Novel Full Chapter 299 - 299: The Fog of Madness
Kronos frowned and stepped up to the stone railing. He stared out at the distant fog clinging to the eastern valleys, his expression tight with unease.
"The Morval kings are pragmatic, but they are also incredibly prideful," Kronos explained. "They wield a unique brand of magic, wearing crimson robes that constantly radiate an aura of psychic dread. They abandoned Voranthar because they recognized his madness was destroying his own military assets, not necessarily because they feared your forces."
Kronos gripped the stone edge of the balcony. "They serve the God of Valleys. The borders of their kingdom are entirely saturated with mind-altering magic designed to shatter an invading army's sanity long before the soldiers ever reach the capital. They might genuinely believe their psychic defenses can repel you."
Krug scoffed. He tapped the thick star-iron plating of his chest piece, his slit pupils narrowing as he studied the distant fog.
"Psychic dread does not stop an artillery shell," Krug stated plainly. "Mental barriers mean nothing when the ground beneath their feet is turned to glass. Hunger and fear are human weaknesses. My soldiers are forged in the Bastion."
He picked up his greataxe and hoisted the heavy weapon onto his shoulder. "I will send a formal envoy to their border with a simple ultimatum. If those three kings refuse to bow, the Vanguard will burn their fog away and drag them out of their valleys by their throats."
Kronos nodded slowly, offering no further defense for his former allies. He knew exactly what the Red Spiral did to those who chose defiance.
Krug gestured to a nearby Vanguard lieutenant standing at the edge of the plaza. "Take a squad of five to the eastern valley crossing. Plant the banner and broadcast the terms of surrender. If they do not answer within the hour, return to the city."
The lieutenant saluted without a word, gathered his team, and marched toward the Morval Dynasty, which took them a few weeks. And in the meantime, Torix, Novus, and hawl continued playing hunt with the fourteen heralds hiding in the frozen sewers beneath Transtead.
Thick gray fog rolled across the jagged rocks marking the boundary of the Morval Dynasty.
The Vanguard squad halted their armored transport beetle just outside the dense treeline. Stepping down from the leather saddle, the lieutenant gripped a steel pole bearing the Red Spiral banner and drove it deep into the damp dirt.
"By order of Rubedo, the Morval Dynasty is commanded to submit," the lieutenant broadcasted through an amplified speaker crystal. His amplified voice echoed down into the deep, misty ravines.
No physical envoy emerged from the trees to greet them. Instead, the gray fog shifted rapidly, turning a bruised, sickening shade of crimson. A sharp drop in temperature frosted the edges of their armor while a high-pitched ringing pierced the minds of the soldiers.
One of the scouts dropped his bolt-thrower and clutched the sides of his helmet. "They are crawling under the plating. Bugs. Hundreds of them."
The lieutenant turned around to find his squad stumbling blindly through the dirt. The psychic dread saturated the air, bypassing their physical defenses to strike directly at their neural pathways. The crimson mist twisted into horrifying shapes, forming shadowy figures that stepped out from the trees.
"Hold your fire!" the lieutenant ordered, but his own vision began to blur. The pine trees around him warped into writhing, blackened limbs. The gray sky appeared to bleed. He looked at his own men and saw grinning, skeletal monsters charging toward him with rusted blades.
Panic completely consumed the squad. A scout raised his weapon and fired a pneumatic bolt squarely into the chest of his comrade. Blood sprayed across the crimson fog.
The rest of the team immediately returned fire, screaming wildly as they tore each other apart in the dirt. Believing he was entirely surrounded by demons, the lieutenant drew his combat dagger and plunged it into his own throat to escape the creeping shadows.
Thousands of Miles away on the Gildreath balcony, the wind howled across the stone terrace. Krug stood silently beside Kronos with his eyes fixed on the distant eastern horizon.
A cold pressure built behind Krug's eyes as his neural tether activated. Rubedo's synthesized voice echoed directly inside his mind from the orbital sanctuary.
"The scout squad is dead," Rubedo reported, watching the macro-tactical map update in real-time. "The Morval domain fractured their minds and forced them to slaughter each other."
Krug tightened his grip on the handle of his greataxe. Kronos noticed the slight shift in the Apostle's stance and stepped closer to the stone railing.
"The hour is not yet up, but your men are already gone, aren't they?" Kronos asked, his expression grim. "I warned you about their domain. The mind is fragile when exposed to the God of Valleys."
"A parlor trick," Krug replied. He did not mourn the fallen soldiers. They had served their purpose perfectly by exposing the exact effective range of the psychic anomaly. He tilted his head back to look up at the clear sky above the city.
"My vanguard," Krug spoke aloud, knowing the sanctuary arrays captured his every word. "The Morval border is confirmed hostile. Relay my orders to the heavy artillery division stationed outside the Tarnstead ruins. Calibrate the siege cannons to the eastern ravines and load the alchemical incendiary shells."
Krug leveled his gaze back on the distant layer of fog. "Burn the mist away and turn their entire valley to glass."
The preparation for the final war in the fourth continent had begun, and this war was led by Krug, who was more ruthless and merciless than iron-Scale or any other commander when it came to serving his god's commands.
After all, he was the apostle.
Krug shifted the gravity field surrounding a stack of iron-bound supply crates, rendering the heavy wood virtually weightless. He guided the floating cargo with a flick of his wrist and settled it gently onto the broad, chitinous back of a transport beetle.
The giant insect clicked its mandibles and adjusted its six legs as Krug normalized the gravitational pull.
Kronos marched through the muddy encampment outside the Tarnstead ruins, sidestepping a line of Vanguard engineers assembling the heavy siege cannons. He approached the loading zone and pulled a rolled parchment from his belt.
"The supply lines from Gildreath are secured," Kronos reported, handing the manifest to Krug. "My quartermasters have routed the nutrient paste and alchemical shells through the western pass. The beetles will have a steady stream of provisions directly from my storehouses."
"Good." Krug dismissed the parchment and turned his gaze toward the jagged eastern mountain range looming in the distance. "We break camp at dawn. The high passes will test the joints of your star-iron armor, Kronos. Keep your pace steady."