Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 418 The Lightned Fuse
There was a brief pause of one second among the refugees.

An elderly man with white hair trembled as he raised his hand and caught the food falling from the sky.

He stared blankly at his palm, then hesitantly put the piece of meat into his mouth.

Then he suddenly raised his head.

Behind them, those enormous steel monsters stood silently in the rain, their cannons still smoking, but not a single bullet landed on the crowd.

Looking further ahead, the supervising officer who had been wielding his long sword and forcing them to retreat was now lying in the mud, a mangled corpse remaining.

The old man's breathing suddenly became rapid.

A simple and direct thought reassembled in his sluggish mind.

The monsters behind them didn't kill them.

It only kills those who prevent them from eating.

The silence lasted only a moment.

The next moment, someone hoarsely shouted out:
"That's our food!"

"Rob it!!!"

The moment the sound exploded, reason was completely shattered.

Hunger, fear, and the humiliation of being driven to the brink of despair all surged up at that moment.

Survival became the only thought.

They were no longer afraid of death, because death was already close at hand.

So they began to fear another thing: the fear of being a step behind.

The sound was like a lit fuse, exploding with a deafening roar in the canyon.

…………

Inside the tower, the color drained completely from Kyle's face at that moment.

The wine glass slipped from his hand and fell onto the carpet, the dark red liquid quickly spreading like a pool of blood.

“Impossible…this is absolutely impossible.” His voice was dry, as if he were forcing it out from his throat.

Kyle pointed to the chaotic fire and crowd in the distance, his tone losing control.

"This place is a full four kilometers from the valley entrance! Across the torrential rain, across tens of thousands of people... how could he possibly have accurately hit the granary hidden in the depression?!"
Moreover... the power of that artillery fire was enough to blast through defensive fortifications and turn food into that kind of rain...

Kyle's brain was working frantically, but he couldn't find any experience to apply.

In his understanding of common sense about warfare, catapults could not possibly reach such a distance, and ordinary cannons did not possess such accuracy.

This is no longer a matter of firepower; it's a form of attack he's never encountered before, one that's beyond his range and understanding.

A thought suddenly pierced his mind without warning.

No! This isn't just about the cannons!
Kyle's breath hitched: "How could they have known..."

His gaze was fixed on the still-burning depression, and his voice was so low it was almost inaudible.

How could they know I hid the grain there?

The location of Mine Pit 3 was never listed in the public supply roster.

That was a temporary unloading point he personally designated, used only for supplying the rations of the supervisory team.

The camouflage nets, false markers, and patrol routes were all temporarily replaced.

Outsiders couldn't possibly know, unless...

Kyle's pupils suddenly contracted.

Over the past two weeks, all the strange feelings he had forcibly suppressed suddenly surged up again.

The supply convoy was intercepted too precisely.

The patrol gaps were exploited too thoroughly.

Every action taken in the North seemed to be planned in advance.

"There's a mole..."

These three words had been echoing in his mind for the past two weeks, and a chill ran down his spine.

He didn't even know whose eyes were hiding behind him.

Fear finally broke through reason.

Kyle watched helplessly as everything he had meticulously planned began to crumble.

His prized human defense line, before it could even truly come into play, was turned into a fuse that backfired on him by two shells.

Those commoners who normally wouldn't even dare to look a knight in the eye were now like wild beasts driven to the brink, lunging at the overseer with their teeth, nails, and bodies.

Logically speaking, this shouldn't have happened at all.

The overseer knight was burning with fighting spirit. He was a well-trained official knight who could easily take down thirty ordinary civilians in a head-on fight, let alone these starving people who hadn't eaten for three days and three nights and could barely stand.

But now fighting spirit has lost its meaning... because what rushed up was not just one or two people, but a whole dark mass of people.

A knight in charge roared and swung his spear, the tip of which, imbued with fighting spirit, pierced the chest of a refugee. But in the next instant, more than a dozen men pounced on him and dragged him off his horse.

Battle aura exploded on his body, only to be quickly submerged.

In an attempt to seize a bag of flour covered in mud behind him, the armored body was quickly trampled into the ground by countless feet, leaving him no room to struggle.

This is not an isolated case.

Regardless of whether the blades were about to strike them, some were pierced by spears, yet before they fell, others stepped over them to continue forward; some had their arms severed, but their other hands clung tightly to the knight's leg armor.

The supervisory line collapsed entirely in a very short period of time.

Either the crossbow bolts fired from the Red Tide position hit their mark precisely, causing the knights to fall before even engaging in battle, or they were overwhelmed head-on by the surging black tide of people, rendering their fighting spirit and armor meaningless.

“They’re insane…” Kyle’s teeth chattered uncontrollably. “They’re all insane…”

The wall of sighs that he himself built has collapsed.

And he fell down with a thud, heading straight for himself.

Watching the crowds surge towards the granary like a flood, which was also equivalent to the crowds surging towards the flanks of the Gray Rock Fortress.

The fear in Kyle's eyes quickly subsided, transforming into a cold and pure resentment.

“Since you want to eat…” his voice was low, hoarse, and shrill, “then go eat in hell.”

Kyle whirled around and ripped an alchemical flare gun from the weapon rack on the wall.

His hands were trembling, a kind of excitement on the verge of spiraling out of control, like a gambler finally touching the last chip before losing everything.

He still has a trump card – five tons of Blackfire Explosion.

Once the cliff is detonated, millions of tons of rock will cascade down like an avalanche, burying the tens of thousands of out-of-control mobs, along with Louis's vanguard, into the canyon.

Kyle rushed onto the terrace.

The torrential rain lashed at my face, and the wind howled in my ears.

He faced the dark night sky and pulled the trigger hard.

"boom--!!"

The black signal flare shot into the sky with a piercing whistle, exploding into a thick cloud of black smoke in the rainy night.

That was a pre-arranged signal of destruction.

"Bomb!" Kyle roared towards the cliff on the left, his voice almost tearing his throat, "Bomb them all!! Bury them all!!"

He stared intently in the direction of Eagle Beak Rock.

In his mind, the mountain should have collapsed at this moment, flames should have soared into the sky, and boulders should have fallen like rain, completely filling the entire canyon.

He held his breath.

one second.

There is only the sound of rain.

two seconds.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Five seconds.

Nothing happened. Ten seconds.

The cliff still stands in the darkness, silent and indifferent, like a giant standing on high above, observing.

There was no fire, no explosion.

Not even a single pebble fell.

Kyle's expression froze.

He seemed to have lost his mind, frantically pulling the signal gun, but the trigger only made empty "click, click" sounds.

"Why?!"

A bone-chilling cold shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.

"impossible……"

He muttered to himself, his mind racing in vain.

"Alchemy failed? Impossible! I anticipated tonight's downpour and ordered the alchemical fuse to be cut off, replaced with the most primitive and reliable physical guide."

A human error? Absolutely impossible! Those guarding there are my trained assassins, raised since childhood. Their families are in my hands; even in their dying moments, they'll pull the switch.

"The location has been exposed?" Kyle shook his head violently. "That's Eagle's Beak Rock, a sheer cliff! There's absolutely no way to get up there!"

Unless… his thoughts suddenly stopped.

“And…” Kyle’s voice began to falter, “that was top secret. Nobody except me and those few people knew where the detonation point was.”

How could Louis possibly know? And how could he, amidst the interference of tens of thousands of refugees, so precisely pinpoint my throat?

Kyle's flare gun slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. He clutched his head and staggered back a few steps.

At that moment, he finally realized that something even more terrifying than defeat had appeared.

It was a gaze that seemed to be everywhere.

The other person seemed to be standing inside this tower, behind him, watching his every arrangement and every adjustment.

His supposedly foolproof double insurance proved as fragile as a transparent pane of glass in the face of those eyes.

“Louis…” Kyle’s voice trembled almost as he spoke, “Are you a human or a ghost?”

…………

At the top of Eagle's Beak Rock, torrential rain lashed the rock face and washed over the five corpses on the ground.

Thomas stood on the edge of the cliff, his cloak fluttering wildly in the wind.

He glanced down at the crowd surging in the opposite direction below, then looked down again and fiddled with the thick physical guide cable that had just been cut off in his hand.

Down the mountain, the granary was blown open, sparking a brief and fervent hope, but also immediately bringing disaster.

The canyon did not become clear as a result. On the contrary, in the struggle for food in the depression on the left, tens of thousands of refugees completely lost control, like a pot of boiling water that had been overturned.

The stampede erupted amidst the chaos.

Strong people trampled over the bodies of the elderly and women to push forward, while those behind pushed those in front. Some people fell into the mud and were almost instantly trampled to death by countless feet.

Cries, curses, and the muffled thuds of breaking bones mingled together, quickly swallowed up by the sound of rain.

The main road remains blocked.

People who couldn't squeeze through, the injured lying on the ground, and those frozen in place by fear piled up in layers.

Luis's striker was still firmly blocked outside the canyon by this barrier made of flesh and blood and panic.

Inside the command vehicle, Reg was practically pressed against the observation window, saying, "Sir! At this rate, they'll trample half of them to death! And the road still won't be passable!"

Louis did not respond immediately.

He watched the surging crowd through the rain-streaked glass. Snatching, crying, falling, being trampled—it all repeated itself.

“This is inevitable.” His voice was low but clear. “The chaos is not due to hunger, but because reverence has not been established within this group.”

Louis turned around, his gaze landing on Reg's face: "Then help them build it."

He raised his hand without hesitation: "Order all vehicle headlights to be turned on, sirens to be sounded, and the entire army to advance at a constant speed."

The orders were repeated one by one.

“Buzz——!!!”

Dozens of steam-powered war machines simultaneously sounded their horns to clear the way.

The sound wasn't sharp, but it was deep and muffled, like a roar squeezed out from inside the mountain, rolling along the canyon.

Blinding searchlights blazed on simultaneously, thick beams of light piercing through the rain like cold, hard swords, slashing directly into the chaotic crowd.

The crowd's reaction was almost instinctive.

As the deep rumble approached from behind, and the vibrations of the tracks crushing the mud and water traveled up the ground, the desire to snatch food was suppressed by a more primal fear.

They don't need to understand the commands.

All you need to know is that if you stand in the middle of the road, you will be crushed.

The crowd that had blocked the main road began to squeeze towards the rock walls on both sides.

Even when there was no space left, they used their shoulders, ribs, and bodies to forcefully create space.

The tank doesn't move fast, but it never stops.

Some people knelt in the mud, trembling as they stuffed mud-covered wheat into their mouths; others were squeezed so that their faces were pressed against the cold stone wall, their breathing rapid.

Louis opened the window, and a cold wind mixed with rain poured in.

He saw a child on the roadside who had been pushed to the ground, his body repeatedly trampled by the crowd, but he was still clutching a piece of black bread tightly in his hand.

Louis did not order the car to stop.

He wanted to save those who were still alive, those who couldn't be saved.

"The ambulance team will be here soon," he ordered, his voice amplified by the wind and rain. "First, set up pots near the granary and tell them that looting is useless. Anyone who wants soup, kneel down and line up on both sides of the road."

The order was given, and soon the knight's voice drowned out the sound of the rain.

"Kneel down and line up!"

"My lord, please enjoy some hot soup!"

"Kill anyone who runs around!"

The words "hot soup" evoked a faster reaction in a crowd than swords.

Those who were still scrambling for raw flour in the muddy water noticeably hesitated for a moment.

In order to survive, and for that bowl of hot soup that wouldn't choke anyone, the chaos began to be suppressed.

The crowd stopped surging forward and instead trembled as they backed away to the sides.

One by one, they knelt down.

Only by kneeling can one appear obedient enough, avoid being crushed by the tracks, and be remembered so that one can still get some soup.

The stampede stopped, and the screams gradually turned into suppressed gasps.

The main road through Blackrock Canyon has finally been opened.

In the center of the road was Louis's steel torrent, steadily advancing amidst lights and whistles.

The roadside was lined with refugees kneeling on the ground.

Covered in mud, clutching uneaten raw flour, they looked up at the army that was running over them.

Abbott stood by the car window, speechless for a long time. He had fought all his life and had never seen such a scene.

Tens of thousands of people knelt down and made way for the road, like believers.

“This…” Abbott’s throat moved; he didn’t know how to describe the scene.

The Red Tide army passed through the flesh and blood tunnel formed by the kneeling figures and emerged from the canyon unscathed.

The logistics soldiers behind them had actually set up the marching pot.

White mist rose in the rain, mingling with the aroma of meat, and slowly dissipated.

That wisp of smoke gathered the last vestiges of hope in the hearts of the people of Gray Rock Province who had not yet collapsed.

"Don't stop! Full speed ahead!" Louis's gaze swept across the valley and landed on the solitary gray rock fortress standing in the distance.

(End of this chapter)