Outbreak

Before the applause could fully die down, explanations of the finals' rules began appearing line by line on the giant crystal screen in the center of the arena.

Lu Mao leaned back into his sofa, listening to the excited chatter of several mage apprentices in the adjacent VIP box while making sense of the rules displayed on the screen.

The finals were divided into three rounds, with the winner determined by cumulative points.

The first round was Spell Formation Analysis and Reconstruction, where contestants had to decipher and complete a damaged ancient spell formation within a time limit. The second round was Themed Synthesis, where the category of creation—ranging from potions to enchanted equipment—would be decided by a random draw on the spot. The third round was Active Combat; on the massive blank spell formation foundation in the center of the arena, contestants had to construct their own reinforcing spell formations while casting spells in combat, all while disrupting their opponent's formation.

The rules certainly sounded exciting, but after watching for a short while, Lu Mao realized he had absolutely no idea what was going on and quickly lost interest.

Once the first round began, the contestants buried their heads in drawing spell formations on the stage. To his eyes, those runic circuits looked no different from random chicken scratch.

Out in the stands, someone stood up and applauded excitedly, shouting, “This overlapping structure is so ingenious!” He had absolutely no clue what was so ingenious about it.

Novia, on the other hand, watched very intently. Her slitted pupils didn't blink once as she stared at the arena, seemingly quite interested in the spell formations.

Lumu remained leaned back on the sofa, twirling the end of her hair. She cast a few lazy glances downward, her expression resembling someone watching a bunch of toddlers play with building blocks.

Sorge stood before the screen, leaning on his staff. His jawbone clicked occasionally, making it hard to tell if he was expressing approval or disdain.

As for the troll, he had already cleared out all the pastries on the low table and was currently dozing off against the back of his chair, drool dripping down the corner of his mouth. He clearly had absolutely no concept of what a spell formation was.

Lu Mao understood the troll's feelings completely. After all, there was an advantage to not understanding—he could focus his attention elsewhere.

As the tournament neared its end, only the final two contestants remained on the field to fight for the championship.

Lu Mao leaned back in his plush chair, his eyelids already starting to feel heavy. The troll beside him had long since fallen fast asleep. His snoring was muffled by the crystal screen separating them from the cheering outside, so it wasn't too loud.

Just as he was about to drift off completely, a small detail caught the corner of his eye.

At the entrance of the corridor next to the judges' bench, a deacon wearing a Guild uniform hurried over to Mayfield's side, leaning in to whisper a few words in his ear.

Mayfield was flipping through the contestants' evaluation sheets. Upon hearing the news, his fingers paused for a moment. He then closed the sheets and whispered a reply. The deacon nodded and withdrew, walking even faster than when he arrived, almost jogging out of the corridor.

Lu Mao's drowsiness vanished instantly. He quietly sat up straight, his gaze following the deacon's retreating figure until it disappeared at the end of the corridor, before turning back to Mayfield. Mayfield's expression had already returned to calm as he continued to flip through the evaluation sheets, but Lu Mao noticed that his page-turning had slowed down significantly.

On the field, the final results were already out—Klein Wald won this year's Elite Spell Formation Tournament championship by a narrow margin of two points.

The entire crowd stood up and cheered, their applause like thunder. The two groups of supporters in the general seating who had been shouting over each other earlier now surprisingly united, screaming Klein's name at the top of their lungs. Standing on the podium, Klein held his staff high above his head. A brilliant shower of sparks burst from its tip, lighting up the entire colosseum as bright as day.

Mayfield walked up to the podium and gave a brief closing speech, thanking the international guests and contestants in his usual calm and proper tone. However, Lu Mao noticed that during the speech, Mayfield's gaze swept toward their high-tier VIP box more than once. And almost immediately after saying his final words, “I look forward to meeting you all again in three years,” he turned and left the podium.

A moment later, the door to the high-tier VIP box was pushed open.

Mayfield walked in, closing the door behind him. The calm, proper smile on his face vanished the instant the door shut, replaced by a solemnity Lu Mao had never seen before.

“Something has happened in Rhode City.”

...

Rhode City, North Gate.

Twilight pressed in from the distant horizon, painting the city's silhouette in a deep, gloomy shade. It wasn't yet time to light the torches at the city gates, but the guards weren't leaning against the battlements yawning as they usually did. Instead, they stood ramrod straight on the city walls, their faces grim.

On the highway outside the walls, a stream of people was surging toward the gates—merchant caravans, adventurers, villagers... but now, they all shared a single identity: refugees.

The crowd was filled with old farmers pushing wheelbarrows piled high with lopsided belongings. Pots and pans, tied together with hemp rope, clattered loudly with every pothole they hit. Beside them, women carrying or leading children walked with panicked expressions.

Many veteran guards had seen refugees in their careers.

Rhode City was close to the Blood Fiend Dungeon. Every year, around the time of the subterranean riot, people from a few nearby villages would seek refuge in the city. However, they had never seen this many people. The queue on the highway stretched from the city gates all the way to the bend in the hills at the edge of their vision. Occasional arguments broke out among the crowd, only to quickly die down on their own.

On the open ground just inside the city gates, several temporary white tents had been pitched, their tops embroidered with the holy emblem of the Church of the Goddess of Life.

Sena stood at the entrance of the outermost tent. The black blindfold still covered her eyes, but her movements held not a shred of hesitation. She pressed her hand against an injured peasant woman's forehead. A silvery-white holy light seeped from her palm, and the bone-deep scratch slowly but steadily closed up under her fingers.

The peasant woman gritted her teeth to keep from crying out, tightly clutching Sena's cuff so hard her fingernails dug into the fabric.

Sena turned her head slightly to her side. A young nun immediately understood, bringing a bowl of warm herbal soup to the peasant woman's lips.

“The poison has been cleared. The wound will still hurt for a few days, but it won't worsen.”

Sena withdrew her hand, her voice steady and gentle. “After drinking this, take your child to the tent behind us to rest. Someone will assign you a bed.”

The peasant woman's lips trembled as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she merely nodded vigorously with red eyes, picked up her child, and turned to walk toward the tents in the back.

Sena wiped the blood off her hands onto her apron, turning her head to 'look' toward the city gates as she asked the nun behind her, “How many injured are left?”

“Those waiting in line to register are already past two hundred.”

The young nun's voice was slightly tense. “We have enough herbs, but only you and two other priests can cast Holy Light healing spells. They haven't stopped since this afternoon, and their mana is almost depleted. Sister Superior, you yourself are also—”

“I am fine.”

Sena interrupted her, turning to walk toward the next stretcher. A young soldier lay on it, a massive chunk of flesh torn from below his right knee, his bandages already soaked through with blood.

He was trembling all over from the pain, but seeing Sena approach, he still forced a smile that looked worse than crying. Sena knelt down, placing her palm over his wound, and the holy light shone once more.

Near the base of the city wall, another group of people was busy at work. Dowal Stonehammer was crouching beside an overturned supply wagon, leaning almost his entire body into the carriage. Only after a good while did he pull himself back out, holding two bundles of crossbow bolts wrapped in oilcloth.

“Take these to the east wall.”

He shoved the bolts into the hands of a young errand-running adventurer nearby, then spun around and bellowed at several warriors who were fastening their bracers, “You lot, follow the scouts' marks closely. Don't go trying to be heroes by pushing too deep. Our mission this time is reconnaissance, not to pick fights with monsters one-on-one. If you see anything at the Elite rank or above, record its location and retreat. Don't trade your lives for intel; it's not worth it.”

“We get it, we get it! You're going to make us deaf with all that yelling.”

A warrior tightened the strap on his bracer, grinned at Dowal, and turned to run toward the gates with his squad.

Dowal straightened up, wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve, and looked up at the top of the city wall.

Kran stood by the battlements, maintaining his usual silent, eye-closed posture. The twilight fell across his bare, muscular torso, casting his various old scars into sharp, dark relief.

He wasn't looking at the flow of people below. Instead, he faced the distant hills that were currently being swallowed by the dusk.

Dowal knew Kran was using his mind's eye to perceive things further away—the monsters regrouping in the shadows of the hills, or perhaps some other, far more dangerous existence.

A moment later, Kran turned and walked down the city wall, his steps as steady as ever until he reached Dowal's side.

“Two scout teams have returned. The monster tide from the direction of Milford has already crossed the border. It is expected to press against the outskirts of Rhode City by tomorrow evening. There is no new news from the Dorne Territory for now, but the last batch of communication scrolls was sent three hours ago, and there has been no signal since.”

“The headquarters' reinforcements are still on the way. The earliest they will arrive is the day after tomorrow.”

Dowal fell silent for a moment, then spat on the ground. Picking up his axe, he walked back toward the supply wagon, leaving only a muttered complaint: “Damn it, what the hell is going on with this year's outbreak? It's bad enough that it's this many days early, but how the hell did even the monsters from the deep levels of the dungeon manage to escape...”

Passing by a guard, a gray-haired old man carrying a skeletal young girl on his back asked in a raspy voice, “Excuse me, are you still taking people in?”

The guard looked at him, stepped aside to clear the way, and pointed the shaft of his spear toward the white tents inside the gate.

“Keep moving forward. There's food ahead, and someone to treat wounds.”