April 23, 1788 by the common calendar of the Galentea Continent. Dreimurk Province.
The sun shone bright, without a cloud in the sky.
A sturdy Northland horse pulled a four-wheeled flat cart along a road that wasn't particularly wide, paved from clay, lime, and gravel. Such flat carts were a common sight in Dreimurk Province, serving as the primary means of hauling grain and general goods. When transporting grain, they could carry close to three thousand jin, with burlap sacks full to bursting stacked high like a small hill slowly making its way along the road.
But this particular cart was mostly empty, with only a few burlap sacks loaded on it. Two people occupied the cart. A young man sat at the front on the shafts, head bowed, propping himself up with the long handle of a whip as if half-asleep, letting the Northland horse set its own pace along the road—sometimes a few quick steps, sometimes a few slow ones, stopping every now and then to tear at some green wild grass by the roadside. The other man, dressed in ragged grayish-white farmer's clothes, lay flat on the cart bed, his head resting on a burlap sack, a large straw hat covering his face to shield him from the sun. He seemed to be sleeping soundly.
Scenes like this were common on this provincial road that wasn't even a national highway. When a large cart approached from the opposite direction, its driver would shout loudly or hurl a few curses. The dozing young cart driver would wave his whip to drive the Northland horse to the side of the road so the carts could pass, while catching a few words of well-meaning advice or malicious lecturing from the other driver. But the young driver didn't care—once the road ahead was clear, he'd start dozing off again...
Lorist's condition was far from good. Nearly half a year of recovery had only healed the sword wounds on his chest and back and stopped the internal bleeding and injuries. When two domains had overlapped, even though both Lorist and the Storm Sword Saint had moved extremely slowly, the Storm Sword Saint's blade had still pierced clean through Lorist's chest. The slowness of the movement did nothing to diminish the damage—the
So Lorist was now an extremely weakened ordinary man—or perhaps even weaker than an ordinary man. He couldn't do heavy work, couldn't muster any real strength. The only thing to be grateful for was that Reidi was by his side. Since Reidi practiced the Dantian Sea Breathing Technique, which shared the same lineage as Lorist's Gold-Water Art, he had spent the first half-year of recovery feeding Lorist various healing potions to treat his wounds, using nutrient potions to keep the unconscious Lorist alive, and simultaneously channeling his internal energy into Lorist's body through the Dantian Sea Breathing Technique to clear out accumulated blood and repair the meridians that had been shattered by the Storm Sword Saint's Combat Force. This was the reason Lorist had been able to regain consciousness so quickly.
The Storm Sword Saint had run Lorist through with his blade—from chest straight through to the back. Combined with the Combat Force embedded in the sword, the Storm Sword Saint had believed Lorist's injuries were even more severe than his own. And Lorist had struck the Storm Sword Saint with a palm blow. Although it shattered the latter's entire breastbone, because Lorist had been stabbed first, he had pulled back a portion of his internal energy to protect his heart meridian. As a result, the inch-force delivered by his left palm only shattered the Storm Sword Saint's breastbone—injuring but not destroying his heart and lungs. This was ultimately why the Storm Sword Saint had been able to force himself to flee. If his heart and lungs had been destroyed, the Storm Sword Saint would have perished then and there, and not even a Golden Immortal could have saved him.
Both had suffered grave injuries, but compared to the Storm Sword Saint, Lorist's situation was far more wretched. The Storm Sword Saint could lie low in
The reasons for this were numerous. When a kingdom had a guardian Sword Saint, if that Saint was injured, the kingdom—if it lacked sufficient high-end combat power to protect him—would at least deploy its military forces to ensure his safety. But now the
Though Lorist worried about the safety of Princess Sylvia, his four concubines, and his children, he also understood clearly that the most important thing right now was to heal his injuries and restore his strength as a Sword Saint. Until the Alliance received definitive news of his death, no one would dare lay a finger on his family. Otherwise, once Lorist recovered and returned, the vengeance he unleashed would be a storm of blood and gore that no one could withstand.
There was precedent for this. Two hundred years ago, two kingdom Sword Saints had fought each other to mutual ruin. One of them had been targeted for assassination by the enemy kingdom. The Sword Saint escaped, but his entire family was slaughtered to the last. Six months later, having recovered, the Sword Saint launched a campaign of devastating revenge. The enemy kingdom's royal family, all associated nobility, and the Great Swordmaster's clan—nearly seventy thousand people—were wiped out completely. Even the enemy kingdom's own Sword Saint stood by and refused to intervene.
That Sword Saint had said: "Put yourself in my shoes. If my family had been killed because of me, I would have exacted the same revenge. I warned His Majesty not to carry out such a foolish operation, but they wouldn't listen. And when the assassination failed, they flew into a rage and slaughtered my family. They brought this upon themselves—I was powerless to prevent it."
The six magnates of the Commercial Alliance—the heads of the six great chambers of commerce—were far more clear-headed than that king from two centuries ago. Grand Duke
A failed assassination attempt didn't matter. After recovering, Lorist would not hold a personal attempt on his life against the Alliance. But his family and relatives absolutely could not be touched. To prevent unpredictable consequences, they couldn't even touch the Norton Family's senior officials or family knights—this was all to prevent Lorist from later having an excuse for wholesale revenge. Everyone had families and subordinates, and the six magnates certainly didn't want their great chambers of commerce uprooted vine by vine. In a matter of personal blood vengeance, not even the Storm Sword Saint would stand beside the six magnates.
If they could successfully assassinate the gravely wounded Lorist, however, then none of these concerns would matter. Killing his family members would go without saying—even ten or so Great Swordmasters joining forces to massacre the Norton Family would be of no consequence. So Lorist's most critical task right now was to find a place the Commercial Alliance's Great Swordmasters would overlook, ensure his own safety, and wait until he had recovered his strength. Once he emerged, no assassin would dare show their face before him again.
After the rainy season ended, the various fiefs of Dreimurk Province began harvesting their winter wheat while simultaneously starting to pay the Norton Family the land tithe—ten percent of their winter wheat harvest. This grain was transported by each lord's people to Kibo City, where it was stockpiled as military rations for the Family's armed forces.
In addition to the land tithe, the Norton Family also operated a grain purchasing office in Kibo City, buying grain from the lords of Dreimurk Province at prices roughly ten percent below market value. This was a monopolistic enterprise—other grain merchants were not permitted to purchase grain directly from these lords. All grain transactions had to go through the Norton Family's purchasing office in Kibo City. Through this system of buying cheap and selling dear, the Norton Family effortlessly pocketed a thirty percent profit. There was no helping it—in troubled times, grain was a strategic resource, and the Norton Family would never relinquish control over it.
It was just as the various fief lords of Dreimurk Province were sending people to Kibo City to deliver their winter wheat tithes that Lorist and Reidi, dressed in ragged farmer's clothing, boarded an old, decrepit four-wheeled flat cart that Sherikov, commander of Kibo City's garrison, had prepared for them. Without a soul the wiser, they blended in among the farmers driving grain carts loaded with winter wheat and slipped out of Kibo City. Where they had gone, no one knew.
During the days since regaining consciousness, Lorist had learned from Reidi the broad outlines of the Betrayal War. After all, having spent nearly three months in the imperial capital guarding Lorist through his recovery, Reidi had a general grasp of events at the front—from the Second Prince's dramatic return, cutting his hair to swear an oath of undying enmity against the Commercial Alliance, to Jost's Hunting Cavalry Corps and Fierce Tiger Ross's Flying Tiger Corps descending like armies from heaven and smashing the Alliance's forces to pieces, to the Second Prince's brilliant nighttime ambush that secured a decisive victory and successfully recaptured the provinces of Armenia and Malivia, bringing his armies to the edge of the Mana Hill Plains.
There was also the Commercial Alliance's envoy, Marquis Krilos, and what had become of him—something Reidi had heard about in the imperial capital. It was said that the Second Prince harbored a deep hatred for the marquis. He had not only broken all four of the marquis's limbs and stripped him of his Gold-rank Combat Force cultivation, but had truly treated him as the charlatan he was—covering his naked body with the feathers of chickens, ducks, and other birds, leaving only his pale face exposed, then strapping him onto the back of an old horse and sending him on his way.
What was particularly notable was that the Second Prince had not used honey on the marquis's body. While honey was sticky enough to adhere things, it could be washed off with water. Instead, the Second Prince had ordered his servants to coat the marquis's bare body with raw lacquer. Even Lorist had clicked his tongue in astonishment at hearing this. Raw lacquer was highly toxic, causing allergic reactions on the skin—careless contact would leave the affected area itching and swollen. On the Galentea Continent, it was typically used in the construction and decoration industries as a wood primer, to protect buildings and furniture from insect damage.
Imagining Marquis Krilos covered in raw lacquer and plastered with feathers, with his Combat Force stripped away and all four limbs broken, Lorist couldn't help but shudder. Never mind that the marquis had been thoroughly broken by the Second Prince—this showed just how deeply the latter hated the Commercial Alliance. If not for Lorist and the Norton Family's armed forces, the Second Prince would not only have become a prisoner of the Alliance, but might well have become the biggest joke and most pathetic wretch on the entire Galentea Continent...
Beyond this news, Reidi knew nothing about subsequent events. After fleeing the imperial capital with Lorist, splitting off from Grand Swordmaster Hughes and the others, and sneaking into Kibo City to hide for over two months, he had no idea what changes had occurred in the family's territories or how the three great corps of the Family's armed forces were faring at the front. And he couldn't go asking. To Reidi, none of that mattered—there was no need to concern himself with it. As long as Lorist's injuries could heal and his strength could recover, then no matter what happened, everything could be set right. Even if the family was destroyed, a new one could be built from scratch.
The reason for this was that the messenger hawks that Kibo City had been sending north to relay information had not returned for over half a month. No one knew what had gone wrong. And the courier Lorist had dispatched to the family's territories with a letter had been knocked unconscious on the road, half a day's travel from the ferry crossing. Not a single coin was missing from his person—only the letters in his satchel had been thoroughly rifled through. Then a group of farmers heading to Kibo City with winter wheat had discovered the poor courier lying by the roadside and brought him back.
Sherikov had ordered the patrol squads to greatly increase their vigilance to prevent such "pranks" from happening again. The man was unhurt, the money was untouched—only the letters he'd been carrying had been read through. Since there was no actual loss, Sherikov could only attribute the incident to some powerful individual's idle amusement.
In truth, both Lorist and Reidi understood the real purpose behind Sherikov's announcement of this embarrassing incident at the city gates—it was a warning to them both that Kibo City had also fallen under the surveillance of those Great Swordmasters. The courier's encounter and the disappearance of the messenger hawks both indicated that the Commercial Alliance's Great Swordmasters were using these two information networks to track down Lorist's whereabouts, trying to find some trace that would lead them to the place where he was hiding and recovering.
Lorist had already grown a full beard, giving him the appearance of a haggard farmer ground down by the cares of life, constantly worrying about where the next meal would come from. Even someone who knew him would find it difficult to recognize, at first glance, that this was the famous Grand Duke of Northland. Reidi, for his part, had shaved off his mustache. Years ago, when Lorist had brought Reidi back from White Heron Lake and confirmed he had reached the rank of first-class Great Swordmaster, Reidi had grown a pair of handlebar mustaches, hoping to make himself appear more mature and imposing. Now, with his mustache shaved off, he looked like a restless young farmer who refused to toil in the fields—no one would connect him with the cold, imposing Great Swordmaster who had always sported a handlebar mustache at Lorist's side.
From Kibo City to the Dina Barony was a journey of two to three days, thanks to the Norton Family's overhaul of the province's entire road infrastructure. Otherwise, following the old winding paths, it would have taken at least six or seven days. The Dina Barony lay at the westernmost edge of Dreimurk Province, its border meeting the mountainous terrain. Beyond those mountains lay the Northern Sea.
When drawing up the borders of the Dina Barony, Lorist had actually put considerable thought into it. He knew his lover Aristoli's competitive and headstrong personality, and worried that his young mistress would end up feuding with the neighboring lords over matters of pride. So he had placed the Dina Barony right up against the mountains. The implication was that if Aristoli wanted to expand her barony, she could push into the mountain regions—they were unclaimed land, and how much she could take was entirely up to her.
As the sun was sinking toward the western horizon, the four-wheeled flat cart carrying Lorist and Reidi finally arrived at the Dina Barony, dragged along at a leisurely pace by the Northland horse.
"Don't go to the villages—head straight for that big wooden castle," Lorist said. He had been here twice before and knew where to go.
The wooden castle of the Dina Barony was a major laughingstock among the nobility of Dreimurk Province. The story was that Miss Dina—the eldest daughter of the family—had decided to build a grand castle for her younger brother, the future Baron Dina. With the Dina family's wealth and Lorist's financial support, constructing such a castle was no problem at all. But Miss Dina—that is, Aristoli—worried that the castle she built might not suit her precious brother's tastes. At the time, the young master had been studying at Niko Academy.
So Aristoli had come up with an idea: build the entire castle out of wood. That way, when the young master returned and found anything he didn't like, it could be modified on the spot. Once the design was finalized, it could then be rebuilt in stone. And so the Dina Barony's wooden castle had become the talk of every noble household in Dreimurk Province. But Miss Dina couldn't have cared less. She had discovered a passion for architecture and spent a great deal of time each year tinkering with the wooden castle, often changing its appearance completely within a single year.
Reidi drove the cart into the wooden castle's grounds. Lorist noticed that the castle's defenses were extremely lax—not a single guard stood on the wooden palisade walls. If not for catching sight of servants hurrying about in the distance once they were inside, Lorist might have wondered whether something had happened to the Dina Barony.
Lorist was about to climb down from the cart when three people suddenly emerged from the wooden great hall ahead. Leading the way was an elegant middle-aged couple, and seeing them out from behind was none other than Miss Dina herself—Aristoli.
Reidi tensed up instantly. The bearing and aura of that middle-aged couple unmistakably marked them as Great Swordmasters. His hand tightened on the sword hilt hidden beneath the burlap sack. At that very moment, Aristoli's gaze swept over to them, and as Lorist's lover, she recognized him instantly—despite the full beard covering his face.
...