From the very outset, there was nothing about the operation against Tansang Town that warranted the slightest hesitation.

Every sign indicated that the minions of the Fellowship of Universal Demise had indeed entered the town, and Gao Yang, long acquainted with this cult of the Ashen Nether, was incapable of entertaining any naive notion that "since they haven't burned this side of the river, I can rest easy." He understood the creed of the Fellowship of Universal Demise: all things, every race, every object, would one day meet its end, and so-called vitality and vigor were merely the road and the lamplight leading toward that end. They had twisted the original Druidic philosophy of nature into their own perverse doctrine and regarded death as the ultimate purpose of life—in this, they were even more extreme and insane than the infamous schools of necromancy.

They believed the undead too were "alive," and held that even the undead ought to "return to perdition," that even the death gods worshipped by the necromancers ought to "return to perdition." Their thinking was so extreme it could make other cultists jump back in fright.

No one knew why the Senming Sect, once devoted to life and nature, had split apart and decayed into such a dark organization, but one thing was beyond doubt: once the Fellowship of Universal Demise stirred, it would inevitably bring unimaginable panic and death.

Tansang Town was far too close to the New Cecil Territory. If those madmen truly intended to brew a plague within the town and use Tansang as "spell material" for an evil ritual, then even a moment's delay would make the New Cecil Territory, downstream on the Whitewater River, the second sacrifice.

But the Cecil Territory was not yet capable of dispatching an army straight to Tansang Town to solve the problem—in fact, Gao Yang himself had no intention of doing so. With the situation still unclear, he decided to take two or three capable men and scout the way first.

A lord plunging personally into danger was hardly a wise plan, but there was no help for it: the high-end fighting strength Gao Yang could call upon was far too scant, and with mid-tier cultists possibly present in Tansang Town, he had to go himself.

Thanks to Gao Yang's timely lockdown, the explosion at the docks had not spread through the camp, and everything in the territory was running as usual. The steelworks were smelting and casting ingots, the brickyards firing bricks and tiles, the furnace district producing blast crystals. The newly arrived serfs and slave laborers were resting in their new tents, recovering from the fatigue of the journey, and with astonishment and bewilderment they set about learning the new order and new laws of this land that had been conveyed to them.

Gao Yang, meanwhile, had finished his preparations for the journey to Tansang Town.

He took with him Philip Qianshi and Amber, as well as Pi Yun, who was fairly familiar with Druidic magic, and left the territory in the care of Hedy and Rebecca. Though the territory had grown much larger and now held a great influx of outsiders, a third-rank mage and a third-rank fireball launcher, together with a hundred combat troops, were enough to control and protect the rear—and even if some genuine emergency arose, there was an Iron Star human here to lend a hand.

For all that Nicholas Egg was a bit of a coward by temperament, his actual fighting strength was formidable. Give him enough metal around him and he could put on a live performance of ten thousand swords returning to the source; and if he was truly at his wits' end, he could still fly up and deliver a righteous descent from the heavens upon the enemy. So Gao Yang was quite at ease about the home front.

By the bank of the Whitewater River, the four—Gao Yang and his companions—were checking their personal belongings and the condition of their horses. They would ride fast horses to Tansang Town, which would be quicker than going upstream by boat, and if trouble arose they could use the forests along the way for cover, to avoid tipping off the cultists.

Hedy saw them off at the riverbank, looking rather uneasy: "Ancestor, please, you must stay safe. The cultists are devious and merciless—do not let yourself be undone by their tricks."

Philip Qianshi, at Gao Yang's side, promptly struck his breastplate, his whole body radiating fighting spirit so dense it seemed almost tangible: "Rest assured! I swear upon a knight's honor to guard the Duke's safety unto death!"

"Don't be absurd, you can't even beat me," Gao Yang said, glancing at this young man who flew into a热血 fervor at the slightest provocation. "And in dealing with cultists, it's exactly your single-track temperament that's the danger—honest folk are the easiest to fool, you know that?"

Philip Qianshi thought it over: "My lord speaks truly. I am still wanting, and must temper myself through experience."

Gao Yang felt the young man had understood nothing at all...

Just then Hedy frowned and turned to look toward the camp: "Speaking of which, why isn't Rebecca here yet?"

Amber, who had been leaning against her horse and idly fiddling with a dagger, raised her head at this: "She said she'd prepared something for us and told us to wait. But wait much longer and the cultists will have settled down and put down roots in Tansang Town."

There was a thick resentment in her tone, though the chief source of that resentment was being dragged along to face the cultists head-on—which left the half-elf miss, ever cowardly and ever wordy, rather displeased.

Never mind that Gao Yang had said several times already that the head-on fighting was a task left to him, and that Amber and the others need only provide support...

And scarcely had Amber's words fallen than Rebecca's voice rang out from the distance, right on cue: "Ancestor! Ancestor! I'm here! I'm here!"

Gao Yang looked toward the sound and saw a third-rank fireball launcher come flying pell-mell from afar. Rebecca gripped her iron staff in one hand and a bag of considerable heft in the other, running all the way at a bouncing, bounding clip.

She ran in one breath right up to Gao Yang, gulping for air: "S-sorry... sorry to keep you waiting so long..."

"Wait much longer and those cultists will be having babies in Tansang Town!" Amber planted her hands on her hips and glared. "What on earth have you been fussing over?"

"I prepared some things for you that might come in useful," Rebecca said, managing to even out her breathing before opening the large bag in her hand and taking out what was inside. "I'd meant to present them to you as an achievement report, Ancestor, but I never expected something like this to happen—so it's a good chance to test them in actual combat..."

The bag opened, and several curious gazes fell upon what Rebecca brought out: rows upon rows of metal boxes, uniform in size and neatly arrayed.

They were forged from the commonest cast iron, their shapes exceptionally regular, each a little larger all around than the cigarette packs in Gao Yang's memory. On the side of each box could be seen a protruding piece of metal, apparently an iron bar inserted into the body of the box, and at the top there was a raised structure that looked as though it could be pressed down.

Gao Yang seemed to realize something, but still could not quite be certain: "Is this..."

"Didn't you tell me before to think about how to make a rune trigger with a delayed detonation?" Rebecca rattled on. "I actually designed it a while ago, only the structure is very delicate and hard to machine, especially impossible to make in large quantities—but now that I have help..."

Gao Yang realized what she was about to say before she finished: "Nicholas Egg helped machine these?"