Against all common sense, when a country was headed for destruction, its internal structures were often frail and its contradictions irreconcilable.
But Old Aran was not like that.
Under the influence of one organization, the brink-of-collapse Old Aran was brought together, even displaying the kingdom’s last bit of threatening power—no person could avoid the excessively vicious and terrifying sharpness.
Thirty-seven years ago.
Holy Spirit Calendar 2653, Old Aran.
Duke Fabrik’s territory (now the Southern Province).
The stormy weather was murky, the Milky Way seemed to pour down from the skies. The sudden thunder and lightning illuminated the entire gloomy forest. The iron hooves of horses covered in armor cracked every withered branch, the humming buzz of the army’s charge scared away every fearful bird in the woods.
Marcus, in his twenties, received orders. As a Sergeant, he led a squad to sweep the surroundings of Fabrik Castle from the flank, suppressing the Evil Party.
Due to the Monarch’s foolishness and madness, opposition forces sprang up like mushrooms within the borders of Old Aran.
And the Witch Hunting Secret Department, a hidden branch initially limited to witch hunting, had become the Old Aran Monarch’s most trusted hound, stepping from secrecy into the limelight.
The rise of the Witch Hunting Secret Department, this highest-violence institution that only reported to the King, wielded uncontrollable power.
To the present, there were no more witches left to kill.
Targets indiscriminately turned into everyone; anything in the world that could be slain was being massacred.
The order Marcus received was to indiscriminately cleanse everyone here, and his subordinates were also watching him, scrutinizing whether he was loyal to the Chief of Secret Department, Ogne, and whether he deviated from his will.
One had to follow every single rule in the action program, to operate like a machine, at least formally in complete agreement, otherwise who would know whether you were secretly following your own will?
Ogne’s judgment was not to be questioned. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel-fire.ɴet
Once past this forest, one could directly enter the open fields where Fabrik Castle was located.
Marcus killed swiftly. The members of the Resistance Army hidden in the forest were even more fragile than rotting wood in front of him.
Ambushes buried beneath lush vegetation sprang traps when touched by hooves, rows of wooden stakes shot out, with Marcus’ team leading in front, bearing the brunt of the attack.
The black horse, covered in iron armor, was knocked over by the impact and neighed incessantly for a while.
The powerful Controlling Objects arcane magic, along with the Wood Element Technique, held a natural advantage in the forest.
Treading on invisible force field plates, Marcus eerily hovered mid-air as he cast spells.
The Resistance Army cornered him, but those thick tree branches twisted into serpentine curves, piercing from above—some ripped open stomachs, spilling their contents, while others blasted apart skulls, sending fragments embedding into the trees.
Marcus was blind, sensing everything around him simply by force fields.
The human silhouettes within his domain were presented in three-dimensional images in Marcus’s mind.
He could not sense a drop of blood; everything was just in black and white, the force fields empty and pale.
The invisible force fields sliced through trees, and as the forest crashed down, it exposed the remaining enemies.
The Secret Department members under him executed the remaining soldiers one by one. Marcus’s sword swept through, and the twisting splinters of the Spiral Sword Wind turned the last few enemies into a puddle of mush.
All the vivid red was swiftly diluted in the Mysterious Forest; the Resistance Army’s ragged clothes seemed like those of debt-ridden tenants forcibly conscripted.
The Secret Department members feared Marcus’s power.
Since the Secret Department was not the army and had no corresponding military rank or squad system, the Secret Department, standing fireside—aside from administrative organizations like the Supervision Committee or the internal security guard, and among the external agencies of violence—had only soldiers and Sergeants.
It also meant that each Sergeant was one in ten thousand, a powerful individual.
Without the Supervision Committee detecting any abnormal thoughts, the Sergeants only needed to report their work to the Deputy Chief Zote and did not need to report to anyone at the Royal Court.
Marcus ordered his soldiers to mount again and head straight into Fabrik Castle.
This was a major campaign.
After this battle, it would completely eradicate the opposition forces in the south, comprised of alliances between magicians, scholars, and nobles, and continue the reign of Aran Country.
Marcus had once studied at the Arcane Academy; as the southern stronghold of the opposition made up of magicians and scholars, he did not doubt he might encounter some familiar faces.
But that was besides the point.
He had made up his mind; he could no longer turn back. Even if it was a mistake, he had to follow through.
Iron hooves thundered, tearing through the veil of rain, traversing the mysterious, dense forest to reach the open wasteland.
Waves of heat wafted through the air; the magnificent Fabrik Castle was ablaze with raging fires.
His domain spread forth.
Marcus couldn’t feel anything; he just eerily felt the searing heat on a rainy day and inquired about the situation with his subordinates.
This time it was a large-scale operation led personally by Zote, the Deputy Chief of the Secret Department.
"Commander, Lord Zote has already captured the castle. The Royal Court flag has been planted at the city gate. The suppression of the southern opposition is finished; all that’s left is cleansing and mopping up,"
His subordinate replied mechanically, his sunken eyes devoid of emotion, with the surging flames reflected in his gaze as bodies of the tortured leapt down from the castle walls.
Marcus ordered advance into the city. Iron hooves crushed the charred corpses on the ground into a crimson muddled soil, and next, he would report to Zote, the highest-ranking person in charge of this operation.
Blind, Marcus found everything very vague, capturing only the concept of the force field, text information entering his brain.