Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 524 The Shock and Twisted Allure of Swamp Fortress
Just as Black Forest was advancing triumphantly and sweeping across the battlefield, deep within the Green Moss Swamp, in the dark fortress that seemed to grow out of the rotting earth—Mud Crown Fortress—the once gloomy yet stable atmosphere had long since vanished, replaced by an almost tangible unease, horror, and constant anxiety.

Bad news, like poisonous gas in a swamp, kept seeping in from the outside, eroding the spirits of everyone who stayed behind.

In the fortress's main hall, decorated with twisted reliefs that resembled the viscera of some creature, Helmut, the envoy sent by the Electoral Council, was roaring incoherently. His once meticulously groomed hair was disheveled, his face was ashen, and his expensive imperial bureaucratic robes were wrinkled from his agitated movements.

"Useless! A bunch of useless trash!" His shrill voice echoed between the stone walls, filled with desperate anger. "Those self-proclaimed valiant mercenaries, those boastful knights of Maleburg, and those damned greenskins who took money! They're all worthless rubbish!"

However, beneath all his angry outbursts lay the deepest fear and regret within him. He knew better than anyone that the decision to deem Su Li "unqualified" in the noble examination and demand an exorbitant "processing fee" of 100,000 gold coins was made by his own hand. At the time, he had only regarded that exile from the Bauhinia family as yet another nouveau riche from the border who didn't know the rules and could be manipulated at will.

"If... if only I had known this madman was so good at fighting..." Helmut screamed inwardly, regretting his actions to the core. "If only I had known he had dragons, divine generals, and so many elite troops... not to mention 100,000 gold coins, even if we, his colleagues in the Electoral Council, pooled our money to buy him a baron, no, even just an earl's title to keep him in check!"

This massive miscalculation meant that not only had his mission failed, but he might also have completely ignited a corruption scandal within the entire Electoral Council's bureaucracy. The thought that the high and mighty Electors might use him to quell the situation in their fury sent a chill down Helmut's spine.

Extreme fear quickly transformed into rage over his ally's incompetence. He turned his anger towards the true master of this place, his voice distorted with resentment: "Litanel! You incompetent piece of trash! How many resources did our Electoral Council use to fund you, to recruit reinforcements for you! And what did you do? You own the entire swamp, you have those monster armies, yet you can't even defeat a mere pioneer knight like Su Li, who doesn't even have a title?! Do you think you've done justice to our investment?!"

His roar pierced through the dark corridors and reached the throne room at the heart of Mudcrown Castle.

The light here was dimmer, the air was damp and sticky, filled with a strong muddy smell and an indescribable mixture of odors that resembled both biological decay and a strange fragrance. The walls of the hall were an unnatural dark green, as if covered with living moss or scales, and some areas even emitted a faint green phosphorescence, making the entire space look like the abdominal cavity of some huge creature.

Count Litanel sat quietly on the throne at the far end of the hall, a throne made of twisted ancient wood, pale animal bones, and black rock.

His appearance already revealed the price he had paid for his deep integration with this swamp and its native inhabitants, and also demonstrated the inhuman authority he had gained. Although the outline of a human could still be vaguely discerned, the distortion was already shocking. His hands, resting on the armrest of the throne, had rough, wrinkled skin, and his nails had become thick and sharp, like the claws of a reptile. His head and face had also undergone significant changes, his skin faintly revealing a grayish-green hue, and his ears had become pointed.

The most striking feature is the huge, fully open third eye in the very center of his forehead.

This eye was unlike any human eye; it resembled more the swamp queen crawling at his feet. Its whites were a murky yellow, and its pupils, vertical like the deepest mud, radiated a cold, focused, and oppressive eerie green light. The presence of this eye shattered the remaining human features on his face, bestowing upon him an ultimate majesty that blended human intelligence with monstrous terror. It gazed silently into the void, as if it could pierce through the mist and see into souls; anyone who met its gaze would feel a primal fear rise from the depths of their heart.

However, what is most chilling is not his own deformity.

At the feet of his throne lay a massive figure. It was a female swamp monster, more slender than the colossal warriors, closer to human proportions, yet still nearly three meters tall. She was completely naked, her smooth skin a deep, dark green, and the single eye on her forehead was half-closed, exuding an eerie docility. She lay there like a tamed bitch at Litanel's feet, occasionally nuzzling his leg with her head, her posture filled with a twisted dependence and possessiveness.

This is the supreme ruler of the swamp demon society, a female chieftain of the "Mia".

Facing Helmut's furious roars outside, Litanel's distorted face remained expressionless, except for a flicker of mockery, violence, and a deep, icy light in his inhuman pupils. He slowly raised his hand, now transformed into a claw, and gently stroked the smooth, cold head of Queen Mia at his feet, as if soothing a pet with terrifying power that belonged to him.

The hall was deathly silent, broken only by Helmut's faint curses and the low moans of some unknown creature emanating from the depths of the swamp. This silence was more suffocating than any roar.

After a long silence, Litanel finally spoke slowly. He was not angry, nor did he raise his voice. He spoke in a cold and calm voice with a metallic quality. The voice was not loud, but it strangely overwhelmed all the noise and clearly entered the ears of everyone in the hall, also bringing Helmut's cursing outside the door to an abrupt halt.

“Greed… Heh…” Litanel let out a low, mocking laugh. The enormous third eye on his forehead gleamed, as if laughing at all the folly of the world. “Commissioner Helmut, now you think of blaming greed? If it weren’t for the endless greed of your Electoral Council, like vultures smelling carrion, determined to tear a piece of flesh from Su Li, would this madman have been driven to the point where he had to use his sword to vindicate himself?”

His words, like cold daggers, precisely pierced the truth Helmut was trying to conceal. However, Litanel immediately shifted his tone, revealing himself to be far more clear-headed and ruthless than the bureaucrat:

"Of course, you and I both know perfectly well that this is nothing but a self-deceiving excuse." His normal human eye narrowed slightly, while the vertical pupil on his forehead widened even more, its eerie light intimidating. "Even if you generously bestow upon him a title and adorn him with the most magnificent ribbons, do you think he would be content with that corner of Black Forest Territory and remain undisturbed by my rich swamp territory? No, he won't."

His voice carried a cruel insight into the nature of power: "The laws of the border princely territories have always been the law of the jungle, of the strong preying on the weak, of devouring and expansion. Any lord with sufficient power and ambition will inevitably target the lands of his neighbors. If Su Li wants to rise and expand, my territory, Litanel's territory, is his only path and his best prey. This has nothing to do with your corrupt assessment system; it is only about power, and... the will of the ruler."

At this point, the light in Litanel's terrifying third eye seemed to deepen, as if reflecting some distant and horrifying vision.

“I ‘saw’ him, Helmut.” His voice took on an indescribable solemnity for the first time. “I saw his arrival with this ‘Eye of the Swamp,’ and it was because I foresaw his arrival that I decided to give him a ‘baptism of fire’ at the Deadwood Pass, to make him back down… But I saw more.”

He paused for a moment, as if savoring the chilling scene he had seen through the demonic eye.

“I saw the breathtaking military might of the Black Forest Territory. I saw the shadows of dragons spreading across the sky, I saw knights transforming into divine warriors in their charge, crushing everything with power beyond mortal comprehension. I saw their war machines spitting fire, I saw their soldiers fearless in the face of fanatical conviction.” His tone even carried a barely perceptible hint of admiration and apprehension at the sheer destructive power. “That wasn’t an army, Helmut, it was a calamity, a torrent of steel, magic, and absolute will. Our defeat was not accidental.”

This frankness was not cowardice, but an accurate assessment based on harsh reality. Litanel, the "King of the Swamp" who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, understood better than anyone else the true threat. Su Li and his Black Forest Territory were the most terrifying and unshakeable enemy he had ever encountered. The foolish actions of the bureaucrats of the Electoral Council only hastened this inevitable clash, drawing them into a trap from which they could not escape.

Litanel's cold, mocking voice continued to echo in the hall, laying bare the harsh reality before Helmut:

"So, put away your powerless rage, Commissioner. We have no other choice." His demonic eye on his forehead was fixed on Helmut's direction, as if it could see into the depths of his soul's fear. "I am now the last shield standing between you, the Electoral Council, and those gentlemen of Maleburg. If I fall, the next to face Su Li's army will be the walls of Maleburg! At that time, you will lose not only face, money, and a few scapegoats, but all your interests and influence in the northern border princely territory! You will be utterly finished!" His voice carried an undeniable pressure, and he then made a clear demand: "Therefore, I want more—more reinforcements, more supplies, and especially… we must find a way to get rid of that Holy Lily Knight, Hilder!"

When the name was mentioned, the majestic demonic eye on Litanel's forehead trembled slightly involuntarily, its eerie light flashing, revealing an almost instinctive sense of dread.

“That woman… her sword,” Litanel’s voice lowered, carrying a hint of fear he himself might not have realized, “Every time I ‘see’ her wield that sharp, blazing golden longsword, I feel a dull ache in my eye, as if it’s about to be burned and torn apart by that light. Her presence is the most unstable element on the battlefield, the sharpest dagger piercing our hearts. I… cannot, and dare not, confront her head-on on the battlefield.”

He abruptly raised his head, his gaze (both human and demonic) sharp as a knife, piercing straight to the heart of the matter: "Tell me, Helmut, all this planning behind the scenes, all this gathering of all sorts of people, if you don't even have a clear idea or concrete plan to deal with a legendary knight, then everything we're doing now is nothing but a futile struggle to prolong our death! Stop delusional about winning this war!"

Helmut's breathing grew heavy, but his previous rage seemed to have been extinguished by Litanel's bucket of ice water, a mixture of reality and threat. After a moment of silence, his voice rang out again, still carrying suppressed anger, but now tinged with a cold, calculating edge:

“We…of course we have a plan.” Helmut’s tone turned strange. “You don’t need to use this kind of provocation. In fact, the lord of Maleburg, His Excellency Joachim, is very ‘interested’ in that ‘Saint Lily Knight’.”

He seemed to realize he'd let something slip and paused, but ultimately continued with a malicious, vengeful satisfaction: "Su Li, that lowly pioneering knight, how dare he... how dare he lay a hand on Lord Joachim's woman and treat her like a plaything. This shame must be washed away with blood. Lord Joachim demands that not only Su Li be defeated, but that female knight Hilde be captured alive. He wants to take her captive, whip her day and night, reduce her to the lowest of slaves and her plaything that belongs only to him! That is the most thorough revenge!"

Helmut's voice carried a twisted excitement, as if he could already see the imagined scene. He even used a morbid analogy, saying, "Like...like you playing with that swamp queen named 'Mosa' at your feet. The powerful, beautiful, and proud being is completely conquered and enslaved. Isn't that the sweetest fruit of power?"

Beneath the throne, the swamp queen known as "Mosa" seemed to understand the insulting words. A low, dangerous hiss escaped her throat, and a glint of violence flashed in her single eye. But she quickly regained her eerie docility under the soothing claws of Litanel, and her eyes overflowed with lust and a hazy light like spring water.

Litanel remained silent, his inhuman demonic eye flickering with an eerie light, his true thoughts unreadable. He ignored Helmut's malicious remarks, simply dismissing him from the hall with a cold dismissal. As the heavy doors shut out the outside world and a stifling silence returned to the throne room, he abruptly ripped off his magnificent robe—a symbol of power and twisted madness—and roughly draped it over the queen's naked body at his feet.

Immediately afterwards, a suppressed and strange sound rang out in the hall. It was the roar and whimper of the swamp queen Mosa, mixed with a sharp sound, like bones grinding together, which was not pleasant to human ears at all, but more like the groans and struggles of a wounded beast.

However, the sound, upon reaching Litanel's ears, seemed to possess a strange magic, causing his blood to surge, his breathing to become heavy, and an unnatural flush to rise on his pale face. To him, it was not a howl of pain, but the most beautiful celestial music in the world, proof of submission and domination. Yet, just as this twisted ecstasy reached its peak, an uncontrollable glint of sinister ruthlessness and hatred burst forth from the depths of his eyes.

This hatred was not entirely directed at Su Li or the Electoral Council; at a deeper level, it was a mad and venomous resentment towards his own fate, towards the "plaything" beneath his feet, and even towards everything.

His thoughts drifted uncontrollably back to many years ago, to a memory he had tried so hard to forget, yet which was etched into the depths of his soul like a leech.

He first ventured into the depths of this swamp not as a conqueror, but as a captive. He was dragged before Queen Mosa by powerful swamp warriors. At that time, the queen's eyes held only a deep-seated hatred for humanity and pure cruelty. He was stripped of his dignity and imprisoned like livestock in a dark, damp lair. The so-called "torture" was literal—breaking bones, tearing flesh with barbed whips, and using his body as a punching bag to vent his hatred.

The turning point occurred both by sheer chance and cruelly. After a fertility ritual performed by the Queen with her male kin, perhaps driven by a lingering, distorted curiosity about the human form, or simply by sadistic desire, the Queen, in a slightly delirious state, allowed this lowly slave to approach. At that moment, Letanel's long-suppressed fear, hatred, and twisted desires coalesced into an "experiment" perfectly suited to the Dark Prince's (Slaanesh's) tastes—he wanted revenge, to defile the monster that tormented him in the most humiliating way.

He pounced on him.

At that very moment, his blasphemous, thrill-seeking, revenge-driven, and conquest-infused thought, like a dark lightning bolt, pierced through reality and caught the attention of some supreme being. Yes, the union of a human male and a swamp queen was, even for the dark prince who had tasted all the pleasures and pains of the world, a truly "novel" sacrifice. He felt that unseen "appreciation," and a cold yet ecstatic power surged through his body.

He "succeeded." He "conquered" the Queen in an almost frenzied manner. Even more terrifying, a few months later, the Queen's belly, which should have remained forever flat, began to swell.

He, Litanel, a human, seems to have miraculously broken the curse that made the Swamp Queen infertile!
From that moment on, everything changed. Thanks to the eerie "blessing" from the Dark Prince, his methods of pleasing and dominating became incredibly effective. Queen Mosa seemed to have completely succumbed, indulging in the "pleasure" he brought, far exceeding anything her own kind could provide, a mixture of pain and extreme sensual stimulation. She became like the most docile bitch, allowing this former human slave to trample on her back, surrendering the entire tribe's power without hesitation.

At first, Litanel was smug, filled with the thrill of conquering a powerful prey. Looking down at the once invincible monster queen, he felt only contempt—nothing more than a domesticated beast he had tamed. Just like the lower classes of the empire who went to a brothel and saw ewes, dogs, and pigs—no different from any other animal he could find; she was merely a tool for his venting.

However, when his fingernails began to thicken and sharpen, when his skin began to turn an unhealthy gray-green, and especially when a tearing pain came from below his forehead, and a cold, vertical eye that was not human at all forced its way through his flesh and opened in the center of his forehead... the ecstasy of gaining power was quickly replaced by a chill that penetrated to the bone.

Fear, like the deepest silt in a swamp, quietly engulfed him.

He recalled his first encounter with Mosa; her scaly, one-eyed, grotesque face only filled him with disgust and loathing. Had he not been imprisoned and tortured for so long, and had so much darkness pent up inside him that needed an outlet, he would never have chosen such a "monster."

But now… he was horrified to discover that with each union, and with the increasing number of swamp demon characteristics on his body, the image of Mosa in his eyes was slowly changing. Her smooth skin seemed more pleasing to the eye, the light in her single eye seemed to possess a strange allure, and her distorted form seemed to contain an unusual beauty…

A terrible thought gnawed at his mind like a venomous snake: had he really conquered her?
Or was it all a meticulously planned trap from the moment he was captured? Did Queen Mosa, this seemingly monstrous creature consumed by desire, already see through his inner darkness and vulnerability? Was the so-called "torture" meant to break his will, and was the so-called "allowing him to get close" meant to lure him into the deepest depths of depravity?
Was her seemingly complete submission merely a more sophisticated disguise? Was her aim to make him, a human with "special bloodline" or "special traits," the "key" to solving the swamp demon's reproductive dilemma, and to gradually assimilate and devour him through that dark blessing, ultimately transforming him completely into one of them—a more powerful and cunning...swamp demon?

Looking at Mosa at his feet, seemingly still immersed in the afterglow, emitting satisfied whimpers, he felt a chill run down his spine for the first time. He couldn't tell whether he was the king of the swamp or a sacrifice being slowly digested by the swamp, yet still gloating over the "power" he had gained. For the first time, those cold, demonic eyes reflected a non-human image that even he found unfamiliar, along with an unfathomable fear.

(End of this chapter)