Chapter Fifty-Three: Emilia Could Not Possibly Be Short of Money

Eileen looked at these black-haired humans, dressed strangely and devoid of any aura. Her throat felt as if something was stuck in it, making it difficult to swallow. These people gave her the exact same feeling as those who surrounded the Grand Duke of the Eastern Territory: those dead, lifeless eyes and an aura of terrifying bloodlust.

To ordinary people or lesser transcendents, these individuals might simply seem fierce. But to someone of Eileen’s level, they were monsters. The murderous intent they exuded was overwhelming, fully on par with the Shadow Masters of the assassin profession.

She had originally thought only a handful of people could be like this, but glancing around, there were at least a hundred of them, perhaps even more beyond her line of sight. To have so many people at the level of assassin masters was simply impossible!

Becoming a Shadow Master required surviving countless life-and-death crises—thousands, even tens of thousands of desperate, insane battles. Only by constantly hovering on the edge of death, killing again and again, turning oneself into a killing machine, and ultimately even “killing” one’s own former self, could someone reach that height.

Every Shadow Master born from the assassin profession left behind a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, stepping across a path of bones—monsters, all of them. Eileen herself wasn’t confident she could defeat the Shadow Master in her own team. If it were a fight to the death, she would most likely fall to their assassination.

Yet here before her stood over a hundred people devoid of aura, all bearing the traits of Shadow Masters!

A horrifying suspicion suddenly took root in Eileen’s mind.

Did these mysterious people perhaps create an arena of millions, or tens of millions, forcing them to slaughter each other in order to cultivate such a force? Or had they waged a decades-long war, a hell of unending carnage?

But upon reflection, that was impossible. A population of tens of millions was several times that of Dawn Kingdom itself, and on par with the total population of the Rofel Empire. With such numbers, one could summon an evil god outright—there would be no need to raise a few hundred Shadow Masters.

As for a war lasting decades, that existed only in legend. No nation could sustain such long-term conflict, nor had the manpower to burn through for decades. Even the mightiest empires, at most, could maintain a near-mad war for ten years before collapsing.

Just then, three royal knights approached Eileen, with an eleven-man vanguard squad behind them.

“Princess Eileen, we’re so relieved that you’re safe.” The three knights bowed humbly, their voices full of respect.

Eileen, because of her early achievements, still had considerable prestige within the royal knights. If not for the commander and the rules, some of them would have joined her side long ago.

“Are you heading into the depths of the slums?” Eileen’s delicate brows furrowed as she saw the army around her had not halted.

Although she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, the monster hunters who had escaped earlier had described a particularly revolting and terrifying creature within—the corpse locust tree.

When a ghoul’s power accumulated to a certain point, it would bury itself underground and slowly grow into a tree. This was an alternate form of the ghoul, somewhat akin to an advanced class for transcendents.

Compared to a regular ghoul, the corpse locust tree was slow, but in every other respect it was a qualitative leap forward. It possessed an almost immortal regenerative ability, even greater holy resistance, and its power to affect ordinary people and low-ranking transcendents became a formidable psychic attack.

The last recorded appearance of such a thing was an ancient corpse locust tree excavated from the Abyss, which had been safely dealt with by the combined efforts of the Hunter’s Guild, the Church of Night, the Victoria Elven Empire, and several other factions.

The knight replied, “Yes, Your Highness. The entire order has been placed under the Grand Duke of the East by royal decree. We are to assist in sweeping the entire slum.”

“That old man is really willing?” Eileen was a little stunned.

In her impression, the king never had such boldness—to hand over the order to another, especially when his own health was so poor and he needed them more than ever.

Wait, could it be for surveillance?

At this moment, the vanguard squad walked up. The squad captain, speaking in a rather awkward accent, said, “Please, accompany us back to the palace.”

Olina was a crucial shield for the arcane laws in this world—her status as a princess made many things far easier to accomplish. Most importantly, her ideology was closely aligned with the arcane, making her one of the most promising candidates for reform.

“I’ll take them back myself.”

A clear, ethereal voice suddenly sounded. The vanguard immediately raised their rifles in alert, eyes scanning the surroundings.

Then, a mysterious, ghostly figure slowly appeared—a green-haired woman with a cloak and delicate features.

“Aymeya, what are you doing here?” Olina asked in confusion.

“Of course I came to pick you up. Really now, as a princess, how could you come to such a dangerous place?” Aymeya smiled gently.

She then turned to the vanguard. “I’ll take them back. It’ll only take me a few minutes to get them safely to the palace.”

The vanguard captain shook his head without hesitation. “Impossible. The mission is to safely escort the targets back to the palace.”

For military operations, caution was paramount. In a world with supernatural powers, anything could happen—he couldn’t guarantee Aymeya wasn’t an enemy in disguise.

He would only carry out his orders, to the letter, regardless of who stood before him.

The captain placed his left hand behind his back and made several hand signals, then, in recently learned common tongue, said, “Miss Aymeya, you are also on the protection list. Please return with us.”

Though the accent was awkward, it was understandable. Aymeya was also on the protection list and needed to return to the palace. If she were an impostor, there was no way she would agree to accompany them.

The captain’s mind flashed with Aymeya’s file: greedy, cowardly, extremely protective of Olina, and often called her an idiot. Only when asking for pay or lying did she ever wear that gentle smile. According to the profile, if Olina went to the slum frontlines without permission, Aymeya would absolutely scold her. This person, however, had violated that behavior template—highly suspicious.

The rest of the squad simultaneously placed their fingers on their triggers, gun barrels ready to lift at a moment’s notice. A chilling tension filled the air.

“Fine then, I didn’t want to stay in the inner world anyway. It’s too dangerous there,” Aymeya shrugged, and the murderous atmosphere instantly dissipated.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” The captain stepped forward, then suddenly asked, “Miss Aymeya, the sergeant major told me that due to some issues back home, your salary may be delayed for a while.”

Aymeya’s expression froze, then she nodded slightly. “No problem. I’m not in urgent need of money at the moment.”

As soon as she finished speaking, the captain lunged forward and kicked her, sending her flying five or six meters. He raised his rifle and swiftly shot her in both legs, crippling her.

According to her profile, Aymeya would have exploded in outrage at the mention of delayed wages.

Bang! Bang!

It all happened so quickly that no one around had time to react. Aymeya was already on the ground, her legs shattered by bullets.

Bang! Bang!

Two more shots—her slender arms were broken as well.

The vanguard’s eyes were icy. They leveled their rifles at Aymeya, showing no hesitation because of her gender. Having survived that mad war, they knew anyone could become an enemy, anyone could kill them—woman, old man, even a child. If they were the enemy, they would be killed, utterly and completely.

“What the…” Eileen was stunned. The three knights were just as bewildered.

None of them had expected these people to attack so suddenly, or with such brutality, utterly disregarding their relationships.

The only one to react as she should was Olina, who drew her knight’s sword with a grave expression. “Who are you?”

Aymeya would never claim she wasn’t short on money!

In the next moment, the wounds on the fallen Aymeya’s limbs did not bleed; instead, white smoke began to rise. Her clothes melted away like sludge, revealing a pale-skinned, faceless, featureless humanoid monster—no features but limbs and a human shape.

“A mimic? Even these abominations have appeared?” Eileen’s face fell.

At that moment, Eileen understood: the greatest threat to the Dawn Kingdom wasn’t the green demon plague, but the fiends hiding within the capital—specifically, the cults.

Dragging her battered body, Eileen approached the vanguard captain and quickly relayed all the intelligence she had, especially concerning the corpse locust trees.

“Thank you for the information,” the captain nodded, then turned and relayed the intelligence up the chain via the radio operator.

[All ground forces, slow your advance. Monitor your emotional state closely. If any negative emotions arise, halt immediately and retreat five hundred meters.]

…

On another side of the slum, within a relatively intact and dilapidated house, a royal knight, sword in hand, slowly opened a battered wooden door. A nauseating stench hit him.

Deep inside the house, in the darkness, a figure knelt on the ground, making crisp cracking noises, nodding rhythmically as if chewing on something.

Seeing this, the knight did not attack, instead stepping aside.

A thunderous sound erupted behind him—a silver bullet streaked past his chest, and the figure’s head exploded in the dark.

In barely a second, a ghoul that would have been a headache for them was dead. Not entirely, of course, but at least crippled.

The knight turned back, gazing in awe at the vanguard on the distant ruins, wielding a long-barreled metal weapon.

Though these people had no aura, with their strange weapons and almost uncanny teamwork, they displayed a terrifying level of power.

Efficient and clean, they harvested ghouls like reaping a wheat field.

…

Among the ruins, each vanguard squad, led by royal knights, swept the slums, maintaining a kilometer’s distance between teams.

Along the way, the squads killed ghoul after ghoul. Many tried to use their speed to launch surprise attacks, but were blocked by the knights and then had their limbs shot off with expert marksmanship.

It proved true: as long as the weakness to sneak attacks was covered, a modern army still held formidable power in this world.

[Squad Three reports abnormal emotions. Halting advance and retreating five hundred meters.]

[Squad Six reports abnormal emotions. Halting advance and retreating five hundred meters. After another five hundred meters, minor abnormalities persist. Retreating a further five hundred meters.]

[Squad Two reports no abnormalities.]

The vanguards, trained from the experimental camps to completely suppress their emotions, were extraordinarily sensitive to any changes within themselves. At the slightest hint of anything wrong, they would immediately notice.

As more squads halted, a clear encirclement was finally formed.

Helicopter units circled the perimeter, gaining altitude and probing the extent of this emotion-affecting zone.

At fifteen hundred meters above ground, emotional interference ceased. Once the safe distance was defined, a helicopter slowly entered the encirclement.

…

In the palace’s temporary command center, Qin Le and the King of Dawn had long since relocated there, monitoring the battlefield through constant reports from the front.

[Command, this is the helicopter unit. We have visual on a suspected corpse locust tree.]

The operator responded at once, “Command here. Mark the coordinates for fire guidance. Artillery units will provide fire coverage.”

“Corpse locust tree…” The King of Dawn’s eyes clouded with concern. “Grand Duke, can your so-called firepower really deal with it?”

“I can’t guarantee it,” Qin Le shook his head slightly. “But as long as it can’t move, we’ll find a way to destroy it.”

According to the king’s intelligence, the corpse locust tree, though vastly stronger than a ghoul, had one fatal flaw: it could not move. For the world’s transcendents, it was a nightmare, only vulnerable to long-range, high-level magic bombardment.

But for a modern army, it was a sitting target—a perfect test subject for all kinds of weapons.

Artillery, white phosphorus, concentrated sulfuric acid, potent herbicides, targeted poisons—there was always a weapon to deal with a corpse locust tree. Qin Le didn’t believe anything was truly immortal; if pressed, they could always manufacture some mithril shells and let money do the talking.

If that still failed, they’d drop low-enriched uranium on it.

[Copy that. Preparing to deploy—wait, what’s happening? The helicopter is losing altitude! Ah! Command… we’re under… psychic… attack…]

Only static remained, and the entire command center fell silent.

For the first time, casualties might be reported in the new world’s exploration. Against supernatural forces, the arcane’s people were still too fragile, utterly defenseless against psychic assaults.

The operator, hardly daring to believe it, reported, “Sir, we’ve lost contact with Helicopter One.”

Qin Le narrowed his eyes, and the room turned slightly chilly. He ordered, “All units, fall back one kilometer. Notify the artillery to expand the bombardment zone—cover every inch inside the encirclement. And have the gatekeeper return to the arcane, request white phosphorus munitions.”