Chapter 141: The Scent of Nightmares

One month later.

Tania, Viscount’s territory.

In the silent village, Lucas and his teammates pushed open door after door.

They had come here to carry out a mission directly assigned by the Holy Maiden.

Lucas had formed a new team with his former adventuring companions, and they had been active on the battlefield since the war began.

This was a team composed entirely of professional warriors, with Lucas leading them as a Silver-rank professional. Years of trust and cooperation had allowed them to achieve many victories after joining the Holy Maiden’s knight order.

Half a year had passed since the war began.

The front lines had stalemated before Purple Thorn Castle, as the Icelanders no longer launched attacks.

They had shifted to a war of attrition, but as the invading side, the Icelandic army consumed vast amounts of supplies daily. The pressures on the attacking side were always greater than those on the defending side.

Some dark evil seemed to be plotting something.

The Holy Maiden had detected anomalies and thus sent Lucas’s team to this silent mountain village.

By mid-April, the snow had melted, trees were sprouting new buds, and wildflowers bloomed by the roadside.

Yet the fields around this village were overgrown with weeds, showing no signs of cultivation.

The village was eerily quiet as Lucas and his teammates opened doors to investigate.

“Are they… sleeping?” 

Inside, they found villagers lying on straw mats, their faces wearing eerie smiles.

“Here too! People sleeping!”

“Same here!”

Door after door revealed the same scene – elderly, children, all asleep.

Some had died in their sleep, their bodies neither rotting nor decaying, simply drying up into husks.

When approaching these dried husks, the Radiance in Lucas’s hand glowed and vibrated.

There were faint traces of demonic energy, yet no demons could be found in the village.

Lucas tried waking the villagers, but the skeletal figures showed no response to external stimuli.

Even if awakened, these people couldn’t possibly survive.

Their bodies were horrifically emaciated, reduced to little more than skin and bones.

“Could they… have been sleeping like this since winter?”

“What should we do, Lucas? I have a bad feeling about this. Should we leave quickly?”

“Dreams…” Lucas said. “These villagers were reduced to this state by dreams.”

“Dreams… Isn’t that the work of high-ranking demons? What did Her Highness say? Can we save these people?”

Lucas remained silent for a moment, then shook his head.

“Nightmare demons have no physical form. Unless it chooses to appear, we can’t attack it. Moreover… the nightmare demon in this village has already left. All we can do is end the villagers’ suffering.”

“…”

“Do we really have to do this?”

“It’s the only thing we can do. Even if awakened, their bodies couldn’t sustain life anymore.”

Sighs echoed in the wind.

“Did Her Highness foresee this situation when she sent us here alone?”

“To raise our swords against our own people…”

A great fire burned in the remote village. By evening, after ensuring the flames had died out, Lucas led his team back to Purple Thorn Castle overnight.

Several days later, deep in the night at the church, the five reported what had happened in the village to the Holy Maiden, bringing back something related to the demons.

It was a finger stored in a wooden box. Before their departure, the Holy Maiden had instructed Lucas that if Radiance detected demonic energy, they should bring back what it sensed.

The Holy Maiden opened the box and grasped her sacred staff.

Tapping the dried finger lightly with her staff, starlight flowed like fine sand in her eyes. Then a pure white light shot from the staff’s edge, flying through the church’s stained glass window into the night like a shooting star, vanishing in an instant.

“The Lord of Nightmares’ presence spreads through this land,” the Holy Maiden said. “Gimonli – one of the two demon dukes the church detected in Iceland.”

“That nightmare demon was Gimonli’s subordinate. I’ve tracked its presence and purified it,” the Holy Maiden said.

“Your Highness, what does that demon want?” Lucas asked.

“Unknown,” the Holy Maiden shook her head. “No one can predict Gimonli’s schemes. But by eliminating its subordinates, the demon’s interference will be limited.”

“I’ll need you to make several more trips. If you find anything related to demons, please bring it to me.”

The Holy Maiden gave them several suspicious locations to investigate.

“I’ll be watching over you. If you encounter overwhelming evil you cannot resist, do not fight it. Wait until it manifests its power, and I shall purify it.”

After receiving their orders and a brief rest, Lucas set out again with his teammates. The five chatted along the way.

“Did you hear? The Icelanders encountered the Wild Hunt. I used to be scared of those things as a child, but now I think the Wild Hunt might actually be good guys.”

“Halin, where did you hear such rumors? The Wild Hunt is just a story to scare children.”

“Joniva, aren’t you scared?”

“W-who’s scared! Everyone knows the Wild Hunt is just to frighten kids.”

“Then you’d better cover your head tight when sleeping, praying those child-scaring undead don’t come for you. This isn’t rumor – it’s verified military intelligence. The Wild Hunt has been appearing near Dragon’s Spine for two months now, killing many nobles and Icelandic soldiers in Leith.”

“Though it’s strange – nobles and soldiers left corpses behind, while slaves and villagers disappeared.”

“H-hey… Halin, stop joking around. This is too tense a time for such talk.”

“Poor little Joniva, don’t be scared, daddy’s here.”

“Halin!”

“Why are you shouting!”

“I’ll beat you until your own father won’t recognize you!”

Amid the commotion, Lucas’s mounted team passed through the city gates.

Lucas, missing one eye, gazed at the stars in the night sky and murmured: “The Wild Hunt…”

In Tania’s legends, the Wild Hunt were sleepless undead.

Thinking of undead reminded Lucas of the past.

He tightened his reins and called out: “Stop fooling around once we’re out of the city. Let’s go!”

The laughter ceased as hoofbeats sounded. Though the road ahead was dark and lightless, the five advanced as they always had.

Wasteland, temple ruins.

Another month passed, and the corridor had been completely excavated.

They had dug deep underground, reaching what appeared to be the temple’s upper levels.

During excavation, the skeletons had discovered descending stone steps. Much of the ruins had been damaged, but the deeper they went, the more intact the structures became.

Finally today, Wade uncovered a cavity far larger than any previous area.

If the original temple had been roughly three stories tall, then after nearly forty days of work, they had likely reached the temple’s basement.