Chapter 142 — Bard Wendell's Intelligence
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
There could no longer be any doubt about the cultist's identity.
Bard Wendell, former Wolf General of the Typhon Empire, a duke's son who had once possessed a glorious station and an immeasurable future.
Yet here he was, defeated by Gao Yang as a fifth-rank fallen druid, and in the end he had even lost an arm to a grenade.
What on earth had happened in between?
To discover a great stain on a high-ranking figure of a neighboring country (and one that could now be called an enemy country) was certainly a gain, but what Gao Yang was more curious about at this moment was what sort of unbelievable course of life Bard Wendell had gone through to reach this point. Such an astonishing transformation could hardly be explained by a few ups and downs in life—it was more like ups and downs and downs and downs and downs. He could not help but speak up and ask the agent lady before him: "I don't know much about the nobles of the various countries today. How much do you know about that Bard Wendell and his family? How much can you tell me?"
"The Mithril Vault is not a dedicated intelligence organization. What we know is limited to matters that can circulate and do not involve secrets," Meitzen nodded slightly. "Bard Wendell, the only son of Duke Peiyi Wendell, was exceptionally gifted and diligent, and at the same time a devout follower of the God of War, Kael. From childhood he received an elite noble education and the teachings of the Church of the God of War, and at the age of ten he displayed Kael's spiritual gift. After his conversion he rapidly grew into a powerful godfavored knight, his strength approaching the high rank. He was the most outstanding transcendent among the younger generation of Typhon's previous era."
"Stop," Gao Yang interrupted Meitzen. "So you're saying his transcendent class was godfavored knight?"
"That's right—at least that's what the outside world says, and I believe there's no problem with that intelligence."
"When he fought me, he had only very strong swordsmanship and not a trace of Kael's divine power about him," Gao Yang said gravely. "All of his transcendent power belonged to druidic magic. Of that I am certain."
"Perhaps some cause led to his loss of the God of War Kael's protection," Meitzen speculated. "That may well be exactly why he threw himself into the cult."
"Never mind that. Go on—you said earlier that Bard disappeared more than ten years ago. What was that about?"
Meitzen nodded: "After passing the God of War Kael's trials and tests, Bard Wendell formally took over the 'Wolf General' title passed down in their family from his father, and was elevated by the Typhon Emperor to knight lord, becoming one of the high-ranking commanders of the Typhon Empire's knight order. But he remained in that position for only a year. During a routine standoff on the Ansul-Typhon border, he and an elite knight company were sent outside the city on a reconnaissance mission, and before everyone's eyes they walked into a thick fog and vanished along with it. Only three days later were several knights, already driven mad, found wandering the wilderness—and Bard Wendell and the rest of the elite knights remain missing to this day."
At this point Meitzen added a few words in passing: "In recent years relations between Typhon and Ansul have worsened steadily, and Bard Wendell's disappearance greatly aggravated that trend. The Typhon side believed Ansul had used dark arts to murder their commander, while the Ansul side believed it was a farce staged by Typhon itself, its purpose simply to find a pretext for sending more troops. In fact, at the time this nearly led the two sides to open war, but when the situation was at its worst, Bard Wendell's father, Duke Peiyi, voluntarily declared that his only son's disappearance had nothing to do with Ansul, and so the war did not break out."
Gao Yang lightly pinched his chin: "Peiyi Wendell? Was he of the anti-war faction?"