

In her youth, Velia had been pursued by a legion of dashing suitors; among them, he had been utterly unremarkable, yet Velia had chosen him. All his life, he had regarded winning her as his greatest blessing.

Let it go, Mosalai resolved inwardly. He would pretend total ignorance.

Could he truly derive satisfaction from tormenting his wife? If so, what kind of monster would he become?

Could he challenge the young rogue to a duel? Such domestic disgrace was something one scrambled to bury, not broadcast to the world. Moreover, doing so would earn him the foul reputation of a veteran bullying a junior—and in truth, he was far from confident he could best Richie in combat.

They had sparred half a year ago, and though Mosalai had held a slight edge then, the margin had been paper-thin. Given the brat’s monstrous rate of advancement, who knew what heights he had attained today? On their journey here, he and Haigert had calculated Richie’s combat power, estimating he could already trade blows with an Honor Knight unarmored; once piloting the Wisdom King, no knight beneath the pseudo-Glorious rank stood a prayer of defeating him.

Having made peace with reality, the fury in Mosalai’s breast subsided. His hands continued their soothing motion, albeit with tempered, loving care.

He and Velia had shared wild seasons in their youth, especially during their honeymoon, when passion consumed their days. Yet they had never indulged in unorthodox intimacies—not for lack of desire, but because he had revered her too deeply to commit what felt like desecration.

Now, that hesitation had evaporated. His finger slid gently into her rear threshold.

He had often heard comrades whisper of the wonders of rear intimacy, yet had dismissed it as taboo, certain his proud wife would never permit such liberties. Now, he felt a twinge of regret for those wasted years.

"Would you like to try?" Velia asked, her cheeks burning crimson. During her bath earlier, she had thoroughly cleansed her rear gateway—a fastidious habit ingrained in her ever since falling under Richie's reign.

"I... I fear I lack the vigor tonight," Mosalai confessed with a sigh, the spirit willing but the flesh exhausted.

"Let me see if I can restore your strength," Velia whispered, propping herself up. Hesitating for a fleeting second, she turned about, presenting her lush derriere to her husband while lowering her face between his thighs.

Mosalai’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. He felt his shriveled length gently drawn straight, then taken completely into his wife's warm, wet mouth. That velvety heat instantly breathed life into his sluggish member, while her tongue swirled expertly around the glans, bathing him in sensations so sublime he lost all capacity for speech.

Gazing at the voluptuous expanse of her derriere swaying before his eyes, Mosalai laid both palms upon the soft, quivering curves. They had never tasted such forbidden pleasures before—and Mosalai felt the embers of raw desire roaring back to life.