Chapter 1131. We March to Excise the Cancer

Chapter 1131: 1131. We March to Excise the Cancer

The great field outside Aethelgard’s southern gate had never witnessed such a terrifying display of concentrated power. The morning air was cold, tasting of frost and the sharp tang of impending violence.

Thousands upon thousands of soldiers stretched across the plains like a living tide of steel, arranged in flawless, deadly formations.

Banners bearing the ancient sigils of a dozen noble houses snapped and cracked in the biting wind, their colors vivid against the gray sky.

At the vanguard stood the combined ranks of the Apostle network disciplined, silent, and unnerving, while behind them, the elite household forces and conscripted levies formed a vast, bristling forest of spears and pikes.

At the center of this assembled storm stood a massive wooden platform, elevated high above the sea of armor. Three figures stood atop it, silhouetted against the pale dawn, waiting for the moment the world would change.

Valentina occupied the center position. She stood like a monument carved from marble, her posture radiating a calm, unshakeable authority that commanded respect without needing to demand it.

To her right stood Apollo, his face a mask of grim solemnity; he carried the expression of a man who had already weighed the lives of thousands against the survival of the city and found the bargain necessary.

To Valentina’s left stood the Avatar. It was a perfect, uncanny mirror of Rex Rexilion, the same measured confidence, the same predatory stillness, and the same way the light caught the sharp angles of its face.

But beneath that flawless exterior, the true consciousness that animated it sat hundreds of meters below their boots, ensconced in a throne room drenched in violet-black shadows, coiled like a serpent waiting for the signal to strike.

Valentina raised a single hand. The effect was instantaneous.

The low murmur of thousands of voices didn’t fade; it died. A wave of absolute silence swept outward from the platform, rolling across the field until even the wind seemed to hold its breath. ℴℴ𝘮

"We stand here today," Valentina began.

Her voice didn’t need to scream; it carried across the vast expanse of the field through a seamless blend of natural projection and subtle magical amplification that made her words feel as though they were being whispered directly into every soldier’s ear.

"We stand here because this city has absorbed more grief over these past months than any civilization should be asked to bear."

"We have not just fought wars; we have endured nightmares."

She paused, her gaze sweeping over the assembled faces, some young and eager, others old and hollow-eyed with exhaustion.

"We have buried our brothers in unmarked graves."

"We have watched innocent children age backward through horrific forces none of us fully comprehend."

"We have watched our people torn apart by a corruption that should never have been allowed to touch our soil."

"We lost one of our own, a lion among men, to a darkness that crawled up from beneath our very feet." Her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly at the memory. "And in our darkest hours, we have questioned whether Aethelgard’s foundations were strong enough to withstand the rot that continues to gnaw at our bones from below."

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating, charged with the collective trauma of a city pushed to its breaking point. Rex, watching from the periphery, felt the tension in the air vibrate like a plucked string.

He could almost smell it: the metallic copper of future blood, the sulfur of magical discharge, the sweat of terrified men about to become legends.

Valentina’s eyes flashed with a cold, righteous fire. "Today is not merely a military campaign."

"Today is not a simple march to reclaim territory." Her voice rose, gaining a resonant power that seemed to make the ground tremble. "Today, Aethelgard reclaims control over its own fate!"

"We march not out of vengeance alone, though vengeance has its rightful place in every honest heart standing here, but out of the simple, brutal, and necessary conviction that no city can call itself safe while a threat this persistent, this vile, continues to operate beneath its own foundations unchallenged!"

She leaned forward slightly, her presence expanding to fill the entire field. "We do not march to negotiate!"

"We do not march to contain!"

"We march to excise the cancer!"

"We march to tear the throat out of the darkness and remind the world beneath us that Aethelgard does not fear the shadows; we hunt them!"

As Valentina stepped back, the space she vacated seemed to pulse with residual authority. Apollo moved forward, stepping to the very edge of the platform as if daring the approaching storm to meet him halfway. He didn’t just speak; he resonated.

His life affinity bled into his words, creating a harmonic frequency that bypassed the ears and struck directly at the solar plexus.

When he opened his mouth, his voice didn’t travel through the air; it saturated it. It was a warm, living thing that wrapped around every soldier on that field, making the distant levies feel as though he were standing mere inches from them, speaking directly to their souls.

But beneath that warmth lay something molten and dangerous.

"We remember," Apollo began, and the word itself felt like a vow. "We remember those who cannot speak for themselves anymore."

His gaze swept across the formation, sharp enough to pierce armor.

"We remember Veylor." The name hung in the air like a funeral dirge. "A soldier who fought with honor, a partner who deserved a lifetime of peace, stolen from Iris before their story could even truly begin."

"We remember the hollow ache left behind in those who loved him."

A low, guttural murmur rippled through the ranks. Apollo didn’t pause; he drove forward, twisting the knife of shared grief to forge it into a weapon.

"We remember Calivara and Eryndra..."

"Women who stood as pillars of our strength, who shared our purpose and our blood for years, only to be butchered in a single, cowardly ambush that defied every rule of engagement we hold sacred." His jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck standing out like iron cables. "They didn’t fall in a fair fight..."

"They were slaughtered."

The anger in the crowd began to simmer, visible in the way hands tightened on sword hilts and shields creaked under increased pressure.

"And we remember the children." Apollo’s voice softened, taking on a haunting, almost reverent quality that made the hair on the back of Rex’s neck stand up. "The children of the outer districts who bore witness to horrors that should only exist in nightmares!"

"Children whose very lifelines were twisted aged backward by a corruption that mocks the natural order of life itself!"

"What kind of monster feeds on the stolen time of the innocent?!"

The question was rhetorical, but the fury it provoked was physical. The air seemed to grow heavier, charged with a static tension that tasted like copper.

Then, Apollo’s expression shifted. The righteous anger cooled into something more complex, something darker and more intimate.

"And we remember Theo." His voice dropped to a dangerous register, thick with a complicated sorrow that made the crowd lean in, spellbound. "We lost him not to an enemy blade, but to the rot from within!"

"We lost him to a corruption that turned brother against brother, friend against friend." He paused, letting the grim reality sink in. "We will not condemn him with simple hatred, for we know the cruelty of the infection that claimed him!"

"But we will honor his memory by ensuring that no one else ever has to suffer that same betrayal of their own flesh."

A few murmurs of surprised approval broke through the silence. Those who had expected a simple speech of condemnation found something far more potent: a recognition of the terrifying, messy reality of their war.

Apollo straightened his spine, his entire presence suddenly expanding as his life affinity flared, casting an almost luminous glow around him. "Today marks the last day the Underlayer is permitted to threaten the peace we’ve fought so hard to maintain!"

"Today, we stop reacting!"

"Today, we stop mourning!"

"Today, we huuuuuuunt...!"

The climax of his words acted as a spark dropped into a powder keg.

The response was not merely a cheer; it was an explosion. A thunderous, earth-shaking roar erupted from thousands of throats, a primal scream for vengeance that seemed to bruise the sky.

Simultaneously, thousands of soldiers slammed their spear butts against the packed earth in perfect, terrifying unison.

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.

The sound was physical. It was a wall of noise that shook the wooden platform beneath Apollo’s feet and sent vibrations through the very bones of everyone present. The ground itself seemed to tremble in submission to the collective rage of the army.

In that moment, the field wasn’t just a gathering place; it was a forge, and the soldiers were the steel, being hammered into a single, unstoppable weapon of war.

As the thunderous reverberations of Apollo’s speech began to settle into a tense, vibrating silence, the Avatar stepped forward. The shift in energy was immediate and visceral.

If Apollo had been the heartbeat of the army, the Avatar was its mirror, a symbol of impossible heroism that had become the city’s living myth. A hungry curiosity rippled through the ranks as thousands of eyes fixed on the figure who bore Rex Rexilion’s face.

The Avatar did not speak with the booming authority of a general or the divine resonance of an Apostle.

Instead, it adopted a register of quiet, measured humility, the voice of a soldier who had bled in the same trenches as every man and woman standing in the mud.

It was a performance of perfect empathy, calibrated to make the crowd feel not like subjects being commanded, but like comrades being understood.

"We have counted the names," the Avatar began, its voice carrying that uncanny, steady calm that felt like a blade cutting through the morning fog. "We have written them in our hearts."

Then, it began to speak. One by one, it named the fallen.