After dealing with the system rewards, the fleet slowly docked at the harbor in Terbisia.
There were not many people at the port, and the ships along the shore were sparse as well. It seemed the war on the southern border had affected this place quite a bit too.
Terbisia was one of the few major cities near the border, a crossroads for the surrounding towns, allied lands beyond the border, other countries, and tribes, because it sat on a great river that led in all directions.
But Luke and the others were not stopping here.
Their destination was Castle Wrenwall in the mountains south of Terbisia, about a day and a half away by land.
The moment the ship steadied, Lux rushed off it impatiently and started taking huge breaths of harbor air, as if the air on land were somehow fresher.
Luke felt that whatever she was breathing in through her nose was no different from what she had been breathing on the ship.
Then he stepped off as well. After five straight days at sea, the instant both feet hit the ground, it really did feel a little different.
At that moment, the lord of Terbisia, who had received word in advance, immediately came forward to greet them.
"Your Highness, it is a pleasure to meet you."
He stood before Luke with a small entourage.
"Likewise." Luke greeted him politely, then asked, "What's the situation with my brother right now?"
"His Highness Jarvan IV is on the road to Hill City. He ordered the troops to gather in one place, and the soldiers from Terbisia have already departed as well."
The lord answered at once.
After hearing that, Luke gave a slight nod.
Then, without stopping, he had the supplies unloaded from the ships and loaded onto the transport wagons the lord had prepared, and immediately set out for Castle Wrenwall.
Along the way, he sank into thought.
Hill City lay roughly between the Gates of Mourning and Castle Wrenwall, slightly to the north. The Demacian forces working to put down the border unrest were now converging there.
Judging from Jarvan IV's decision, the Gates of Mourning had almost certainly already fallen, and his reason for gathering troops at Hill City was probably to retake them.
That decision was naturally the correct one.
After all, in Luke's memory, Jarvan IV was about to suffer a crushing setback in this campaign.
He was about to make the worst decision of his life.
Because the entire southern border was in chaos, not just from Noxus, but also from bandits, refugees, and warlike tribes running wild and causing trouble everywhere.
For a time, the borderlands had become a living hell for the people.
So the army under Jarvan IV's command had to split into several groups and head to different places to put down the unrest.
As for Jarvan IV himself, he led a group of elite soldiers southeast and drove straight toward Trevale.
After learning that the Gates of Mourning had fallen, and seeing the terrible state of the borderlands, he decided to continue the attack on Trevale.
And it was that decision that nearly got him killed, while every one of the elite soldiers with him died there.
Although Jarvan IV ultimately survived, the chain reaction it caused was anything but minor.
With fear already spreading because of the chaos on the border, the news that the prince had been trapped deep in enemy territory threw the entire nation into a state of tension.
So Jarvan III sent out his most trusted general and friend, Barrett Buvelle, a veteran over fifty and the current head of the Church of the Illuminators, to rescue Jarvan IV.
Barrett accepted without hesitation, donned his armor once more, and marched out to save him.
But his life, too, ended on that battlefield.
In that battle, Barrett was killed, dying while surrounded by mages.
His death plunged the whole country into grief and dealt Jarvan III a heavy blow, forcing him to reexamine his attitude toward mages.
Too many people died.
Even Lev, the current commander of the Dauntless Vanguard, was killed in that same battle.
And because of that, Garen, who had always drawn so much attention, was able to succeed him and take up Lev's responsibility.
And that was only the beginning of the chain reaction.
Luke looked ahead at Kahina, riding her horse in front while chatting with Lux, a bright smile on her face, then at Sona by his side, and felt himself relax a little.
At least none of that was going to happen now.
"What are you grinning about like that? Are you plotting something again?"
While chatting up ahead, Lux suddenly sensed something off. She turned around and saw Luke wearing a strange smile while looking this way, and her face instantly filled with suspicion.
Her instincts told her that whenever this guy wore that expression, he was definitely up to no good.
Luke put away the smile and adopted a more serious expression, even a slightly solemn one. "There's something I'm not sure I should tell you."
The moment Lux heard that tone, she stiffened and said, "Then you shouldn't. Don't say it."
Her instincts told her that letting him continue would lead to absolutely nothing good.
So she refused to hear it.
Luke sighed. "You really don't want to hear it? You might regret that later."
His fortune-teller tone made Lux hesitate. Soon enough, her curiosity got the better of her, and she could not help asking, "What is it?"
Luke honestly pointed at her shoulder. "There's been a spider sitting on it this whole time."
Lux's face instantly froze. Then she came back to herself and stared at him. "You're pretending again just to scare me, aren't you? I, Lux, am not falling for the same trick twice!"
Luke applauded. "Impressive, impressive."
"Hmph!" Lux lifted her chin, looking extremely pleased with herself.
"Lux..."
At her side, Kahina spoke weakly.
Lux turned to look at her and saw that Kahina's face had gone a little pale, her gaze fixed on Lux's shoulder. The smug look still hanging on Lux's face froze all over again.
She swallowed hard, then slowly and carefully turned her head.
There, on her shoulder, was an eight-legged spider sitting perfectly still.
A cold shiver shot from the top of Miss Crownguard's head all the way to her toes.
Her face instantly turned pale as a dying candle, and the next second, a scream echoed straight through the forest.
A while later, after enormous effort had finally gone into getting the spider off her shoulder, Lux lay weakly slumped over her horse, eyes vacant, looking like six out of seven parts of her soul had fled her body.
Only after quite some time did she recover a little. The first thing she did was glare at Luke, who was smiling cheerfully at the sight, and burst out angrily, "You saw it, so why didn't you say something sooner?!"
Luke replied, "I figured you'd already noticed. I thought the reason you weren't brushing it off was because you love little animals."
"Who in the world loves that kind of little animal?!" Lux ground her teeth in fury. One look at his smug expression made it obvious he had done it on purpose.
Ignoring her resentful stare, Luke chuckled. "I did tell you in the end."
Lux was left speechless.
Technically that was true, so she really could not blame him for it.
But what made her mad was that infuriating look on his face, and the completely shameless mockery in his eyes that made a person want to charge over and punch him.
She had already been in a bad mood after such a scare.
Now her mood had sunk even further.
She went back to slumping weakly over the horse, and her pale face still had not recovered at all.
Spiders were probably the thing she feared most in the world.
So in the end, his warning had changed nothing. She had still gotten the full scare.
Seeing that, Luke thought for a moment and tried to comfort her. "Actually, that eight-legged spider wasn't that scary. It's a beneficial bug, you know. It eats a lot of the pests you're afraid of. And it was even a rare kind, surviving in weather this cold in winter."
"More importantly, they taste great. Take off the head, coat it in egg wash, cover it in breadcrumbs, and drop it into a pan of hot golden oil until both sides turn crisp and brown. One bite and the meat bursts with flavor, juices splashing everywhere..."
"Stop, stop talking."
Lux cut him off while fighting down a dry heave. Even for a foodie like her, that method of eating was way too far ahead of its time.
Just imagining it made her face turn even paler, and she visibly wilted.
Watching Lux somehow look even worse, Kahina said with a speechless expression, "Your Highness, you really are something when it comes to comforting people..."
Luke, meanwhile, was in a wonderfully good mood and felt thoroughly pleased with himself.
He decided to look at the scenery. The moment he lifted his head, he found himself face to face with another eight-legged spider dangling on a silk thread, even bigger than the one from before.
His whole body jerked violently, and he nearly jumped right out of the saddle.
He barely managed to dodge it by snapping his head to the side. Breathing a little harder, he patted his chest and wore a lingering look of alarm.
That spider posed no threat to him, so he had not sensed it at all.
Even if he had just been calling them beneficial bugs a second ago, when a spider's fuzzy little legs and hideous face suddenly appeared right in front of someone's eyes, anyone would be startled.
"Haha!"
Lux saw the whole thing clearly and burst out laughing on the spot. Her mood instantly improved a great deal.
Luke sighed.
Sure enough, a person really could not get too cocky, because payback came fast.
He looked up again. The mild morning sunlight filtered faintly through the branches, and the sky was crowded with white clouds.
Actually, now that they were farther south, the weather was not as cold as in the capital, though in a few more days the difference would not be much.
Four days later, at the end of the month, the snow came.
There had been signs of it beforehand. The day before the snowfall, the sky had been completely covered in dark clouds, dimming the heavens several shades.
Then on the second day, a fierce wind picked up in the morning. By the afternoon, light snow began to fall, but it came down fast, like rain, each flake striking like grains of sand.
Not long after that, the light snow turned into a blizzard. Driven by the wind, it gave the impression of an endless howling storm.
In no time at all, the snow falling from the sky painted the whole world white.
At the Gates of Mourning, inside a fortress built against the mountainside, Patria looked out at the blizzard and delight flashed in his eyes.
"This snowfall truly is heaven helping me."
A pleased curve tugged at his lips, and he felt more than ever that he had been right to step forward and take command this time.
This gave him time to thoroughly strengthen the defenses of the Gates of Mourning.
As long as he could make the place impregnable, and with the endless stream of supplies from Noxus at his back, then when the time came, Demacia would find it anything but easy to retake the Gates.
He immediately gave an order to the officers around him. "Notify the war masons. I want them working faster. Get the Noxtoraa built as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir!"
The officers accepted the order and hurried off through the snow to press the workers on the walls.
Noxtoraa, whether a city had been seized by Noxus through force or had sworn allegiance willingly, the Noxian war masons would immediately set to work stamping the mark of the empire onto the newly claimed territory.
And it was more than just a mark.
It also represented a kind of solid wall, built from a black stone abundant in Noxus, a hard material that had become one of the empire's signature symbols.
Standing at the window, Patria looked outside. Amid the blowing snow, black-armored soldiers hauled block after block of black stone.
Even the heavens were helping him. Once the defenses were reinforced, and with such a numerical advantage on top of that, he could not imagine how he was supposed to lose.
Demacia, it seemed, was not quite as formidable as the stories claimed.
He had already read the letter the High Commander had sent him a few days ago. For now, the urgent task was to fortify the Gates of Mourning. Beyond that, he was free to act as he pleased.
The meaning of those words was very different.
It meant he could lead his army and do whatever he wanted.
On the other side, in Hill City, Jarvan IV stared at the falling snow with worry all over his face and could not help sighing. "This snow really came at the worst possible time."
After many days, the forces scattered all across the region had finally gathered in Hill City.
During that time, his army had clashed with Noxian warbands several times in small skirmishes, because he needed to confirm the situation at the Gates of Mourning.
And Noxus had already stationed troops in front of the Gates.
Once the two sides came into contact, fighting was inevitable.
They could win those engagements, but advancing any farther was difficult.
Because only a little beyond that point was the real Noxian army.
Now his troops had finally regrouped.
Without question, the best time to attack was before Noxus finished reinforcing the defenses at the Gates of Mourning.
But with this blizzard falling from the sky, he was forced to stop.
Under conditions this harsh, launching a reckless assault on a solid fortress would place Demacia at a severe disadvantage.
And Jarvan IV did not want to see his soldiers pay for that with massive casualties.
But if he waited, then Noxus would gain time, and that would also hurt Demacia in the end.
Yet there was nothing anyone could do.
After all, the weather was beyond human control.
Though helpless, Jarvan IV knew he had no choice but to delay the assault for now.
He stood up and walked outside. The powerful wind mixed with snow hit his face with a biting chill, and the swirling snowfall obscured part of his vision.
Through the storm, he could vaguely make out soldiers hauling supplies back and forth.
Along the way, he had taken in innocent people from across the borderlands and brought them into Hill City, and now the greater concern was resources.
Fortunately, Demacia lay just behind them, and supplies could continue to be sent forward without end.
He had heard that Luke was also on the way to Hill City and should arrive in no more than two days.
Thinking of that, Jarvan IV shook his head and stopped dwelling on it.
He hefted a crate of supplies, braced himself against the blizzard, and carried it toward the temporary refugee shelters.
By now, the snow on the ground had already piled up into a thick layer.
And that made him sigh inwardly once again.
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