Chapter 111 - 38: [Ronov, the Ghost Knight, and the New World]

Chapter 111: Chapter 38: [Ronov, the Ghost Knight, and the New World]

There were no wind-blocking structures in the vast wheat field, allowing the late autumn winds to charge unimpeded from the open north. They gusted against Commander Bert, fluttering his pitch-black herringbone cavalry coat.

"It’s getting colder; winter is almost here," he thought. He felt the cold wind worming its way into his neck through the gap in his coat’s upturned collar. For ease of movement, he had left the brass buttons bearing the Sword Crown and Iron Crown royal crest unfastened, letting the falling hem flap against his knees in the wind.

He wondered if His Majesty Hains III was in good health, hoping that they had prepared more heating stoves in the Imperial Palace. Bert’s mind wandered for a brief moment, but he quickly snapped back to reality, surveying the wheat field before him.

A great battle had occurred here.

Standing in the center of the field, he gazed at the six corpses in front of him. With his left hand behind his back and his right resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist, his fingertips traced the texture of the non-slip black leather strips wrapped around it in silence.

This was his habit when thinking. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to never letting his sword leave his side.

"Commander?" a subordinate asked.

"No, no, don’t come any closer yet. Don’t trample the evidence here." Bert raised his hand, gesturing for the Imperial Soldiers behind him to avoid stomping recklessly through the wheat.

Logically, a situation like this called for the expertise of a professional adventurer Hunter to assist with the investigation. The Imperial Soldiers of Ederic were dogs of war, not hounds of the hunt; they were not particularly skilled in tracking and investigating.

However, there were no alliance branch offices in this area. The nearest alliance outpost was hundreds of kilometers away and functioned as a Magic Material Trading Station. Finding qualified Mid and High-level Hunter Adventurers was exceedingly difficult.

Given the current circumstances, Commander Bert had no choice but to rely heavily on his own experience, using guesswork and intuition.

The wheat field was riddled with scorch marks. A half-burnt harvesting machine had collapsed, scattering charred wooden fragments and gears across the ground. The horse carcass hitched to the vehicle was smeared with Supar Fire Oil from the Eastern Desert, roasted into a gruesome mess.

The harvesting machine had served as a makeshift war chariot. Some person had used the surroundings to their advantage, employing these vehicles in a skirmish—someone who possessed a certain understanding of the Empire’s military tactics and the evolutionary history of its war machinery.

Judging by the ruined traces at the edge of the wheat field, there had once been an abandoned structure here, perhaps some sort of warehouse. Based on the indentations in the dirt, it had stored a certain cargo. But now, it was burnt completely clean, leaving behind nothing but an explosion’s devastated wreckage.

"Supar Fire Oil... an explosion..." he thought.

He slowly crouched down, examining the corpses before him.

There were six bodies in total, belonging to one high-level Demon Race member and five Demonized individuals. All of them had brown skin and dark gold or amber pupils, clearly indicating they hailed from the Eastern Desert—perhaps all of them were citizens of the Supar Empire.

"To come all the way to the northwest? And infiltrate the Empire’s borders undetected? Could they be spies?" Bert pondered. There were frequent rumors of the Supar Empire collaborating with the Demon Race. Dispatching a high-level Demon Race member and several Demonized individuals as spies would be an unprecedented move, but it was not impossible.

The high-level Demon Race body bore a multitude of wounds, including blade punctures, blunt force trauma, explosion burns, scorch marks, and heavy kicking impacts. Yet, the final cause of death was destroyed internal organs—perhaps signifying a siege by multiple attackers?

The corpses of the five Demonized individuals were scattered across the field. Two had died from sharp blade lacerations, and one had succumbed to blade punctures and blunt force blows. Another was reduced to mere fragments glued to half-melted metal, seemingly the result of a fire oil canister exploding.

The final one lay in a clearing at the edge of the wheat field. The corpse had been hacked to a pulp by sharp weapons, as if intentionally dismembered to cover up something. Bert noticed a suspicious detail—the corpse’s heart appeared to have been extracted, only to be deliberately tossed far away.

"Is this some kind of ritual?" Bert mused in deep thought.

The Eastern Supar Empire’s medical technology and Undead Witchcraft were highly advanced. Life Alchemists frequently harvested fresh Magical Beast organs from corpses, utilizing Magic Potions and surgical procedures to graft them onto their Warriors.

The chimeric Chimera Warriors created through this method could acquire corresponding abilities from different Magical Beasts based on varied organ structures. Their numbers were unlimited, and they would not be subject to the control of the Demon Race Monarch.

In comparison, ordinary Demonized individuals, who could only possess the ability and traits of a single Magical Beast, were nothing more than pitiful, defenseless children in the face of the multi-chimeric Supar Chimera Warriors.

"Could this corpse also be the product of some special Life Alchemy of the Supar Empire? Or was the original plan to dig out his heart for use as a Witchcraft material, only to throw it away when they found it didn’t meet their quality standards?"

"Could it be infighting within the Supar Empire spy squad? Or perhaps a Life Alchemist passed through here, harvested the material, felt dissatisfied, and tossed it?" Bert scratched his head. "That doesn’t seem right either. Otherwise, why would they intentionally hack up the corpse?"

"Could it be that this was someone on our side?"

According to reports from nearby farmers, they claimed to have faintly heard furious roars in the night, mentioning two keywords.

One was "Ronov," and the other was "Ghost Knight."

"You’ve got to be kidding me..." Bert shuddered at the absurd possibilities implied by those words.

"Ronov" was the noble surname of a Northern Knight Clan! It originated from the "Cedar Knight," one of the Four Knights personally titled by Emperor Ederic of the Founding Country, the Knight Lord stationed amidst the Northern Mountain Conifer Forest.