Chapter 215 - Epilogue 1

If the battlefield at Velkar was brutal, then Stonegate’s battlefield was a nightmare.

Piles of dead bodies could be seen even a kilometer away from Stonegate’s outer walls. The closer one got to the walls, the larger those piles became. The inside of the city was no better. Blood and ash had replaced people and carts.

The outer walls had been completely destroyed. At every Royal Army and city guard barracks in the outer city, the flags of House Petrae and the Royal Army were gone, replaced by the banners of Frosthallow. The giants of Frosthallow marched through the outer city, looting and violating the surviving population.

But the horrors did not end there.

Another massive pile of dead bodies lay near the inner wall. Among them were the two most recognizable corpses on the battlefield: the guardian beasts of House Petrae. They lay amid the debris of the inner city wall, which had been breached for the first time since Stonegate’s founding.

Avalon’s last remaining forces were concentrated inside the Count’s palace, treating their injuries and replenishing their mana, while two Fjalldreki and their raiders circled three forty-foot-tall stone giants, each piloted by elites of House Petrae. Smaller Frosthallow forces readied themselves to storm the palace the moment those giants fell.

To anyone watching, it looked as though Avalon’s forces were on their last legs, clearly outnumbered and outclassed.

One of the Fjalldreki took flight, rising high above the battlefield before diving back down at supernatural speed. Suddenly, a thick wall of earth appeared in its path, yet it did not stop the beast. Smashing through the wall, the Fjalldreki continued forward and aimed directly for the stone giant’s head, where its pilot was stationed.

At the last second, the earth beneath the giant’s feet shifted, moving the entire construct just enough to prevent the Fjalldreki from striking its head. Instead, the beast’s attack crashed into the giant’s shoulder, destroying almost the entire left side of the construct.

The Fjalldreki stabilized itself and once again began circling the giant, whose damaged left side recovered in the blink of an eye.

Then both Fjalldreki flew higher, preparing for another attack.

Just as they began their dive, they stopped midway, surprising even their opponents.

A moment later, a ripple of earth mana passed through all of Stonegate, spreading as far as Fort Darrow.

Within a minute, another ripple followed.

Then the horns of retreat began sounding throughout the Frosthallow camp.

The Fjalldreki flew higher and higher, as though trying to disappear into the sky. Frosthallow’s higher-tier commanders were just as quick to flee the city.

Meanwhile, the ripples began coming in quicker succession.

Within ten minutes, they were so close together that it became almost impossible to distinguish one from the next.

Then all of them converged.

A massive amount of earth mana shot into the sky, forming a pillar that seemed to reach the heavens.

Had anyone been standing close to that pillar of earth mana, they would have been petrified.

Yet at the bottom of that pillar, a middle-aged man opened his eyes.

A smile appeared on his face.

That man was Count Petrae, who had finally completed his breakthrough.

He looked around, examining his surroundings for a few seconds, almost as though he were admiring his usually mundane meditation room as if it were a scenic view. Yet that calm feeling evaporated a second later, and his smile was replaced by a frown.

Standing up in a hurry, Count Petrae opened a hidden back door built into the meditation room.

On the other side of the door lay a long tunnel leading toward the northern mountain of Stonegate City.

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Making his way through the tunnel, he arrived at a massive hall more than five hundred meters wide, five hundred meters long, and one hundred meters tall.

But the size of the hall was not the strangest thing about it.

Inside the hall, along all four walls, stood thousands of giants similar to the ones fighting outside but of different sizes, ranging from human-sized constructs to giants a hundred feet tall that touched the walls.

And in the center of the hall stood what looked like a massive obsidian statue of a beast.

It resembled Onyx, with its tail coiled around itself, yet its body still covered almost half the hall.

Near the beast’s statue stood Count Petrae’s loyal butler, Aelius, polishing its claws.

As Count Petrae walked toward him, a voice spoke.

“Kid, control your mana.”

Then the statue opened its eyes and exhaled.

This was not some decoration kept in the hall.

It was the first Tyrannus that House Petrae’s ancestor had bonded with, the original Tier-7 pillar that had guided the Count through his advancement.

“Ancestor, could you not have protected my city?” Count Petrae asked.

“You know very well, Albrecht, that I have a pact with that fly on the mountain not to support your kin directly. And even if I could, I would not help you in a war that your own foolishness brought upon you.”

The Tyrannus ancestor’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“You should be thankful that I allowed more than half of your city into my home.”

After saying that, the Tyrannus closed his eyes again, as though the conversation were over.

Count Petrae could only sigh and make his way toward the stone chair positioned at the front of the room.

This time, Aelius followed behind him.

“My lord, what does Ancestor mean by that?” Aelius asked.

“He thinks that one of the Tier-7s from our kingdom tipped off Frosthallow about my breakthrough,” the Count said.

The Count’s statement surprised his butler.

Even though Aelius was not unfamiliar with the kingdom’s politics, this was treason of the highest order.

Moreover, if one of the kingdom’s Tier-7s was truly involved, then this war would not be the end of things. Given the nature of these long-lived house heads, a delay of a century or two meant little to them.

Nor did it matter much if their opponent gained more power during that time.

The next decisions made by the Count or his enemies could change the map of Avalon forever. But for now, the Count had a much more important and pressing concern.

Sitting on the chair, he poured his newly refined and vastly increased mana, mixed with the anger of losing more than one member of his family, into the core embedded in the armrest.

For the first time since their creation, all the stone statues stirred at once, demonstrating the difference between Tier-6 and Tier-7. At the peak of Tier-6, the Count could control only three of those hundred-foot-tall statues. Now, along with them, he could control all the smaller statues as well.

One by one, statues slowly dissolved into the ground.

What followed was a slaughter.

Throughout Stonegate and its surroundings, stone statues began appearing and killing Frosthallow soldiers on sight.

Even those fleeing were not spared.

Once the inside of the city had been wiped clean of every trace of Frosthallow’s soldiers, the stone statues arranged themselves into a simple rectangular formation and began marching north, destroying every structure that bore Frosthallow’s mark.

A day later, after all the hideouts and supply depots around Stonegate had been destroyed, the lone figure of Count Petrae stood in front of the almost-empty Fort Darrow.

Captain Darrow’s body was still skewered on a pike atop the central dome of the command building.

With a wave of his hand, Count Petrae dissolved the earthen pike and respectfully lowered the body.

Then, forming a casket from earth, the Count placed Darrow’s body inside it.

He was a warrior who had fought and died for Avalon.

He deserved every bit of respect he could be given.

After that, Count Petrae continued onward and made his way to the fort’s infirmary, where the remaining two hundred soldiers were helping one another by applying bandages and providing first aid.

At the center of the infirmary stood a bed.

On that bed lay a frail old man, yet his voice boomed across the room as he berated the soldiers about the proper way to tie bandages.

The Count made his way toward the central bed as the soldiers knelt in respect.

Looking at the frail man, whose old body bore scars and signs of starvation, the Count asked, “What drove Frosthallow to torture a healer and dishonor an old noble of Avalon?”

“The soldiers left in the fort were young,” the old man replied, looking into Count Petrae’s eyes, completely at ease as he spoke to one of the most powerful men in Avalon. “Also, we had some disagreements.”

The Count looked at the stretchers and the kneeling soldiers.

“Was it because of them?”

One thing Count Petrae was proud of was that, although his niece was a monster in the shape of a woman and a black mark on the name of the old nobles, she had given birth to a perfect leader and soldier.

“No. It was because of my failed attempt to save them.”

The old man looked behind him, where several freshly dug graves were present.

Then he looked back into Count Petrae’s eyes and asked, “Where were you, Granduncle?”

“It was a perfect attack. I was breaking through to Tier-7 and did not even know what was happening until I completed my breakthrough,” Count Petrae replied, almost as though he regretted reaching new heights of power.

Then the Count looked around at the soldiers once more.

“Tomorrow, a contingent from the supply department and a group of healers will arrive here. For now, we are evacuating Fort Darrow.”

He paused, then looked back at the old man.

“Why don’t you return to the Cicero family home in Stonegate? Your family’s servants have been without their patriarch for a long time, and you have done enough to atone for a sin you did not even commit.”

“I think I have.”

The old man sighed.

“It is time for Lieutenant Tullius Cicero to retire.”

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