Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence - Chapter 749 - 417: The Lit Fuse (Part 2)
Kael abruptly turned around and pulled an alchemical signal gun from the weapon rack on the wall.
His hand was shaking with a kind of excitement on the brink of losing control, like a gambler finally touching his last chip before going broke.
He still had a trump card—five tons of black fire magic burst.
Just trigger the cliff, and millions of tons of rocks would avalanche down, burying thousands of out-of-control mobs along with Louis’s vanguard troops in the canyon.
Kael rushed onto the terrace.
The torrential rain hit him in the face, and the wind roared in his ears.
He aimed at the pitch-black night sky and fiercely pulled the trigger.
“Boom——!!”
The black signal flare shrieked into the sky, exploding into a thick black smoke in the rainy night.
It was the agreed upon signal of destruction.
“Explode!” Kael screamed towards the left cliff, his voice almost tearing his throat, “Blow it all up!! Bury them all!!”
He stared intently at the direction of Eagle’s Beak Rock.
In his anticipation, at this moment the mountain should have cracked, flames should have soared, and huge stones should have rained down, completely filling the canyon.
He held his breath.
One second.
Only the sound of rain.
Two seconds.
Thunder rolled in the distance.
Five seconds.
Nothing happened.
Ten seconds.
The cliff still stood silently in the dark, cold and indifferent, like a giant watching from high above.
No flames, no explosion.
Not even a single piece of rock fell.
Kael’s expression froze.
He seemed to have lost his mind, frantically pulling the signal gun’s trigger, but the gun only clicked empty, “click, click.”
“Why?!”
A bone-chilling coldness surged from his feet to the top of his head.
“Impossible…”
He murmured, his brain futilely spinning rapidly.
“Alchemical failure? Impossible! I anticipated tonight’s torrential rain long ago, and had people cut off the alchemical fuse, replaced it with the most primitive and reliable physical guide cord.
Human error? Even more impossible! Guarding there are Death Warriors I’ve raised since childhood. Their families are in my hands, even if it costs them their lives, they’ll pull the switch.”
“Position exposed?” Kael abruptly shook his head, “That’s Eagle’s Beak Rock, a sheer cliff! There’s no road up there!”
Unless… his thoughts suddenly halted.
“Moreover…” Kael’s voice began to falter, “it’s top secret. Apart from me and those few individuals, no one knows where the detonation point is.
How could Louis possibly know? And how could he, amidst the interference of tens of thousands of refugees, precisely target my throat?”
The signal gun slipped from Kael’s hand and fell to the ground as he clasped his head with both hands, staggering back a few steps.
At this moment, he finally realized that something more terrifying than defeat had emerged.
It was a presence that seemed omnipresent, watching.
The other seemed to stand in this tower, behind him, observing every arrangement, every adjustment he made.
His seemingly seamless double insurance was fragile like a layer of transparent glass before those eyes.
“Louis…” Kael’s voice trembled, “Are you human or ghost?”
……
At the top of Eagle’s Beak Rock, the torrential rain washed over the rock surface, also washing over the five corpses on the ground.
Thomas stood at the edge of the cliff, his cloak flapping wildly in the wind.
He glanced down at the crowd surging in reverse below, then lowered his head and played with the thick physical guide cord that had just been cut in his hand.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain, the granary exploded, triggering short-lived and fervent hope, yet also immediately drawing in disaster.
The canyon did not become clear as a result. On the contrary, in the scramble for the food in the recess on the left, tens of thousands of refugees completely lost control, like a pot of boiling water overturned.
Stampede erupted in the chaos.
The strong trampled over the bodies of the elderly and women to push forward, the people behind pressed against those in front, someone fell into the muddy water, almost instantly stomped silent by countless feet.
Crying, cursing, and the dull sound of bones breaking mingled together, soon swallowed by the sound of rain.
The main road remained deadlocked.
Those unable to push through, the injured lying on the ground, and those pinned in place by fear piled up layer upon layer.
Louis’s vanguard was still blocked by this wall of flesh and panic, unable to pass through the canyon.
In the command vehicle, Reg was almost pasted against the observation window looking, “Lord! At this rate, they’ll trample half of themselves to death! And still the road won’t be cleared!”
Louis did not immediately respond.
He gazed through the rain-blurred glass at the rolling sea of people. The fighting, crying, falling and trampling – everything was repeating.
“This is inevitable.” His voice was low yet clear, “The chaos is not because of hunger but because awe has not been established within this group.”
Louis turned, his gaze fixed on Reg’s face: “Then help them establish it.”
He raised his hand without hesitation: “Order, turn on all headlights, blast the steam whistles, advance steadily.”
The order was relayed one after another.
“Woo——!!!”
Dozens of steam tanks simultaneously sounded their whistles and cleared the way.
The sound was not sharp but deep like a roar squeezed from within the mountain, rolling along the canyon.
The piercing searchlights turned on at the same time, thick beams penetrating the rain, like cold, hard swords slicing directly into the chaotic crowd.
The crowd’s reaction was almost instinctual.
When the low rumble approached from behind and the vibration from the tracks crushing muddy water transmitted through the ground, the urge to grab food was suppressed by a more primal fear.
They did not need to understand orders.
Just knowing that remaining in the road meant being crushed was enough.
The crowd blocking the main road began pressing against the canyon walls on either side.
Even without gaps, they used shoulders, ribs, and bodies to forcibly squeeze out space.
The tank’s speed wasn’t fast, but it never stopped.
People knelt trembling in the mud, stuffing muddy wheat into their mouths, while others were pressed so tightly against the cold rock wall that breathing was labored.
Louis opened the window, the cold wind mixed with rain rushing in.
He saw a child by the roadside get knocked down, repeatedly trampled by the crowd, yet stubbornly clutching a piece of black bread.
Louis did not give the order to stop.
He could not save those beyond saving; he aimed to save only the living.
“The rescue team will arrive soon,” he ordered, his voice amplified by the wind and rain, “set up pots near the granary, tell them, snatching is useless. Those wanting soup, line up along the road on their knees.”
The order was relayed, and soon the knights’ voices overpowered the rain.
“Kneel and line up!”
“Lord offers hot soup!”
“Runners will be killed!”
The words “hot soup” elicited reactions in the crowd faster than swords could.
Those competing for raw flour in the mud noticeably hesitated for a moment.
To survive, for that sip of hot soup that wouldn’t choke them, chaos began to be subdued.
The crowd no longer surged forward but trembled, retreating to the sides.
One after another, they knelt down.
Only kneeling made them appear obedient enough, avoided being crushed by the tracks, ensured they’d be remembered and given soup.
The stampede halted, and shouting transformed into suppressed gasps.
The main road in Black Stone Canyon was finally opened.
Down the center of the road, Louis’s steel torrent advanced steadily through lights and whistles.
On both sides of the road, refugees knelt densely across the ground.
They were covered in mud, clutching yet-unswallowed raw flour as they gazed upwards at the army moving through them.
Albert stood by the vehicle window, remained silent for a long time. He had fought all his life and never seen such a scene.
Tens of thousands knelt like believers, clearing the road.
“This…” Albert’s throat moved, he couldn’t describe the scene.
The Red Tide army passed through the flesh-lined corridor unscathed, bursting out of the canyon.
Behind, logistics had indeed set up the marching pots.
White steam rose in the rain, mixed with the aroma of meat, slowly spreading.
That wisp of cooking smoke gathered what little uncollapsed civilian morale remained in Gray Rock Province.
“Don’t stop! Full speed ahead!” Louis’s gaze stretched beyond the valley, landing on the lonely, towering silhouette of Grey Rock Castle in the distance. I am not铁
