Chapter 1 Something's Not Right

The bloody scent was extremely faint, and had been mostly masked by the chaotic environment of the forest. Hao Ren was sure that if his physique weren't already demigod-like, able to ignore the various interferences of the chaotic environment on mortal senses, he certainly wouldn't have been able to smell it.

Veronica and her party beside him clearly hadn't noticed the wisps of fishy stench in the air.

The princess and her knights were simply feeling joyful right now. After such a long trek through the dangerous Chaos Zone, the encouragement provided by suddenly seeing a still-shining light of order was immense. Knights were people too; they felt fatigue and frustration. They had persisted this far entirely on a powerful belief, and now, that glimmer shining deep in the forest gave these weary warriors new strength: they were close to the Taros outpost.

For those trekking through the Chaos Realm, seeing such an outpost was like returning to one's hometown—it was a symbol of the ordered world.

But Hao Ren had to pour cold water on them: "Something's not right up ahead."

"What is it?" Though excited, Veronica hadn't lost her composure or judgment. Hearing the "Ancient Guardian" say this, she immediately controlled her emotions. "What did you see?"

She knew that the "Ancient Guardian" possessed a special power, able to sense more than ordinary people in the Chaos Realm, so she had no doubts at this moment.

"There's a bloody scent," Hao Ren said simply, "Coming from the outpost."

Veronica's eyebrows immediately furrowed: "...How is that possible? The hearth-fire in the outpost should still be burning; the Chaos Servants couldn't have invaded. And if they were Corrupted Fiends, they'd be no match for the outpost guards."

Veronica's confidence was justified. "Chaos Servants cannot condense into physical form within the range of the light of order" was an unshakable truth of the Korol world. And while Corrupted Fiends could force their way into the light of order, it would only be like moths to a flame. Perhaps they posed a great threat to civilians, but they wouldn't be a match for those seasoned veterans in the outpost. So there was a common understanding: on the front lines, as long as the hearth-fire in an outpost was still burning, the outpost was safe, no matter how tragic the battlefield outside, monsters couldn't break through the goddess's barrier.

So she immediately made another conjecture: "Perhaps there was a battle near the outpost."

Hao Ren shook his head slightly, not saying anything, but he knew that Veronica's guess wasn't very reliable.

Because in the Chaos Realm, everything vanished with astonishing speed, especially things related to life. If the remains of fallen soldiers weren't protected by relics of order, they would usually be eroded into magical elements within fifteen minutes. So battles in the Chaos Realm usually didn't require clearing the battlefield at all—everything would dissipate before the second unit arrived.

If a battle had occurred outside the outpost, it would have been impossible for any bloody scent to remain.

In fact, not only could Hao Ren think of this, Veronica probably could as well, but the princess might not be willing to think that way: she would rather believe that a fierce battle had occurred outside the outpost than believe that a kingdom's outpost had simply fallen.

But Hao Ren's warning still had an effect. Veronica ordered everyone to be more vigilant, to organize their weapons, and the old knight Morian cleared the path ahead as this small team slowly approached the hearth-fire outpost deep in the forest.

After passing over ancient trees and thickets, the full view of the hearth-fire outpost gradually appeared before everyone. This kind of outpost was just a small stronghold—it had a circle of walls made of stone blocks and rough timber. The walls actually provided no protection against monsters in the Chaos Zone; they were mainly used to block the occasional Corrupted Fiends, so they weren't very tall. One could see some faintly glowing runes on the walls, runes that didn't seem to be working. Inside the walls, one could see three tall wooden watchtowers. Standing on the watchtowers, one should be able to monitor the movements in all the surrounding corners. In addition, there were only a few two-story wooden buildings inside the outpost, which should be facilities like barracks and warehouses.

A not-so-bright pillar of light shot into the sky from the center of the outpost, the light emitted by the hearth-fire device. It was located at the core of the outpost, the basis on which all the facilities here could stand tall in the chaos—the kingdom spent huge sums to maintain these outposts, and in fact, more than eighty percent of the investment was used to maintain the miniaturized hearth-fire devices inside. In this place far from order, the hearth-fire devices needed to rely on precious magic fuel and relics blessed with holy power to continue burning; that was not easy to come by.

As soon as she saw this outpost, Veronica's heart sank. She knew that Hao Ren was right: something had happened to the outpost.

Because there were no lights inside. Apart from the light pillar from the hearth-fire and the rune lights on some of the permanent fortifications, all the lights in the outpost had been extinguished. Even the light of order from the hearth-fire seemed particularly dim: small hearth-fire devices needed to be constantly maintained manually to light up, and the dim light meant that at least several days had passed since anyone had added "fuel" to the hearth-fire.

A faint bloody scent drifted into her nostrils. This time, even Veronica had noticed it.

The knight-princess drew her longsword, using magic to conceal the light on the blade. She ordered the standard-bearer to stay where he was, and then slowly felt her way forward.

Hao Ren watched the other party carefully come to the gate of the outpost. He gripped the spear in his hand, ready to assist at any time.

Soon Veronica gave a gesture from afar, a gesture meaning that the front was safe and there was no aura of chaos.

"The gate is tightly shut," Hao Ren walked over and pushed the heavy gate of the outpost wrapped in copper skin. "There are no signs of it being breached."

Veronica nodded: "The gate is blocked from the inside, which means that the outpost commander ordered the entrances and exits to be sealed before something happened. Perhaps the people inside sensed something."

"But something still happened in the end," Hao Ren put his hand on the unmoving gate. "Can we use some brute force to open it?"

Veronica didn't react for a moment: "...Ah? Breaking the door down isn't a problem, but we need to get a battering ram first..."

"Boom—"

After a burst of loud noise, the metal-clad gate was directly removed by Hao Ren's brute force. The entire door frame, along with the surrounding two meters of the wall, was directly torn down and thrown by Hao Ren into the distant forest.

Veronica and the knights were dumbfounded: Goddess above! Was this thing even human?! What did the ancients eat to grow up?

But Hao Ren didn't have time to care about the princess's gaze that looked at things that weren't living beings, because after seeing the situation inside the outpost, he couldn't help but be stunned:

All the soldiers in the outpost were here. They were lying dead in the open space between the barracks and the watchtowers. The solidified dark blood had dyed the entire land red. A thick bloody scent assaulted his nostrils, yet no traces of any battle could be seen in the outpost.

The soldiers seemed to have been killed without resistance.

Veronica also noticed the situation inside. The princess's face was slightly pale. She walked into the outpost with Hao Ren and bent down to turn over the corpse of a kingdom soldier as they passed by. When the young man wearing a cloth uniform was turned over, Hao Ren saw that his chest was a mess, a scene that made his scalp tingle: the flesh on the young man's chest had almost been torn apart, strands of muscle blossoming open. The expression on his face was twisted to a frightening degree, as if he had suffered unimaginable horror before his death.

Veronica raised the soldier's hand, which was covered in blood: "He clawed himself like this."

Morian squatted down beside him. The old knight's face was full of gravity: "Looking at this expression, it's as if he was scared to death."

"And most of these soldiers aren't wearing armor," Veronica looked up ahead, more corpses spreading out before her eyes. The corpses were basically in the same state, and more than half of them weren't armored: the soldiers of the Taros Kingdom's front-line legions were uniformly equipped with enchanted half-body armor that was easy to put on and take off and had a balance of offense and defense, and they only wore this armor when preparing for battle or on duty. Usually, they wore cloth military uniforms. "Many people seem to have suddenly run out while resting in the barracks. Look, some people aren't even wearing shoes."

"They ran out of the barracks, and then were scared to death outside, tearing at their own chests before they died," Hao Ren said, shaking his head slightly. "Too strange."

At this moment, a knight scouting ahead suddenly shouted loudly, "Princess! We've found the outpost commander!"

The outpost commander was also dead, but his manner of death was different from that of ordinary soldiers.

This commander died in the open space in front of the small hearth-fire device, seemingly wanting to protect this place before his death. He was wearing a full set of armor, but there were no scars on the armor. He held tightly in his hand a commander's standard longsword that had been broken, and countless crisscrossing sword marks could be seen on the ground around him—as if this officer had engaged in a desperate fight with an invisible enemy before his death.

The commander's cause of death, however, was also suicide: he slit his own throat with the broken sword in his hand at the end.

Veronica carefully examined the body of this junior officer, confirming that the other party had committed suicide in a frenzy, and soon, she found something else on the ground next to the other party's body.

"There are words here!" the princess exclaimed.

They were a few lines of last words written in blood, seemingly written by the commander, struggling to write them, in a brief moment of clarity before his death. The letters were crooked and twisted, but did not affect readability:

"There is something in the dream, it ran out of our hearts..."