Chapter 598
The Wildfire
Chapter 598 The Wildfire
Traveler's Town, Eagle Rock Territory, in the northern part of the Kingdom of Rhodes.
Lina was woken up by the cold and it took her a while to figure out her situation.
At this moment, she was kneeling on the cold wooden board, with a rough hemp rope around her neck, the other end of which was tied to the crossbeam of the execution platform, which was wet with snow.
Her hands were tied behind her back, her shoulders ached from the awkward position, and her nostrils were filled with the smell of burning pine resin.
She looked up, squinting as she gazed ahead, where she saw twinkling torches.
The orange-red flames flickered in the wind and snow, illuminating the dense crowd in the Traveler's Town square.
There were unfamiliar faces among them, as well as familiar ones.
The faces displayed a range of emotions: anger, excitement, indifference, or pure curiosity. They were like moths drawn to a flame, eagerly anticipating the feast that was about to begin amidst the bustling crowd.
The memories are slowly being pieced back together.
About a few hours earlier, just as night was falling, a group of ragged people stormed into her brothel.
They were carrying pitchforks, shovels, and several muskets; they appeared to be farmers living in or near the town.
Every now and then, trouble would break out at the brothel, either from mercenaries trying to renege on their debts or magic apprentices who hadn't brought enough money.
As usual, her men drew their weapons, intending to scare away the rabble. But the men were prepared; they were just waiting for them to make the first move. The leaders quickly subdued her men.
Then, she was probably hit on the head with a blunt object and fell down in a dizzying spin.
When I wake up again, it will be now.
Lina moved her stiff neck and glanced at herself.
The skirt was still there, though quite dirty, but these people did at least follow some rules and didn't strip her naked and parade her through the streets.
She suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly.
A woman who crawled out of a mud pit, when she was about to leave, actually cared most about her dignity, something she herself never expected.
The wind picked up again, and the snowflakes that were originally as fine as needles gradually turned into ice crystals the size of mung beans.
Lina shrank her neck, and the rope tightened a little with her movement, feeling a bit uncomfortable around her throat, but not exactly painful.
She was surprised to find that she wasn't really afraid.
The only feeling was cold.
So this is what it feels like to kneel helplessly in the snow; it's quite different from kneeling in a dungeon...
The crowd suddenly fell silent.
Lina turned her head slightly and saw a figure walk out from the crowd and step up the wooden steps to the execution platform.
She was a young woman wearing a nun's robe.
She wore a wreath of olive branches on her head, and her golden hair, like ripe wheat, shimmered with a warm yellow luster in the firelight.
That beautiful, gentle face carried a reassuring compassion, but unfortunately, that compassion did not belong to Lina, who was a prisoner.
She walked to the execution platform, her gentle voice piercing through the wind and snow, clearly reaching everyone's ears.
"Brothers and sisters of Eagle Rock Territory, lost sheep following the gods... The divine child told me that He heard your prayers."
"He told me, 'You have endured long enough, you should not continue to endure this...'"
Karen spoke in a calm voice about the divine pronouncements she had heard, which were also the words people confided in her during their prayers and confessions.
She said that Sir Richter demolished St. Sis's Church, drove out the devout priests, and deprived believers of their right to pray.
She also said that "Carbin" had become a demon whose name people dared not even mention, abducting young girls from nearby villages and sending them to brothels.
She spoke the fears hidden in the hearts of the people of Eagle Rock Territory.
Some people in the crowd began to cry, some prayed softly, and others cursed the demon that had robbed them of their beautiful lives.
Lina sneered inwardly.
The good old days...
Are these people the memories of fish?
Before Traveller Town was called that, when she was still selling her ass in a tent while wearing a sheepskin, how could she not remember how wonderful life was here?
As for the church, it wasn't demolished by her, much less by Sir Richter and Lord Carbin. The reason the camp's church was closed was simply because those self-important priests were ashamed to associate with those who blasphemed them; at most, they had just bought the land that originally belonged to the bishop.
Not all women "abducted" into brothels were forced. Besides those who voluntarily entered to make quick money, some were sold by their families due to debt or other reasons.
Lina remembers it clearly because she paid for it.
However, none of these things matter at this moment.
This woman is very smart.
Every word she uttered was exactly what her followers wanted to hear, and every word hit the bullseye, with not a single superfluous word.
And if she, being equally intelligent, were to summarize it, it would simply mean one thing—
You are innocent.
Now, follow me and set it on fire.
The speech has ended.
The crowd erupted in cheers, and the ignited anger and passion, like a vast ocean, engulfed the town square.
The nun turned around and walked towards Lina.
The firelight illuminated her face.
Lina stared at the increasingly clear face, her gaze moving from the soft eyebrows and eyes to the bridge of the nose, and then to the slightly upturned corners of the mouth.
Memory is like a ledger being turned over, stopping at a certain page.
“It’s you…” Lina began slowly, her voice a little hoarse, “the nun who ran away from me two years ago, in the winter.”
She remembers it all too clearly.
That was a virgin that Lord Cabin had bought from an old gambler in the village of the neighboring baronial territory; she was a woman who couldn't even kill a chicken. She never imagined that the girl who had almost frozen to death in the snow years ago would now personally send her to the gallows.
"You've discovered it." The nun smiled slightly, her tone as calm as a morning prayer, her gentle eyes devoid of any hatred.
Yet there was not a trace of pity.
Those eyes transcended hatred and all superficial human emotions. It was as if she were a true saint serving the divine, and at this moment she was carrying out the divine will.
No wonder—
She can incite so many people.
Lina was silent for a moment, wanting to say something, but swallowed the words back and finally just forced a self-deprecating smile.
Seeing that Lady Lina was speechless, Karen asked in a gentle tone.
"Don't you have anything else to say?"
"Nothing."
Lina grinned and said in a self-deprecating tone.
"As you can see, I was a prostitute. Logically speaking, I should have died in the dungeons of Eagle Rock Castle the moment Sir Richter caught me. I should thank Saint Sith for turning a blind eye and letting me live until now. To be honest, if I were him... I would have killed this blasphemous fellow long ago."
Karen listened quietly to her last words, then answered in a very soft voice.
"Since you have nothing else to say, then please go on your journey without any regrets."
She paused for a moment, then continued.
"Both Sir Richter and your partner, Mr. Cabbeen, will be joining you soon."
Lina slightly raised her head, her cloudy pupils brightening for a moment.
"Oh? Is that so?"
“Of course,” Karen nodded and said gently, “I assure you, you will see them in hell.”
Lina's lips gradually curved upwards, and this time she finally closed her eyes without regret, seemingly accepting her fate for the day.
"Then I should thank you."
Karen didn't say anything more.
She turned around and nodded to the executioner.
The plank suddenly collapsed, and the rope tightened.
Lina's feet dangled in the air, her body swaying a few times in the cold wind before coming to a stop.
A deafening cheer erupted in the square as people looked at the corpse hanging in the cold wind, and the blazing torches seemed to flutter even more brightly.
"Long live the Holy Maiden!"
"Praise be to the Divine Child!"
Mrs. Lina is dead.
They took her off the gallows and threw her into a mass grave outside the town, nailing a cross to her chest to prevent her from becoming a ghost and waking up again.
The queen who once ruled the underground order of Eagle Rock Territory has fallen back into the mire she once belonged to after reaching the pinnacle of her life.
However, the saintess was ultimately merciful.
Like the god she served, she preserved the last shred of dignity for this poor woman, refusing to let those who hated her to the core cut off her flesh.
The flames did not stop because of one person's death.
Karen kept her promise and, seizing the opportunity, led the passionate rebels toward the lord's castle.
The group included farmers with pitchforks, blacksmiths with hammers, and well-trained men carrying the latest Roxay 1054 rifles.
After occupying the armory of Eagle Rock Territory, they discarded the old flintlock muskets and openly replaced them with these new gadgets that the locals had never seen before.
They were soldiers of the Salvation Army.
But the saintess has more cards to play than just this one. In the castle they are about to arrive at, there are informants planted in advance by the "Stigmata" organization.
Infiltrating the palace in Roland might be difficult, since the gravediggers are no pushovers, but dealing with a knight who doesn't even have a baron title is a piece of cake.
When the gates of Eagle Rock Fortress opened from the inside, the guards hadn't even had time to put on their armor before guns were pointed at their heads.
The insurgents poured into the castle and encountered almost no decent resistance.
Sir Richter's guard was already small, not to mention that the captain of the guard was a good-for-nothing, and the entire guard had long been corrupted and riddled with holes.
Everyone in the castle was stunned when they saw the insurgents approaching with overwhelming force.
They had no idea where these people came from or why they were suddenly so angry; it all happened without warning.
Sir Richter was awakened by a slap and dragged off the bed along with his wife.
He was completely terrified, his face filled with horror, and he screamed hysterically, shouting things that no one could understand.
For example, he dedicated his life to this land, and the Eagle Rock Territory owes its current status entirely to his contributions.
But in the end, his pleas for mercy turned into a hysterical curse—
"You ungrateful beasts! What have I ever done to wrong you? You will all go to hell!"
His voice was high-pitched and thin in the cold wind, like a mouse whose tail had been stepped on.
His wife was so frightened that she turned pale and couldn't speak. She knelt on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
Ironically, not everything Sir Richter said was false.
Eagle Rock Territory has indeed become much wealthier in the past two years, but it is mostly him and his servants who have become richer, while the others have remained where they were.
The raging flames did not ignite without cause.
In contrast, the Andean lords, far downstream on the Russo-Palatinate, were much wiser.
Even as the flames of radicalism were just beginning to ignite, he suddenly realized he was standing beneath a crumbling wall, and uttered that classic line at the Thunder City council—
No ragged beggar has ever been willing to give his life to defend the rich man's treasury.
Unfortunately, Sir Richter seemed oblivious to that mysterious "oracle." He even told so many lies that he himself began to believe them.
Carbin was much quieter when he was brought out.
The king of the Eagle Rock Territory's underworld was pinned to the ground, trembling all over, kowtowing repeatedly to the so-called saintess, chanting Saint Sith's name, confessing his sins over and over again... as if Saint Sith were standing right there.
Surprisingly, he was also a "heretic" who believed in the New Testament, and people even found a copy of the New Testament in his home.
The saint looked at him with pity.
“Poor child, the gods actually gave you a chance.”
Carbin raised his head, trembling.
"I'll give you all my money, I just beg you to spare my life."
The saint gently shook her head.
"That's not the opportunity I'm talking about."
If he had shouldered his responsibilities as a lord's servant and done what a nobleman should do, perhaps the outcome tonight would have been different.
Unfortunately, he didn't.
Lord Carbin comfortably hid behind Sir Richter, using Sir Richter's power to exploit the people while posing as Sir Richter's servant and shunning all the responsibilities that came with that power.
As it turns out, that was self-deception.
The bill will not be late because it is not signed.
The first rays of dawn crossed the horizon, illuminating the walls of Eagle Rock Fortress and the heads that rolled beneath the execution platform.
That blood-soaked execution platform had seen countless peasant children executed, but now, for the first time, it was stained with the blood of nobles…
……
The flames of Eagle Rock Territory did not stop in Traveler's Town, but quickly spread like exploding fireworks throughout the northern border of the Kingdom of Rhodes!
In less than a week, the three baronies surrounding Eagle Rock Territory fell one after another. As if they had suddenly received a divine revelation, the local farmers and miners took up arms and began to resist almost simultaneously.
The crowd burned down the manor, smashed open the granary doors, and sent all the lords and their henchmen who couldn't escape to the guillotine.
The events unfolded so suddenly that no one was prepared, and the castles stationed in the North did not even put up a decent resistance.
This matter quickly alarmed the Earl, eventually reaching the Duke, and then flew westward to the court of the Kingdom of Rhodes.
Without daring to be negligent, the Duke of Blackwood, who was stationed in the north, immediately led his troops eastward to quell the rebellion, and won several victories with his swift and decisive offensive.
But problems soon followed.
The flames of rebellion were not extinguished by one or two victories.
Whenever he led his troops to extinguish a nearby fire, two or three new fires would spring up in the distance. The rebels never engaged him in direct combat; if they couldn't win, they would retreat into the woods or hide in the Dragon Tooth Mountains.
But once his cavalrymen left, these people stuck to him like glue, forcing them to divide their forces and defend the area.
The Duke was in a terrible predicament and had no choice but to request reinforcements from the capital.
And it was at this turbulent moment that the carriage of the sage of the soul, Aumon Sigode, had just entered Dragon Vision City.
Standing by the window of the inn, Omon quietly watched the hastily mobilized guards in the city and the panicked citizens on the street, the azure magic crystal embedded in his left eye socket slowly rotating.
"...Your Highness, things are probably more complicated than we thought." Standing behind Omon, his student whispered with difficulty.
Omon didn't speak, but a solemn expression was etched on his face.
Prince Colin seemed to have anticipated his next move.
He hadn't even reached the capital of the Kingdom of Rhodes when the flames of rebellion had already spread into this ancient kingdom.
The only consolation was that he didn't have to go through the trouble of persuading the King of Rhodes to explain how dangerous it was to allow the common people to cause trouble.
Although this matter wasn't actually that difficult...
“This Prince Colin is more difficult to deal with than we thought. First, we need to figure out exactly how many cards he has in his hand.”
With his right hand on the windowsill, Omon spoke in a very soft voice.
It was undoubtedly Colin's doing. What truly alarmed him was how incredibly fast this young man had acted.
The flames had barely begun to burn in Roland City when a vast cloud of smoke rose over the northern border of the Kingdom of Rhodes.
This was definitely not something that could be done on a whim; it must have been a pawn that had been planted long ago, only to be used recently.
But... when exactly did this happen?
Omon's magical crystal prosthetic eye spun around again, and finally took a step back imperceptibly, hiding the solemnity on his face in the shadow of the curtains.
He needs to recalculate.
……
The flames of the two kingdoms are still burning.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in the holy city of Os, a great commotion was raging in the Senate hall of the Os Empire.
The message arrived three days ago.
According to a letter from Duke Eiffel of the Kingdom of Ryan, a large-scale civic uprising has broken out in Roland, the capital of Ryan.
The enraged crowd sent their king to the guillotine, and the rebels, stepping over the corpses of nobles, declared their intention to establish a republic belonging to the common people.
This is the first time in the past thousand years.
Those sheep living under the Holy Light have never been so radical!
"This is a blatant desecration of the sacred order!"
An elderly man dressed in fine clothes slammed his fist on the table and stood up, cursing loudly with his beard bristling and eyes wide open.
“If we turn a blind eye to this, there will be a second and a third Roland City tomorrow! This fire will eventually burn down to the Empire!”
"Burning down to the Empire? Ha!" One elder laughed, but before he could speak, another elder interrupted him.
"Blasphemy?" The dignified elder snorted coldly, stroking his beard with his index finger. "Doesn't Theodore know what he's done? He brought that mess on the Kingdom of Lane, and it's entirely his own fault! If he had even a shred of piety towards the gods, Saint Sith wouldn't have punished him and his family so severely."
“What I didn’t expect was that Hagmer was also dead,” the seemingly powerful man said in a low voice, frowning. “I’ve heard of that boy. He was a true knight, and he had demigod-level strength. He was the one who accompanied Chief Justice Jiménez when he went to Dusk Province to quell the rebellion… Who could have killed him?”
"what do you mean?"
"I'm wondering if it could be chaos."
"That possibility cannot be ruled out..."
The arguments came and went like the never-ending waves of the ocean.
Radicals demanded immediate military intervention, while conservatives argued that it was Ryan's internal affair and should not be interfered with, and some shrewd individuals simply remained silent.
They were either observing the wind direction, pondering the interests of their own families, or... genuinely unsure of what to do.
The Otto Empire was not a city-state after all; this behemoth relied more on inertia than on the Senate to move.
Something like this has never happened before.
Moreover, the most troublesome thing is that the current Os Empire has a very limited number of troops directly controlled by the Senate.
The vast majority of the army is controlled by the civilian officer faction led by Marshal Rako, and it is hard to say whether those people would accept unexpected transfers for benefits beyond their own sphere of influence.
Duke André Castellion leaned back in his chair, stroking his lion-mane-like beard with one hand, and remained silent.
His thoughts were as chaotic as his beard.
Ophia's airship has caused him a lot of trouble lately, and now another huge problem has emerged in the east.
He remembered telling Ophia that if he didn't know something, it wasn't important.
But now, things have become so big that it's hard for him to pretend he didn't see them.
After the meeting, Duke Victor Lambert walked up to him, and the two old friends stopped in the corridor.
"What do you think?" Lambert asked.
“We can’t just sit idly by.” Castellion lowered his voice. “Although the Old World isn’t within our core interests, it’s a barrier against the invasion of Chaos. If things go wrong in the east, we’ll be the ones who suffer in the end.”
Lambert nodded, his serious face revealing little emotion, but he generally agreed with his old friend's assessment.
“I agree, but the question now is… whether we should send troops to intervene, and if we decide to intervene, from which region and which 10,000-strong force to intervene.”
Castellón lowered his voice and spoke meaningfully.
"If something can be resolved with prestige, it's best to use prestige. I don't really approve of making a big fuss over such things. I heard from the Vatican that they've known about the problems in Roland for a long time, and the bishops there have sent many letters, but the Pope has thrown them all into a drawer."
Lambert was slightly surprised, as if he were hearing about it for the first time.
"what do you mean……"
Duke Castellón continued in a low voice.
"This might not be the Church's intention. You know they've been unhappy for a long time about the Devalo family confiscating the regional bishop's treasury... It's possible that they deliberately set off this crisis."
Lambert was silent for a moment, then said in a deep voice.
"But even so, we cannot watch St. Clement's Cathedral destabilize the foundations of the empire because of personal grudges."
“That’s what I think too,” the cunning Duke Castellón said again, then continued with a deep gaze, “We can send envoys to mediate! And not just the Kingdom of Lane, but also the Duchy of Campbell. According to my intelligence, the two countries have been at odds since last winter. The problem with Roland City… is probably not Roland City itself.”
Lambert seemed to realize something.
"what do you mean--"
"In Thunder City!"
Two unfathomable eyes seemed to have reached a consensus.
Two days later, witnessed by Chief Elder Whig Valencia, the Imperial Senate passed the resolution with a two-thirds majority vote.
The Empire will send envoys to the eastern part of the continent to mediate the escalating tensions between the Kingdom of Ryan and the Duchy of Campbell, as well as the brewing crisis in Roland City.
This resolution seemed unremarkable, no different from the countless resolutions issued by the Senate over the past thousand years.
But only a few people can truly grasp its significance.
On the other side, St. Clement's Cathedral.
Chief Referee Jiménez sat in his room with several newspapers from the East spread out in front of him, his back soaked with cold sweat.
He had only recently left the Twilight Province and was leading his men in a triumphant parade in the square in front of St. Clement's Cathedral when he turned around and was slapped in the face by those unruly people from the borderlands.
Then Roland City was bombed.
What happened there was not just a citizens' uprising; St. Clement's Cathedral detected at least two chaotic auras!
One is the "Crown of Pride," the other the "Flame of Destruction." What chilled him even more was the rumor that Hell and the Academy were behind this uprising, along with Colin, the man who founded the School of Science within the Academy!
Colin... let's just say he's one of the Empire's people. He'd met that young man before; judging from his appearance, he seemed like a very sunny and righteous person.
However, he couldn't figure out what the other factions were doing there, or who was fighting against whom.
Regardless of the circumstances, the Kingdom of Lion was a place he had once visited, yet now it was rife with the corruption of chaos; it was clearly a dereliction of duty on his part.
Lord Gregory should already know about this. The reason he hasn't contacted him yet is probably because he himself doesn't know how to handle the situation.
Jiménez wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
He could imagine the expression on Cardinal Frans Sylphine's face when he saw the news; that old man had long disliked him.
He had to come up with a convincing explanation as soon as possible, at least to remove his name from the riots...
……
While Chief Referee Jiménez was sweating profusely, the offices of the "New World" newspaper were buzzing with excitement.
Since Baron Corsia’s novel ended its serialization, this newspaper office, located in a working-class neighborhood, has never been as busy as it is today.
Distributors all crowded around, demanding an extra copy of this morning's newspaper, because their customers had all specifically requested this edition, and they had already sold out their stock.
The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Dingo Kayo, was initially puzzled, but after investigation and interviews, he learned the whole story.
It all started when a writer using the pen name "Poet" published an article in the latest newspaper that was difficult to categorize as either poetry or fiction—
He offered a unique perspective on the story he read in the Holy City Daily about what happened in Roland.
"...Citizens took to the streets with flags in hand, the National Assembly was proclaimed amidst gunfire, and the king's head fell from the guillotine. People shouted 'The crown has fallen!' For the first time, the cry of 'Long live the king!' was not for the kings and generals, but for the cheering crowd!"
"The people of Roland City broke free from the curse of feudalism. They smashed the chains around their necks with their own hands, representing their commoner class as they stepped onto the stage of history for the first time!"
"I will praise them, praise those brave young men and women! There has never been such a precedent on the continent of Os since the beginning of recorded history!"
Ding Ge, sitting at his desk, stared in disbelief as he finished reading the article, muttering something to himself.
"Has this guy gone mad?"
To be honest, it wasn't just Ding that thought he was crazy; even Dantès, who was sponsored by the Demon King to write Marco, thought the guy was probably insane.
The Senate hasn't even made a statement yet. What if it's classified as a rebellion?
Prince Colin, who is far away, cannot protect him!
However, Marco took it all in stride.
Anyway, he's lived a life of hiding before, and he even died once in the square of Longshi City.
If things don't go well, we can just run away again.
Objectively speaking, his views are still immature and he lacks political acumen. After all, he is too young and needs more time to mature.
Most importantly, he had never been to Roland City, didn't know a single Ryan, and knew nothing about the local situation.
However, just as Prince Colin judged him, he was a genius with exceptional writing talent, only he wasn't good at writing doggerel.
The impassioned words resonated with the citizens of the holy city. What Baron Corsia had accomplished with a single word, he had achieved with a whole book.
That word is "class".
It's like a key, instantly giving everyone's pain a name and turning it into something that can be spoken of.
The artisans who spent their lives bent over in the workshops, the porters who spent their lives carrying bags on the docks, and the maids who spent their lives cooking in the kitchens of nobles, suddenly realized where their suffering came from...
The feudal lords of 1054 in the Os calendar had not yet realized how terrible it was to give pain a name.
And you can't really blame them for that.
After all, even in Thunder City, where the flames of industry were burning brightly, only a few intellectuals were vaguely aware of this problem.
The issue of the New World newspaper that published the "poet's" manifesto sold out in the Holy City for three consecutive days, and even made it onto ships bound for the New World and the continent of Gana.
To Marco's own surprise, his article unexpectedly garnered considerable support among junior officers in the Ottoman Empire.
This is partly because the New World newspaper itself was founded by an officer named Coser Blaine with the aim of supporting war orphans in the Holy City.
But the main reason is that those young people who climbed the ranks step by step through their military achievements understood the word "class" he was talking about better than anyone else.
They were locked in the shackles of their soul level for their entire lives. Without a distinguished background, the position of centurion was basically the ceiling for them.
Of course, the nobles of the Holy City haven't yet taken this storytelling newspaper seriously.
After all, they had never really cared about Roland City, let alone the nonsense a Rhodesian was spouting about that frontier place.
Let him talk, what trouble can he possibly cause?
That's true.
An article may not make a splash, but it can plant a seed that is about to sprout in people's hearts.
Just like an encyclopedia.
In short, the giant beast, which had been dormant for a hundred years, finally opened one eye and cast its weary gaze upon the borderland located between the Dragon Tooth Mountain Range and the Ten Thousand Ren Mountain Range.
The Imperial Senate's envoy is about to depart for the East, the Inquisition of St. Clement's Cathedral is in a state of utter confusion as to how to cover up the problem, and the Marshal's Mansion is eerily quiet.
These events are independent and seemingly unrelated, yet they are all connected by the same thread of fate.
And on this rope are the fates of the Lanes, the Campbells, and many others.
The border people of the "Great Isaac" region were no longer asleep in their dream of being the "Land of Knights," but their fates were now closely intertwined with each other and with the fate of the entire continent of Os.
This is unprecedented in the past few centuries...
(End of this chapter)