Chapter 633 — Rapid Deterioration

Events had proven Gao Yang's earlier judgment of Ma Qi correct—here was a capable man. Though born to the traditional nobility of Ansu, he had it in him to be remade. Having received an infusion of advanced knowledge and seen the Cecil Legion in operation firsthand, Ma Qi's native military talent had been awakened and strengthened. He excelled at trading defense for offense, and with armored trains to support him, that tactic would show its full worth.

"Where is Soyu?" Gao Yang turned to look at Amber. "She should be back soon."

"When we last made contact twenty minutes ago, she was returning from the direction of Tulip Fort. About now she ought to be—"

"I'm already back," came a clear voice from the doorway before Amber could finish. Gao Yang looked over and saw the high-ranking courier in her light leather armor already standing before him. "The north is all monsters gone mad, and the east too. Worse still... after crossing past Tulip Fort, wandering crystal-infected have been spotted in the western region of the Gorgon River as well."

"So the taint has crossed the river after all..." Gao Yang couldn't help clenching his fist. "How many?"

"Hard to say. I didn't dare fly too far, but I saw the private troops raised by the local nobles fighting small groups of crystal monsters. There shouldn't be many that got across the Gorgon—our fleet is still blockading the channel, after all. The great majority of monsters that try to cross will be dealt with by the riverside line. Only the north... the Legion front hasn't pushed that far yet. There's a gap there."

Gao Yang frowned despite himself, but he had to accept the situation.

The original plan had been to seal the Gorgon River completely and close the entrance to the Eastern Marches as well. That, together with the armored wall in the Southern Marches and the Saint Sunil–Northern Mountains line to the north, would have bottled the crystal infection entirely within the eastern Spirit Plains, and everything would have been controllable. But even the most thorough plan will sooner or later meet the unexpected. From the very beginning he had prepared himself for the worst: that the Legion's northward advance might not outpace the spread of the crystals, and that the taint might cross the Gorgon and reach the western Spirit Plains.

Now the situation had merely developed along that anticipated course.

But that did not mean everything would spiral out of control. Terrible as the crystal infection was, a large-scale outbreak demanded relatively exacting conditions. There was already evidence that the Order of All Things Perishing had managed to taint the whole of Giantwood Pass in so short a time only by relying on long preparation beforehand and a sacrifice ritual of tremendous scale. Without such preparations and rituals to aid it, the crystal infection would spread no faster than an ordinary disease.

So long as the scale of the taint that had entered the western plains did not exceed a certain threshold—so long as the local nobles were not so utterly incompetent as to give up the fight on the spot—the situation would not yet slip beyond control.

"Pass on my orders—tell Byron to speed up the blockade of the northern river channels. And notify Sir Wald to draw five thousand men from the Second Legion and march north along the river to help seal the channels and clear the contamination on the west bank." Gaoyang turned to Amber and issued the instructions rapid-fire. "Also—still no way to reach the Military Intelligence operatives inside Saint Frostperch?"

Amber shook her head. "No contact. The secret relay stations extending out from Saint Suniel have likely been destroyed, and the other contact points and informants have all gone dark, including those in the west bank region."

"Perhaps... I could try flying straight to Saint Suniel," Suoyou spoke up suddenly. "I could carry word of the reinforcements to Silver Hold..."

"You mean to fly over the contamination zone the whole way without stopping? Or take the long way around through the safe stretches of the Western Plains?" Gaoyang glanced at Suoyou. "If you fly a straight line to Saint Suniel, you'd have to hold maximum altitude the entire way—neither you nor the giant eagle could endure it, and there's nowhere along that route to land and rest. If you arc around through the Western Plains, the journey stretches two to three times longer, and once you add the eagle's rest stops, by the time you reach Saint Suniel those capital nobles may well have already abandoned the city and fled."

The defenders of the capital had to be told that reinforcements existed—that was the consensus Gaoyang and Victoria had reached last time. An army without hope could never hold a city, even one equipped with Ansul's most powerful defense system; but reinforcements whose existence was certain could enormously bolster the courage of the defending soldiers—and that held especially true in a kingdom's army, which relied on knights to enforce discipline and on sheer manpower to fight.

But the situation's sudden turn had thrown Gaosong's plan into disarray—the crystallite horde, gone berserk without warning, had begun moving randomly across the entire plains region. The enemy dispositions and safe routes so painstakingly scouted out earlier had all lost their value in an instant. Any messenger sent to Saint Suniel would face even greater risk; and on the other hand, the pressure the frenzied crystallite army exerted on Saint Suniel might spike abruptly, the odds that the capital's defenders would abandon the city and flee were rising fast, and the time left to the messenger had only grown shorter.

Yet Saint Suniel absolutely could not fall.

Just then, a voice—pleasant, yet with a faint chill to it—suddenly reached every ear in the room: "Lady Suoyou, is the mage tower at Tulip Keep still standing?"

Gaoyang raised his head and saw the Northern Duchess—Victoria Wilde—standing in the doorway.

After a brief moment's thought, Suoyou nodded. "The castle is half ruined, but the mage tower still stands."

"That tower is a high-capacity communications tower," Victoria said. "Take me there. With the tower's amplification, I can reach Silver Hold."

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