Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 422 The Grand Finale
The wind on the hillside was cold.

Thomas knelt on one knee among the rubble, raised his hand to signal, and the White Night Squad dispersed and lay prone behind the slope.

Several beams of searchlight pierced the gray rock fortress from the hillside, like shadowless lamps on an operating table, peeling away the layers of darkness inside the city gate.

As the beam swept across, dust and lingering blood mist surged together, and the air in the distance appeared a murky dark red.

Then Thomas heard a sound, it was chewing.

"Bah... ahh..."

The sound of sharp teeth crushing bones and tearing flesh was amplified in the empty castle square and reflected back by the city walls, layer upon layer, sounding as if countless mouths were eating at the same time.

"Damn it." Someone in the White Night Squad muttered under their breath.

The voice was soft, but it couldn't suppress the discomfort rising in her throat.

Even these extraordinary knights, who were used to fighting amidst piles of corpses, could not remain indifferent to such a sound.

The searchlights continued to sweep across the area, their beams illuminating the mountain of corpses piled up in the center of the square.

Broken armor, blood-stained silk, and trampled corpses were mixed together, like a grave mound that had been repeatedly trampled.

And on top of that, something was crouching.

Hundreds.

Thomas squinted, his fighting spirit vibrating slightly at the edge of his retina, allowing him to see more clearly than ordinary people.

Those figures can hardly be called "human" anymore.

The limbs are disproportionate, the joints are bent backward, and the body is covered with gray-black scales, as if it has been forcibly twisted into illogical shapes.

They are monsters that are generally over two meters tall, with unusually large skeletons, yet their movements are remarkably stable.

The vertical pupils showed no emotional fluctuation under the bright light; it simply mechanically lowered its head, bit, and swallowed.

Around them were hundreds of semi-finished products.

The variation in these individuals is clearly not yet complete.

The bones protrude strangely beneath the skin, and the muscles twitch unnaturally from time to time.

Some people's bodies suddenly freeze while eating, as if they are enduring some kind of continuous painful stimulation, but the next second they tear at the flesh in front of them even more frantically.

"...It's still changing," Thomas said in a low voice.

What unsettled him even more was that they were not without power.

Dark red battle aura surged intermittently between the gaps in the scales.

When some of them were torn and trampled by their companions, and their bodies were visibly torn, the damaged flesh miraculously began to wriggle and heal itself within a short period of time, as if it had been forcibly repaired by some force.

Some members of the White Night Squad instinctively tightened their grip on their weapons, a kind of primal repulsion.

"Captain," the second-in-command whispered, "this is no longer human."

Thomas did not respond immediately.

He simply stared at the scene inside the city gate, watching those things slowly move, eat, and pile up on the pile of corpses.

They were completely unresponsive to the bright light of the searchlight and unaware of being spied on from afar.

Thomas slowly exhaled, as if suppressing something churning in his stomach.

"Record the number and characteristics, do not approach, and immediately warn if any of them leave the city gate area."

Thomas knew very well that even if the entire White Night Squad consisted of extraordinary knights, this was not a place they should step into.

Thomas looked away from the chaos in the city gate and instinctively turned to look behind the hillside.

The scene there formed an almost cruel contrast with the interior.

Outside the door, there was a deathly order.

A cluster of black steam tanks fanned out along the slope, their tracks deeply embedded in the mud, completely blocking all exits to the Gray Rock Fortress.

The steel armor gleamed from the torrential rain, like a solid block of cooled obsidian.

The muzzle still retained residual heat, and rainwater falling on it immediately evaporated into wisps of white steam.

Behind the tank lines were tens of thousands of Red Tide Knights.

They stood silently in the rain, their cloaks draped over their shoulders, the red emblems on their armor appearing particularly stark and hard in the rain.

There was no conversation, no commotion; everyone awaited Louis's instructions.

On one hand, there is a biological disaster spreading like a plague.

On the other side is an industrial civilization that is precisely organized and can unleash its most efficient killing power at any time.

Thomas stood between the two sides; this was not a traditional war.

He looked at the illuminated city gate again, his stomach still churning, but he was no longer wavering.

It wasn't because he underestimated those monsters.

On the contrary, it was precisely because he saw things clearly enough that he was so certain that this was not a battlefield where knights had to risk their lives.

Thomas trusted Lord Louis.

This trust does not stem from blind obedience, nor from titles or ranks, but from results that have been verified time and again.

Over the years, when faced with seemingly hopeless choices, or even those deemed wrong by everyone, Louis has always managed to select the most effective path from countless options.

Even if no one understood it at the time, a retrospective review would reveal that Lord Louis had always chosen the optimal solution.

So he wasn't worried.

Even if what lies inside the city gates is a picture of hell, even if those things are constantly evolving.

But as long as Louis is here, all of this has already been incorporated into a larger plan, and the optimal solution has been found.

Thomas believes this time will be no exception.

…………

The rain pattered on the steel shell of the tank, the sound dull and rhythmic.

Louis sat at the folding table, his fingers resting on the edge of the map, quietly watching the sketches transmitted back from the front.

Inside the gate of the Gray Rock Fortress, those distorted figures slowly crawled under the searchlight.

Some crouched on the pile of corpses to eat, some pushed and trampled each other, and some suddenly froze during the tearing and biting, then continued to move in a more frenzied manner.

Dark red battle aura flickered intermittently on their bodies, like unstable flames forcibly suppressed and burning within their flesh.

No one spoke in the command vehicle; they all looked at Louis, waiting for his order.

Louis, however, showed no surprise.

The scene from six months ago flashed through my mind.

That morning, the screen displaying the daily intelligence update was up as usual. One piece of information was squeezed between resources and military intelligence, and it didn't seem particularly noticeable.

The Raymond family's dragon blood formula has a major flaw.

In pursuit of ultimate combat power, the alchemist removed all metabolic safety valves.

The heart of the Dragonblood Warrior is essentially an engine without any braking system.

What does an engine without brakes mean...?

Trying to stop it would come at a much higher cost.

The truly reasonable approach is never to brake, but to push it to its limit and let it break down on its own at an unbearable speed.

This idea was just a hypothesis at the time.

Until he handed the idea to Merian.

In the memory, the alchemy room was blindingly lit. Merian stood in front of the workbench, holding a sealed glass tube in his hand. The liquid inside was an unnatural bright red.

"This was deduced based on the ideas you provided." The Grand Alchemist's voice was somewhat strained. "I added an inducing factor, which will forcibly amplify the active reaction of the blood... Theoretically, it can allow the blood of magical beasts to break through the original stable threshold in a very short time."

Merian didn't know what it was for, only that Louis valued it highly and had experimented on many magical beasts, but it had no effect other than making the magical beasts' blood boil.

This is not a technology that can be repeatedly verified, nor does it need to be universally applicable.

It only needs to be at the right time and facing the right goal.

Now, the time has come.

The beams of searchlights on the hillside continued to advance slowly, illuminating the castle square in a stark white light.

The monsters showed no reaction to the light, remaining engrossed in their cycle of feeding and mutation.

Louis withdrew his gaze and finally spoke: "All troops, form ranks to prevent the monster from breaking out of the castle."

The communications soldier immediately repeated the order, which was then transmitted in segments. Outside the vehicle, the tank formations began to line up in unison, their tracks grinding through the mud and water with precise and controlled movements, without any unnecessary noise.

The second order was issued immediately afterward.

"Heavy artillery battalion, re-equip with Blood Boiling shells, Special Type III, target, castle central square, cover fire."

The communication signals were relayed down layer by layer, and the heavy artillery positions began to adjust their elevation angles.

The loader pushed the batch of projectiles marked with red stripes into the breech, the metallic scraping sound particularly clear in the rainy night.

Louis leaned back in his seat, his gaze returning to the observation mirror.

Even if the ammunition proves ineffective, the steam tanks can still advance; their armor and firepower are sufficient to crush everything inside the city gates.

They will win.

But such a victory comes at too high a cost.

Even if it meant sacrificing the life of just one Crimson Tide Knight to exchange for these out-of-control monsters, he considered it a losing proposition.

In the castle square, the monsters were still writhing, feeding, and piling up.

Louis looked up and peered through the viewing mirror at the white area cut out by the light.

“Tonight,” he said coldly, “we are going to give the Raymond family a funeral.”

The first round of shelling landed on a rainy night.

"Puff, puff, puff." Several low and short muffled sounds were heard.

Dozens of specially made shells flew over the dilapidated walls of Gray Rock Castle, crashing into the castle square like tin cans tossed about.

The projectile didn't even bounce after landing; it just rolled twice on the stone ground before its outer shell cracked open on its own, like a crushed, rotten fruit, making a barely perceptible cracking sound.

The next second, crimson mist spilled out from the crack.

It doesn't spread, but flows close to the ground.

The fog was thick and heavy, as if drawn by something, spreading rapidly along the cracks in the rocks, the bloodstains, and the low-lying areas between the corpses.

They avoided the high places and converged in the center of the square, their colors appearing exceptionally vibrant under the searchlights, as if they even carried warmth.

The only sounds inside the castle used to be chewing.

Soon, other noises arose, and the monster on the pile of corpses paused in its movements.

Hundreds of deformed heads rose up almost simultaneously, their nostrils flaring wildly.

The vertical pupils contract sharply under strong light, then dilate rapidly.

"Roar?" A low growl filled with confusion and longing.

Even individuals that were gnawing on severed limbs did not hesitate to let go.

The half-eaten thigh rolled on the ground, soaked with rain and blood, but not a single one turned back to look at it again.

A suppressed gurgling sound came from deep in his throat.

It was a sound that resembled the sound a young animal makes when suckling.

The next moment, the square moved.

Hundreds of twisted black shadows surged forward simultaneously, their movements devoid of any formation, yet remarkably synchronized.

They shoved, trampled, and climbed over each other's bodies, all to get closer to the area where the red fog was thickest.

Some bent down, pressed their noses close to the ground, and inhaled deeply. They opened their mouths as if trying to swallow the entire air into their lungs.

The scene resembled a pack of starving wild animals rushing toward the only source of water.

The red mist was rapidly diluted and then continuously inhaled.

In the center of the square, a swirling crimson vortex briefly formed.

…………

On the other side of the hillside is the Eagle's Beak Rock observation post.

Thomas lay motionless in the damp, cold grass, his eyes pressed against the high-powered alchemical telescope, his breathing extremely low.

The scene on the screen made him slowly furrow his brow: "They...don't seem right."

In the footage, the monsters that inhaled the red mist did not fall down.

On the contrary, they became faster, an acceleration that defies common sense.

The trajectory of the movement left a brief afterimage on the retina, as if the delay between the body and the force had been forcibly smoothed out.

Then came an even more obvious change.

The black dragon scales covering their bodies stood up one by one, the edges of the scales rubbing against each other, making a dense and ear-piercing "crackling" sound, like a pine forest exploding.

Blood vessels bulge under the skin.

Dark red lines spread rapidly along the limbs and torso, so bright they were almost translucent.

Their body temperature rises to an uncontrollable level in a very short time. When rain falls on them, it evaporates before it even has a chance to slide down their scales.

White steam rose from the square; it was water vapor forced out by the intense heat.

These energy overloads did not cause them to collapse.

At least not yet.

They fell into a state of near-manic excitement.

Some of the monsters began to scratch their bodies frantically, their claws scraping against their scales with a piercing noise.

Some pounced directly on their own kind, tearing and snapping limbs, while others, seemingly aimless, swung their arms and smashed their bare hands against the ground.

Thomas's Adam's apple bobbed: "If we were to engage in direct combat now..."

He didn't finish his sentence.

But everyone who heard this understood.

In this state, these monsters possess enough power to dismantle a steam tank with their bare hands.

The air in the center of the square suddenly changed.

It wasn't the sound, but a more direct sense of oppression.

Thomas's gaze was fixed on the telescope, and he almost instinctively held his breath.

In the footage, the monsters that were originally so frenzied that they had lost their rationality suddenly experienced a very brief pause in their movements.

It was as if something had been pushed to its limit.

"Boom."

The first muffled thud came from inside the monsters.

Then came the second and third sounds.

"Thump. Thump. Thump."

The sound was deep and dense, as if hundreds of giant drums were beating at the same time.

The knights outside the city could even feel the ground beneath their feet trembling slightly; the rhythm had completely lost the pulse of life, leaving only a mechanical and frantic repetition.

Thomas's pupils contracted slightly as he witnessed a scene he could hardly comprehend.

Hundreds of hearts, forcibly catalyzed by dragon blood, are beating wildly within the chest cavity at a frequency exceeding the structure's capacity.

In the footage, the monster's body begins to swell.

Muscle fibers are like overstretched steel cables, snapping one by one.

Dark red light gushed out from between the scales, and the blood was no longer flowing, but in a state of near boiling.

The rainwater fell on them and evaporated instantly.

Steam and blood mist mingled together, making the entire square look like it had been placed into a giant, pressurized furnace.

“…We’ve reached the tipping point,” Thomas said in a low voice.

The next second, in the center of the square, the largest individual suddenly trembled.

That was the first being to complete the transformation, and it was also "Zero" that devoured Kyle's corpse.

It opened its mouth, as if trying to make a sound.

But the sound hadn't even taken shape yet.

"boom--!"

It exploded completely, like a flesh-and-blood bomb that had been forcibly ignited, with high-pressure blood plasma, internal organs, and bone fragments being thrown in all directions in an instant.

The explosion served as a signal.

"Bang!" A second sound.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" One after another, without any pause.

The chain reaction was completely triggered.

Within a few seconds, all the monsters in the square, whether they were fully evolved or still in an unstable stage, disintegrated on their own at their respective limits.

They didn't even have time to realize what was happening.

At the heart of Grayrock Fortress, it was as if some crazy switch had been flipped.

Countless plumes of blood mist, broken bones, scales, and internal organs were hurled into the sky amidst the intense light created by the blood overload.

They exploded between the darkness and the torrential rain, layer upon layer, like a bloody celebration that had been deliberately arranged.

Blood-red yet radiant.

The shockwave from the explosion spread outwards, shattering all the remaining glass on the surrounding towers.

The sound of shattering echoed through the rainy night, only to be quickly swallowed up by an even louder roar.

Then blood rained down, thick and warm, mixed with lingering steam, sprinkling down from the sky onto the entire castle.

Every brick, every crumbling wall, has been repainted with a thick layer of scarlet.

It was a dead city.

It is also a container that has been completely emptied.

…………

Several kilometers away, at a refugee resettlement site, the torrential rain was still pouring down.

The makeshift rain shelter swayed slightly in the night wind, the canvas collapsed under the weight of the rain, and water droplets dripped down the ropes, creating small craters in the mud.

A woman stood at the edge of the shed, holding her child tightly in her arms.

The child was asleep, his face pressed against her soaked cloak, breathing evenly, but occasionally twitching slightly due to the vibrations coming from afar.

She did not go back into the shed.

Like her, many refugees stood outside.

Their gazes swept across the dark wilderness toward the direction of Grayrock Fortress.

That city is glowing.

“…Look.” Someone whispered first, “What a beautiful red glow.”

At that distance, the details of the explosion had long been swallowed up by the night and the rain.

There is no blood, no broken bones, and no internal organs here; only the illuminated outlines of the clouds remain, layer upon layer, like a sky on fire.

The light even carried an eerie warmth, as if a grand bonfire party was being held there.

There was no cheering from the crowd.

There was no crying.

Only suppressed and chaotic breathing could be heard.

An old man with a dusty face stood on the outermost edge of the crowd, leaning on a cane.

He squinted and stared for a long time, as if trying to identify something, or perhaps confirming some kind of outcome he had long anticipated.

“That’s not fire.” His voice was hoarse, but unusually clear. “It’s blood.”

People around him instinctively looked at him.

The old man slowly exhaled: "It's the blood of the demon that's burning."

After saying this, he remained silent for a while before adding in a low voice, "Lord Louis... is purifying that city."

No one refuted.

For those who were unaware of what was happening inside the city, the sky filled with red light was enough to explain everything.

That's the color of the end of a nightmare.

It is a signal that the old era has been burned to ashes.

In the minds of these people, this scene was a divine punishment, a punishment for the Raymond family.

…………

Five minutes later, the last muffled thud disappeared into the rainy night.

Grayrock Castle fell completely silent.

There was no sign of any activity within the city.

The searchlight beam moved slowly forward, but it couldn't illuminate a silhouette that could still stand.

No intact bodies could be found in the square.

No complete skeleton could be found.

Only a layer of dark red minced meat, half a foot thick, remained, still slowly emitting steam.

Steam mixed with the smell of blood rolled in the rain, like the slag from a furnace that had just cooled down.

Those biological weapons that Kyle once regarded as invincible trump cards, capable of overturning the imperial order, were crushed and erased along with the decades of crimes committed by the Raymond family, under the combined attack of intelligence and technology.

Louis put down his binoculars on the hillside.

He didn't glance at the now meaningless square again, but simply raised his hand to straighten his cuffs. His movements were as restrained as ever, as if he were merely concluding a routine patrol.

"It's over. All troops enter the city and use flamethrowers to clean the streets..."

The commands were recorded, repeated, and executed one by one.

The steam tank's engine restarted, its deep rumble echoing through the rainy night.

The tracks moved slowly forward, crushing over the viscous, swamp-like blood plasma without hesitation.

The steel armor reflected a cold, hard light under the searchlight.

They drove through the city gate.

We drove into this fortress that had lost its owner.

The province of Greystone, the era of the Raymond family.

The curtain fell completely after this brief but magnificent display of blood-red fireworks.

(End of this chapter)