Chapter 400: The War Is Far From Over

Inside the military command center of the Cecil Territory, at the Intelligence Bureau headquarters, the body of Lemont was soon brought before Gawain.

The regional bishop of the Southern Diocese had died under strange circumstances. Aside from some scrapes and dirt from fleeing, his body bore almost no external wounds. The cause of death was a mysterious “high fever” originating from his skull. His eye sockets had been burned into two pitch-black hollows; the skin around his eyes was shriveled and charred, grotesquely clinging to the bone. His brain… seemed to have been reduced to ashes.

“We found him on a mountain path in the Dark Mountains,” Solderin reported what he knew. “He was already dead when we found him. No signs of a struggle, no residual magical energy. As you can see, his brain was burned to ashes… but I’ve never seen any curse or magic effect like this before.”

Gawain crouched down, examining the fallen bishop carefully. When he reached into Lemont’s eye socket, Amber couldn’t help but gag. “Ugh… that’s disgusting…”

Gawain ignored her, scooping up some of the ash and rubbing it between his fingers. A faint flicker of golden light flashed briefly within the ashes.

“It’s a remnant echo of the Holy Light, emanating from the brain… This bishop was burned to death by his own Holy Light,” Gawain frowned. “But why?”

Amber, ever earnest, began to speculate wildly: “Maybe he fled the battlefield, breaking some sacred doctrine of the Church of the Holy Light, and when he ran into the mountains, his guilt overwhelmed him and he died from a conscience explosion?”

Gawain glanced at her. “Do you really believe that?”

Heddy ignored Amber’s nonsense and stood beside Gawain, her expression grave. “Ancestor, can you tell anything else?”

“No,” Gawain said. “Aside from the Holy Light’s backlash causing his death, there are no other traces on his body… but it’s not like I have no leads.” He clapped his hands and stood up. “The Holy Light backlash burned his brain, which means the initial loss of control started there. That makes me think of a certain group…”

Heddy’s eyes widened as she caught on. “The Sleepless?”

“Looks like those cultists haven’t stopped their activities in the shadows,” Gawain said without surprise. Since the End of All Things Society had already been involved behind the Ansu civil war, it wasn’t unimaginable that the Sleepless had appeared on the southern battlefield. Though he was curious why the Sleepless would ‘help’ the Cecilians kill an invader, it didn’t change his course of action. “Send this body and the others to the crematorium. Burn them thoroughly.”

Two soldiers came in to carry away Lemont’s corpse. Amber watched the fallen bishop being taken away and sighed, “A regional bishop… just like that… By the way, now you’re completely at odds with the Church of the Holy Light.”

“They sent their regional bishop and twelve knights to the Cecil Territory to ‘negotiate’ with me, demanding we hand over the city’s civilians. From that moment, it was a declaration of war,” Gawain said casually. “Even if they hadn’t done that, I was going to oppose them sooner or later—you know the laws Cecil enforces. The increasingly extreme and arrogant Holy Light faction can’t accept ‘civil law above the church’ as a rule.”

Heddy recalled the earlier battle reports Kamail had sent and suddenly looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it… that bishop and his knights probably never intended to fight us to the death. The bishop claimed to negotiate with the lord, demanding we hand over the ‘heretics’ under our protection. I suspect their real goal was just to lure you out and stall you. When the time was right, they’d find an excuse to retreat—then cover it up with compensation in gold, silver, and land, following the usual church-noble friction protocols. And I guess, according to Count Hosman and the Church’s original plan, Cecil was supposed to be the absolute loser in this war. The Church was probably expecting compensation from us.”

Heddy had been too busy handling incoming intelligence to focus on this before. Now that things had settled, she finally understood the true purpose behind the Southern Diocese bishop and his twelve knights coming to Cecil Territory to ‘negotiate.’ Gawain’s response made her expression subtly shift. “Obviously—they just wanted to stall you. Did they really plan to take the city?”

Heddy didn’t know how to react. “But they all died here… even the bishop didn’t survive.”

“Remember what I said at the start?” Gawain looked at her calmly. “They can start the war, but how big it gets isn’t up to them.”

Heddy pondered his words as Gawain gave her a new order. “Inform Gawain. Issue an extra bulletin stating that the Church of the Holy Light conspired with Count Hosman… no, that some corrupt clergy conspired with Count Hosman to attack Cecil City, but due to their overestimation and weakness, they were completely wiped out after encountering one of our technicians.”

Heddy blinked. “…You really want it written like that?”

Gawain nodded. “Exactly. Publish it throughout the territory—not just locally, but have the army distribute it across the entire southern region, so every literate person can see it. And be sure to emphasize it was ‘some fallen, corrupt clergy colluding with Count Hosman.’”

Gawain had originally wanted to declare the entire Church of the Holy Light an enemy allied with Count Hosman, but he knew he couldn’t treat the whole church as an enemy—not yet.

The clergy might be corrupt and fallen, but the church’s followers were a large part of the population. In Cecil Territory alone, about a quarter of the people were Holy Light believers. Though these ordinary believers might not be fanatically devoted, suddenly declaring the church an enemy would cause chaos. So it was best to distinguish between the corrupt clergy and the ordinary faithful from the start.

Besides, religion in this world wasn’t just spiritual—it was real power. The divine magic and the gods themselves were tangible forces, integral to productivity and nature. Unless the Church of the Holy Light became as twisted and fallen as the three dark cults, losing its place in normal society, Gawain couldn’t target the faith itself. His enemy was the corrupt clergy—and only those. After all, the entire church couldn’t be just one Lemont, right?

Amber had said Gawain was now completely opposed to the Church of the Holy Light. That might be true, but Gawain had his own understanding and plans.

Heddy left with her orders, leaving only Amber and Gawain in the room. Amber thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered a detail from Gawain’s instructions to Heddy. “Hey! You said the army would distribute the bulletin across the southern region… Does that mean the war isn’t over yet?”

Gawain glanced at her. “When did I say the war was over?”

“But we’ve won on all fronts,” Amber scratched her head. “Count Hosman is dead in the north, his army scattered. Count Peipo is dead in the west, and even fewer escaped. Now even the Church’s bishop is dead… I heard they captured a lot of prisoners on the northern and western fronts, many of them southern nobles. Normally, that means the war’s done, right? Then you’d negotiate with those noble families for money, food, and land…”

Amber looked at Gawain’s faintly amused expression, her voice lowering until she finally stopped, her face turning horrified. “Oh my god—you’re not planning to just keep going, are you?”

“I’ve said it before: this is a war to reunify the southern region. And I don’t want the old kind of unity, where nobles carve up the land and maintain power through fragile loyalty and vassalage. So I never intended to ask for ‘ransom’ or negotiate,” Gawain said seriously. “Count Hosman’s coalition did collapse, but remember—they scattered, not disappeared or surrendered. They fled the battlefield. They didn’t become part of Cecil’s population or the soil of the southern lands. And those captured nobles—their families, castles, estates—they remain independent territories. As long as those fleeing armies return to these places, those lands remain fragmented noble domains, not Cecil’s.”

He emphasized each word: “The southern region has one and only one territory—Cecil.”

“You don’t mean…” Amber stared at Gawain in disbelief, “You’re going to kill all the noble families in the south…”

“Of course I won’t kill them all—at least not directly. That would collapse social order. And whether I like it or not, the nobles and their vassals make up the main intellectual class right now. I have to use them, harness their power,” Gawain said. “But I will ‘destroy’ them—their system and foundations. After that, everyone will be proud, loyal citizens of Cecil.”

He sighed softly. “I hope every southern noble family and their vassals can accept this. But if they can’t… I hope the crematorium has enough capacity.”

Amber’s face clouded with confusion, then suddenly jolted.

Gawain laughed. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“No way!” Amber covered her ears. “You either say things that are way too complicated or that scare people to death!”

Gawain smiled and ruffled Amber’s hair—her short stature was just right for his hand to rest perfectly.

Then he turned to look out the window at the sinking sunset.

Sir Philip should have already set out with his orders. The cleansing of the southern region had begun.

(End of chapter)