Chapter 264: Alisa’s scheme

The subterranean cavern beneath the roots of the thousand-year-old pine grew stiflingly cold as Duchess Alisa began her report.

The dim glow of the boundary runes reflected in her dark, sharp eyes, casting long, flickering shadows against the earthen walls.

“The situation in the Southern Hashian Mountains has devolved faster than our scouts predicted,” Alisa said, her voice a low, urgent murmur that cut through the silence.

“Hordes of F-class abominations—twisted, tide-like waves of beast-stage monstrosities—have broken out from the lower ravines and are pouring directly into the southern sectors. But the abominations are only the surface-level disaster. What warrants our immediate concern is the movement of the Church of the God of the Sky.”

Pope Croak’s eyes narrowed slightly, his hands resting heavily inside his long inner-disciple sleeves.

“The Sky Church? They have already positioned their forces?”

“Their inquisitorial vanguard and Holy Paladins are hovering along the southern perimeter like vultures,” Alisa confirmed, nodding grimly. “Their movements are far too precise to be coincidence. Every shadow scout, every armored battalion, and every holy array they have deployed is hyper-focused on one specific territory: the Crimson Key Sect. It is blatantly obvious that the Crimson Key Sect is their first primary target in this region.”

Alisa took a step closer to the center of the cavern, looking at the three figures gathered before her.

“If the Church of the God of the Sky manages to execute their opening strike cleanly, they will establish an unshakable stronghold in the South. I firmly believe we must act immediately to disrupt their plans.”

Duchess Eurenia tilted her head, her calm, elegant face laced with quiet calculation.

“Disrupt them how, Alisa? What do you believe is the right step for us to make?”

Alisa exhaled deeply, a slow plume of cold vapor rising from her lips in the chilly cavern air.

“A fanatical religious order like the Church of the God of the Sky operates on strict, dogmatic mechanics,” Alisa explained, her eyes burning with ruthless clarity.

“They cannot simply launch an unprovoked, full-scale holy crusade of conquest without cause—not without facing immediate condemnation and backlash from the other neutral grand factions of the continent. They need justification. A righteous pretext, a holy martyr, a manufactured tragedy… that is when they can unleash their true, unbridled power and mobilize their grand holy fleets without restraint.”

She looked directly into the eyes of Pope Croak and Grand Chancellor Manuses.

“Our goal, therefore, is painfully simple: we must prevent them from ever getting their hands on that justification,” Alisa stated coldly.

“We must strip away their holy facade before they can even put it on.”

“And how do we accomplish that while remaining in the shadows?” Manuses inquired, his dark eyes glinting with keen interest.

“By striking first from the dark,” Alisa answered without a moment’s hesitation. “To completely neutralize their strategy, the entirety of the Four Hashian Mountains—North, South, East, and West—must be thrown into total, unmanageable war simultaneously. Chaos must engulf every border, every sect, and every mountain pass. And more importantly, the entire Jura Eastern Continent must be made to believe that the Church of the God of the Sky is the sole, bloodthirsty entity responsible for instigating that war.”

The air in the cavern grew heavy with the sheer scale of the proposal.

Pitting an entire regional mountain system and a continent-wide public perception against a holy pantheon was a masterstroke of geopolitical sabotage.

“A grand framing…” Pope Croak murmured, a deep, dark smile slowly spreading across his face. “If the entire continent believes the Sky Church has launched an aggressive, illegal invasion, every regional sect will fight them to the death out of sheer survival, rendering their ‘righteous crusade’ a bloody, exhausting meatgrinder.”

“Precisely,” Alisa agreed. “However, we do not act on our own arrogance. Before we make a single move, deploy a single shadow agent, or ignite the first spark in the Southern Hashian range, we must contact the Apostle first. We move only under his absolute, divine authorization.”

Manuses nodded slowly, bowing his head in agreement. “Agreed. We seek the Apostle’s word tonight.”

***

Meanwhile, in the Southern Hashian Mountains…

While the hidden followers of the God of Beast plotted in the shadows of the north, the Southern Hashian Mountains were already washing in rivers of fresh, hot blood.

For three agonizing, nightmare-filled days and nights, the Crimson Key Sect had been locked in a desperate, relentless battle for survival.

The sky above their outer mountain defense line was painted a sickly, dark crimson—not from the setting sun, but from the thick, metallic mist of atomized blood hanging in the heavy air.

ROAAAAAAAAR!

GROAAARGH!

The thunderous, bone-chilling roars of thousands of beast-stage F-class abominations echoed off the shattered stone cliffs.

They were horrifying, grotesque monstrosities—chitinous, multi-limbed beasts with exposed ribcages, dripping maw-blades, and glowing violet eyes filled with mindless, ravenous fury.

They poured out from the dark, jagged valleys like a black, unstoppable wave of liquid death, clawing over the bodies of their own fallen to scale the steep outer walls of the Crimson Key Sect.

“Hold the line! Do not let them breach the lower gate!” a Crimson Key elder screamed, his voice hoarse and raw as he swung a massive, flaming broadsword.

SLASH! BOOOOM!

A wave of crimson sword-aura erupted from the elder’s blade, bisecting a dozen leaping abominations in mid-air.

Black, corrosive blood showered onto the stone stairs below, hissing and eating away at the rock.

“Archers, fire! Release the Blood-Spike formations!” another captain roared from the battlements.

Thousands of glowing red arrows rained down into the dense valley below, detonating in violent bursts of kinetic force.

The valley floor turned into a chaotic meatgrinder of exploding flesh, shattered bone, and shrieking monsters.

It had taken three agonizing days of non-stop, sleep-deprived carnage for the Crimson Key Sect to finally weaken the rushing tide of F-class abominations.

The endless wave was finally slowing, the monstrous surge grinding to a halt against the blood-soaked ramparts.

Below the mountains, the view was nothing short of a grotesque hellscape.

Corpses were piled up like jagged, grotesque hills at the base of the cliffs.

Tens of thousands of black, mangled bodies of F-class abominations lay stacked meters high, their foul, black blood pooling into thick, stagnant lakes that filled the valley air with a suffocating, rancid stench.

Yet, the towering piles of rotting flesh did not belong solely to the monstrous abominations.

Scattered among the black, chitinous corpses were the shattered bodies of hundreds of disciples of the Crimson Key Sect.

Young men and women dressed in the sect’s iconic crimson-and-silver robes lay torn apart across the rocks.

Broken crimson swords were thrust into the earth like morbid grave markers; shattered defensive shields lay half-buried in black mud.

Some disciples had been dragged down into the fray and disemboweled; others had detonated their own core meridians in desperate final acts to buy time for their comrades on the walls.

The survivors stood atop the blood-drenched battlements, their armor cracked, their faces smeared with ash and black blood, leaning heavily on their weapons as they gasped for air.

They had survived the tide of beasts.

Yet, as the wind carried the heavy smell of death across the quiet, ruined valley, a strange, unnatural pressure began to gather in the clouds high above the crimson peaks.

The battle against the beasts was over—but the true nightmare was only just beginning.