Debuff Master

Chapter 1232

Siegfried immediately left the imperial palace and set out for the city after hearing the report from Michele.

The contents of the report were so bizarre that it was too difficult to grasp what had truly happened just by hearing about it. After much deliberation, he came to the conclusion that he needed to see it with his own eyes.

Soon, he reached the city in question.

“Bring those bodies over here!”

“Careful lifting them!”

“Heave-ho!”

“Slowly! Slowly!”

The city looked desolate, with only the imperial soldiers moving about.

The imperial soldiers were hard at work moving corpses.

Every single one of them wore masks, maintaining strict sanitary measures, as a plague outbreak was a possibility in a situation like this. The bodies were loaded onto carts, where they would be transported and burned at a secluded area.

The Proatine Empire had recently suffered an outbreak of plague, so they were especially sensitive to handling corpses. They decided to transport the remains of those who perished in this mysterious incident to a secluded place where they would be cremated.

Siegfried had raised the question of how to honor those who had perished, and Michele came up with the idea to collect the ashes later and erect a memorial monument in honor of them right in the heart of the city.

Aside from this, there was little the Proatine Empire could do. Almost the entire city perished overnight, which meant that most of those who died had perished along with their entire family.

“Loyalty! Greetings, Your Imperial Majesty!”

The commander in charge saluted upon seeing Siegfried enter the city.

Siegfried saluted the commander and said, “Thank you for your hard work, commander.”

“It is nothing, sire.”

“What’s the situation like over here?” Siegfried asked.

The commander bit his lips and replied, “Other than the fact that everyone is dead… we have found nothing.”

“Have autopsies been conducted?”

“Yes, sire. The reports from the physicians who conducted the autopsies are compiled here.”

The commander took out a folder containing the autopsy reports from the physicians.

“Hmm…”

Siegfried flipped through the pages, reading their findings one by one.

However, he found nothing out of the ordinary. All of the deaths were marked as natural deaths. It was as if the people simply stopped breathing and died just like that.

‘But how is that even possible?’

Siegfried racked his brains trying to recall anything that could explain what was happening. There were not that many beings capable of inducing such a mass death.

From Siegfried’s experience, the late Chief Archangel, Lucifer, was one example. Lucifer’s voice alone carried the power to condemn one to death. Unless one was an NPC or Adventurer above Level 250, they would succumb to Lucifer’s command.

‘Did Lucifer somehow resurrect and do this? No, that’s impossible.’ he briefly entertained the idea but quickly dismissed it. Then, he thought, ’This reeks of a dungeon outbreak. A demonic monster must have escaped.

‘That’s the only explanation I can think of…’

It was the only theory that made sense so far. Most calamities plaguing the continent lately had come from rampaging Ancient Dungeons.

‘So what is it this time…?’

“We have found survivors, sire!”

“Oh? Really?”

“Yes, sire!”

“Bring them to me at once.”

The survivors were soon brought before him.

‘Huh? What?’ Siegfried blinked in disbelief.

The survivors weren’t ordinary citizens.

Judging by their ragged clothes and haggard appearances, Siegfried could tell that they were vagrants and homeless people who slept in sewers or hid behind dark alleyways.

‘What in the world?’

They weren’t the only survivors.

Among the survivors were a handful of guards and soldiers.

Curious, Siegfried decided to hear their accounts.

“Everyone was already dead when I woke up.”

“I came off patrol at dawn to change shifts and found every last one of them dead.”

“There was nothing out of the ordinary, sire.”

After hearing their accounts, Siegfried was locked in deep thought.

‘Hmm… Why did these ones survive while everyone else died?’

He pondered it for a while until he eventually spotted a pattern.

All of the survivors were outdoors throughout the night. The homeless had no choice but to live outside while the guards and soldiers were on patrol duty.

In the end, Siegfried came up with three conclusions.

1. The incident occurred during the night.

2. The survivors were outdoors all the time.

3. Those who slept indoors ended up dying.

‘Hmm… So why did those indoors die while those outside lived?’ he wondered.

Whatever was happening, this was clearly not a plague. If it were, then the vagrants would surely die first. Judging by how they were still alive, Siegfried was confident that there was no plague.

“Has there been similar cases elsewhere?” Siegfried asked.

“Yes, sire. Two cities in the Lambda Kingdom have reported similar incidents.”

“I see… Okay, you may go back and do what you have to do.”

“As you command, sire!”

With that, Siegfried left the city and departed for the Lambda Kingdom.

***

The city where the incident had occurred lay right on the border with the Lambda Kingdom, which was practically next door.

“Loyalty!”

“Greetings, sire!”

“Loyalty! Loyalty!”

The border guards saluted him with sharp discipline.

It was only natural that the Lambda Kingdom’s guards would salute him and treat him with respect, as a blood alliance bound the Proatine Empire and the Lambda Kingdom.

In addition, Siegfried was the leader of the coalition forces and the hero who had saved the world on more than one occasion.

Thus, the guards saluting him wasn’t a strange sight at all.

‘I wonder how my elder brother is doing…’ Siegfried wondered, thinking of King Leonid.

During the war against the Celestial Realm, King Leonid was gravely wounded and forced to retire from battle. The injuries he suffered were so severe that it would take him a very long time to fully recover from them… if that was even possible.

‘I should pay him a visit after the investigation. I’m already here, after all.’

With that in mind, Siegfried headed straight for the city where the incident occurred.

The situation was exactly a mirror of the city a while ago. People mysteriously died of natural causes overnight, and only those who were outdoors after dark ended up surviving.

‘So it’s the same pattern.’

Siegfried toured the other affected cities within the Lambda Kingdom and confirmed that the same thing happened in them.

Being indoors at night meant death, while being outdoors at night meant life.

That was the key.

Siegfried turned to leave when a booming voice echoed from afar. “Brother!”

The voice had come from King Leonid.

Accompanied by his knights, he rushed over the instant he heard Siegfried had crossed the border.

“Elder Brother!”

Siegfried ran to greet him, overjoyed to see him, but he froze.

“…!”

The man before him was not the same King Leonid he remembered. Gone was the towering physique covered in large symmetrical muscles. His left leg was severed from the thigh and replaced by a prosthesis. His left arm, too, was nothing but an artificial limb from below the shoulder.

His face was far from recognizable as well. It was hollow and sunken. It seemed that the long recovery had taken a toll on him.

The King Leonid exuding a powerful presence could no longer be found.

“E-Elder Brother…?”

“Hoho! Do I look that pitiful to you?”

Surprisingly, King Leonid simply laughed it off and was unaffected by Siegfried’s reaction.

“What happened to you…?” Siegfried asked, still stunned.

“What do you mean?”

“Your body…?”

“Ah, it’s the price I had to pay. They said my arm and leg completely rotted away, so amputation was the only option to save me.”

“…”

“But I lived, and that’s the important thing! Hahaha!”

“Still…”

“Listen to me, brother,” King Leonid said with a smile. Then, he continued, “This is the life of a warrior.”

“What do you mean?”

“A warrior lives to fight on the battlefield. From a young age until our hair turns grey, until old age or death claims us, we fight. Getting injured is no surprise, and dying is no surprise either.”

“Ah…”

“To live long enough to retire with all four limbs intact is the rarest blessing of all, and only a few were fortunate enough to have that privilege.”

King Leonid was right.

Warriors constantly fought on the battlefield, bled on the battlefield, and died on the battlefield.

To walk the martial path was to accept one’s fate on the battlefield.

Fighting on the battlefield was truly a complex thing. One would learn how to be grateful, how to seek vengeance, and how to forgive others.

The battlefield was where favors were given and owed, hatreds born and inherited.

Walking the martial path was truly embracing the cycle of violence that one would have to face.

“I am truly fortunate to live, so spare me the pity. Besides, my health has improved as of late.”

“Yes, Elder Brother.”

Siegfried felt the weight of the path he was walking after seeing King Leonid.

Even though he had become a cripple, the warrior king had no regrets, as he believed he had lived the life of a warrior to its fullest.

Siegfried realized something just then. ‘So in the end… only true invincibility can transcend this fate…’

If he were invincible, then he would never suffer such wounds.

If he were invincible, then he would be able to protect himself and those dear to him.

If he were invincible, then he would be able to escape the endless cycle of hatred born on the battlefield.

The only way he could truly free himself from the gift and curse of the martial path was to become invincible.

Ding!

A notification suddenly popped up in front of Siegfried’s eyes.

***

‘This is starting to look dangerous…’

Meanwhile, Emperor Stuttgart felt that his influence was steadily waning, and he felt a growing sense of crisis due to it.

His approval ratings took a dive amidst the current epidemic, and even the nobles were beginning to voice their doubts about his rule.

Moreover, signs of rebellion were starting to emerge in the regions far away from the imperial capital.

The combination of various disasters and plagues hitting the Marchioni Empire had greatly affected public sentiment, and civil unrest was now on the verge of breaking out all over the vast empire.

‘I need to stop it before it grows any further…’

Emperor Stuttgart pondered, trying to think of a strategy that could turn the situation around.

He needed a trump card that could instantly boost his popularity among the populace while restoring the shaky foundations of his power.

He called out to the chamberlain. “Summon Irene.”

“As you command, sire.”

Emperor Stuttgart called upon his half-sister, Irene.

Based on his calculations, she was the only one capable of helping him overcome this crisis.