Chapter 1455 - 1418: Soul Bodies

Lincoln was a careful and cautious man.

In a tidied room, he used the "White Mark Wax Stone" Lann had left behind to finish copying the symbols on the sheepskin scroll.

Several half-transparent Soul Bodies, each flickering with a different light, appeared one after another, but there was basically no great disturbance.

As if they had already been notified in advance, and knew what the situation was this time coming over.

Yet some among them, when they distractedly greeted Lincoln and began heading out, caught sight of the sun that was about to set.

And... a living person in a castle!

The Ember Knights coming and going cast curious yet respectful gazes upon the Soul Bodies, while the Soul Bodies clearly had not expected to see such a scene.

Once they reached the walls of High Hill Castle, the Soul Bodies’ reactions became all the more astonishing.

"So many... lives!"

An elderly man, gloomy of countenance, wearing a high crown and a Magic Robe, cradling a long spear in his arms as if gripping a Magical Artifact, said thus.

Lincoln listened to how the others addressed him; it seemed to be "Archbishop Klimte," which made the young secretary purse his lips.

He remembered that Lann had always been at odds with religious groups, and had no idea how he’d come to know this archbishop, who could now be pulled over to help.

The crows in the sky crying ominously, the rabbits and mice on the ground, even the worms in the soil, and the fallen leaves on the low hill rustling under the autumn wind...

All this, scenes that to the Ember Knights or to anyone of the Magic Middle Ages were utterly commonplace, seemed to fill this Soul Body with endless melancholy and wistful emotion.

Klimte drew a deep breath, as if he wanted to draw into his chest the earthy reek, the smell of fallen leaves and grass, and even the animal stench.

"Here, it seems... there are no souls." A Female Knight, clad in what looked like light silver armor and wearing a gauzy veil over her head, spoke in a similarly shaken whisper. "Yet all the living beings are still acting normally?"

"Likewise, it seems there is no... flame here either?"

An old man cloaked in a mantle of crow-feathers, adorned with many animal products, spoke in a hoarse voice as well. Only his tone was all the more unsure, unable to believe.

"But the world’s environment is stable?! How is that possible?!"

A tiny flame floated in his hand.

This was someone Lincoln had been introduced to by Lann in person; his name was Comicus, a Curse Master, and his own lord’s teacher in Curse Technique.

It was just that last time, this elder had been absorbed in studying the so?called spellbook, so he had not followed his lord out for a tour.

Thus, this should also be Comicus’s first time seeing what lay beyond the rooms of High Hill Castle.

When Lincoln was led by Lann for mutual introductions last time, he had heard that "these people come from a world about to naturally die out, so there is a sense of ruin and decay upon their whole beings."

Lincoln simply had not imagined that the most ordinary sights of his own world could leave these people so genuinely shocked.

These friends of Lann’s from the Flame World actually spoke much like the Yan Nan People.

The same drifting, gentle cadence, giving one the sense of sleep?talk, of being indifferent to everything.

Only, the Hunters of Yan’an spoke so because they had long been trapped in the Dream Realm of the Ancient God.

From their individual perspective, it was not much different from the destruction of the world.

Whereas the Flame World... that was a world truly on the verge of destruction.

They, too, were a group of people whose minds had become more or less abnormal in an abnormal environment.

Their current tone and manner of speech were already the mildest of their changes.

This similarity in tone and cadence made Lincoln involuntarily turn to look at Maria, who was likewise standing on the wall.

He discovered that the tall, sharp-edged scion of Blood Nobility was at that moment pressing down the brim of her hat, and nodding slightly in salute to one of the Soul Bodies.

Though the Soul Bodies wore different clothing from one another, Lincoln felt a basic familiarity about them all—at most, the style of their Knight Armor varied.

Yet among them, a figure appeared wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a silver mask, wrapped in a leather greatcoat, whose style was very similar to Maria’s.

Leonard of the "Yellow Finger" likewise pinched the brim of his wide-brimmed hat, bowing his head in greeting toward Maria.

Having studied under Maria for a few days, Lincoln vaguely sensed that although Lady Maria’s expression had not changed, she seemed somewhat pleased at meeting another "hat enthusiast."

Lincoln and the other Ember Knights could hardly understand such a hobby.

After greeting Maria, Leonard turned his head, only to find that Klimte the archbishop, who had just had his hand resting on the crenellations, apparently immersed in the view of this smoothly functioning world, had turned his head and was now looking at him with a meaningful, admonishing gaze.

On that gloomy face, half-covered in White Beard, there was an expression that could not be read.

Leonard instinctively gave a snorting laugh of defiance and turned away.

What met his eyes, aside from their own group of half-transparent Soul Bodies, were all people whose minds were sound and bodies wholly normal.

They lacked that unique "soul" of the Flame World, and yet they were still intelligent beings leading ordinary lives.

Just then, the autumn wind swept over the hill, bringing with it the scent of decaying leaves yet brimming with vitality. In the distance came the cries of some unknown birds, and the barking of feral dogs and wolves.

This was such a vigorous world, in the very prime of its life!

"You’re called Lincoln?" Leonard patted the shoulder of the young man who had summoned them, and asked, "Where is Lan... that lord right now?"

Lincoln tilted his head; he felt that the other’s words were halting, as though spoken very unwillingly.

Only, separated by a silver mask, and without having had prolonged contact with the other, he truly could not read the man’s emotions.

"You mean, the Master of our Knight Order?"

"Lann." Leonard said, and Lincoln felt that calling him directly by name went much more smoothly this time. "Yes, Lann. Where is he? There are some things I’d like to talk to him about."

"My apologies, sir." Lincoln handled it with ease. "Tonight is a critical moment. My lord is likely to be busy without pause."

A long exhalation drifted out from beneath the silver mask under the wide-brimmed hat. Lincoln couldn’t tell if it was a sigh of relief at not having to meet, or a sigh of regret.

Klimte’s sigh in the distance, however, was clearly one of regret.

Leonard, having gotten no result, went off to one side, standing with his gloomy presence leaning against the wall, brim pulled low.

The other Soul Bodies, though delighted and entranced by this world brimming with life, were still weighed down by the long-standing gloom and decay of the Flame World, and in truth weren’t all that lively.

No constant shouting; they simply watched in a quiet that bordered on death.

From Lincoln’s observation, among this group the only one who felt even slightly like a living person was the "Yellow Finger" Hazel with the strange hat.

The others, really, seemed even less alive than Lady Maria.

Having them stand nearby made one’s chest feel tight.

It only made Lincoln feel all the more that what his lord had gone through had long since surpassed mundane imagination.

Among them, that slender, beautiful Female Knight Soul Body had also come over to greet him.

"I am Sirius of the Land of Dusk." The Female Knight, silver headpiece crowning her, spoke in a drifting, gentle tone. "If words speak true, we may be colleagues."

She spoke with a solemn and somewhat stiff manner, enough to make Lincoln—who was always relaxed when dealing with Lann—feel a bit nervous.

Unconsciously, he let himself be drawn into her cadence.

"The Master of our Knight Order is ’Lann of Sintra’. By your words, you are...?"

"The self-introduction is already complete." Sirius shook her head, but her gaze was earnest. "I am a Knight who has sworn fealty to him, for he extended a hand and granted salvation when my heart had fallen into utter despair and I was bereft of all ties."

"No matter the time, my loyalty shall never waver."

The Embers Knight Order was itself a very young order; Lincoln was not good at dealing with such grave seriousness, and on top of that...

The young Secretary looked at the Female Knight’s cool, handsome features, then turned to find Lady Maria—who had been listening for a while at his side—also turning her head to size the woman up.

"To serve alongside you as a fellow subordinate is an honor beyond words for us."

’Though I can’t help feeling that you showing up like this is basically coming to fan the flames around my lord...’

The Secretary spoke with sincere humility, while in his heart he immediately added that line.

The Soul Bodies summoned from the Flame World had been here from the evening they were called up until now, past four in the morning.

In that time, it seemed that merely sitting or standing at random to breathe the air and look up at the steady sky hung with stars and moon was enough to let them relax in intoxicated silence.

Stuart and the others, who had been the first to complete their transformation, though they hadn’t fully recovered their bodies yet, had gone up the walls to check the situation.

Their amber, catlike eyes—just like Lann’s—were there for the Soul Bodies to see.

But when they saw that Stuart and the others had bodies not much different from ordinary folk and were still visibly weak, they all simply walked away with unchanged expressions.

Compared to the first impression Lann had given them, these "regular" Demon Hunters actually struck the Soul Bodies as rather ordinary.

When the White Rose Knights, like several serpents of flame, began converging from different points on the low hills and gradually gathered before the castle—

In fact, the people on the walls and the Soul Bodies had been watching for quite some time.

By rights, a "strike mid-stream" tactic is something anyone with military experience should instinctively consider.

Yet after communicating with the Soul Bodies, the Embers Knights in High Hill Castle simply allowed the enemies to form up and assemble freely before the fortress.

And only when those siege engines—whose threat to High Hill Castle’s walls and gates was greatest, with the key parts all sheathed in Demon-Blocking Gold—were raised into place did the White Rose Knights outside slowly erupt into shouting that sounded as if victory was already assured.

In their eyes, the Embers Knight Order inside High Hill Castle probably hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet. And they had already, without anyone noticing, set their siege engines right in front of the opposing castle’s gate.

And amidst those waves of voices praising the Eternal Fire and spitting on Mutants and vile Magic—

Leonard, still standing against the wall, spoke up.

"Comicus, get ready to move. Take those trebuchets apart first."

"This soon?" The Curse Master, whose upper face was wrapped in bandages, laughed in a crow-like rasp. "I keep hearing them shout ’Eternal Fire’ and such. I was hoping to see what kind of flame that is."

"Nothing but backward, ignorant superstition." Klimte, cradling his long spear, said coldly. "Hasn’t it long been said? The Eternal Fire has no fire."

"All right, all right, then let’s begin."

The Soul Body of the crow-like Curse Master patted his crow-feather cloak and rose from the ground.

He stretched out his left hand, and the little flame floating in his palm swelled larger and larger amid a roaring as the air around it heated and expanded.

The Embers Knights nearby stared, dumbstruck.

That was no longer a Fireball... that had become viscous, a flowing, twisting sphere of magma!

"Demon-Blocking Gold?" Leonard’s cold laugh came from beneath his silver mask as he drew out a slim Magic Staff catalyst, stepping up to the crenellations to look down. "Let’s see if this metal can restrain a ’soul’."

A Holy Bell Catalyst appeared in Klimte’s hand, and a strand of white radiance slowly gathered as he recited his tale!

In the next instant, the massive magma sphere, the azure Giant Soul Arrow, and the Holy Light Double-pronged Spear trailing falling Angel Feathers all slammed toward the siege engines sheltered by Demon-Blocking Gold!