Chapter 451 - 425: Rusted Knight Order

Chapter 451: Chapter 425: Rusted Knight Order

Tapping, carving, and hushed discussions marked the beginning of the tedious repair work.

Roland turned around and briefly explained the situation to his friends, who were watching with concerned expressions, reassuring them to remain calm.

Then, his gaze truly turned beyond the Shell Ship to the lost world known as Aiselon.

As far as the eye could see, there was only boundless desolation and dead silence.

The earth was a sickly grayish-brown.

On the cracked, dry land, only a few scattered clumps of strangely twisted, dull-colored plants struggled to survive. They looked more like a mixture of metal and withered flesh than natural creations.

In the distance were rolling, barren hills and the silhouettes of more collapsed, severely weathered ruins.

They stood silently in the dim light like the skeletons of colossal beasts, telling tales of a distant, tragic past of decay and demise.

An indescribable smell permeated the air, a mixture of dust, rust, and the very faint... cloying sweetness of decaying Energy.

Time seemed to have smoothed over the sharpest wounds, but it failed to bring life back to this land, leaving only a bone-deep exhaustion and devastation.

His gaze slowly moved upward.

The sky above was even more bizarre than the land below.

It was not the familiar blue, nor the gray-white of a cloudy sky, but a murky, dark hue, as if it had been stirred up like muddy oil paints smeared across a dome.

There was no sun, no stars, only a uniform and oppressive twilight that seemed to come from nowhere.

What was more unsettling was that the entire sky seemed to be shrouded by an invisible, flowing membrane. His gaze could not pierce it; all he could see were light and shadows twisting and flowing across its surface, creating the suffocating sensation of being trapped in a giant cage or a fleeting bubble.

His gaze followed the unsettling sky into the distance, finally settling on the horizon.

There, at the boundary where the earth met the strange sky, the view became even more indistinct.

It was as if a boundless, translucent barrier of Energy stood there, like the rim of an overturned bowl, completely sealing this wasteland from the outside world.

’What lies beyond the barrier?’

’More desolation, or a completely different landscape?’

No one knew.

As far as the eye could see, there was only a distortion of light and shadow and a heart-palpitating Void.

This legendary heart of the continent greeted them not with glorious ruins and abundant Magic Power, but with something more like a forgotten, deathly-still prison.

Looking at the dead, desolate wasteland before him, a place that seemed to have been forgotten by the world for countless eons, Roland thought to himself.

’It seems this is the fringe of the Aiselon Continent, far from any of the prosperous regions marked on the map.’

Just as he was about to pull out the map Duadeng had given him to try and confirm their approximate location, a cacophony of sounds, drawing nearer from the distance, shattered the suffocating silence.

’Horses? No...’

Roland noticed something was wrong immediately.

Because mixed in with the dull thud of hooves was a rumbling he hadn’t heard in a long time, yet it was strikingly familiar.

The sound wasn’t purely mechanical noise. It carried the characteristic low hum and vibration of unstably flowing Energy.

He quickly turned his head, his sharp gaze fixed on the direction of the sound, but a moment later, his brow slowly furrowed.

A group of figures appeared on the dim horizon.

The figures on the flanks were, just as he had heard, riders on mounts.

But the appearance of these "horses" was extremely bizarre.

They were larger than ordinary warhorses, with unnaturally knotted muscles. Their hides were covered in a rough crust that seemed to be a mixture of metal and keratin, and one could even see ominous, faintly glowing growths at their joints.

Their eyes were a murky, milky white, and what they exhaled from their mouths and noses was not hot air, but a thin mist tinged with specks of magical light and the pungent smell of Arcane Magic.

The figures seated atop these strange mounts were even more eye-catching.

They were completely shrouded in heavy Armor covered in scratches and grime.

It was a style of Armor Roland had never seen before.

The design was rugged and practical, with complex metal pipes and piston mechanisms at the joints. Some parts even had the remnants of long-dimmed energy conduits, giving the whole thing a cold, broken, yet dangerously industrial feel.

His gaze passed over these guard-like Knights, finally focusing on the figure at the very front of the group, who was clearly the leader.

Then his pupils couldn’t help but contract slightly.

That person was also wearing the same kind of unknown, damaged Armor, but their build was even more imposing.

What made Roland even more stunned was...

He narrowed his eyes, focusing his vision to get a clearer image of the distant figure.

’Four... four arms?’

That’s right. The leader’s shoulders were abnormally broad, and from the sides of their torso, four armored arms extended.

Each arm hung down naturally, clearly real limbs and not decorations or mechanical prosthetics.

What made Roland’s gaze harden was the four-armed leader’s mount.

It wasn’t one of the strange horses ridden by the Knights on the flanks, but a menacing, powerful-looking metal vehicle.

It had the basic streamlined structure of a motorcycle but was larger, with bolder, more exaggerated lines, and its thick metal plates were covered in rust and scrapes.

The core of the vehicle, an area covered by a heavy metal grille, was pulsing unstably with an eerie purple light. The low hum originated from here.

Occasionally, tiny arcs of electricity or condensed streams of Arcane Energy would escape from the gaps in the grille, letting out soft CRACKLES in the air and revealing the restless and clearly unstable Magic Core within.

It was like a shackled, ravenous arcane creation, blending bizarrely and uncannily into the wasteland backdrop.

Seeing the group of ominous-looking riders charging straight for the Shell Ship, Roland’s eyes grew cold, and he immediately shouted a warning.

"Everyone, on your guard!"

Before the words had even left his mouth, his hand was already firmly on the hilt of the Moonlight Longsword at his waist. Avril had silently drawn her Longbow, and Galvis had quickly retreated to a relatively safe corner.

Even Duraga, who had been busy working, snapped his head up and snatched the War Axe from beside his feet, while the Gray Dwarves quickly formed a simple defensive formation.

Unexpectedly, however, the menacing party slowed down significantly as they drew close enough to see the entirety of the Shell Ship, finally coming to a neat halt about a hundred paces from the vessel.

The strange horses pawed restlessly at the ground, snorting out breaths tinged with magical light. The gazes of the riders, hidden beneath heavy helmets, seemed to be fixed on the Shell Ship’s menacing, streamlined hull, which was covered in mysterious Runes. Their posture faintly conveyed a sense of wariness and assessment.

After a brief silence, the four-armed leader drove the ceaselessly humming Magic Vehicle forward a few steps on his own.

One arm rested casually on the vehicle’s controls, another was placed on his armored hip, and the remaining two arms hung naturally at his sides. His posture was one of deliberate, condescending composure.

He raised his head, his faceplate-covered face turning toward Roland and the others who stood ready. A sharp yet deep voice, like gravel scraping against metal, came through his faceplate, carrying an undisguised arrogance.

"I am Hagry, leader of the Rusted Knight Order."

His voice echoed across the wasteland. He paused deliberately, as if to emphasize the weight of his name.

Then he raised one arm, his gloved fingers casually making a sweeping gesture to encompass the surrounding wasteland.

"This land is under our protection and rule."

"Veil Breakers, what is your business entering our territory in such a... peculiar vessel?"