Way of the Knights

---

"...so this is the Western Continent." Vendrick muttered upon landing. 

Vendrick is now visiting the Western Continent to complete his mission. He only stayed at the tribe for four months just like he said and set off once more. He left Arthur and Rosa with some suggestions since he told them that it'll take him quite sometime before he returns. 

After leaving the tribe, Vendrick travelled consistently by flying for two months before reaching this place. He arrived just now at the edge of the continent. 

The continents are separated by large bodies of water, he landed on the shore was welcomed by the completely different atmosphere. 

There is a savage and ferocious feel in the air. It's pricking and comes in waves as if it was being released by someone or something. Nature claimed the land, much like how it is in the southern continent. This is because there are no humans here who will desecrate the sanctity of the land so that they could live off comfortably. 

"The Demonic Qi here thicker compared to the Southern Continent...there's also the smell of blood permeating everywhere." Vendrick discovered this shortly after his initial inspection of the land. 

He's still currently walking at the shore, he's in no hurry to dive deep into the depths of the Western Continent's land and greet its locals. He took it easy since he within an undiscovered land. 

Vendrick spent some more time inspecting the land and to his surprise, he discovered something quite incredible. 

"Interesting...every Demonic Beast in here has Vampiric qualities." He muttered, "The bloodlust they carry is far from their average ones so it should be from an outside interference. The Vampiric Serpent maybe? Either way...that should explain why things are quite chaotic here."

From the very moment that Vendrick landed, he already felt the tremors of the ground. His ocular technique had been active since landing and he had been sweeping his gaze all over his surroundings. 

He discovered Demonic Beasts in conflict, but after discovering the strangeness of the atmosphere around him, Vendrick somewhat understood what's happening. 

The Demonic Beasts are driven mad by something. Even the beasts who are known to flee at the first sign of conflict was bravely picking a fight with something, anything that it could lay its eyes on. The battles never stopped, every beast he saw was mad and craved to see blood. These are already considered as major red flags. 

Still, its not like Vendrick would just retreat from this. He has a mission, and he's here to see it done. Things like this aren't enough to stop him. 

"...but it'd be troublesome to face a ceaseless wave of demonic beasts trying to kill me. I think I should set up a base for now. I'll need to observe more and as I make more discoveries, I'll slowly go deeper into this land." 

This was the plan that Vendrick came up with. He activated one of the formations he inscribed at the Spear of Wisdom to set up a temporary camp here. Thanks to the uniqueness of the formation, Vendrick wouldn't be discovered her even if he were to be reckless. 

---

"...no, it's not this one either."

Vendrick sighed and threw another corpse on the ground. He looked around and found the mess he was in. He's surrounded with corpses of Demonic Beast emanating a foul stench. Flesh and blood were splattered everywhere, painting a disgusting scene of carnage and madness, nevertheless, Vendrick didn't look to affected by this. 

As he stood there, Vendrick scoured the scattered corpses in search for something. He had been searching for traces of this thing for quite sometime now but the creature was unexpectedly sneaky and cautious. 

He initially thought that maybe he killed it, so he's searching for its corpse. However, it didn't take him long to realize that there's also the possibility that it managed to escape. 

*Thud*

"Oh." Vendrick looked down and to his surprise, he bumped into the thing he was looking for. "Well yeah, it looks like I was the one who killed it. Sorry, I guess. I used too much force, I wasn't planning on doing that. I just wanted to restrain you, but I ended up killing you."

The corpse was that of a large rodent. It was fat and ugly, covered in warts and had a crimson colored eyes despite its lifeless body. It's tail looked like a spiked mace attached to a rat. It was bizarre to say the least. 

The reason Vendrick was searching for this thing is simple. These rodents were the first suspect he believed to be the 'Carriers'. What he meant by that is, these rodents carries some sort of a disease that inflict a certain illness to other demonic beasts. 

This discovered happened a few hours ago. As he was venturing the forest nearby, he discovered a couple of Demonic Beast who were stranger compared to the others. These creatures weren't mad, yet. 

At first, they were hiding from the chaos around them. Making sure to not get noticed by the bloodthirsty beasts that are still fighting each other not too far away from them. 

It was then this rodent appeared and the situation got messy. Vendrick was shocked to see that the unaffected Demonic Beasts panicked and fled at the sight of the rodent. It was strange since these Demonic Beasts are far stronger and larger compared to the rodent but they were so scared of it. Well, it didn't take long before he eventually found out why. 

The large rodent moved at a surprising speed. Sinking it's teeth at one of the Demonic Beasts. After drinking its blood, the rodent then dislodged at the beast and proceeded to flee somewhere else. The Demonic Beast it attack suddenly twitched, the scene of the happening was freaky. 

When it opened its eyes, the bite marks were gone and Demonic Beast lost all sense of reason. It began thrashing around and it ran after its former comrades. Its speed doubled and its aggressiveness shot through the roof. 

It hunted its former comrades one by one before going somewhere else. Despite that though, its former comrades didn't die, they were re-animated but none of them were normal anymore. They were all driven mad by an unknown affliction and began slaughtering each other. 

This was an astonishing sight. Vendrick immediately tracked the rodent down but it was too clever, it wasn't easy to tail it and it even lead him to large groups of maddened beasts, which forced his hand. In the end, he overdid it, he got too enthusiastic and blew up the whole group including the rodent he was tracking down. 

"Whatever I guess." Vendrick muttered. 

He crouched down and began studying the rodent closely. Under the inspection of his ocular technique, he managed to see several things that didn't make sense at first. 

"This stench..." Vendrick frowned when he smelled the stench coming off of the rodent. "It smells like this thing had been dead for at least a month now. How can that be?"

Vendrick inspected the organs of the rodent. He didn't need to dissect it since his vision could see through its hide. And when he saw what's inside, it pretty much solidified the evidence. 

"Yeah, it's been dead for a month or two at least." This got confirmed the moment he saw the innards of the rodent. "But again, how can this be? I'm not seeing things, I'm sure of that. Not even an hour ago, this thing is alive and moving. Its active too, it even managed to latch itself onto the neck of the Demonic Beast earlier."

"Had I killed the wrong one? But that can't be." Vendrick frowned and inspected the rodent closely again. "Wait, this is the same one. I can sense its previous movement, the corpse is fairly warm too so it's the same one." 

"Is it Necromancy or simple re-animation?" Vendrick was confused. 

Well, none of those were good signs either but its the most logical guess he could come-up with right now. All clues pointed towards these things. The rodent had been dead for at least two months but it was moving a few moments ago and was active enough to infect other beasts with that unknown affliction.

"I can't feel nor see any signs of dark arts of control though. What's going on?" Vendrick was a bit confused. 

Necromancy is considered as a forbidden art. It is something that is not permitted by the Heavenly Laws. Victims of necromancy will often leave traces of the dark arts' influence the moment they are subjugated by Vendrick can't sense anything in it. 

If this was re-animation or more specifically, 'corpse control'. Vendrick would've easily discovered traces of the puppeteers essence on the rodent, but again, he didn't see nor sensed any traces of that, so what exactly is going on here? 

Clearly, there's more to the origins of this rodent. He would've eaten its soul to discover more from its memories but again, the rodent had been dead for at least two months already and its soul already dissipated so he can't use this method. 

"....I need more clues."