The black sun hangs high

Chapter 468 Dark Clouds Rise
Although in reality the Kingdom of Walter has also joined the wartime alliance led by Merlinle, this warlike nation with astonishing military strength has not revealed its true power on the front lines.

To date, the Kingdom of Walter has maintained a relatively conservative support strategy.

Under the orders of Princess Sophia of Walter, a very special regiment was dispatched and began operations behind the lines of the Dawn Society and several other allied forces.

This legion possesses very limited combat power because its main composition is not the professional soldiers typical of the Kingdom of Votel, but rather council scholars skilled in magical engineering, workers responsible for constructing temporary railways, and technicians of different races who can provide fortification construction and weapon maintenance.

Faced with the immense pressure from the Black Sun and the Black Sun Society, Princess Sophia, who had fully assumed command of the kingdom's military, displayed an unusually generous side. Instead of following the plans and suggestions provided by the mainstream officers and staff in Wotel to completely lock away technologies and secrets related to magical fortifications and steam railways within the country, she proactively arranged for that special corps to build temporary railways for the wartime alliance in the border region between the North and the Goddess Plains, within the "permissible scope," to strengthen the logistics system and ensure the long-term combat capability of the alliance's army.

On this point, Princess Sofia and her tutor, the Ernst family's "Three-Clawed Falcon," reached a high degree of consensus.

The reason why the Kingdom of Walter made such a plan was due to the strange situation that was happening behind the kingdom.

The rugged hills, this region that borders the Lovi Plateau and was once regarded as an important strategic buffer zone by the Kingdom of Votel, have now become an extremely terrible hidden danger.

Since the rise of the black sun and the complete destruction of Seren, the once rugged hills have been transformed into a dead land riddled with sores and cracks. Strange lights flicker in this region every moment, doing everything possible to harm and corrupt the ignorant and the brave observers who dare to approach.

Although the light emanating from those fissures could not compare to the black celestial body hanging in the sky, the destructive traces of the same origin as the Dark Abyss still permeated them. These terrifying powers and those bizarre and incomprehensible sights always caused extremely serious mental shocks in a subtle way. Even with sufficient precautions, scholars and soldiers directly dispatched by the Kingdom of Votel and the Mage Council would experience symptoms of mental confusion or even collapse after carrying out their missions for a period of time.

The cold pillar of light that pierced the sky was not weakened by the eventual appearance of the black sun. On the contrary, the strange symbols and patterns that kept emerging from the pillar became increasingly dense during this period. Even the scholars who had participated in the study of these strange patterns could not completely identify them now. All they could do was to keep recording these patterns and "decipher" the messages within them through various methods.

However, the impact of this land of death extends beyond these strange mysteries.

At the same time, there is also a potentially huge threat.

In fact, from the very beginning, the outposts and outposts established by the Kingdom of Votel around the rugged hills had always detected some unusual signs of activity, including but not limited to strange mud, twisted footprints or marks, and missing persons cases reported by travelers and hunters.

After some time, these abnormal signs went a step further. Several important monitoring stations directly under the command of the Ymir Legion were completely destroyed overnight, and all personnel in the monitoring stations disappeared. The later investigators only saw that everything in the stations had been severely damaged and the scene was in a mess, but there was no blood or human body left behind.

Therefore, the Kingdom of Walter has increased its control and monitoring of the Rugged Hills. To ensure safety, the elite Fifth Hunter Regiment has been deployed to Brown Hill Town, which is located next to the Rugged Hills. The Fifth Hunter Regiment had been active in this area in previous battles, and their fighting spirit is firm enough. They also have considerable experience in dealing with magical artifacts and extreme situations.

The Fifth Hunter Regiment did not disappoint the Kingdom of Walter.

Leveraging his connections within the nobility, the military, and the council, Alfred, as the highest leader of the Juggernauts, successfully obtained secrets that ordinary officers could not access. Based on these secrets, he and the mage Klaus devised a comprehensive and meticulous monitoring method.

Thus, under the high alert of the Fifth Jaeger Regiment, they finally managed to capture the terrifying signs that were taking place inside the rugged hills one day.

Monitors discovered that within those bottomless crevices, shadows seemed to be spreading and moving outwards.

These shadows are not the same as the human figures that appear in the pillars of light along with the patterns. They have completely lost the basic characteristic of being human and look more like an aggregation of many different life forms, or stains randomly smeared with ink on a canvas.

Most of the time, these strange beings wander in the inaccessible rifts, but at certain times, a very small number of them will leave the rifts and actively explore outwards along the traces left behind by humankind in the past.

As both sides probed each other, conflict inevitably broke out.

During a routine observation mission, the Jaeger squad responsible for protecting the council scholars encountered these twisted shadows head-on. After a fierce battle, the brave soldiers finally repelled these indescribable beings with their ample supply of crystal bullets and alchemical bombs. However, in the process, several soldiers also suffered serious injuries.

As the monsters' shadowy limbs swept over the soldiers' bodies, their flesh began to wither and die rapidly. Then, the symptoms spread to other parts of their bodies, and no one could endure the agony of their bodies contracting.

After these wounded people died, the strange disease did not spare their bodies either, compressing their remains little by little into another form. In the end, the corpses of the dead became like the rocks that dotted the depths of the cracked abyss, hard and gray, with a hint of magical color squeezed from the depths of life and soul in the cracks.

Thus, scholars studying the fissures in the hilly area came to a startling conjecture.

Beneath the Love Plateau lies not only a magical power, capable of summoning the Black Sun anew, that was sealed away for an extremely long period of time, but also a unique "structure."

Those who perished in the distant past for various reasons were placed here; they might have been "materials" sealing the black sun, or "sacrifices" to support some kind of ritual... In any case, the remains of these dead under the influence of the force originating from the black sun continuously evolved and layered, eventually forming rocks riddled with fissures and crystalline veins. Compared to the past, this conjecture is clearly highly creative and imaginative. If research continues along this line of thought, scholars may soon be able to arrive at some new conclusions and results.

However, the monsters that emerged from the depths of the rift did not give the Kingdom of Walter any more time.

Within ten days of the initial conflict, the hidden threat from the rugged hills began its first expansion. The twisted shadows transformed into ferocious beasts, emerging from the very edges of the ground fissures. They precisely located the forward outposts and observation posts set up by the Kingdom of Walter, Merlinle, and the Legal Council in the surrounding areas, and launched a brutal attack on them.

Faced with this type of enemy, both soldiers and mages felt somewhat powerless.

Although they were able to effectively repel the enemy's attacks with their weapons and magic, the shadows that were successfully defeated eventually dissipated like smoke and dust. Before long, more bizarre and dangerous monsters would crawl out of the bottomless abyss and launch a new round of attacks on the Voltel army's defenses.

Left with no other choice, the Fifth Hunter Regiment had to abandon all the strongholds and outposts set up in the rugged hills and rebuild the overall defense line by relying on the fortifications that had been built in the area around Brown Hill Town.

Compared to the ongoing war in the North, the impact of the rugged hills is far more direct, as the battles taking place here have completely transcended Vaan's normal understanding of war.

And after those distorted shadows that served as the vanguard cleared the entire rugged hilly area, even more chilling changes followed.

Observers aboard observation balloons and airships discovered that more concrete and enormous beings were crawling out of the cracks. They looked like aggregates of mud and crystalline minerals, forcibly kneaded together by an invisible magic, forming bizarre and extremely imposing behemoths.

After a brief meeting, a ferocious train carrying various heavy crystal cannons and a large amount of supplies pulled into the Brownhill Town station. After unloading the supplies for the Fifth Regiment, it immediately headed to the front line via the rails. That night, the continuous roar echoed through the rugged hills, and the magical paths created by the flying high-powered crystal cannonballs cleared the sky of any remaining clouds.

This level of bombardment was enough to inflict severe damage on any defensive line or position; however, when the illumination magic floated in the sky, people discovered that these incredibly powerful explosions only served to a certain extent as a deterrent.

As if given a clear command and a unified order, the twisted creatures from the depths of the fissures began to disperse rapidly into the fissures of varying sizes shortly after the shelling began, using these natural shelters to avoid the bombardment.

During the intervals between artillery bombardments, they would quickly emerge from their hiding places and advance outwards at an extremely fast speed.

This change left the officers at the front lines looking at each other in bewilderment.

Intuition and experience told them that behind this orderly and disciplined behavior lay a mind that had a deep understanding of the military and war.

……

Inside a building within Watchtower City, a routine meeting of key members of the Dawn Order is underway.

Besides core members like Meyer and Felix, some promising young members who had been newly cultivated were also invited to join. These young people were curious about every face in front of them, especially Meyer and Felix. The former was the de facto leader of the Akatsuki, while the latter had become more mysterious due to the previous events.

Now, this thin, somewhat gloomy-faced "saint" was speaking in a calm tone to the attendees, conveying important information that could not be heard elsewhere: "I know that our comrades on the front lines, especially the younger ones, are somewhat optimistic about the current situation. In everyone's view, the wartime alliance clearly has an overwhelming advantage over Saint Steel... This is inappropriate."

"But it's a fact, Mr. Felix!"

A young Dawn Division officer raised his hand and spoke: "Confidence and trust in our allies are also pillars of our soldiers' fighting power. Although the troops of Votel are not fighting alongside us, every artillery support they provide brings our soldiers great enthusiasm and confidence!"

Felix raised his hand and pressed it down, then nodded and replied, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to tell you all next... A serious change has occurred in the direction of the rugged hills. The army of the Kingdom of Wotel will inevitably be moved south, and the artillery units originally assigned to support the northern front will also be moved south. This means that in the coming period of time, the artillery fire we use to suppress the enemy positions will be greatly weakened."

“What Felix said is entirely true, and the transfer order has already been communicated to Mellinler and others.”

Mayer added, “Not only that, our comrades who are still active in Goddess Plains and Love Plateau will also organize branch personnel to form temporary teams to support the Brownhill Town defense line... I called everyone here today to discuss this matter, and I hope everyone will speak freely.”

At this point, Mayer's gaze shifted slightly toward Felix. Noticing that Felix's gaze seemed to be drifting towards a corner of the room, Mayer followed his gaze and raised his hand, pointing to a young officer who appeared somewhat dejected and sleep-deprived.

"Mr. Gojer! What are your thoughts on this matter?"

(End of this chapter)