Chapter 1 The Soldier's Tale

The soldier, clad in the standard uniform of the Imperial Legion, received a blanket and a cup of warm honey water. Clutching the cup, he recounted his and his fellow survivors’ terrifying experiences, his voice still trembling:

“The atmosphere in the city had been strange for a long time. Those in the army see more than civilians—the Black Swordsmen gathered and took over most of the command, issuing a bunch of odd orders, like telling us to move the city’s foundation stones outside the city and bury them…

“Then they banned external communication, saying it was special wartime control. After that, the barracks began to be sectioned off. We were divided according to battalion formations, and they sent the battalions out one by one, saying they were on missions, but no one ever saw any battalion leave the camp. Those who were ‘sent out’ seemed to vanish into thin air.

“Then those ‘sent out’ battalions came back. I saw them from afar and felt they had been transformed into something else from the inside… I don’t mean their appearance; their faces were still the same, but their eyes were strange, and they exuded an unsettling aura.

“Disappearances in the city began to increase. Everyone started having nightmares, nightmares that felt real. In our dreams, we saw monsters with countless eyes and limbs. Sometimes, when we woke up, we could even see those eyes on the walls. Some soldiers began to feel afraid, believing they were cursed, so they went to their officers, who took them to the mages to ‘remove the curse.’ They were brought back the next day, looking normal, and they showed no signs of having nightmares when they slept. But I was even more afraid because I felt they weren't really sleeping anymore… They were just lying there, lying there all night, pretending to be normal people sleeping.

“I knew a guy named White, he was from my hometown. He used to toss and turn a lot in his sleep, but after being taken away and coming back, he lay straight in bed every night, not turning over or snoring…

“One night I woke up and saw White lying there, straight as a board again. I leaned closer and found his eyes were open! He was staring at me, just staring. He didn't speak, but I knew his voice was in my head!”

The surviving soldier began to tremble, his words chaotic, trivial, and complicated. Constance had to cast a small mental soothing spell on him: “Calm down, calm down, those monsters are all dead now—get to the point, what happened next?”

“I was scared, I was so scared… The day after that, a Black Swordsman came to me and said there was a special mission for me—they said a cursed plague had broken out in a district and asked a group of soldiers, including me, to help ‘deal’ with the people infected with the plague. After I got there, I realized something was wrong. There was no sign of any plague. They were just blocking off the entire street and letting the Black Swordsmen go in and kill people…

“So I took the opportunity to escape—escaping wasn’t difficult, I couldn't believe it at the time. They didn't care that I ran away, and they had clearly noticed me. I looked back and clearly saw them all standing there, looking at where I was hiding, every one of them expressionless, like puppets… Later, I ran into the city and realized why.

“While we were locked down, there were few normal people left in the entire city. They started secretly infecting and expanding, and after they had replaced almost half the people, they openly started grabbing people on the streets. By the day I escaped, almost the entire city had become ‘them’! It was the same no matter where I ran, I couldn’t escape their eyes, their eyes were all connected!

“But I still found some survivors, the ones who were with me. Your Highness, you can't imagine how surprised and happy I was—they were hiding in a broken factory. At first, there were many people, but later, people kept hearing voices in their sleep. Those with weak wills would immediately get up after hearing the voices and walk into the night outside the factory, but those who went out never came back. So the remaining people had to tie themselves to the pillars to dare to sleep, but even so, there were fewer and fewer people. Some people seemed to disappear as if they were swallowed by nightmares. When I found them, there were only a few left.

“And not long after that, the Black Swordsmen began leading soldiers to carry out the final ‘cleanup’ of the city. By then, more than 90% of the people in the city had become ‘them,’ and the few remaining normal people couldn’t hide. The soldiers drew their swords and openly dragged the normal people who hadn't been transformed for various reasons out of their hiding places and killed them on the streets, while the others watched from the sidelines with hungry expressions…

“Because I was a soldier, I sensed this in advance, so I took everyone away from the factory and started running. I managed to bypass the soldiers, losing a few more people in the process… But in the end, we found this church. There's a large cellar under the church, and the entrance to the cellar can be closed, so we hid inside until today.”

The surviving soldier's chaotic narration finally ended. Constance sighed softly, “So planned and logical… So those monsters in the semi-transformation stage are even more terrifying than those who have been completely transformed. It’s intelligence that’s terrifying.”

With the surviving soldier's narrative ability and current mental state, it was difficult for him to vividly describe the terrifying experiences of the past few days, nor would he have any ingenious rhetoric and metaphors to increase his persuasiveness, but just from the things he said, anyone could imagine how terrifying a sight it was—the entire city was gradually being “alienated,” the eerie and terrifying atmosphere was becoming more and more obvious and serious every day, everyone was gradually turning into a monster, and the power that caused all this was so powerful that it could not be resisted.

And there was nowhere to escape—because the monsters had blocked all the roads leading out of the city from the very beginning.

This was only the first month of the War of Epoch Transition. According to the original historical trajectory, the nightmare of this world had only just sounded a prelude.

“It seems you don’t know what shielded those corrupting forces, allowing you to survive in the cellar,” Leah looked into the soldier’s eyes. She could judge the truth of every word he said and the clues that might be hidden behind each word, but from the soldier’s thoughts, she couldn’t find any reason that could explain why these people ultimately survived—they didn’t have the strong will to resist the encroachment of madness. In fact, after so many days of torment, these people’s spirits had long been extremely fragile. Not to mention the power of madness, even just a nightmare spawn was enough to corrupt their spirits. “The reason should be the cellar itself.”

“These are the things that can be found in the cellar,” Kem led several Northern soldiers to pile out some sundries. “If it’s not in here, then perhaps there’s some kind of barrier-like thing in the structure of the cellar…”

The Northern soldiers moved out everything in the cellar that seemed to possess special power—even those things that seemed impossible to have special features. Broken pottery jars, moldy swords, old statues, ritual items, all kinds of miscellaneous things were spread out on the ground.

But fortunately, there weren’t many of them: it seemed this church wasn’t very wealthy to begin with.

Constance and Leah stepped forward to examine the items. They both immediately shifted their gazes away from the religious artifacts: the former was obviously not very interested in the so-called gods, while the latter analyzed from a more professional perspective that the so-called God of Day and God of Night should not be in the same business…

Leah’s gaze was suddenly attracted by something shiny in the sundries.

Constance’s gaze was also attracted by the item with an extraordinary presence. She stretched out her long sword to pick it up, frowning slightly, “What is this…”

Before she could see it clearly, Leah suddenly exclaimed in a low voice, “Huh?!”

On the tip of Constance’s sword was a very small, silver-white wide-arm ring. The style of the arm ring was very ornate, and the widened edges made it look a bit like an arm guard. Intricate runes and images of plants and animals were carved on it using the openwork filigree method, but its size was obviously not suitable for an adult, and was more like an ornament worn on a child’s arm.

Hearing Leah’s voice, Constance couldn’t help but glance at the mysterious “little girl” beside her who possessed all kinds of incredible powers. For some reason, she connected the other party with the arm ring in her mind.

The size… seemed right?

“This…” Constance looked at Leah uncertainly, “Could it be yours?”

Leah was about to shake her head to deny it, but then seemed to think of something, so she said without either confirming or denying, “It just looks a bit familiar. Would there be my things in a local church like this…?”

“I just think the size is quite close,” Constance picked up the arm ring and compared it to her arm—of course, she was wearing armor now and definitely couldn’t put it on, but even without the armor, this arm ring wouldn’t fit her, “It’s obviously for children…”

Leah: “…”

“Let me see it.” After holding back the throbbing in her forehead, Leah reached out to Constance with a stiff tone.

“Here—take it.”

Constance handed the arm ring over, and the moment Leah’s finger touched the arm ring, a deafening roar suddenly resounded in the sky.

The two simultaneously looked up in astonishment.

The sky seemed to have cracked open a giant fissure, the dark red twisted fissure was extremely similar to the Gorgon Abyss, and within the fissure, countless floating wreckage and flashing firelight could be seen. Beams of lightning-like light crisscrossed between those shadows, and explosions erupted continuously from the depths of the sea of clouds.

And a faint, white, river-like luminous band traversed the chaotic world behind the fissure.

Leah was startled and immediately moved her hand away from the arm ring.

The anomaly in the sky disappeared along with it.