Walking along the forest auxiliary road, gradually approaching the national highway, the smell in the air becomes stronger and stronger.
The strong smell that even the mint ointment and magic halo could not offset made people dizzy, but Henry and Mira, who had experienced large-scale battlefields, quickly reacted.
"It smells like carnage."
Nothing disappears for no reason, even the so-called hidden spirit is actually just an individual transferred to the other world. In essence, there is no difference from entering the interior of a house from the street. The individual does not disappear in a real sense, but just leaves the observer's field of vision.
Because most human beings do not have proper means of observing the other world, and lack the application of magic and rely only on the naked eye and other senses, they will find this situation incredible and conclude that people disappear out of thin air.
But that's not going to happen.
Things, living and dead, simply move from one place to another.
or.
Transferring from one form to another.
It is the tradition of Xinyue Continent that Heren prefers burial rather than cremation. Funeral rituals vary across Rigal, and cremation is also practiced in some places, but most of the time.
Burning corpses with fire is associated with war.
Corpses will spread diseases, rotting corpses will pollute water sources and the earth, and attract various scavenging creatures and even monsters. The best way to deal with the large number of animal and human corpses left after the war is to pile them up into mountains and burn them directly.
But they will not disappear, they will just turn into special ashes and remains under the fire.
When enough people have died and enough bodies have been burned. These ashes float into the air and become floating dust with a special smell.
That's the smell of war and death.
How to describe it?
Clothes made of cotton, linen, and silk; the smell of leather and wood, and the smell of flesh and blood that seemed to have been overcooked and burned at home, combined with the rich smell of burned hair to create a unique stench.
Once touched, it spreads all over the body surface and mouth and nose.
If you stay there for a longer time, even if you stay away, even if you clean it repeatedly, it will still linger for a long time.
This is why people can always identify a mercenary who has returned from the battlefield. The smell of death on their bodies is so strong that they can smell it even after changing their clothes and taking off their weapons.
All the ladies in the team except our Roan girl instinctively covered their mouths and noses to show their disgust. Sakura and Aya were quite pure - they just hated this unpleasant smell. Lulu, on the other hand, is more like a wild beast in the mountains that smells danger and becomes tense. If she had animal ears and a tail, she would probably be able to see her with her tail raised like a cat trying to intimidate her forward.
Even Kazuto's samurai couldn't adapt.
It is true that they have experienced many battles, but those were small-scale street battles at best, not real wars.
Street fighting is the home ground for individuals and teams. The outstanding performance of one or several individuals can change the balance of the battlefield. It is also often the birthplace of various heroes, famous swordsmen, and legendary mercenaries.
But all this is meaningless in war.
The bravery of an individual is no match for an army of thousands.
Even though he was as strong as the Sage, when he first met Mira on the plains of Ecasta and encountered the charging knights of Silvalier, his first reaction was to run away.
The frontal battlefield is a place where the concept of "individual" is blurred to the point of almost disappearing. No matter how outstanding you are in one-on-one or small-scale street fighting, on the frontal battlefield, you are just a tiny pawn.
In a team-to-team battle, one person's outstanding performance may be incompetent due to the incompetence of his teammates.
When armies of tens of thousands of people collide, if signs of collapse appear, no matter how outstanding a person's performance is, everyone will expect him to turn the tide.
Nothing more.
It's just delaying death and failure.
Powerlessness and insignificance, this is what the group, especially the warriors, felt when they stepped into this scorched land.
The town is gone.
Counting the surrounding villages, it originally had a total population of tens of thousands. Although it was not a very big town, it was still a quite prosperous town.
Only the smoking ruins remain.
The city walls and towers in the distance are lifeless but still towering, while the residential areas outside the city near the national highway are only ruins.
After crossing the wide and silent national highway and embarking on the branch road to the town, the group saw a ignited corpse twisted and lying on the stone road on the street. Burning embers mixed with human grease were scattered on the charred corpse. A distinct greasy outline formed around it.
Henry stepped forward, and even though it was burned black, a slash mark could still be seen on the back of the body.
"It was very deep and cut into the bones, but he didn't die immediately. He was poured oil and burned to death while he was still alive." The sage looked at the petite body. The owner was only about 10 years old when he was still alive. The tiny palms twisted and struggled due to the pain of high temperature, and the whole body arched its back in pain, which was proof of being burned and still surviving.
"What kind of person would do such evil deeds?" The warriors gritted their teeth and stared angrily.
Henry looked around at the collapsed wooden structures around him. Mira held the sword and asked Galeva, who was holding a large shield, to guard the front of the team.
Even if it seems like everything is over, there is no time to relax. They surrounded the non-combatant personnel in the middle, and the combatants gathered at the front and spread out in a fan shape to separate the scouts.
The road is somewhat narrow with charred debris on both sides. The baggage was arranged in the rear near the national highway so that it could be evacuated first if necessary.
In the quiet dead city, only the footsteps of a group of people, the sound of horse hooves, and the metallic sound of the collision of weapons and armor echoed.
Although smoke was still rising from the house, the bodies had cooled and the smell of death in the air was actually relatively light.
Without the heat waves and the more pungent smell, all this experience reminded the group of people like the aftertaste of death.
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This was at least three days ago.
The Kazuto houses made of wood and rough paper are connected together like an artificial forest. It is very normal for the fire to burn down a city for two or three days. So the wood is still smoking, but the body and everything else has cooled.
A little further on, near the outer wall of Kazuto's castle, the entrance to the city gate was relatively narrow, and the group was temporarily blocked by debris.
The door with huge copper nails was covered with horrifying claw marks. One of the double doors was damaged by the brute force and collapsed to its hinges, while the other had its corners scorched by the flames. The door stop fell on the ground next to it. Although it was on the outside instead of inside for some reason, the fact that one end was burned and the other end was intact silently told that the residents here had tried to seal the door but failed.
Debris such as rocks that exploded under the high temperature and collapsed charcoal piled up in the middle of the road, blocking the city gate. Although it was not high, it was enough to hinder their movement. Henry used the spear pole he took from Ashigaru to push them aside to clear the road, but after several movements, a loud "click" sound was made.
The sage squatted down and swept away the debris covering it with his hands. What he found was a dusty and burnt arm, holding tightly a large book that was equal to the length of the arm - on the surface The covering has also been scorched, and even the metal book corners and book locks have melted and deformed under the high temperature.
But despite this, this extremely Rigal-style binding method still clearly gives the identity of the owner of the arm.
"It's the missionary."
Henry's keywords caused the Lamanite missionaries who had been silent for a long time to slowly come in from behind. When they saw the size and decoration of the sacred scriptures that had been burned, the expressions of the leading old missionaries changed obviously, but His palace was deep enough and he didn't make any announcement. Instead, the young missionary Aggie blurted out: "It's the Bishop's holy book!"
This sentence attracted the attention of the group - the missionaries and their companions spent so long that they almost forgot their purpose and were almost getting used to their silent presence, but in fact they were already close to their originally intended destination. . After arriving at the central gathering area, these people were originally scheduled to join their colleagues here, but now they discovered the remains of such an important figure in the ruins of a small town in Jeju.
"Mr. Bishop, is it already?!" Aggie, who was young and lacked self-control, looked panicked, but Henry pushed aside more debris and saw the whole broken arm.
"This does not look like the hands of a priest." The sage turned around and asked, "How tall is the bishop?"
"Absolutely as good as me," the old preacher said, and Henry shook his head again at this information.
"This hand has thick knuckles and strong forearm muscles. There are also old injuries on the forearm bones. And proportionally speaking, it is a taller and stronger person. This is the hand of a swordsman."
"It was bitten off." Aya squatted down next to her and covered her nose, noticing the gap and the hollow in the bone.
"You should be responsible for holding the holy book when covering the evacuation of others. After all, the holy book of the White Church is notoriously heavy and large. It must be decorated with so many decorations to show its majesty. How could it be carried by the bishop himself?" Henry's words were sarcastic, but the missionary didn't dare to refute.
"Ghoul?" Mira asked the doubts that also surrounded the hearts of others.
If it is related to the inner world, this is obviously a correct guess.
"It doesn't look like that. Ghouls are mostly humans. Although they have claws and claws, their snouts are not big and strong enough to bite off an arm." Because Aya was not familiar with this kind of thing, it was Henry who answered this time. .
"This is something else." He lifted up the huge log frame that had not been completely burned with one hand. It seemed to be the main beam of someone's house, and then flipped it to the other side.
The main beam fell to the ground with a "boom-pop--", kicking up a burst of dust and peeling off the burnt parts on it, and Henry moved the stones with his feet to clear the way into the city.
He stepped forward and placed his hand on the huge city gate.
The group watched his movements.
The sage who is 1.95 meters tall has a pair of hands that match his physique, but when he spreads his fingers to compare with the paw prints on the city gate, it looks like a child comparing the size of his hands with his parents.
"This door is made of beech wood. Rigal likes to use oak, and Crescent Continent is rich in beech wood. This can be considered a hardwood." Henry said, and Mira also came forward. Looking closer, the claw marks were deeper, about 3 centimeters deep. about.
She took out a knife and tried to peel it off. Although she could still peel it off, she could clearly feel the resistance, and it would not feel like she could easily peel off a large piece of ash wood.
"This thing." The Luoan girl swallowed and looked up again: "It feels about as fierce as an earth dragon."
A creature that can leave such a mark on hardwood with one claw can also easily knock an 80-kilogram adult away. If it weren't for quenched hard steel armor, ordinary iron armor would be easily hit and deformed in front of it.
There are no dragons in New Moon Continent.
But there should be no ghouls in New Moon Continent.
Many of the creatures in Rigal's concept should be extinct here, so what exactly could have left such claw marks?
"Wakarang (didn't understand)." Lulu suddenly appeared on the side and said something. Her words were exactly what other people who had the eyes to judge the situation based on the environment wanted to say - this claw mark was obviously Toward the inside, is trying to break open the door. But the doorstop was on the outside, and judging from the holy scriptures left on the ground, they also fled from the inside out.
Did he escape after being breached inside? And then try to lock some attacking creature inside?
But then why would children be hacked and burned.
The answer was given the moment they entered the town.
"Ugh." Sakura couldn't help but ran to the side and vomited.
The missionaries, on the other hand, were livid.
A row of crosses was erected on both sides of the city gate.
The corpse nailed to it was still twisted and deformed even though it had been burned.
Protruding limbs, elongated finger joints, swollen head, and a mouth full of fangs. Just like the strange rabbit they met on the road, these people also experienced strange changes.
However, Kazuto did not have this extremely Lamantic style of crucifixion of the guilty, and considering the strong influence of monotheistic religions in the chaotic era, it is obvious that the missionaries who were originally hiding in the local area regarded the crisis as Taking advantage of the opportunity, when mutants appeared, they tried to use religion to gather people's hearts and identify and execute the aliens.
And what they saw was the end of it all.
Religious pressure and alien hunting may have maintained order in the short term, but the desperate and fanatical people soon fell into suspicion of each other. In addition, it is obvious that this situation cannot be dealt with by faith alone. Eventually chaos inevitably came, and the missionaries had to evacuate in order to protect themselves. During this process, the city caught fire, and in the end the living people and monsters who could not escape were burned to the ground.
A bone-deep sense of horror enveloped everyone who witnessed all this - they didn't know why these people had mutated.
Will they themselves become exceptions? Why?
This sense of uneasiness is especially felt by people who have undoubtedly entered the other world, but this may not be the most urgent thing they need to worry about right now.
Perhaps they were alarmed by the sound of their arrival, and something began to make sounds of activity in the originally quiet charred ruins.
"Click, click" is the rhythmic sound of debris turning and falling.
Lulu, who is a hunter, is familiar with this sound: "It's like a wild boar burrowing in the ground, trying to find food."
"Spread the formation, step softly." Henry whispered. The warrior leader nodded and signed, and the warriors took out their bows and loaded arrows.
"The terrain here is not good enough." Narumi also lowered his voice, and Henry turned his head, trying to find a way up to the burned tower.
But just at this moment.
got windy.
The wind carried their scent deeper into the abandoned town.
Then that voice.
stopped.
