The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 63

"Eternal punishment." Shabel held the holy emblem to her chest, the silver emblem gleaming coldly in her palm. "Even Hell will not open its gates to these souls. Any kind of Hell you can imagine—fire, sulfur, endless torment—at least Hell itself is something created by the All-Father, still within the All-Father's order."

The existence of something implies judgment, an end, and the possibility of acceptance.

But the soul imprisoned by the blight doesn't even have that right.

They are not in the order of the Father, nor in the order of any deity.

They are the forgotten. Not punished, not exiled, but utterly forgotten.

The deathly silence on the playground felt less like listening to a sermon and more like listening to one's own funeral address.

Several sergeants stood at the front of the column, trying to maintain their composure, but their lips were moving—not giving orders, but silently reciting scriptures over and over, as if grasping the last rope hanging down from heaven.

They didn't notice that they were reciting, nor did they notice that their fingers holding the sabers were trembling.

They had witnessed infected comrades turn into zombies on the battlefield, and seen brothers who had eaten together the day before turn into biting monsters the next day.

But they never truly understood what was happening to their comrades.

Now they know.

Those infected people they killed with their own hands, those resurrected people whose skulls they smashed with gun butts, their souls trapped deep within the corpses remained conscious—and watching—at the moment their skulls shattered and bayonets pierced their chests.

Perfit stood to the side and slightly behind the reviewing stand, wrapped in a coat, his cane resting on the ground.

She didn't speak, but watched as the expressions on the soldiers' faces below the stage changed from fear to a kind of almost devout focus, as if they were forcing themselves to remember every word.

She pulled out her notebook from her waist, turned to a new page, and wrote a line on it with a pencil: "The effect of religious deterrence far exceeds that of administrative orders. It is recommended that similar sermons be promoted in the Victoria quarantine zone."

Note: The content of the sermon must be delivered by a judge-level official; ordinary pastors do not possess the same credibility.

Then he closed the notebook and put it back in his coat pocket.

After the presentation, no one needed the sergeant major to urge them on during the afternoon's epidemic prevention checks.

Those veterans who used to complain that wearing gloves affected their loading speed now check the glove's seal repeatedly before each shift. When aiming their guns, their fingers are no longer exposed to the cold air, but are neatly wrapped in cotton gloves soaked in hydrogen peroxide.

Those new recruits who previously thought temperature checks were a waste of time now line up to report to the military doctor every morning and evening. Some even broke out in a sweat from nervousness because their temperature was a fraction of a degree higher than normal, and it took repeated pressure on their shoulders by the military doctor to calm them down.

They are not afraid of infection itself.

What they feared was that if they turned into monsters, they would never see their mother again.

No one jokes about their own soul anymore.

Perfit turned away from the city wall and headed for the stairs.

When these measures were devised in Langdon's quarantine zone, the plan was met with ridicule from the Council of Nobles, who considered it "a little girl's trick" not worth taking seriously.

At this moment, in the Romulus fortress besieged by a horde of zombies, it is allowing a crumbling army to grow back its disciplined skeleton.

Ultimately, the nobles were right—it was indeed a trick. Only, it was a trick to save lives.

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The support troops arrived at Wild Boar Ridge Fortress nine days after Perfitt's recovery.

Those were elite troops drawn from various electoral principalities deep within Romulus—three infantry regiments, a cavalry artillery company, and enough ammunition and supplies to sustain the entire fortress defenses for at least two months.

Their military flags fluttered in the greyish-white sky as the infantry ranks wound their way up the mountain road, appearing from afar like a deep blue metallic river flowing into the outer perimeter of the fortress.

Accompanying the army was a special envoy personally dispatched by Emperor Romulus, a middle-aged civil official dressed in a deep red court robe and draped in a sable shawl, carrying with him the emperor's authorization document and a silver seal engraved with the imperial eagle emblem.

The Elector received the envoy in the command post of the main building of the fortress.

He had his adjutant hang up a large military map, spread out the epidemic prevention procedures and defense adjustment plan compiled by Perfit on the table, and ordered people to place the filamentous glass slide specimen brought out from the hospital ruins and an organ sample from an infected person who had already been dissected on a tray covered with a white cloth.

In his hoarse voice, he explained to the envoy in detail the infection mechanism of the blight, the consequences of using catapults to launch infected people on the Rus' front, the discovery of the underground seal in the Predelshensk district, and the existence of the abominations.

Every word he spoke was earnest and weighty, for he knew that Romulus would not go into full mobilization unless he could persuade the envoy, and that any local stabilization of the defenses would only delay the inevitable collapse.

Perfit stood to one side of the conference table and had Allen open the lead-lined sample box, arranging the filamentous slide specimens that had been observed under the microscope one by one on the table.

She also had Shabel show the envoy records of the Requiem Prayer's suppression of the infected, as well as a list of infected soldiers they had successfully treated with dual intervention therapy during their breakout.

She even had the flag captain and Ludwig describe the scale of the zombie horde to the special envoy in person—"not dozens or hundreds, but tens of thousands, stretching from the edge of the snowfield all the way to the foot of the fortress, and infantry cannons bombarding it was like throwing stones into the sea."

Her voice was steady and clear, like that of a prosecutor presenting evidence point by point in court.

The special envoy listened from beginning to end.

He listened attentively, nodding occasionally and jotting down a few keywords in his notebook.

His face grew increasingly grim under the relentless onslaught of specimens, documents, and testimonies, like an old parchment that had been repeatedly crumpled and flattened.

When she saw the black, thread-like substance soaking in the glass jar, she pursed her lips tightly. When she heard about the existence of the Divine Abomination, her brows furrowed into a knot. After reading the relevant passages in the Russian Front Operations Diary brought by Chertzov, she subconsciously covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief and pushed the documents away from the table with her fingers.

But he never said the words they wanted to hear.

"What you have all said," the envoy said, removing his handkerchief from his mouth and nose to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, his voice trembling as if forcibly suppressed, "is indeed deeply worrying. His Majesty the Emperor and the Council of Electors have full confidence in the Northern Legion's judgment and have approved the dispatch of reinforcements and the strengthening of epidemic prevention measures."

but--"