Heavy armor is an entirely different concept. A single suit of heavy armor stands as tall as two grown men, bearing a "golden casket" on its back, with purple-gold liquid gushing through its joints and limbs. Its feet can travel a thousand miles in a flash, its arms can swing a broadsword weighing hundreds of pounds, and even a short cannon hangs at its waist. One suit of heavy armor alone can sweep through thousands of troops.

If there were heavy armored soldiers, there would be no need for cavalry, infantry, or sailors at all. But there’s no way around it—heavy armor is simply too expensive. In just three to five hours, a single casket of purple-gold would be burned through, which is about the same amount as the ever-burning lamp atop a watchtower would consume in two years. Purple-gold is the lifeblood of the nation; on the black market, an ounce of gold might not even buy an ounce of purple-gold adulterated with seventy or eighty percent impurities.

Even in a vast and powerful nation, only one unit can be fully equipped with heavy armor—the Xuan Iron Battalion of Marquis Anding, Edward Bennett.

Where on earth did these barbarians get so much heavy armor?

The fallen soldiers had no way to ponder this any longer.

Old Cook, who had staggered out of the Xu family, ran headlong into this group of fiends. She didn’t even have time to utter a sound before she was slammed against the wall.

The scar-faced barbarian charged straight into the inner courtyard, shouting, “Samuel Hill! Samuel Hill!”

“Samuel Hill”—Grace, of course, could no longer answer him.

The carved wooden door was kicked open by a heavy-armored knight. The hinges gave a miserable screech and snapped right off, the door crashing to the ground.

The barbarians’ unstoppable advance finally halted as they stood dumbfounded before the door of this woman’s embroidery room.

The faint scent of incense still lingered. The room was dimly lit, long tassel shadows from the bed curtains scattered across the floor, the dressing table had been tidied, and in the corner sat an open box of rouge.

A young boy knelt with his back to them in front of the bed, and on the bed… there seemed to be someone lying there.

The boy—Charles—heard the commotion and instinctively glanced back. Seeing a group of terrifying barbarians break into his home in broad daylight, he didn’t feel much shock. Instead, he suddenly understood, realizing a bit why Grace had chosen to die.

For these barbarians to enter the city, it must have something to do with Grace. John Foster was still on the giant kite; perhaps, because she colluded with foreigners, she had already been killed by the barbarians. Her great vengeance for her country and family had been fulfilled, but she had also caused the death of the only man in the world who had ever treated her well.

Charles looked indifferently at the barbarians, then turned back and kowtowed to the woman on the bed, repaying her for years of sparing his life, and thus severed all ties with the dead.

After kowtowing, he stood up and turned to face the heavy-armored warriors at the door.

The heavy armor was like a mountain. He, a mere mortal boy, seemed like an ant trying to shake a great tree among them, and it would have been natural for him to be afraid. Yet he was not—Charles was not so arrogant as to think he could fight these mountain-like barbarians alone, and he knew he was almost certainly doomed, but strangely, he felt no fear.

Perhaps all his fear had already been spent the moment he learned there was more to “William Sullivan”’s identity.

The scar-faced barbarian stared at him, his expression suddenly turning ferocious as if recalling something. “Where is Samuel Hill?”

Charles’s gaze lingered on his face for a moment and said, “I remember you. You’re the one who lured wolves to ambush me in the snow two winters ago.”

A northern barbarian in heavy armor stepped forward to seize him, but the scar-faced man stopped him with a raised hand.

The scar-faced man lowered his head, awkwardly bent down, and stared at the boy who barely reached his armored chest. In a strange, accented Chinese, he asked again, “I’m asking you, Samuel Hill, where… where is Grace?”

Charles: “She’s dead.”

He gripped the iron wrist cuff on his arm, stepped aside, and revealed the silent corpse on the bed. A thin line of black blood still stained Grace’s lips, her face pale as snow, like a poisonous, withered flower.

Several barbarians in the courtyard let out wails and fell to their knees with a clatter.

For a moment, the scar-faced man looked bewildered. He slowly stepped into Grace’s embroidery room. Though he moved cautiously, the heavy armor still left fine cracks in the floor.

The barbarian walked to the window, reaching out to steady the carved bed, but halfway there, he drew his hand back, as if afraid he might break the bedpost.

He bent his heavy-armored waist, white vapor drifting behind him in the small bedroom. The purple-gold on the armor burned quietly, making a “huff, huff” sound, like a dying beast.

That beast gently touched the woman’s face.

He felt only coldness.

Suddenly, the scar-faced barbarian howled like a wolf who had lost its mate. In the next instant, the heavy armor at the bedside spun with a speed too fast for the eye to follow, churning out a hysterical burst of white vapor. A mechanical giant hand shot out, grabbed, and seized Charles in its grasp.

Charles’s feet left the ground, a sharp pain shot through his back, his organs felt as if they’d been turned upside down, and he was slammed hard against the wall by the barbarian.

The wall cracked.

Charles could no longer hold back a mouthful of blood, spraying it all over the scar-faced barbarian’s iron arm.

He struggled to lower his head and met those eyes filled with murderous intent.

For the first time, Charles saw such eyes—eyes that seemed to carry the heavy scent of rusted iron.