Chapter 1052 - 868: Earl (Part 2)

The Earl and Duke sat side by side in the back row, while Lloyd rode her tall warhorse next to the carriage.

The carriage moved slowly along the main street of Stone Crown City, and passersby, seeing the Earl’s carriage, stopped in their tracks to take off their hats or bow, with no one daring to look directly at the old man in the carriage.

The carriage came to a stop at the edge of a massive square in the city center.

The square was vast, with large gray-white stone slabs covering the ground. The gaps between the slabs were carefully sealed with a dark red caulk, shimmering with a faint metallic sheen in the morning light.

In the center of the square stood a giant statue tens of meters tall. The giant was carved from a single block of pale golden stone, with elongated and solemn proportions. Its facial lines were gentle yet dignified, with two large blue gemstones set in its eye sockets, casting a deep glow in the sunlight.

The statue’s hands stretched forward with its palms facing up, as if lifting some invisible weight.

At that moment, several hundred people dressed in identical white robes were gathered in the square. Their robes hung from their shoulders to their ankles, with gold braided belts around their waists, and each wore a silver pendant on their neck, shaped exactly like the giant statue’s outstretched hands.

They knelt facing the giant statue, lightly touching their foreheads to the stone slabs, and murmured some ancient prayer.

The prayer’s tone was low and prolonged, merging into one among the hundreds of voices, echoing in the open square like an a cappella hymn.

These people were all young, both men and women, ranging in age from their teens to their twenties, each carrying the same piety and solemnity on their face.

The Duke noticed that their statures were evidently taller and stronger than the villagers from Iron Tree Village, and their skin shone with greater luster, clearly having been carefully selected from various places.

The Earl, sitting in the carriage, spoke slowly in a hoarse voice: "This is our Osseron people’s faith in the deity, Osseron, who is said to have lifted this land with his own hands, allowing all things to grow. We worship the deity, treating it as our belief, and it is because of such belief that our Empire has endured until now. We are different from you wizards, it is said that wizards do not worship any deity, whereas we worship this deity unique to our Osseron people."

The Duke’s gaze lingered on the giant statue for quite some time, responding nonchalantly, while another thought raced through his mind.

This Osseron, when placed within the framework of the Wizard Plane, would roughly correspond to a regional deity formed by indigenous beliefs, similar to the God of Light in the Oracle Plane.

Osseron was probably also an embodiment of the Plane Will.

With the Plane Will of the Elderlands dissipated, Osseron most likely ceased to exist as well.

Additionally, considering what the villagers previously mentioned, the Divine Sacrifice was believed to hasten the deity’s return, Osseron’s followers likely could not feel the deity’s presence, assuming the deity had left this world.

After introducing this, the Earl turned his head, with that mysterious and unfathomable smile still on his wrinkled face: "Three days from now is the day of the Divine Sacrifice. These young people in the square are all selected believers from various places, who will receive the deity’s blessing during the Divine Sacrifice. At that time, I invite you to witness this Divine Sacrifice together. After the Sacrifice ends, I have some questions I’d like to discuss with you."

After leaving the square, the Earl did not return directly to the mansion, but instructed the driver to continue along the main street of Stone Crown City.

He said it was rare to have a distinguished guest from afar, and wanted the Duke to see his city.

Along the way, shops lined both sides of the street, with the sounds of hammering coming from the blacksmith’s shop, the smell of baking bread wafting from the bakery’s door, and several butchers wearing leather aprons unloading freshly slaughtered meat at the roadside.

The Earl pointed along the way, occasionally introducing the history of certain buildings or old shops, his tone calm yet exuding the unique poise of an old-fashioned Lord.

As the Duke listened, he extended his spiritual power to encompass the movements of several surrounding blocks.

His spiritual power spread like an invisible web, covering several hundred meters around the carriage, enough to grasp the nearby activities.

Then, his spiritual power flickered lightly.

Directly ahead of the carriage, a curtain in a second-floor window of a street-side building was half-drawn, concealing three people behind it.

Their heartbeats were rapid, their breathing suppressed but still hurried, muscles tense, bodies slightly leaning forward, their weight on their toes.

They held some kind of mechanical device in their hands, with a set of minute metal components interlocking within it.

Meanwhile, in the alley on the left side of the carriage, several people were swiftly moving along the wall, judging by the encircling route, the target was the carriage.

There were about ten people in total, their energy fluctuations weak, not even reaching the level of a Level 1 Extraordinary.

However, the leader was a woman, her energy fluctuation noticeably stronger than the others, already reaching the level of a Level 1 Extraordinary.

The Duke turned his head towards the Earl, lowered his voice and said, "There’s an ambush on the second floor ahead, and in the alley on the left there’s an encirclement. The leader is Level 1, the others are below Level 1, altogether more than a dozen people."

His tone was calm as he spoke, as if describing the weather.

The Earl’s aged face showed no panic, he merely nodded slightly, and then raised his hand to knock on the backrest of the front seat.

Lloyd immediately maneuvered her horse closer to the carriage, leaned down to listen to a few words, dismounted silently, and gestured some signals to the knights behind her.

The knights were evidently seasoned, neither drawing their swords nor shouting, merely adjusting their formation accordingly.

The curtains on the second floor were suddenly torn open, and three crossbow arrows shot out from the window, the arrowheads glinting with a dark green glow in the sunlight.

Simultaneously, several people rushed out of the alley in front and to the left of the carriage, each holding a homemade bomb emitting smoke.

Lloyd stood abruptly on horseback, drawing her sword from its sheath. Her sword movements were swift, her sword blade cutting through the air in an arc, precisely slicing the bomb flying at the forefront.

The bomb had not yet exploded before being swept into the air by her sword wind, and exploded with a roar, black smoke and debris churned in the air.

The second bomb following closely was slapped away directly with her shield, smashed into an empty stone wall at the street corner, blowing a charred gap into the wall’s surface.

The foremost assassins had already leaped with their short daggers towards the carriage, but Lloyd did not even bother using her sword, instead directly using her shield to send one flying, simultaneously flipping the short dagger from another with a backhand sword.

The remaining assassins barely had time to get close before being intercepted by the surrounding knights. The clashing of longswords and daggers produced a piercing metallic symphony, but the outcome was determined almost instantaneously upon contact.

The woman in the alley, seeing her companions being subdued in succession, finally could not resist rushing out from the shadows.

She gripped a rapier more finely crafted than the ordinary assassins’, thrusting directly at Lloyd’s neck.

Her speed was a notch faster than her companions below Level 1, but Lloyd had already anticipated her.

As she burst from the alley entrance, Lloyd lightly tapped her toe on the stirrup, flipping sideways in mid-air, landing at the woman’s flank, her longsword tapping lightly on her neck, stumbling her several steps.

When she steadied herself and tried to raise her sword again, two Knight’s Longswords were already poised at her neck.

Lloyd sheathed her sword, walked to the woman, removed her mask with one hand, pried open her fingers holding the sword with the other, and handed the rapier to her adjutant behind her.

Then she turned to the front of the carriage, saluted Lloyd, and reported the identity of the captive in a businesslike manner.

"They’re the Rebel Army, the ones calling themselves the Red Radiance Revolutionary Army. They’re active mainly in the Kingdom’s insurgent forces, seeking to overthrow the Osseron Kingdom’s rule. The leader should be a low-ranking cadre, haven’t seen her before, a little interrogation should get us some information."

Lloyd placed the woman’s confiscated rapier on the carriage step, with a burning red sun wheel motif etched on the sword hilt.