Chapter 1067 - 876: The City Falls

The Duke slowly stepped back a distance, returning to a safe range.

That Level 3 Extraordinary should be the leader of the Rebel Army, the one referred to by civilians as the "Reformer".

With his power, if he acted personally, it would take just a moment to break through the gates of Grey Rock City, and the defenders would be powerless against him.

Yet he did not do so.

Three days of fierce assault and the Rebel Army suffered heavy casualties, the defending forces also lost more than half, yet he sat deep in the camp, watching coldly.

Unless he simply didn’t care about the lives of the Rebel Army soldiers, or, the very purpose of this war was to cause as much death as possible on both sides.

The Duke suddenly thought this might be a ritual needing war as its medium.

The previous ritual of Count Cadwell required sacrifices of living people on a specific rune array, with the life force being actively extracted by the ritual array.

But if the scale of the ritual were larger and the conditions more stringent, perhaps it required the war itself, the specific form of life force that erupts when thousands of lives simultaneously perish on the battlefield.

This ritual exceeded the scope of the Rune Stone Slab, covering the entire battlefield, turning the war itself into an altar.

Then the true purpose of the Rebel Leader was definitely not as simple as overthrowing the Kingdom to establish a new nation.

What he sought might be the same as Count Cadwell.

...

In the center of the Rebel Army camp, inside a huge tent sewn from dark brown cowhide, a tall man sat at a makeshift wooden table, reading a parchment battle report in the dim light of an oil lamp.

He wore no armor and bore no insignia or sash to identify his rank; he only wore a coarse gray-brown short robe with sleeves casually rolled up to the elbow, revealing two streamlined muscular forearms. The old scars already scabbed over glittered faintly red under the oil lamp.

The Reformer’s face was not fierce; his features were distinct, with a straight nose and slightly hollow eyes, and a perpetual faint, ambiguous curve at the corners of his mouth.

He seemed less like a leader of tens of thousands of rebel soldiers and more like a Traveler who had wandered the wilderness for too long.

Yet anyone nearing him within ten steps would instinctively soften their breath and tread lightly, not out of awe for authority but as a subconscious reaction to a deeply repressed, immense threat etched in the genes.

"Sir." A messenger dressed in half-body leather armor lifted the tent flap and walked in swiftly, kneeling on one knee, helmet tucked under his arm, forehead still smeared with mud splattered from the frontline, "Frontline reports: several key merlons on the wall have been completely suppressed by our ranged units, and the defenders’ arrows are about to run out. The gate axle has loosened, the central siege team is expected to break through by noon tomorrow. The vanguard has lost more than half, yet still continues to mount the wall applying pressure."

The man addressed as "Sir" slowly put down the parchment in his hand and raised his head.

The lamp’s glow flickered briefly in his deep brown eyes, reflecting faint golden specks.

He paused for a few breaths before speaking, his voice low but steady and clear, carrying a certainty that needed no volume to prove: "Transmit the order to the whole army: At dawn tomorrow, make a full-force assault on the city, leave no reserve forces. After breaching the city, all internal resources are public property, soldiers may take for themselves. But there is one rule that must be clear— do not kill civilians."

His tone was bland, as if simply arranging a routine resource allocation.

After the messenger exited, the tent returned to silence.

He sat alone before the wooden table, picking up the battle report again, drawing close to the oil lamp.

The flame flickered lightly on the wick, making his profile light and shadow indecisive.

His mouth still bore that faint, ambiguous curve.

Reformer Victor, the Rebel Army soldiers privately called him "Blacksmith," because in his youth it was said he wielded a heavy hammer in the mines, forging farm tools.

This nickname spread widely within the rebel forces, leading many new recruits to be astonished when meeting him for the first time.

The Blacksmith they envisioned should be a broad-shouldered, thick-backed, robust man rather than the tall, cold-tempered guy before them.

Yet veteran soldiers who fought battles with him never judged him by appearance.

They had seen him move on the battlefield, and though such instances were rare, each was unforgettable for all witnesses.

At this moment, Victor turned the parchment to the next page, his gaze falling on the crudely sketched city defense map in charcoal.

Three days of assault, heavy casualties for the Rebel Army, defenders similarly lost more than half, the bodies of both sides piling into dark hills at the foot of the walls.

It was all within his expectations; he never counted on swiftly capturing Grey Rock City, what he needed was the war itself, the torrent-like life force erupting when tens of thousands of lives simultaneously vanished on the battlefield.

Only a sacrifice of this scale could complete that ritual.

Directly slaughtering civilians wouldn’t work; the war needed to be real, the blood must be shed in warfare on both sides.

The life force generated when desperate resistance at the brink of despair clashes fiercely with a reckless siege assault is the true energy required by the ritual.

He closed the battle report and set it on the corner, rising to exit the tent.