Chapter 156: The Demon Tide

Late at night.

Outside Helburg, in the military camp.

The apothecary from Saint Peter’s City, the gnome York, was using various alchemical vessels to extract medicinal ingredients. 

Over a year ago, Old York had been escorted by the White Wing Knights to Saint Peter’s City, where he had lived ever since as a foreign alchemist, forbidden to leave. 

It wasn’t until the plague outbreak in Nidran that Mother Superior Sister Charlotte assigned him to study and combat this disease near Helburg.

On the low table, viscous yellow-green liquid swirled in glass vessels.

This was bodily fluid extracted from plague-infected rats. Old York, wearing a cloth mask soaked in medicinal solution over his nose and mouth, mixed the extracted potion with the infected fluids.

Watching the reaction in the vessels, Old York frowned deeply.

Standing beside him in silver armor was his White Wing Knight protector, Percival Elliott.

Percival had been the one to escort York from Purple Thorn Castle to the holy city. For the past year and a half, the knight had hardly left the old gnome’s side, effectively becoming his personal guard.

“So? Will your potion work?” Percival asked.

“Yes,” York answered quietly.

“Then why do you look so troubled?” The knight was puzzled. “Developing an effective cure should be cause for celebration. Are the required ingredients too rare or expensive?”

York shook his head. After observing the reaction between his potion and the plague source, his expression had turned grim. He glanced around nervously as if terrible monsters lurked in the darkness waiting to devour him.

“York, why are you so distraught?” The knight pressed. “What have you discovered that frightens you so?”

“Quiet, Percy…” York flinched, speaking in a sharp whisper. “He’ll find Old York… He’ll kill Old York! He’s alive, I knew he was alive! He didn’t die – he returned as a demon!”

“Who?” The knight drew his sword, scanning their surroundings.

“Casimodo Vic… He’s returned from hell.” York trembled violently as he spoke the name.

“Casimodo? After all this time, you still believe that necromancer is watching you?” The knight eyed the hysterical gnome with disdain, seeing no trace of courage in the small creature.

“Percy… you don’t understand…” Despite the summer heat, York’s teeth chattered. “I should have realized sooner – this plague is identical to Casimodo’s signature corpse poison technique!”

“He’s become more terrifying, able to spread his corpse poison through living creatures now. This plague is his doing. The Duke transformed him into a demon. He’s back, announcing his return with death!”

“Impossible!” The knight insisted. “This is the Central Continent, nearest the holy city! If a demon capable of such devastation appeared, the Church would know!”

“Unless…” The knight hesitated mid-sentence. If the Church hadn’t detected anything, why had they dispatched paladins and priests to the heart of the outbreak?

“You don’t understand, Percy… You don’t understand how terrifying he is…” York’s resolve crumbled completely. “He doesn’t even need demonic power to accomplish such things. He’s a genius.”

“Even if it is him, what good does cowering like a madman do?” The knight brandished his sword. “If the potion works, write down the formula. Should that necromancer dare show his face, I’ll behead him myself!”

“That evil necromancer was killed once before. If he’s returned as a demon, I’ll kill him a second time!”

York sniffled and pressed his lips together, suddenly remembering that snowy memory.

The image remained vivid – the knight in tattered armor bowing to him in that freezing cave.

When no one else believed in him, when he’d been certain he would die under Casimodo’s torture, one man had dragged him from the mire.

The trembling gnome composed himself. Though his hands still shook, he picked up pen and paper to record the formula.

Meanwhile, in the gnome homeland of Opal.

Among the kingdom’s soldiers stationed along the Milat River, warning whistles suddenly pierced the night.

Sleeping soldiers scrambled for their weapons and rushed to the riverbank.

“My god… what… what is that?”

A dark, sludge-like substance oozed from the wilderness.

“The Shadow Tide…” A paladin stared at the writhing mass of darkness, holding his breath. “That’s the demon tide! But how? This is Opal! Why would the tide come from Opal’s direction!”

Before anyone could process this, the sludge flowed into the Milat River, clogging the waters with thick darkness.

When the current washed some darkness away, humanoid monsters were revealed beneath.

Black sludge clung to creatures of varying heights. As the water cleared more, their skeletal frames became visible, the sludge-like substance pulsing across their bodies. Wherever it spread, life withered.

Opal’s forests seemed drained of vitality, leaves rapidly browning and falling.

River fish caught in the sludge dissolved without struggle.

Several foolish soldiers standing too close to the water’s edge failed to notice the shallow darkness creeping toward their feet.

The darkness coiled around their legs like a hungry beast, rising up in a dark wave to swallow them whole.

“Aah… AAAAAH!”

Screams emerged from the darkness before being abruptly silenced.

Then humanoid figures emerged from the sludge, lunging at the remaining humans.

“Run! RUN!”

The paladin shouted while searching for his horse as everyone scrambled away from the advancing darkness.

“The demon tide is coming!”

“THE DEMON TIDE IS HERE!!!”

“The demon tide isn’t demonic power, but the law of epochal transition – the law of the world itself.”

“No empire or civilization, no matter how powerful, can stop the tide’s arrival. When it comes, beings that should only exist in the Shadow Realm can enter our world. The two realms become connected.”

Wade listened silently as Toven explained these secrets of epochal transition.

“I lost my eyes as the price for glimpsing fragments of the unwritten future.”

“Perhaps fate is predetermined – like an unrolled scroll where every stroke already exists. What we experience is merely the process of that scroll slowly unfurling.”

“As figures within that scroll, nothing we do can change our destined fate. It will inevitably arrive at that future. Duke Gimonli, with his foresight, manipulates causality by peering at the scroll. Yet even Gimonli cannot alter the inevitable outcome – only change how it arrives, speeding some processes while delaying others.”

“No matter what we attempt, we cannot escape that ancient demon’s gaze. Events will progress as he intends. I’ve seen how he accelerated the demon tide’s arrival in East Tia. Under his interference, the epochal transition hastens.”

“But my friend, you’re different from us. You don’t belong among ‘those within the scroll.’ Gimonli cannot see your fate, nor can I.”

“You came here by your own will. I’ve always believed we would meet again.”