At noon, in the woods outside Jialai City, bald Ted sat in the shade of a tree, a tall black horse beside him. He looked at the sky and the road with boredom, breathing heavily with agitation.

Since their failed pursuit of the Marquis's daughter, Nightfire had completely severed ties with Lord Jialai. However, Lord Jialai demonstrated his sincerity. He sent men with elven arrows to Nightfire's camp several times to finally dispel the misunderstandings and reach a renewed agreement to cooperate.

Today was his first task after reaching the agreement: to scout out the whereabouts of his brother, the city lord's, army, which was about to arrive. The task wasn't difficult, but it was assigned to him, the second-in-command, alone, which was one of the reasons why Ted was currently in a bad mood.

The sound of rapid hoofbeats echoed on the road, and Ted curiously poked his head out.

The weather is already quite hot these days, and you're still walking briskly at midday, so there must be something important going on.

As the two horses approached, Ted was overjoyed. They were his acquaintances: the businessman Mike and the red-haired drunkard Glass. To run into familiar faces at such a boring time was truly lucky.

Seeing that the two of them had arrived in such a hurry, Ted hurriedly waved and asked, "Hey, old buddies, where are you rushing off to?"

The two men were surprised to see Ted and immediately grabbed his horse, asking, "Ted, what are you doing here? Why are you all alone? Did you get a day off?"

Ted scratched his bald head. "There's something I can't say right now. What about you two? Why are you in such a hurry?"

The two exchanged a glance, thinking that there was no point in hiding the fact that they hadn't caught the vampire. Since the sun was shining brightly, they wanted to rest for a while, so they jumped off their horses and went to the shade of a tree.

"Ted, bring the wine. I knew you'd bring some." Glass chuckled, rubbing his hands together as he sat down next to Ted.

Ted took a wine pouch from his horse and tossed it to Glass. He then took two more for himself, gave one to Mike, and sat down to the side.

"Mike's brother is dead, and we've been tracking down the vampire who killed him. We've been working on this for the past few days." They omitted the fact that all the vampire hunters in Garai had been killed, as it wasn't something to be proud of.

“Ben?” Ted vaguely remembered him; he was very skilled with his double axes. He looked at Glass, “Did they catch that vampire?”

Mike and Glass exchanged glances, then sighed. "No, all the vampire hunters in the area have been mobilized, but they haven't found the vampire at all."

“Vampires are rare these days; the old ones have all been wiped out. This one must be a new vampire; it shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with, otherwise it wouldn’t be hiding so well,” Ted said optimistically, trying to reassure her.

"I hope so," Mike said gravely, taking a large gulp of his drink.

As they were chatting, they heard the rapid sound of horses' hooves. Several cavalrymen carrying a large banner charged straight towards Jialai. The banner was bright red, with a golden "P" on it and a white saber drawn below it.

The Paz family flag! Ted was thrilled to see it; he had waited two days for it.

Seeing Ted's expression, Mike and Glass began to speculate about what had happened.

"Ted, is war about to break out?" Glass asked.

Ted glanced at the two of them and smiled mysteriously. "It's not a secret. Ars and Tra took advantage of the plague outbreak caused by the Donic family to besiege Donic City. They just want to divide up some good territory. But the Donic family still has a loyal subject named Pas, who has started sending troops to support the front lines."

Upon hearing this, Mike shook his head. "The Pas family is the strongest of the three Donic vassals, and Andrew was a veteran of many battles when he was young. The two of them should not be a match for the Pas and Donic families."

Ted laughed again. "Haven't you heard? They dared to make a move because they had someone backing them up. That person is Earl Lunlang."

Mike was taken aback. He suddenly remembered hearing from a friend a few months ago that Lunlang's family was buying up grain and cotton cloth at high prices. He had thought it was an emergency measure to cope with the reduced grain production this year, but it turned out they were preparing for war.

Glass was also somewhat dazed. He had heard about these things at the tavern, but he had never thought about them seriously. After all, what he was most worried about those days was the vampire Barbaro, or maybe another vampire.

“Bad weather, reduced food production, plague, vampire resurgence, and war…” Mike couldn’t help but feel fear. Was this the beginning of a chaotic world?

Glass, however, was more concerned with practical matters: "Ted, do you think they'll attack here?"

Tiger didn't laugh this time. He thought about it carefully for a moment, "That's hard to say, but the main battlefield will definitely be near Donic City, that's for sure."

Glass's mood soured as well. Garai was closer to Donic than Pas, so it must be more dangerous.

Mike suddenly seemed to remember something and hurriedly said, "You've all forgotten a very important issue. Once the war starts, a lot of refugees will come. Even Garai and Perth City might not be able to handle it."

Glass and Ted both looked worried upon hearing this. They had some common sense: refugees were often the most difficult to deal with. Besides, Donic City was currently suffering from a plague; who knew if these refugees might bring the plague as well?

Andrew Pass wrote a letter and had his personal guards deliver it to his brother's residence. At this moment, the letter was spread out on the table, surrounded by Sindpass and his confidants.

"What do you all think?" Sind looked around, wanting to hear everyone's thoughts first.

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