Chapter 192: The Darkness Before Dawn

Dusk settled as a lumber cart slowly rolled through the Imperial Capital gates, pulled by two aged oxen. Old oxen, a rickety cart, yet the cart shaft bore a silver badge. So the Imperial Capital guards at the gates ignored the rundown vehicle, allowing it to amble slowly down the main street.

At the intersection nearest University City where the ox cart veered towards Victory Palace, a small, lean figure darted out from the piled firewood. After a few leaps, it vanished into an alleyway leading towards University City. This figure moved like a thief, pausing every couple of steps to carefully scan left, right, front, back, above, and below. Once sure no one was paying him any mind, he lowered his head and sped into a desperate sprint. Vic, summoned by Lin Qi, was returning home to the Imperial Capital. The lesson from his last capture had made him extra careful, yet his movements radiated an aura ten times more suspicious. If the Dragoons spotted him now, they’d surely arrest him on suspicion and put him through the wringer at the Garrison Office.

He didn’t disturb anyone – not that anyone was likely to be disturbed in University City during the winter holiday break. Slipping into Fifth University’s grounds, Vic hugged the building walls until he reached Lin Qi’s dormitory building. Glancing around shiftily, he finally relaxed. He straightened his posture, tugged at his thin black clothes, sniffed back a runny nose, and strode purposefully into the dorm with head held high.

Walking slowly towards Lin Qi’s single room, Vic looked around. Seeing nobody, he produced a very fine wire and inserted it into the keyhole. Crouching down, squinting, his ear pressed against the lock, and a satisfied smile tugging at his lips, Vic methodically picked the lock. “Oho, Boss got smarter,” he muttered smugly. “Added three extra tumblers himself to the keyhole. But that trick was taught by me! How could that possibly stop me?” A grin spread across his face, a trickle of saliva glistening at the corner of his mouth. “Yulian’s letter said Boss struck it rich? Did he steal a few hundred Gold Coins from home? That would really mean he’s rich!”

Cautiously pushing the door open a crack, Vic pondered Lin Qi’s hiding spots. The core members of the Iron Fist Brotherhood all knew Lin Qi’s favored secret stashes. His gold should be there, right?

The door had only opened a foot when a smug Vic heard a sound frighteningly familiar—the snap release of hand crossbows.

Thwack-thwack-thwack! Three crisp reports! Three Crossbow Bolts, a foot long and thick as a pinky finger, shot from three different angles. One aimed directly at his forehead, another towards his stomach, and the third wobbled slightly as it flew towards his ribs. Vic shrieked in terror, instinctively twisting and rolling sideways away from the incoming bolts.

All three bolts buried themselves deep into the wooden door and the wall beyond. Vic’s body had barely slammed onto the floor when the ground beneath his elbow gave way with a soft whoosh. His blood ran cold, every hair standing on end. “Gods! Boss! Every trap in my skill set, I taught you!”

Twang – A thin, metallic wire snapped up from the floor. With a sharp whooshing sound, a massive battle axe—easily a hundred pounds—dropped straight down from the ceiling. Judging by its speed and weight, it would bisect Vic cleanly if it connected.

“Gods!” Vic’s face turned ashen green. He never dreamed Lin Qi’s room, which he usually breezed in and out of, would be filled with deadly traps like this. What on earth was going on? Suddenly, it clicked—Yulian had said Lin Qi got rich. And knowing Lin Qi’s obsession with money, leaving his dorm unguarded when he went out? Impossible, especially if it held hundreds of Gold Coins! Lin Qi would fight to the death for a single Gold Coin! Hundreds of Coins meant Lin Qi would fight hundreds of deaths! Whimpering, Vic flexed his skinny waist, springing up like a coil. His hands shot out and clamped onto the axe head mere inches from his scalp. A faint red light flickered across Vic’s frame. Luckily, he had recently reached the Human Rank Middle Tier strength, otherwise, how could his small frame ever catch such a heavy axe?

But before Vic could even breathe a sigh of relief, something shot violently from the corner with a terrifying swoosh. A metal rod, thick as a thumb and two meters long, whipped towards Vic like a monstrous serpent aiming at his mid-section. Holding the hundred-pound axe, Vic was no strength-based warrior. He couldn’t jump again! Helplessly watching the rod slash towards him, he could only try to block with the axe handle.

CLANG! The impact was massive, hurling Vic more than two meters backward. Dazed and spinning, his head cracked solidly against the wall. Vic’s eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed unconscious. The heavy axe clattered beside him, and the unnervingly resilient rod quivered as it pierced the wall barely an inch from his skull.

When Lin Qi returned to his room with Yulian and Long Cheng, this was the grim scene they found.

Vic, the Iron Fist Brotherhood’s Chief Thief and Chief Assassin, lay sprawled on the floor, mouth open, eyes white, a frozen trail of drool stretching on the ground. Lin Qi’s face paled. He rushed over, pressed his ear to Vic’s chest, and only relaxed upon hearing Vic’s faint heartbeat. He hurriedly pulled out a flask and poured a rough slug of potent liquor down Vic’s throat.

Vic spasmed into a fit of violent coughing, barely returning to consciousness. Clutching his badly bruised waist, he fixed Lin Qi with a pitifully plaintive stare. “Boss… since when did your room get so dangerous? Hundreds of Gold Coins? Hundreds of Wowo Call? Was it necessary to do this to me?”

Lin Qi answered not with words, but with action. He hauled up the thin mattress on his bed, revealing two large wooden chests underneath. Yulian grinned triumphantly as he flipped open the lid of one chest, revealing piles of gleaming Gold Coins and lustrous Silver Coins. Vic’s eyes bulged. He wiped his mouth forcefully, murmuring hoarsely, “Boss… your room still isn’t safe enough. We could definitely add a few more small devices. Your bolts weren’t poisoned—that’s irresponsible with all this gold. That axe is too light; you should swap it for a three-hundred-pounder. And this rod? Why didn’t you weld toxic spikes onto it?”

Lin Qi gave him an approving thumbs-up. This was the sign of a true professional! Their heads bent close together, they started discussing with great enthusiasm how to modify the room’s traps specifically to protect those Gold and Silver Coins. Long Cheng stood to one side, shaking his head with a dismissive sneer. For such a paltry sum, cramming a tiny dorm room full of deadly traps—didn’t this idiot Lin Qi ever consider the problem of returning to sleep in his room every night?

Elham and his party were also back in the luxury suite of the Old Rooster Inn.

Seated silently on a sofa, Elham narrowed his eyes at the sofa opposite. Only a few days ago, that sofa was always occupied by those two people who had grown up alongside him. Now it sat empty. For so many years, there had been an almost flesh and blood bond between them. But because of a certain mistake, they were gone. They died cleanly. They died gloriously. They purified themselves, consuming both body and Soul in the blaze of Divine Flame, leaving not a trace behind.

He should have known it would happen. They were souls of such purity, detesting all forms of defilement. When they insisted on leaving the club and returning to the Imperial Capital, he should have seen it – they would choose death. They would choose purification by the Divine Flame.

Still…

A cold, white light filled Elham’s eyes. In the end, they were only two women. Just two women to see the Deity’s radiance spread across the world. Though the loss of the Divinity residing within them was regrettable… once gone, it was gone. Yet their deaths bought an exchange of benefits between Lartus and Tixiang. This aligned with the family’s interests. It served the Church. It upheld the interests of the Gods residing aloft!

A faint pulse of white light emanated from Elham’s belt. Surprised, he quickly retrieved a small, lustrous white jade disk from its folds. Several dark points of light flickered across its surface. Even the indifferent Elham couldn’t suppress a surge of fierce joy. He stood and placed the jade disk in the center of the spacious living room.

Biting his finger, Elham let a single drop of pale golden blood, shimmering with white light, fall onto the disk.

A low hum resonated. Pinpricks of white light shot out like tiny fireworks from the disk, rapidly expanding to cover a circle several meters wide. An intense aura of Divine Power condensed within that confined space. After just a few breaths, several towering figures emerged from the swirling white light. They wore armor crafted from a deep, night-like crystal. More appeared. Then more.

Within mere minutes, fifty warriors, armored in an unfamiliar black crystalline material that seemed to reflect scattered starlight, knelt before Elham on one knee. A young man with a single black crystal embedded in his forehead spoke in a low, resonant voice: “Your Highness Elham, from this day forth, we are yours to command. We shall become the sword in your hand, shattering every obstacle before you.”

Tolin, Yan, and An rubbed their eyes in disbelief, staring dumbfounded at these warriors garbed in black crystal armor. Were they dreaming? Or had the elders of the Dawn Family gone insane? Why else would they dispatch the most elite, most secretive warriors of the Dawn Temple? The “Knights of the Night” – the darkness before the dawn, engulfing blackness that birthed the light, warriors shrouded in night whose combat prowess was legendary.

Fifty Knights of the Night formed a full tactical squadron. During the Hundred-Year Land-Island War, it was famously recorded that a mere company of three hundred Knights routed an entire enemy contingent of ten thousand cavalry. Each one was a fighting machine of indomitable will, every inch of bone and flesh inscribed with Divine Runes, Divine Scripts – the hidden, ultimate fighting force of the Dawn Temple!

Although they had sent a request to the Dawn Temple for aid, Elham never expected this. His father, figure akin to the Gods, had sent him fifty Knights of the Night.

“Your arrival is excellent timing,” Elham said, his face flushing crimson. “We have much work to accomplish.”