Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 982: Chapter 981: Spiraling to Rock Bottom

The smell of blood—Andresha was no stranger to this scent.

She stood in front of the communication Tower’s main door, holding it half‑pushed open. The perception of a powerful Order Supernatural spread outward, and the various auras inside the high tower flowed into her mind. After only a few seconds, she stepped back directly and closed the door again.

She turned around, striding toward the east hall with steps as swift as the wind, while countless thoughts and conjectures mingled with all the information hinted at by recent events, churning through her mind like storms. Her footsteps gradually steadied, and one question after another rose in her head. The first question that came to her was—

If one wanted to blind the highest commander of Winterwolf Fortress for a full twenty‑four hours without any blind spot, and make sure that not a single Soldier accidentally tore the "curtain" during this period... how many people would that take?

On her way to the east hall, Andresha carefully sifted through the possible illusions around her, like stripping silk from a cocoon. She checked every abnormality one by one, and slowly reconstructed what this "farce" over the past two days should have originally looked like.

Count Winterhold stood before the Magic focal point in the east hall. In the circular platform at the center of this great hall was inlaid a massive Crystal Device, with Magic radiance constantly flowing across it. The Count’s attention was focused on several main streams of light within—that was how he monitored the Magic balance of the entire Winterwolf Fortress and the barrier load, and accordingly adjusted the deployment and rotation of the Black Flag Mage Corps at any moment, to ensure that the Mages and this fortress could always remain in their optimal state.

Besides Count Winterhold, there were only a dozen or so combat Mages in the hall, serving as sentinels and guarding the various doors.

The moment Andresha stepped into the hall, Count Winterhold sensed her presence. This middle‑aged man, whose gentle bearing carried a trace of authority, raised his head and said casually, "You came at just the right time, Andresha."

The next second, he noticed the unusually stern expression on Andresha’s face, as well as the faintly transmitted aura of grim severity.

"What’s happened?" Count Winterhold asked at once, and before his words had fully fallen, a layer of sound‑dampening barrier had already risen out of thin air, completely enveloping the space within several meters around them. "This place is secure now."

"All the duty Mages in the communication Tower are dead," Andresha knew of the barrier’s presence, but she still couldn’t help lowering her voice, her expression so grave it was almost terrifying. "Time of death is roughly a day ago."

She had no need to explain a second sentence; Count Winterhold’s face darkened in an instant. In just a few seconds, this quick‑thinking combat Mage commander had already traced back all the relevant time points in his mind, retracing every key event that had been linked to the communication Tower. In the next moment he said in a low voice, "So, not a single piece of information we were supposed to send out has actually gone out..."

"Or worse—the only messages Winterwolf Fortress has sent out are those that never should have been sent."

"That adjutant at your side... no, he alone wouldn’t be enough. There must be more..." Count Winterhold’s tone turned chilling. He did not question in the slightest whether this explosive news Andresha had suddenly brought was true or false, because he knew the daughter of his old friend; she would never speak vaguely or falsely on something like this. "They’ve all been affected..."

Andresha drew a quiet breath. "Not everyone who has been affected will lose control completely like those priests. Most of them are hidden among us—and they... still have their rational minds."

An indescribable oppression weighed down upon her, an oppression that carried with it a hair‑raising horror. Andresha was neither unfamiliar with nor afraid of death, yet she realized that at this very moment she was facing something far more terrifying and unspeakable than life and death on the battlefield—it seemed to be everywhere, formless and intangible, lurking beside every person, even buried deep within every soul. It stirred the life and death of countless people, yet many of them died without ever knowing it had come...

For many years, this fortress of Winterwolf and the countless Soldiers within it had always been Andresha’s source of pride and confidence, but now, in this very fortress, she felt as though she were plunging into an abyss.

"What do you plan to do?" Count Winterhold suddenly fixed his gaze on Andresha. His eyes were as sharp as the stars in a winter night. "Do you still have any way to salvage this?"

Andresha bit her lip, her face overcast. "...In a certain sense, I fear we may have already lost control of Winterwolf Fortress—those out‑of‑control War God Faith believers are quite clearly driving a war forward. Thus any attempt to stop the war from worsening will inevitably be countered, and right now I do not dare gamble on how deeply the garrison of Winterwolf Fortress has been infiltrated."

For the young Wolf General, this was an immense humiliation and irony. A fortress commander losing control of her own fortress and her troops at the onset of war, and for such a reason—this was something that likely had never happened since the founding of the Typhon Empire, and now it had fallen upon the future heir of the Wendell clan. If she had not experienced it herself, who would dare believe any of this?

To be sure, Andresha also knew the situation might not be quite so bad; she had not truly and entirely lost control over Winterwolf Fortress and the troops. More than half of the Soldiers in this fortress were still undoubtedly loyal to her. Yet in terms of outcome, the severity of this matter was little different from complete loss of control—in the current circumstances, she had neither the spare effort nor any means to distinguish those faith‑corrupted infiltrators hidden among the ordinary Soldiers, let alone... the Cecil Clan were still continuing their assault on the fortress.

Explosions continued to sound from the direction of the western wall; the Cecil Clan’s long‑range artillery had launched a new round of bombardment.

And amid these explosions, like death’s urging, Count Winterhold looked into Andresha’s eyes. "Reason and logic tell me this war will have no victor. Both the Cecil Clan and Typhon are stepping into an abyss. Our most fatal problem right now is that all lines of communication have already been cut off or disrupted, including even the couriers we send out... The Cecil Clan are very likely misjudging the situation in Winterwolf Fortress, perhaps even misjudging the situation of the entire Typhon Empire. Once they cross this line of defense, then even without the Sect of the God of War stirring things up, this war will turn into a catastrophe..."

"So I’m thinking about how to regain some initiative. We have to find a way to get the news out of Winterwolf Fortress—whether we send it to the imperial capital or into the hands of the Cecil Clan," Andresha clenched her fist, "and we must avoid letting those polluted individuals notice and sabotage it..."

"And there’s one more crucial point..." Count Winterhold said, but he had only spoken halfway when a succession of explosions, even denser and more unnerving than before, rolled in from afar. They sounded like the barrier in the Southwest region being struck.

"There’s one more crucial point," once the explosions subsided slightly, Count Winterhold repeated, "Not all Soldiers and officers can understand what is happening now the way you and I do—I mean those who remain sober and unaffected. The God‑disaster is classified; we’ve been hiding it far too well. The warriors of the Empire only know that we are already in full‑scale war with the Cecil Clan, and that they have fought their way to the walls outside Winterwolf Fortress. At a time like this, your attempts at external contact and ’seeking peace’ will inevitably shake them deeply."

"I can’t afford to worry about that anymore," Andresha said at once. "Count Winterhold, I need the help of your Mage Corps. Winterwolf Fortress is filled everywhere with Soldiers and Knights who more or less have ties to the War God Faith. Only your Mage units can still be trusted right now. I need your Magic—whether it’s to retake control of the communication Tower, or to construct a new external communication line, or any other method that can allow Winterwolf Fortress to ’speak’ to the outside world, we must try them all."

"I’ll think of something," Count Winterhold pondered for only a second. "But first, we must hold this fortress intact through tonight. The Cecil Clan’s night assault shows no sign of weakening; it’s even fiercer than in the daytime. I suspect they intend to rely on ever more long‑range ’Skyfire’ to smash our barrier and walls by brute force. I summoned you here precisely for this matter: the Eye of the Mage has observed that the Cecil Clan have added two more fire points in the northwest direction. They’ve dragged some kind of magic cannon larger than a tank’s main gun to the front line with large vehicles. Those things don’t seem fully prepared yet, but they could open fire at any time."

"How many more magic cannons do they still have on the way..." Andresha could hardly control the shock in her voice. "Can the Black Flag Mage Corps take out those two fire points?"

"They’re beyond the range of our Legion Spells. The Cecil Clan chose their positions well—they’ve probably already figured out the attack limits of the Black Flag Mage Corps. It seems we can only rely on reinforcing the barrier and tanking those things head‑on."

"...Understood. I’ll order all the energy from the eastern Mana focal point transferred to the barrier, and have the pioneering knights’ combat Mages ready to get up on the wall to maintain the barrier."

Andresha’s words had barely fallen when, from far away, a shrill, teeth-aching, ear-piercing screech suddenly tore through the air; after a very brief delay, an explosion far more deafening than any previous bombardment, so powerful it made the entire fortress faintly tremble, erupted beneath the night sky!

The combat Mages in the hall were stunned by the massive blast; the faces of Palin Winterhold and Andresha changed at the same time. The two of them rushed out of the hall at top speed, darting onto a connecting bridge that led toward the wall. They raised their heads, looking in the direction of the explosion—within their line of sight, the thick energy shields outside Winterwolf Fortress were rippling in layer after layer, and an even larger flash of detonations blossomed again a few seconds later.

With a slight delay, the thunderous roar of this second explosion finally reached Andresha’s ears.

Is it that kind of Giant Cannon?

A look of rapid contemplation flashed across Count Palin Winterhold’s face. The next second, he traced magic symbols for a communication spell in the air, swiftly issuing new orders to his own Black Flag combat Mages: "Echelons Four through Six, charge up—deploy two wide-area illusions each at northwest positions A2 and A3. Echelons Seven through Ten, reinforce the barrier, prepare to withstand subsequent impacts!"

Andresha also quickly rushed to the Earl of Winterhold’s side. She knew her adjutant and the other commanders were certainly all on the other end of the communication spells; no matter how many of them had already become carriers of the gods’ pollution, at least in the matter of ’combat’ they would still obey her orders: "Clodian! Immediately transfer the energy of the eastern Mana focal point to the barrier! Get the regiment’s combat Mages up on the wall..."

Order after order was rapidly issued. Under the sudden ground-fire attack, the garrison of Winterwolf Fortress fell into brief panic, but very soon everything returned to order. More energy was being shifted to the barrier, more Mages were turning their attention to the new source of attack, and the fortress’s defensive strength was being quickly readjusted; the briefly shaken barrier also gradually stabilized.

Andresha and Palin Winterhold stood on the connecting bridge, adjusting the fortress’s defensive strength via communication spells while watching the Cecil Clan’s new offensive. They looked down over the tense, busy scene in the stronghold, and, seeing the barrier near the walls re-condense into solidity, the two of them unwittingly let out a breath.

Almost all of Winterwolf Fortress’s defensive strength was now concentrated on the walls and the barrier. The Cecil Clan’s tireless ground offensive weighed heavily on Andresha, but fortunately, this fortress seemed to be holding.

...

Sir Philip received the latest intelligence from the ground forces.

"Even the Truth-I Orbital Accelerator Cannon can’t blast open their barrier..." he murmured to himself, as if somewhat surprised by the defensive strength of that Typhon Empire border fortress. "Or is it that the Black Flag Mage Corps is reinforcing that fortress’s barrier?"

"It seems that with ground firepower alone, it really will be difficult to break through that fortress in a short time," a senior staff officer said beside him. "General, it’s approaching midnight."

Sir Philip glanced at the mechanical watch on the table, then his gaze fell upon the Magic Web Terminal not far away.

...

In the dark night wind howling with cold, a low humming resounded between the clouds; war machines forged of steel and crystals were slipping across the sky like phantoms.

More than twenty mass-produced "Dragon Cavalry" aircraft, led by the squadron leader’s machine, were flying in a ring formation, cruising at low speed with lights out in night-flight mode along the border of Winterwolf Fortress’s patrol zone.

Jinna took a deep breath—the Wind Shield and the reliable cockpit blocked out the howling cold wind outside, yet she still felt as if she could smell that chill, faintly blood-scented air beyond. She lowered her head to look through the observation window forward and below, seeing light continuously flashing and bursting along the edge of the dark earth; streak after streak of pale blue light was ripping through the darkness without pause.

At the end of those intersecting, crisscrossing lights stood a fortress tenaciously rooted in the land. The barrier shrouding the fortress above was frequently rippling, yet still showed no sign of going out.

The young Air Corps commander drew another deep breath, slightly steadying her somewhat tense mood.

This was not her first flight, nor her first time on the battlefield. She had once ridden a gryphon over the Rocky Ridges Fortress under the flames of war, and had flown with the elves’ Giant Eagles over lands polluted by the Crystal Cluster god-disaster, soaring above the Old Capital on the verge of falling.

But that feeling was different from now.

Her hands were clenched tightly on the control stick. The humming from the Anti-Gravity Ring and the Dragonborn Propulsor gradually calmed her. She tilted her head slightly and saw that the Mechanic and bombardier sitting behind her was also visibly nervous.

"Relax a little, this isn’t the first time we’ve held these control sticks," she said.

"I’m just thinking up a resounding opening line," the bombardier said, feigning composure, "to say when the bombs are dropped."

"Don’t waste effort on that sort of useless thing," Jinna said immediately. "Focus on—"

She only got halfway through her sentence.

A device on the flight control console suddenly lit up. The next second, she heard General Philip’s voice coming from it—

"Dragon Cavalry, execute the mission, code Z-17."