NOVPUB
Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Though It’s Not a Picture Window
The thirteenth lightning bolt struck, and young Shaan had already been reduced to a charred husk.
Yet the church’s floor glowed with a layer of golden light—Divine Mother Goddess’s protective radiance. Because Ashu stood nearby, it enveloped the "luminous saint" and shielded him from harm.
"Pity—we lost one escapee," Ashu lamented as he gazed at the smoking remains on the ground.
Just then, Anna stepped out from behind the curtain and explained, "That vice-commander’s rank is a full tier above yours, and he’s a devout Devotee of the God of Deceit. If he planned his escape from the start, we simply couldn’t have stopped him."
Ashu replied, "God of Deceit Devotee? Pure heresy."
Anna shook her head. "The God of Deceit is the state religion’s deity in the Kingdom of Ankgarde—on par with the Divine Mother Goddess. He certainly isn’t a mere cultist."
Ashu bristled. "If you’re not a follower of the Divine Mother Goddess, you’re a heretic."
...
Meanwhile, Vikrant used the secret arts of a God of Deceit Devotee to spirit himself away into the wilds.
Once he determined his bearings, he sprinted toward the Legion’s encampment.
The Legion numbered just over a thousand, with a few left behind in the town of Riven.
Bursting into camp, Vikrant was immediately surrounded by eager soldiers. When he and Shaan had departed, they’d vowed to bring back their missing Commander—and their faith in that promise had kept morale high.
Besides, they’d heard that the Commander’s negotiations would grant them all the path to become cultivators! Among the thousand soldiers, few possessed the innate potential for spiritual perception. To walk the cultivator’s way was a lifelong dream—and one only fate could bestow.
Yet the Commander had dangled that hope before them, and many had been tempted.
"Lord Vikrant! You’ve returned at last! Shall we prepare a welcome ceremony?"
"Where’s the Commander? And Shaan? Could they have gone drinking together?"
"Oh, Shaan loves hunting. Maybe the Commander accompanied him?"
"I’ll say this—these borderlands have far more dangerous beasts than ours ever did!"
Seeing their hopeful faces, Vikrant made his way to the center of the camp. Soldiers crowded around him.
He climbed onto a stone stump.
Step one after ensuring Shaan’s demise was to purge the Legion of any diehard loyalists to the old orthodoxy—otherwise, even if he succeeded to the Commander’s post, murmurs of dissent would follow him.
His gaze swept the crowd, and he silently noted several names onto his mental "Death List."
"Soldiers! Hear me!" he began. "My nephew, Shaan, has fallen into grave peril, and my heart is heavy."
A murmur rose among the troops.
"What?! What’s happened to Lord Shaan?"
"Vice-Commander, did you come back all alone? What’s wrong with Shaan?"
"Speak clearly, Vice-Commander!"
"Vikrant, what on earth is going on?!"
Vikrant kept pressing both hands down, shouting at the top of his lungs. It took considerable effort to finally bring the soldiers back to silence.
Just that scene alone added a shadow to his gaze.
A true Commander wouldn’t need to go through all that. A simple downward gesture with one hand would be enough to silence the entire camp.
But him? His throat was nearly raw from yelling.
"Listen to me, listen to me!!" Vikrant shouted, voice hoarse. "The Holy Cultivator Guild took it upon themselves to punish my nephew Shaan! I must rescue him—but I can’t lead you all into battle. We represent the Duke, we represent the Kingdom of Ankgarde! You have to understand: if we all mobilize, both their soldiers and the Guild will strike back. We’ll be branded traitors! Because we have not received any royal decree to attack!"
But dissenting voices still rose from below.
"Vikrant, we’re not afraid! If we die, we die—but we must rescue Shaan and the Commander!"
"Vice Commander! Lead us—we’ll charge with you! We don’t fear death!"
"Without the Commander, what are we supposed to do? He’s the one who saved me..."
"Let them curse me a traitor! I want to prove I’m a real man!"
The fierce defiance in their shouts made Vikrant burn with frustration—but he didn’t dare explode in front of all these people.
He could only keep shouting over the noise, voice ragged.
"Listen to me—!" he yelled, pounding his chest, feigning deep grief. "I want to fight harder than any of you! That’s my nephew! That’s my brother’s son! We share blood!"
"But I’m the Vice Commander! I don’t have the authority to throw away the Duke’s Legion! I can’t squander the Kingdom’s military resources! I’m not saying we won’t rescue them—but I won’t let every wife become a widow, or every child an orphan..."
"I will—"in the name of brotherhood"—join the suicide squad as the very first volunteer. As for the rest of you—break camp immediately, and return to our homeland!"
With that, Vikrant raised his left hand high into the air.
And one by one, the soldiers below raised their left hands in turn.
He swept his eyes across the crowd.
At least three hundred hands in the air.
Three hundred men willing to abandon home and family for the sake of loyalty.
Most of them were ordinary men without spiritual perception. Only twenty had any cultivation at all.
Those twenty had been on his "Death List" from the very start. But so many mortals volunteering? That he hadn’t anticipated.
If he took them all, the Legion would be reduced to just over seven hundred.
And he had to consider: if he let all of them die, when he returned to the Kingdom, the Duke might not reward him with a promotion—but instead put him on trial.
So many losses... would only be seen as incompetence in leadership.
After weighing everything carefully, Vikrant began calling names, one by one.
"You! You! And you!"
He began with the twenty loyal cultivators. Then he called out seventy-nine ordinary soldiers.
Including himself, the roster totaled exactly one hundred.
But in truth?
He had no intention of dying with them.
"Riven" was a military outpost town on the frontier. The border troops of the Atras Empire usually kept a low profile, barely noticeable. But the moment any sign of a foreign incursion appeared, they would mobilize at once.
"That’s enough!" Vikrant barked. "We hundred will carry your hopes forward. We can’t afford to bring more."
He didn’t stop there. As if casually, he began laying down a retreat path for himself.
"The rest of you, follow my command—break camp immediately and return to the homeland! Wait for word from us at the border!"
The soldiers studied the situation closely. The top twenty fighters in the Legion had all been chosen to go.
That alone proved this was meant to be an elite mission. A calm assurance spread through the ranks.
And so, after Vikrant named a temporary officer to take charge, the others began breaking camp without delay.
As for Vikrant himself, he called the hundred men to gather in close. Forming a tight circle.
"Listen closely," Vikrant said, sweeping his eyes across each face.
"We must act as cult followers during this operation. That means changing our appearance. Remove your armor—put on black robes instead. This will reduce the chances of alerting their border patrols. And another thing—I’ve got dirt on them. It’ll help undermine the reputation of the Holy Cultivator Guild."
He paused, his voice growing darker.
"We’re not just rescuing someone—we’re here for revenge. Remember this well: their former Bishop’s name was Midaldas..."
Then Vikrant laid bare the secrets of Midaldas’s dealings with the Gem of Deceit, speaking as if he were revealing divine truth.
The Gem of Deceit had, in fact, been supplied to Midaldas by them.
He spoke with conviction, weaving his tale like a seasoned storyteller. But deep down, he knew exactly what he was doing.
The "Riven" town branch of the Guild had been executing heretics with terrifying efficiency lately. Devotees of Cidi, once a common sight, had vanished entirely—as if they’d been erased from the face of the world.
Vikrant’s real goal was to place these men in direct opposition to the Holy Cultivator Guild—set them up as walking targets.
That way, they’d die all the faster.
The soldiers, driven by a desperate need to rescue their Commander—and seeing Vikrant himself apparently leading the charge—asked no further questions.
They agreed without hesitation.
Armor clattered to the ground, black robes replaced shining mail.
As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the hundred men stood cloaked in shadow—looking every bit like cultists preparing for a ritual under cover of night.
"Move out!" Vikrant put on a simple mask. Beneath it, his face was lit with barely-contained excitement.
As long as he could get this batch of loyal fools killed, the rest—the ordinary soldiers buried among the ranks—could be easily silenced, even if a few dared to speak out.
They first lay in wait within the forest just outside the town of Riven. When the sun finally dipped below the horizon and darkness fell, only then did they begin to move.
...
At the same time.
Inside the cathedral.
Ashu had just finished his daily duties as Bishop. The church bells rang solemnly, signaling the end of the day’s service. Devotees began trickling out in an orderly fashion.
He returned to the back chamber. Anna was already there, freshly bathed, waiting for him—ready to be enjoyed.
"Anna," Ashu said, eyes gleaming, "why don’t we try somewhere different tonight... say, the top of the cathedral?"
Doing it before the Divine Mother Goddess’s statue had started to lose its thrill.
At the very top of the cathedral was a small attic. It was usually uninhabited, used mostly for storing old junk and as a barrier against leaks from rain.
When it came to this kind of thing, Anna never disobeyed Ashu.
So the two of them ascended to the church’s highest point.
The attic had only one small window. If one leaned close to it, they could overlook the entire layout of Riven.
Ashu removed his long Bishop’s robe and spread it across the floor.
"It’s not a floor-to-ceiling window, but the view’s still not bad," he said with a smirk.
"Floor-to-ceiling window?" Anna blinked, not quite understanding what that had to do with anything.
"Never mind."
"Wait a minute..."
Just as Anna undid the first button on her blouse, something flickered in her twelfth-level spiritual perception—an abnormal group of moving targets, all at once.
Ordinary townsfolk didn’t travel in such formations.
Which meant, if it wasn’t a mobilization by the Kyle family, it could only mean one thing: intruders.
"Ashu, hold on. Something’s up." As she spoke, she reached out with sharper focus, expanding her sensory range. She could feel the entire deployment of the Kyle family, steady as ever. But the cluster of movement at the edge of town? That was new.
And if the Kyle family hadn’t moved...
Then the conclusion was obvious.
"It’s those damn Legion bastards," she said coldly.
