The deep night had stained the snowy plains. The cold wind was even more biting than during the day.
A cavalry troop of about twenty men, led by Abel, quietly approached the refugee camp nestled on a leeward slope.
The knights were in full armor, which reflected a cold, hard glint under the sparse moonlight.
However, what they held were not just spears and sharp swords; many also carried heavy axes or massive metal implements that looked like demolition tools, which occasionally clanged softly in the silence.
Abel walked at the front of the troop, his voice carrying clearly to every knight's ear on the cold wind: "Remember the matriarch's orders! No swearing, no taking lives, and absolutely no robbing or destroying any of their supplies! If anyone crosses the line, don't blame me for dealing with you according to the clan's rules!"
His tone was severe, laced with a deep fear of the matriarch Venerare's ironclad laws.
He had already calculated how to apply the maximum pressure and harassment without crossing the line.
Many tall, thick pine trees grew around the camp, and he planned to use this natural windbreak.
"See those trees? Chop them down! Use all your strength! Make the biggest racket you can!" Abel extended his right hand, gesturing around the camp. "I'd like to see how they can sleep with this ungodly noise! Once the trees are down and their windbreak is gone, let's see how they can stay in this godforsaken place! Then, they'll naturally come begging us for a place to stay!"
He could almost see the refugees, tormented into exhaustion by the noise, forced to lower their heads and plead.
"When they can't take it anymore and come out to drive us away," Abel continued to lay out his plan, a cold smirk on his lips, "we'll tell them this land has belonged to the Lawrence Clan since ancient times, and we can do whatever we want on our own territory!"
"If they beg us to do our 'construction' during the day," he snorted, "we'll just say it's our property, and we'll deal with it whenever we damn well please! It's not for them to boss us around!"
Finally, a vicious glint flashed in his eyes. "And when those barbarians get desperate and dare to make the first move... Hmph, then we'll have a legitimate reason! When that time comes, men, charge right in and seize that Gunnhildr! Pin her to the ground too, let her get a taste of a mouthful of dirt and grime, and properly vent the frustration for our brothers who were humiliated today!"
Hearing this, the knights' faces lit up with eager anticipation, as if they could already taste the sweetness of revenge.
The night grew colder, and the white puffs of breath could instantly freeze into frost.
The men in the troop instinctively huddled closer, trying to draw some meager warmth from their comrades.
Just as the troop was about to reach the edge of the refugee camp, with the scattered lights of campfires faintly visible, someone on the flank seemed to let out a low cry.
"Just now... did a streak of cyan light fall into the camp?" a knight asked uncertainly, rubbing his eyes.
Abel also thought he had glimpsed a fleeting stream of cyan light. But the night was dark and visibility was poor. He dismissed it as a trick of the eyes from staring at the snow for too long, or perhaps some rare nocturnal glowing insect, and paid it no mind.
"You're scaring yourself! Keep moving!"
After advancing a little further, someone in the troop muttered, "Huh? The wind... has it died down?"
Abel subconsciously felt it. Indeed, the biting wind that had been scraping against his cheeks like a knife had, at some point, weakened into a barely perceptible breeze that felt almost warm. The closer they got to the refugee camp, the more obvious this feeling became.
"Good!" Abel suppressed the fleeting sense of unease in his heart and said in a low voice to the men beside him. "No wind means the noise we make will travel farther and be clearer! Those barbarians won't even be able to pretend they're deaf!"
Soon, the last wisp of breeze vanished completely. The entire world fell still. Their clothes no longer billowed, and the white puffs of their breath rose slowly and straight up, no longer instantly blown away.
The knights, accustomed to the howling wind and snow, felt a strange palpitation in their hearts at this sudden silence.
"Move it!" Abel forcibly dispelled his unease and urged them on harshly. "Get started already!"
The troop quickly spread out as planned, forming a fan-shaped perimeter around the woods on the camp's outskirts. The knights swung their axes and heavy tools, beginning to chop and strike at the tall pine trees with all their might!
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The jarring sounds of felling and metal striking tree trunks violently erupted, tearing through the night's tranquility as the noise flooded madly toward the quiet camp.
At first, some figures in the camp were indeed startled. They emerged from their tents and looked toward the source of the noise.
Abel sneered inwardly, waiting for their next move.
However, to his surprise, the figures who came out to check looked around for a moment, then suddenly raised their heads to the sky, looking at who knows what.
After a few glances, the figures silently returned to their tents or gathered in the center of the camp, where several bonfires were burning brightly.
By the fire, the shadowy figures of the refugees could be seen sitting together, seemingly still in conversation.
They went about their activities, warming themselves as usual, as if the maddening noise just a stone's throw away simply didn't exist.
Abel leaned against an uncut tree trunk. The tremendous noise was so unbearable that he subconsciously covered his ears.
He stared intently at the seemingly unaffected camp, his brow tightly furrowed.
How is that possible? There's not a breath of wind, the noise is carrying perfectly! Are they all deaf?
A surge of wicked anger welled up in him. He dropped his hands from his ears and roared at his men, who were working hard to make noise:
"Haven't you eaten?! Put more muscle into it! Make a bigger racket!"
Receiving the order, the knights swung their axes and tools with even more vigor, and the volume of the noise instantly shot up another notch.
As Abel was still stewing in confusion and anxiety, he suddenly felt something was wrong.
The noise behind him had, at some point, begun to weaken. And it wasn't fading gradually; it was as if something had grabbed it by the throat, cutting it off abruptly.
Soon, all the sounds of chopping and striking vanished.
The edge of the forest, which had just been filled with a violent cacophony, instantly plunged into dead silence.
This silence was more unsettling than the previous uproar. Not even the sound of wind could be heard; everything was still. In the cold, dark night, it carried a hair-raising eeriness.
Abel's heart skipped a beat. Without turning around, he barked impatiently, "Why'd you stop?! Keep going!"
The expected response didn't come. Instead, there was the chattering of teeth and the terrified, off-key whimper of a knight: "L-Lord Abel... there's... there's... a ghost..."
"Bullshit!" Abel spun around abruptly, scolding, "A grown man like you, still believing in gho—"
His words caught in his throat. He froze on the spot, his pupils contracting violently.
Before him, a young girl in a pure white dress was suspended in mid-air.
In the dark of night, her skin was so fair it was almost translucent. Her face was covered by a peculiar mesh-like ornament, obscuring her eyes.
Most horrifyingly, several pairs of strange 'wings', neither real nor illusory and like wings of light, extended from behind her head.
A soft halo emanated from her body. Her feet were about half a foot off the ground, and she simply floated there, motionless.
How could a human... float in the air?!
Unless it was a god... but Abel's subconscious still refused to believe the refugees truly had divine protection.
So it had to be a ghost!
The hands covering Abel's ears fell limply to his sides. He subconsciously took a step back, trying to create distance.
However, his heel caught on a protruding tree root or rock. His body instantly lost balance and he pitched backward violently.
He threw his arms up in terror to protect his head, bracing for impact with the hard ground.
But the expected impact and pain never came.
The moment his body tilted to a certain angle, an unprecedented and strange sensation swept over him!
It was as if an invisible giant hand had instantly yanked the very earth he stood on from beneath his feet. He felt weightless, his organs seeming to float upward, and a powerful wave of dizziness and nausea struck him.
He flailed his arms and legs in panic, trying to grab onto something to steady himself. But his body was no longer under his control, suspended horizontally at the height of a man above the ground. No matter how he moved his limbs, he couldn't change his levitating position.
He looked around and saw that all the knights he had brought were floating in mid-air just like him, in various poses.
Fear was written all over their faces as they waved and kicked their limbs wildly, like a group of drowning men.
Some let out suppressed whimpers, while others tried to scream but could only manage ragged gasps. The entire scene was utterly bizarre.
In the grip of this immense panic born from the unknown, Abel felt all his strength drain away. His heart pounded furiously, almost bursting from his chest.
He struggled to turn his gaze toward the 'ghost girl' who had caused all this. He opened his mouth, wanting to beg for mercy or to question her, but extreme fear prevented him from making a single sound.
Just then, the silent 'ghost girl' spoke.
Her voice was ethereal and calm, carrying clearly to the ears of every floating man in the dead-silent night sky:
"Aren't you... cold?"
___
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