Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 205 Post-War Affairs
As the flames subsided, the battlefield became a charred and molten inferno, filled with the stench of burning and the crackling sound of churning debris.

The embers of the fire still licked at the withered branches and carapaces on the ground, and a few insect corpses seemed to be still wriggling, their claws twitching slightly, as if they would suddenly spring up at any moment.

Louis's gaze swept over the scorched earth, his expression remaining unchanged.

"Advance in sections, eliminate the remaining enemy," he said calmly, with an undeniable chill in his voice. "Watch out for the feigned dead. Use flamethrowers first, incinerate them completely."

"Yes!" The knights did not hesitate for a moment and quickly formed ranks.

The flamethrower behind him hissed and spewed out hot flames, the tongues of fire like dragons, as if it were warding off a plague on the earth.

The moment those elite insect corpses that managed to survive raised their heads, they were pinned to the spot by the fire.

The sounds of burning and roaring mingled as the battle line advanced with a chilling, almost cold-blooded efficiency.

This is a silent cleansing.

Lambert rushed over, his face covered in soot, but a faint smile played on his lips: "My lord! Apart from a few minor injuries, there were no casualties!"

The moment those words landed, Eduardo almost thought he had misheard.

"...no casualties?"

He suddenly looked at the straight back of the figure standing in front of him.

Flames danced on Louis's shoulder armor, his profile as calm as if it were nothing more than a drill.

“Very good,” Louis nodded slightly, his voice calm yet firm, “It wasn’t a waste of time.”

Eduardo paused for a moment.

The image of the rising mother hive flashed through his mind: the horrifying heart-shaped sac, the writhing nest pillars gnawing at the earth, and the swarm of insects powerful enough to crush half an army...

That was the core firepower that these knights were facing head-on against the Mother Nest!

Launching an attack in such a place, according to general battle damage standards, it would be considered lucky if at least half a percent casualties were estimated.

These knights not only charged in, but all of them came out safely.

Is it tactics? Training? Firearms? That magic bomb? Or... the very existence of this young lord?

Eduardo walked slowly closer, his gaze sweeping over the knights who were clearing out the remaining enemies on the scorched earth.

Their movements were clean and synchronized, their flamethrowers whistling as they burned the remaining insect corpses one by one. Every tactical maneuver was precise and required almost no further explanation.

"As expected of your soldiers," he said with a smile, his tone filled with admiration. "From their reaction speed to their seamless teamwork, they are almost flawless."

Not to mention that... device for launching magic-explosive projectiles, I bet nobody in the entire Imperial Legion possesses one. Did you design it yourself?

“Yes, the principle isn’t complicated. I made some minor adjustments, increasing the range and accuracy.” Louis said with a nonchalant air, his tone as if he were discussing how to modify an old carriage.

Seeing that Louis didn't want to talk about this topic, Eduardo suppressed his smile: "But this mother hive is indeed quite different. This one is much stronger than the one we had in Fir Ridge last time."

Louis did not answer immediately.

He bent down and picked up a small piece of the charred parasitic tentacle from the ground, gently stroking it with his fingertips, as if verifying some kind of structure.

“They will fight with boiling blood and possess a fierce fighting spirit,” Louis said calmly.

“Hmm.” Eduardo nodded. “The previous parasites were at most used as containers and didn’t have any fighting spirit… But this time, as you saw, they were able to unleash fighting spirit skills, almost indistinguishable from living warriors.”

"Moreover, they are more coordinated and even possess a certain tactical will... They are not like simple assault soldiers, but more like 'driven soldiers'." Louis spoke calmly, as if he were analyzing an ordinary specimen.

The two were silent for a moment.

The scorched earth still retained its heat, and in the distance, the flamethrower troops were thoroughly examining every piece of remains, as if even the flames could not completely dispel the doubts in their hearts.

“There’s one more thing,” Louis suddenly spoke, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Have you noticed that the mother nest… is moving?”

Eduardo's eye twitched slightly: "I also suspected at the time that it was an illusion, but later when the nest pillar it was climbing collapsed the rocky slope, I confirmed that it was indeed moving."

“Unlike the last one, which could only stay in one place, it seemed to be trying to imitate the gait of some kind of arthropod…” Louis said in a low voice, gesturing with his fingers to the four-limb-like nest pillar, “That’s not a habitat. It’s a mobile hatchery.”

Eduardo looked up at the charred, collapsed wall of flesh in the distance, and a sense of unease crept into his heart.

“In other words, next time we may not be facing a mother body hidden underground, but rather…” he lowered his voice, “a walking mother nest.”

Louis nodded, his expression devoid of any particular emotion.

"This is no longer a defensive 'breeding nest,' but a 'biological warfare platform' for active attack."

Stronger parasitism, a more complete combat awareness, even self-propelled capabilities… This is… directed evolution.

Eduardo squinted: "If they really start moving... then the situation will get very ugly."

Then he sighed: "You can't handle this on your own. You need to get Duke Edmund ready as soon as possible."

“I know,” Louis said calmly, without the slightest hesitation.

He turned back to the camp, picked up his pen, and wrote a secret letter at the war table. The letter was written in a calm but authoritative tone, and when he sealed it, he dripped some red tide wax onto the paper.

He then instructed the knight: "Go and retrieve a few slices of the nest, live tissue, and remaining venom sacs. Process them properly and seal them in glass."

Less than a quarter of an hour later, a knight from Frostspear City strode into the tent.

"Take these to Frostspear City and hand them over to Duke Edmund. You will personally escort them." Louis handed over the secret letter and sealed box, his gaze cold and stern.

The knight knelt on one knee: "Yes, sir!"

…………

Frostspear City - Governor's Mansion

Governor Edmund was sitting by the bed, gently wiping the fine sweat from his wife's forehead.

Duchess Elena, pale but with gentle eyes, rested her hand on her still slightly protruding belly, a smile playing on her lips.

“He moved,” she said softly. “He just moved a little.”

Duke Edmund's eyes flickered slightly, then he smiled and gently placed his hand on the back of her hand.

That smile was rare; it was the tenderness of a father. He had no children since Emily was born twenty years ago.

Moreover, he was over fifty years old and had no heir since his eldest son died in battle.

For a knight at the peak of his career, having another child is a blessing from heaven.

Now that Elena is pregnant, he has been tossing and turning almost every night, afraid of disturbing this belated hope.

At this point, he did not intend to make a big fuss, lest something unexpected happen.

At that moment, a servant entered quietly, bowed, and reported: "My lord, a knight of Viscount Calvin requests an audience, claiming to have brought important letters and battlefield samples."

Edmund raised an eyebrow: "Louis? Take him to the meeting room, I'll be right there."

Before turning around, he glanced one last time at his wife, who was quietly smiling on the bed.

Elena lay on the bed and smiled, "Go ahead, that child must have something urgent to attend to."

…………

Inside the meeting room, the firelight flickered, and the bronze wall lamps illuminated old battle maps of the North on the walls.

Duke Edmund pushed open the door and entered, his gaze falling on the grey-robed knight in the room.

The other person, covered in snow and frozen stiff, stood ramrod straight and silently presented two things: a letter and a heavy, locked box.

"Thank you for your hard work," the Duke said casually, taking his seat in the main seat and opening the letter.

His gaze swept across the paper, and his originally stern face subtly darkened.

"A suspected mother nest was discovered again in the northwest of Xuefeng County and has been destroyed. This mother nest exhibited significant signs of evolution:"
Firstly, the mother nest itself can move actively and exhibits a certain degree of close-combat reaction capability;
Secondly, the insect corpses retain residual battle aura, allowing them to actively use martial arts techniques, making their combat strength far exceed previous records…

He gently raised his hand, gesturing for the box to be opened.

"Yes."

The knight unlocked the latch, and the box lid clicked open.

In an instant, a chilling smell, a mixture of burnt and putrid odors, swept over me.

Even with the sealing film, it's still hard to hide that uncomfortable biological sense of oppression.

Several horrifying items were displayed in the box:
The remains of the nest pillar, resembling an otherworldly tentacle, still showed signs of wriggling.

A grayish-white, incompletely carbonized nerve sac, the surface of which appears to still retain fine nerves;
A transparent insect core, the size of a broad bean, seemed to pulsate with some lingering will.
And a few drops of viscous liquid in the medicine bottle, gleaming faintly, as if "breathing".

For a moment, even the firelight in the fireplace burning in the conference room seemed to dim.

It seems that Louis was neither exaggerating nor making a surprising claim.

This is a nightmare that has already happened and is not far removed from them.

The knight whispered, "The viscount said that if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed that this thing had evolved."

Duke Edmund remained silent for a long time, his fingertips slowly tracing the glass encasing the nest pillar, his brow furrowed deeply.

He had certainly seen the Mother Nest, and he considered it a terrifying thing, not because of its inherent fighting power but because of its highly contagious nature.

The discovery of two suggests that there are likely dozens more lurking in the North.

Moreover, the mother nest is evolving, and purposefully, evolving into a higher-level, more proactive combat entity.

He slowly exhaled, thinking to himself, "This is not a single mutation... it seems to be... a continuation of some kind of will."

Moreover, the investigation team I sent out still hasn't been able to figure out the connection between the brood mound and the swarm, while Louis, that kid, has already destroyed a stronger brood mound on his own, and even cut this thing off as evidence.

It's not just about courage.

This ability to handle situations, the combat power at their disposal, and the control over the pace of the game...

This reaffirmed for him that he had made the right gamble by marrying his daughter to this young man.

Edmund stood by the window of the conference room, silent for a long time, gazing at the city walls in the distance, bathed in the night.

He slowly turned around, his gaze falling on the weary yet resilient young knight, and nodded.

“You’ve done a good job.” His tone was not harsh, but it carried an undeniable authority. “Convey to Louis that his judgment was correct, timely, and well done.”

The knight immediately knelt on one knee: "Yes, sir."

"You've worked hard. Go and rest. You don't need to worry about the rest."

The knight rose, bowed, and left the meeting room.

The heavy wooden door closed slowly behind him, and silence returned.

Edmund stood there for a few seconds, as if sorting out his jumbled thoughts. Then he turned and walked to the table, pressing the bell.

Before long, several personal attendants and scribes arrived. He had already transformed back into the iron-fisted governor of the North, his expression unwavering.

"Notify my three direct knight commanders to assemble in the operations hall in fifteen minutes," he said in a deep voice.

"Yes!"

"Next, draft an official document and notify all current lords of the Northern Territory, informing them that the Mother Nest is suspected to have multiple individuals, some of which have already developed evolutionary characteristics."

He paused, his eyes deep: "Each lord may select knights according to the actual situation and conduct their own investigations. If there is any news, report it directly to me to avoid information delays."

“Compile a record of the remains samples we received this time and hand it over to the Imperial Capital Intelligence Agency and the Imperial Capital Academy of Sciences. I will sign it.”

He seemed to have anticipated that these instructions would cause quite a stir, but his tone remained as calm as ever.

"These kinds of enemies are elusive and extremely dangerous. We must act one step ahead."

Duke Edmund looked out the window, a cold wind blowing in his face, and the empire's northern border had once again quietly entered a state of war.

(End of this chapter)