The Record of Unusual Creatures

With the MDT’s detailed scans, the mystery behind the Knights of the Ebon Blade were slowly being unraveled one by one.

And the truth was shocking.

Hao Ren had never thought that this planet which looked almost similar to Holetta in so many ways had such high-tech stuff on it. The Ebon Blade knights were clearly beyond human, and based on the MDT’s explanation, they were actually a complex fusion of man and machine, a cyborg. Their ‘original material’ were probably human, but the moment they swing their sword, they could no longer be considered a normal lifeform.

“Most of the organs had either devolved or had its usage changed. There are two blood circulation system, one is the original cardiovascular system, and the other is run by mechanical valve-like thing. There are all sorts of complex tubes in the body, and and a magically conductive fat flows in it. The bones are partially metallic, and critical organs are even covered in additional alloy plates…” The MDT projected the results in the air as it explained, and the royal siblings were no longer surprised by that, “The brain cluster had devolved badly, and the main nerves are showing signs of fibrosity. The shrunken brain mass has less than ten percent capability. Most of the nervous signals to move the body had been focused near the spinal cord. There is a set of complex digital structure there… or based on this world’s explanation, a magical device…”

The knight’s entire body structure were being projection and under the armored shell were signs and marks of mechanical implants and transformation. If he did not know that this world was filled with magic, Hao Ren would have thought that this was a cryogenic popsicle of a synth from Vault 111…

“Interesting…” Rheia too showed an intrigued look and while these technology was crude, but it was still far above the local technology by a few generations. “Expand the image of the man-made nerve system near the spinal cord please.”

The MDT obliged as it expanded the image as a spindle made out of thin lines and nerve points appeared on the holographic projection.

“That is his real cognitive organs?” Wait… no….” Rheia frowned as her eyes gleamed. The real nature of the spindle-like structure was being unraveled before the eyes of a god. “This is just a nervous signal relay and broadcast device, the real source is not it…”

“What do you mean?” Hao Ren was stunned. “You mean this is not a cognitive organ? Then how does the knight even move?”

“If I’m not wrong… it is through remote control,” Rheia pointed towards the tip of the spindle. “This is a signal receiver and can receive orders from the outside world, before being transformed into a nervous pulse to control the body. In other words, the Ebon Blade knight is a non-thinking entity, they are just a type of remote-controlled doll.”

“Remote controlled?!” Even the usually imaginative Lily was shocked, “Who is controlling him? The emperor himself?”

As she said that an image of the legendary Dragon Soul Emperor sitting on his throne with the map open as he had his Ebon Blade knights arrayed in squads before dragging squares around them and pressing ‘A’ at the general direction of anything that displeased him…

The werehusky was even about to give her imaginative brain a like.

“Don’t bother with the wild thoughts, it is surely not like how you imagined it to be,” Rheia shrugged, “Remember… this bastard only fell after his sword was destroyed.”

“Eh?”

“While this conclusion may be a little weird, but that’s the most direct explanation.” Rheia nodded, “Rather than saying the knight wield the sword, the sword wielding the knight is more apt. I had sensed from before that there was something odd with their chainsword, it kept on releasing some blurry pulse, and now that I think of it, that was probably the signal needed to control the knight’s body.”

Charlemagne and Awenna looked at each other, and these two siblings who had underwent proper education had never heard such an outlandish tail before, and the latter took at a good part of the day to even digest the explanation, before asking, quizzically, “That means that the soul of the knight is on the sword, and not the body? So once their sword is destroyed they can no longer move? And the truth.. is that?”

“I’m a bit skeptical, did no one actually realized this before?” Hao Ren frowned, “The Ebon Blades had been active for so many years, no matter how strong they were they are pretty much just an elite troop, and there are many more out there that are stronger than them. Had no one actually separated them and their chainsword? Or any instances where the sword was destroyed first?

“The body and the sword is connected remotely, and the distance can be considerable, the receptor on their spinal cord can receive signals half a planet away, and for this isolated planet, this distance was more than enough, so separating the knight from his sword is probably pointless.” Rheia explained on behalf of Charlemagne and his sister, “As for destroying the sword… the chainsword are very special and the material unusual, it is stronger than the knight’s body and I think in most circumstances, the knight’s body would be damaged first before the sword, and that’s how their secret is being kept till today.”

“Until they met you and your insane combat prowess in combat,” Hao Ren glanced at Rheia. “You immediately disintegrated their weapons…”

“And the legend of the knight is probably not totally unknown,” Charlemagne said, “I had heard somethings about the Dragon Empire from my court tutors, and there’s a story about the knight’s soul is bound to their sword, but this story is a taken as a mere legend in the White City Federation.”

Hao Ren nodded, “Insufficient information, too little samples, and searching the truth would not be profitable, so the secret stayed safe.”

Vivian suddenly remembered something as she gasped, “Ah, if that’s the case, that meant that the three knights we took out earlier are not really dead. I clearly remembered seeing them being blown apart but their swords were not damaged…”

Awenna blinked as she softly said, “I heard that if an Ebon Blade falls in combat, his squire will retrieve his blade and send it back to the ‘Sacred Armory’ back in Blacksteel Fortress, and once a suitable candidate has been chosen, they will then take over their seniors blade and become a new Ebon Blade knight. This process is called ‘ascendance’, and after being ascended the knight will live an almost monastic life, and cuts off all relations with their past life… This was what I read from the museum catalog.”

Hao Ren’s eyes squinted, “So it means that this chainsword is a hand-me-down, and the knights were the real consumables… But I have another question, don’t tell me their sword count is lessen every time one is destroyed? The swords may be sturdy, but they are not divine weapon level of resilience, so surely there much have been some damage across the year right? Did their numbers dwindle?”

“There will always be new swords being forged, so the size of the Ebon Blades never shrank.” Charlemagne regurgitated the information he got from his tutors. “But conversely, their numbers had never expanded before either. Ever since the formation of the Dragon Empire, the number of knights had always been 77 thousand strong, and even when the empire had expanded, and the imperial army being reformed and expanded, the size of the knights had never increased nor decreased. Even at this point where the empire had expanded to the point where the knights could no longer protect the entire border with their size, Emperor Berentine had merely expanded the regular army to plug the gaps, and for the Ebon Blades, they still maintained the 77 thousand since their founding.”

77 thousand people, this was an oddly specific number. For a new country, this number of super soldiers could easily sweep foes of the same level aside with ease, or even without as much as batting an eyelid. But once the Dragon Empire had expanded to half the size of the planet, the number were clearly insufficient to guard the long border.

And based on Charlemagne’s explanation, new sword can be forged, so the reason behind the limitation of their numbers became even more curious.

“There’s probably only one explanation. They are only capable of making 77 thousand swords at any given time, and probably due to the scarcity of some key materials.” Vivian postulated, “Considering the sword’s functions, the material itself could be a soul… but are souls restricted in any sense?”

“Probably only Berentine knows what is going on,” Hao Ren shrugged, “Regardless, these ‘Ebon Blades’ have been a total mystery, and is not too far-fetched to call it a secret. We haven’t even made sense as to why they became like that.”

The MDT shook its frame, “Correct, based on what the siblings said, a normal Ebon Blade knight is probably about as normal as a typical human, and when I scanned their body I had confirmed that fact. The mechanical implants in their body were just to strengthen their physical body and will not turn them into monsters. This is a rather mature form of synthetic human tech, and should technically not be harmful to the user.”

“That means, something else is causing these normal likes to look like a relative of Cthulhu.” Hao Ren massaged his temple as he felt he was closing in onto some truths, “Rheia, can you feel… ‘anything’ from them? Like the influence of the Mad Lord or something?”

Rheia nodded before focusing her senses. A moment later the little goddess shook her head. “No, nothing at all.”

But she quickly added, “But I cannot totally discount them out, there is a possibility that the aura is too weak to the point of not being recognizable. Or perhaps the Mad Lord’s powers have changed in this world and become something that I do not recognize. You should keep an eye out, now that the knights had mutated to the point of blasphemy, it does look like something the Mad Lord would pull…”

Charlemagne and Awenna were totally confused as they asked. “Who is the Mad Lord?”

“An abstractionist artist, particularly good as screwing with your sense of beauty.” Hao Ren casually shrugged. “And we don’t know if we can tell you know so don’t bother. That aside, we have a more pressing question… Are we sure we have not taken the wrong path?”