Chapter 9: The Shimmering Morning Star
Worthy of the name "Chariot."
Clearly, her figure was rather slender, and the weapon she used was a rapier.
Yet at this moment, Shiltina, clad in her red and white knight's attire, truly resembled the legendary divine war chariot, crushing everything in her path to dust.
“Damn traitors!”
“What on earth did Talis promise you, that you would betray your faith in the Lord?”
A furious roar erupted.
Some cultists inside the main house, under the shock of impending death, forcibly broke free from their mental stupor and raised their nearby firearms, roaring as they opened fire.
Though they were merely ordinary lever-action hunting rifles, a direct hit on a human body could still inflict irreparable wounds.
Ding—
A silver flash gleamed and vanished in an instant.
Two fragments of golden-yellow bullets clattered to the ground with a crisp sound, their cut surfaces smooth and fresh.
The cultist who had fired the shot revealed a look of horror in his eyes.
He opened his mouth, but before he could utter a sound, a crystal-like rapier pierced through his throat.
……
When the gale of the pale silver blade settled, all thirty-six cultists present—including the Vice Pontiff—had collapsed to the ground, blood gushing from the holes in their chests and throats.
During this process, some cultists, even after having their hearts and throats pierced, had bodies that twisted unnaturally upon falling.
But Shiltina swiftly and mercilessly delivered follow-up strikes to these aberrants.
Skulls shattered, tendons of limbs severed.
Even with life force enhanced by flesh-born corruption, there was no longer any possibility of movement.
Only after confirming that only she and Rast remained alive in the main house did Shiltina return the rapier to its scabbard.
In the next instant, that knight's rapier silently shattered like crystal, dissolving into thousands of sparkling motes of light.
“Regalia 『Shimmering Morning Star』.”
“Simply put, emblem regalia are the only extraordinary equipment that can be brought into the Nightworld.”
Noticing Rast’s gaze, Shiltina explained as she looked at the rapier dissolving into light.
“Oh, right.” She put back on her pitch-black hooded cloak, covering the red-and-white interwoven knight’s uniform underneath: “That line you used to trick the cultists earlier—was it true?”
“Which line? About Councilman Talis having the runs during the City Assembly?”
Rast followed Shiltina into the mansion, stepping over a hall littered with corpses.
He thought for a moment: “Since it was that eight-point councilwoman who secretly told me, I suppose it’s true. Colleagues, after all.”
“Come to think of it, Councilman Talis is over seventy—occasional incontinence is understandable. No wonder he’d crave a pollutant that could extend his life and preserve his youth.”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
Shiltina rubbed her brow: “I mean, since that councilman knows about the cult and can even mobilize the Inspectorate, why didn’t we choose to work with him?”
“Based on my past experience in the Nightworld, if we could draw in the official forces of this city, our operation would undoubtedly be much easier.”
But from start to finish, Rast preferred that the two of them infiltrate the cult stronghold alone, rather than seek help from outsiders.
“I’ve tried. Many times.”
Rast smiled.
“Not just working with Councilman Talis…”
“I sent telegram reports to the capital; dug up the Inspector General’s scandals to coerce the security forces; even kidnapped the mayor’s precious mistress to threaten a navy raid on the cult stronghold at Deep Blue Port.”
“I exhausted every method to seek help from the outside world, only to discover—all of it just got in my way.”
He crouched down and deftly rummaged through a corpse’s pockets, pulling out several boxes of handgun bullets.
“You saw those corrupted cultists just now, right?”
“They looked normal before, because although already tainted by the sculpture’s aura, they were still in the suppressed latent phase. Only upon death did the mutation emerge.”
“But—”
Rast’s steps halted deep within the manor’s grand hall, in front of a large oil painting.
“What if those infected ones were no longer suppressed, no longer latent…”
“But instead, deliberately activated?”
As he spoke, Rast raised his hand and moved the painting aside, revealing an unassuming wall clock hidden behind it.
He opened the back cover of the clock and began operating the adjustment gears with his fingers.
The minute and hour hands shifted, producing crisp ticking sounds.
Watching Rast calmly adjust the gears, Shiltina frowned slightly: “Judging by this stronghold’s situation, the cult’s numbers shouldn’t be large—at most a few hundred people.”
“Even if all the cultists were driven to madness by corruption, compared to the security forces of Deep Blue Port, that many should still be manageable…”
Her words abruptly stopped, as Shiltina suddenly recalled what Rast had mentioned earlier—
It had already been several months since that sculpture, polluted by the evil god, had been brought to Deep Blue Port by the fishermen.
Even if the cult had operated in secret all this time, who knew how many people that sculpture—source of the corruption—had been brought near, how many places it had reached?
The police station, the City Assembly, the hospital, the Opera House, the navy garrison…
No need for physical contact, nor for pious faith.
The moment an ordinary person inadvertently laid eyes on that sculpture, the seed of corruption had already been sown.
If they truly sought help from Deep Blue Port’s authorities, then at the moment the corruption erupted, their supposed allies and supporters could instantly become their enemies.
In Shiltina’s mind suddenly surfaced two brief lines of historical records she had once seen in a Nightworld intelligence dossier.
【Weeks after Deep Blue Port’s destruction, a plague spread from the port ruins across the Eastern Continent】
【Based on the symptoms of the infected, it came to be known as—『Iron Cross Plague』】
“You mentioned before… the future calls it 『Iron Cross』, right?”
Rast’s voice was calm, yet to Shiltina, it carried a strange heaviness.
Two barely noticeable lines in ancient history books bore down like a mountain on everyone in this era.
“You were right about one thing.”
“History’s course is not so easily changed.”
“That fisherman who fished up the polluted sculpture thought he was the chosen lucky one.”
“But in truth, whether or not he went fishing that day… Deep Blue Port’s fate had long been sealed.”
Rast’s movements paused slightly.
On the clock face, the hour and minute hands, having been moved to a specific point, triggered a soft mechanical click.
“Still, no need to be overly pessimistic.”
“As the sole anomaly to appear in tens of thousands of loops, your abilities far exceeded my expectations, and gave me a much better shot at a no-death clear.”
Rast withdrew his hand from the adjustment gears: “After all, we’re not truly trying to kill a god—just to alter one insignificant detail in a fixed historical path.”
“This is the first good news I’ve heard from you since entering the Nightworld.”
Shiltina smiled, brushing aside a chestnut strand of hair hanging over her forehead: “May I ask how likely your no-death clear is now?”
With the clock’s mechanism triggered, the inner gears clanked and clicked into motion.
A few seconds later, the clock slowly slid aside, revealing a hidden door behind it.
“Well…” Rast thought for a moment: “Previously, it was about one percent.”
He glanced at the dark passage beyond the door and stepped in.
“But now that I’ve confirmed your capabilities, I’d say it’s about five percent.”
“It increased by four times? Looks like I’m more useful than I thought.” Shiltina smiled and followed Rast into the hidden door.