Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 256: Cultists

The sharp sound of the siren had reverberated throughout the Imperial City. Meanwhile, the crowds that suddenly descended into chaos had caused the carriage to be unable to move normally. Joshua did not put much thought into it though. He came out of the carriage directly as he helped some of the citizens of the Imperial City who stumbled around the carriage back on their feet. Then he lifted his head and looked at the east side of the city.

“Good grief…”

With a sigh of relief, Joshua frowned and could not help but murmur, “This not good at all.”

On the east side of the city, there were lights flickering all over the place. Red radiance had lit up the entire block of the city. Black smokes were rising quickly into the sky, shrouding over quite a large area of the city. Brandon and Nostradamus also came out of the carriage. They were also witnessing the same scene.

“That’s the residential area… What’s the situation now?”

The blond swordsman who had rich experience allowed him to determine that the fire was not serious. The damage would not be too great even if they just waited for the city guards to react and rush over to extinguish the fire. However, his expression still looked grim. “Could it be possible that some mages had some accidents for attempting forbidden experiments in their own homes?”

Experimental accidents caused by mages were actually quite common several decades ago. Each time when such accidents struck, it would cause quite a number of damage to the surroundings. However, in current times, the Imperial Royal Mage Guild had established a special area especially for the mages to carry out their experiments. It was called the mage experimental domain. As long as it was not some forbidden magic spells or some taboo magic experiments, it would always be much more appropriate and safer to carry out the experiments within the mage experimental domain rather than doing it back and their own houses.

“No, that’s not an experimental accident.”

On the other hand, the old mage was able to see through the anomalies. His eyes were gleaming with the radiance of magic. “There’s no sign of any magic wave fluctuating around the area. And there’s no sign of any elemental energy gathering in that area too. On the other hand, if this was an accident, then the mages from their personal labs would have come out to handle the panicked situation… This is a pure alchemy explosion. This is not an experimental accident…”

After a moment of silence, he spoke again with a clear voice, “Maybe this was a deliberate attack.”

The sudden explosion occurred only once. The crowd that descended into chaos a while ago had gradually regained their composure, especially when they perceived that the explosion was a distance away from them, posing no threat to their lives at all. Courage had returned to their hearts.

Well, one must say that, as the citizens of Imperial City, most of them were well educated. After they calmed down, they started following the instructions of the guards that had just arrived and cleared the streets in an orderly fashion. Then, they returned to their homes. There was no accident during the process of evacuating the streets.

The guards also came up to the front of the black carriage. They saw Joshua and the other two men beside him. At first, the guards wanted to do an inspection on the black carriage. However, after getting a reminder from one of the guards quietly, the guards realized that there was an insignia representing the Imperial Royal Mage Guild on the carriage. Meanwhile, the robe that the white-haired mage had on him was in fact a crystal-lined white robe that only an archmage could be worthy of wearing it.

It seemed that no one in the Imperial City was daring enough to impersonate the identity of an archmage so far.

Meanwhile, those who could actually sat in the same carriage with the archmage would only either be the noblemen or some Class bearers that were extremely powerful. Without any doubt in their minds, the guards gave way for the three men to pass. Then the guards went on to the other places to maintain order in the city.

—Only fools would provoke this group of people.

Brandon was still thinking about the cause of the explosion. At this time, the flickering flames on the east side of the city had become much weaker. It seemed that the guards had succeeded in suppressing the wildfire from spreading. Nostradamus putting his thoughts on the same issue as well. However, after a brief moment, he spoke, “Why don’t we go and look at the place where it all happened?”

The old mage’s eyes were filled with suspicion. Although he had made some guesses indicating that this was a planned attack, everything was completely unreasonable. Everything just did not seem to make sense at all—the spot where the explosion happened was at the east side beyond the city. That would be the homes of the ordinary citizens of the Imperial City. For the explosion to happen in that area, it would only kill one or two citizens, or maybe destroy one or two buildings. The same degree of attack could still be capable of killing dozens of people if the explosion was to happen in the merchant streets beyond the city area. Furthermore, they would be suffering a couple times more than they had today.

Hence, the old mage wanted to go over and have a look at the scene.

Meanwhile, Joshua and Brandon naturally had no objection towards the old mage’s suggestion. They were very curious about it as well, especially Joshua. He already had a vague guess about the reason behind it. However, he was not certain about it. So he could only understand the situation if he went over to the site to investigate.

The three of them returned to the carriage. With the coachman’s pulling of the reins, the carriage turned around and headed towards the other side of the street. Without the crowds occupying on the street, they were moving forward their destination at a much faster pace.

Not long after, they passed through the main road in the center of Imperial City and countless shops and houses before arriving at the east side of the city where the explosion happened.

The site of the explosion had been blocked. Countless city guards were patrolling around, clearing up the scene. Meanwhile, some guards were attempting to stop the carriage from moving into that area. However, just like their colleagues who met them earlier on, the guards instantly gave way to the carriage to pass the moment they saw the insignia on the carriage. They even greeted the men on board of the carriage with respect. Soon, Joshua and the others had arrived at the site smoothly.

Nearby the wreckage of the buildings, there were several guards clearing up the scene. Among the rubble, the fire had been completely extinguished, leaving only scattered black smoke emerging from the burnt wooden beams.

The fire seemed to be very fierce at the time the incident was happening.

Joshua could make a rough judgment by glancing around—because, apart from the rubble and the melted residue of steel substances, the other wooden furniture and decorations were already reduced to ash. There was not even a complete residue of any sort left on the scene. Natural fires or explosions would not have caused damage to such extent. Only spells and alchemy materials could have done this.

Meanwhile, standing right beside the warrior, Nostradamus had also confirmed the suspicions he had earlier on. He frowned and stroked his white beard. “It was a planned attack… This explosion and the fire that came afterward. Fortunately, the people had gathered on the streets for the parade and celebration as the banquet is approaching. So the casualties are not that serious.”

After a thorough observation, Joshua had also roughly confirmed his own judgment.

“Cultists.”

He whispered to himself in a soft voice, “This is definitely their doing.”

The so-called cultists, broadly speaking, were basically non-members of the Seven Gods. Their beliefs should include the primitive beliefs of the druids and also the rituals of orc shamans. However, these people were not labeled as evil. They were merely deemed as infidels. So narrowly speaking, the cultists were deemed as the believers of the demons that would carry out blood rituals.

The origins of the cults were not researched. However, one could determine that their history was at least equivalently old as the history of the Church of the Seven Gods. Their power was beyond the imagination of any ordinary man. In the wild western regions of the continent, there were many tribes that believed in various demonic cults. They would kill the living and use their blood to draw circles to perform blood rituals. They would even perform ‘mutual consumption’, ‘self-eating’, ‘mass suicide’ and many other horrifying rituals in order to obtain the evil power from the dark abyss.

Most people who believed in demons had deep desires. Once they had strayed onto that path, they could no longer extricate themselves from it. They would continue to pursue Chaos, death, and chaos in the entire society. They just craved that everything would become without order. The strong would prey on the weak. The world would be reduced to its most primitive form. In the previous life when the Dragon’s Calamity happened, there were quite a number of cultists attempting to sway the hearts of the refugees. They even managed to take down a number of small cities and took over the places as their own. They had caused a great deal of chaos across the world, inflicting a heavy blow on the order of the entire kingdom.

Joshua believed that the bloody murder cases that took place across the northern Empire Kingdom were also the deeds of the cultists. They might have planned to make secret rituals through blood sacrifices. However, the Dark Abyss was sealed by the Sage in the last era. Without breaking the seal and without using the book of the Book of Eibon which could directly link the world to the Dark Abyss, it would be extremely difficult to perform a successful summoning ritual.

The warrior could tell that the explosion incident which happened a while ago in the Imperial City was an attempt of a nearly successful summoning ritual. However, the summoning ritual ended in failure even though they were very close to succeeding. Well, Nostradamus believed that the explosion was caused by alchemy substances such as gunpowder. However, Joshua knew that the substances that made up the gunpowder such as sulfur and niter were originally needed in performing a demon summoning ritual. Well, the two substances mentioned did not contradict in regard to summoning a demon.

“However, no one would have expected that they actually dare to summon a devil in the Imperial City. More importantly, they almost succeeded… In fact, the banquet for eradicating the orcs is just a few days away.”

Turning his head around looking at that gigantic palace made of obsidian that was located in the center of the city, Joshua rubbed his chin as he revealed a faint smile on his face. “They’ve picked an impeccable timing to strike. I wonder how the emperor will react to this.”

In the meantime, the news about the explosion had reached the royal study room of Morlaix Palace that was located in the most center of the Imperial City.

Along with a cold ‘hmph’, a horrifying storm was brewing.