Night World Players

Chapter 52 Do I have the honor to walk with you again?
Red Frost Territory, a suburb dozens of miles away from the nearest city.

On the surface, this is a deserted, pale sandy land.

But in fact, there is an invisible barrier silently covering this area.

Ordinary travelers or caravans coming nearby would just regard this place as an ordinary desert and change direction due to their subconscious.

Only a specific group of people wearing the school badge can ignore the interference of the barrier and enter the barrier, the airtight frontline stronghold built by the Ashes Academy.

……

"The evacuation order has been issued by the Granville government, but the city of Orphen, thirty kilometers away, is a medium-sized city with a population of nearly one million. It will take at least three weeks to fully evacuate it."

"The problem now is that we have made absolutely no progress in exploring the Reverberations of the Disaster. In other words, we don't even know what the Dusk Disaster will be after the countdown to the Reverberations of the Disaster ends."

"If it is a large-scale disaster such as a plague or earthquake, then it would be useless to just evacuate the city of Orfen. Perhaps we need to evacuate the entire Scarlet Frost Territory and the surrounding provinces."

"That's simply unrealistic. Let's not talk about evacuating the entire Red Frost Territory. There will be the interests of the nobles involved and the wrangling involved... Even if we ignore these, it will take at least more than a month to evacuate the entire province. By then, the Dusk Disaster may have already arrived."

Inside the Night World stronghold, there is a large conference room.

Various noisy arguments broke out one after another.

"Evacuating the possible disaster-affected areas is only a backup plan after all..."

"No matter what, the moment the Dusk Disaster descended upon the world, it meant our failure, the failure of Starry University."

The clear voice echoed across the conference table.

The noisy discussions suddenly stopped.

These members of the strategy team who had reached the third level and most of whom were ranked in the top 100 of the Obelisk, all looked towards the head seat at the conference table, in the direction of the source of the voice.

There was awe and fear in their eyes.

But more often than not, they distanced themselves silently...

Even hate.

Hiltina ignored the glaring gazes directed at her and spoke calmly.

"As long as there is still a possibility——"

"Our first goal is to capture the remnants of the disaster and destroy the old disaster in the night world."

She turned sideways and looked at the participant in charge of intelligence.

"Have you checked the list on the obelisk?"

"Um……"

The girl wearing the starry school badge spoke in a low voice: "Including Senior Roya, who is ranked 27th in the Obelisk and possesses the Night Blade "Shadow Jump"..."

"This group of reconnaissance teams..."

"They have all been sacrificed and turned into part of the stars on the obelisk."

As soon as she finished speaking, the atmosphere in the entire conference room suddenly became more depressing.

Although based on past experience, after this group of reconnaissance teams entered the reverberation of the disaster, after a lapse of 48 hours, no one still returned from the night world, so they had some guesses...

But when this bad news was actually confirmed and the last hope was shattered, it was still a little hard to accept.

As seniors at Star University and members of the Raiders Group, it's not like they haven't experienced sacrifice before.

The exploration of the night world, the battle to conquer the remnants of disaster... all of which will inevitably be accompanied by death. As the strategy team of Starry University, the best in the Obelisk rankings, they have already adapted to such an environment.

However, this is the first time that there have been such heavy casualties.

There were seventeen people in total, all of them were members of the Night Blade reconnaissance team who specialized in hiding and escaping, and no one was spared -

Total destruction.

If that were all, it would be fine.

The most crucial thing is that after paying such a tragic sacrifice, there has been no progress in the collection of intelligence on the strategy of conquering the Echoes of the Disaster.

They didn't even know in which time period the lost history in the Remnant of the Disaster took place, or what they would face after entering the Remnant of the Disaster.

And this is just the pioneering stage of collecting intelligence...

Even after paying a heavy price and finally completing the intelligence gathering...how many more people will have to be sacrificed before the strategy can be truly completed?
The sheer number of casualties is not terrible.

The most terrifying thing is that people can't see any hope.

In the suffocating silence, after a brief silence, Hiltina pursed her lips and spoke.

Her voice was very soft, like a whisper, but it was firm: "Even so, we can't give up the strategy just like that."

“Once the dusk disaster breaks through the night world and descends upon the present world, the affected area will be the entire Scarlet Frost Territory, and even half of the Granville country’s tens of millions of people…”

"Hiltina! I hate you!"

A piercing wail broke the silence in the conference room. It was a short-haired girl with red eyes. Her hands were throbbing with veins bulging as she tightly grasped the corner of the conference table.

"If you hadn't known that the danger of this remnant of the disaster was far greater than in the past, but still insisted on attacking it, Roya wouldn't have died!"

"If it weren't for the "time and space confusion" that Eloa's "Shadow Jump" Night Blade encountered in this disaster reverberation, there is no way anything would happen even if he entered the Night World ten or a hundred times!"

"Even if you, a lunatic who is doomed to fail, die, Luo Ya will never die!"

"In the final analysis, what does it matter if we give up this night world and the Red Frost Territory? This is not our hometown. Instead, it is the territory of the great nobles in the capital! Let them deal with the dusk disaster and the disaster victims themselves. Even if tens of millions of people really died, what does it have to do with us!"

She stared at Hiltina, who was presiding over the meeting, with undisguised hatred: "But now you know that so many people have been sacrificed, and you still insist on the attack."

"I know that on the surface you have broken with your father and your family background. But deep down, you still stand on the side of the nobility and the emperor of the empire..."

The short-haired girl was forcibly pulled away by the students around her before she could finish her words.

But even so, the eyes of those around the conference table looking at Hiltina were slightly more distant.

Everyone present knew the identity of the female student just now.

She is Luo Ya's lover. They will graduate in half a year. They have even set a wedding date and started preparing for the wedding.

But now, with a bright star appearing in the night sky along with the obelisk, everything has become a dream.

In that suffocating atmosphere, Hiltina closed her eyes slightly.

After a long while, she opened her beautiful light brown eyes again and said, "I'm sorry about what happened to Luo Ya."

"The danger and casualty rate of this disaster reverberation are indeed beyond the ordinary. According to the academy regulations, members of the strategy team are allowed to decide whether to withdraw on their own."

"I guarantee with my status as one of the twelve members of the Round Table and my name, Ingulite, that no one will be harassed by the academy or punished by having their welfare benefits or obelisk ranking lowered because of withdrawing from this strategy."

There was no trace of emotion in Hiltina's clear voice: "But, the attack on the Scarlet Frost Territory's Disaster Reverberation will continue."

"Considering that reconnaissance is meaningless under the current circumstances, the only feasible solution is to abandon reconnaissance and strategy meetings and directly enter the Night World with the goal of completing the strategy."

She stood up from her seat at the head of the conference room.

The red and white knight's uniform looked particularly dazzling in the dim light of the conference room.

"This time, only level 3 people are allowed to enter the Reverberation of Disaster. As the person with the highest ranking among the level 3 obelisks in the academy, I will be the first one to enter the Reverberation of Disaster alone."

"If I can escape successfully, then I will continue to hold a strategy meeting and formulate a strategy based on the intelligence I have collected."

"If I cannot come back, then the next member of the Round Table sent by the academy will take over and continue to lead the attack."

After leaving her final words, Hiltina ignored the countless complicated gazes and walked straight out of the meeting room.

In the meeting room, some people subconsciously wanted to speak.

However, in that silent and depressing atmosphere, they finally just opened their mouths silently, and the words of retention were ultimately left unsaid.

……

Hiltina walks in the stronghold of the night world.

The long chestnut hair was scattered and fluttering in the wind. The scabbard of the rapier was faintly visible between the rising and falling hem of the knight's skirt.

The complicated gazes behind me, whether of awe, fear, alienation, disgust and hatred, all disappeared, returning to pure nothingness.

Until those walls of reinforced concrete no longer existed, leaving only a long steel passage.

Hiltina knew that at the end of this steel passage was the entrance to the Red Frost Territory's night world.

It was also the starting point of the disaster that claimed the lives of seventeen people.

Hiltina gently touched the silver scabbard at her waist.

Ever since her original team fell apart, she has been a loner.

Walking alone in the night world, walking in the remnants of the past, accompanied by pollution and madness, despair and disaster... The only thing he can rely on is this rapier called "Shining Morning Star".

Except, that one exception.

But now, he should still be in Fanxing University, living a leisurely campus life under the care of Dean Yin.

I don’t know if I will have the chance to meet him again.

As soon as this thought came up...

The next moment, a familiar voice came to Hiltina's ears.

There was no awe and caution, or alienation and hatred, in those words that she was accustomed to.

Rather, it was with a hint of sarcasm.

"So, this beautiful lady—"

"May I have the honor to accompany you again?"

(End of this chapter)