The White Reef Coast of the Valla Empire.
Kristina was walking inside the bunker.
The bunker, which faced the Tegrono Federation across the sea and was once the gateway and lighthouse of the Valla Empire along the Kakatino Coast, still looked like an unbreakable prison on the outside, sinister, damp and extremely sturdy, but the inside was no longer the same.
"Commander, the results are out. There were fourteen soldiers on duty in the bunker at the time, but thirteen confirmed corpses. We're missing one, and we're checking if he survived …" A guard in charge of the inspection class reported to Kristina.
"There's no need to investigate. The last person must have been abducted by the invading monsters." The girl, however, shook her head and made her own decision.
"What?!" The messenger jumped in shock.
"The blood stain that stretches from the campfire to the door is evidence." Kristina said.
The blood stain was left on the stone brick floor of the bunker, which was now black due to oxidation. Apart from the irregular shape of the blood stain, there were no clues such as footprints.
While the others could not see through the blood stain, Kristina was different. As the Scepter Bearer of the Temple of Glory, her eyes had long since been strengthened by divine grace, allowing her to see things that normal people could not.
She could clearly see the traces of a monster's movement in the blood stain.
At first, it crawled on all fours like a sea beast that had just come ashore. 'Its' limbs were not complete, so its crawling movement was a little clumsy. But soon, the amount of blood on the ground changed dramatically, and there was a significant increase. The creature's movement mode also changed from crawling to walking on two feet, its limbs that were incomplete seemed to have been mended too!
That meant that the soldier whose body was nowhere to be found was most likely eaten. Even if the Law of Conservation of Mass did not exist in this world, many monsters with extraordinary regenerative abilities had astonishing appetites, and it was even more common for them to accelerate their recovery through eating.
That was the main reason humans could not coexist peacefully with monsters.
For most magical creatures, humans, who were mostly weak, numerous, and rich in protein, were simply the best source of food!
Christina perfected her theory in her mind. From the looks of things, some monster must have ambushed the bunker, killed all the soldiers and devoured one of them before brazenly invading the Valla Empire.
To be able to kill all the soldiers in the fortress before they could even sound the alarm, the difficulty of the magical creature's crusade would not be low. It would definitely be a mission worth more than 10 Gold Abbys in the Mercenary Guild.
That was not all. Although the others could not tell, Christina could see that the last trace of the puddle of blood was a human footprint. It meant that the enemy had most likely assumed human form after eating the soldier.
This was a little troublesome. Without a specific Divine Grace, it would be much more difficult to find a mimicry monster in a sea of people.
"Commander, we've made a new discovery on the cliff below."
At this time, another guard from the investigation squad walked in from the door and hurriedly reported.
Christina quickly followed him down the cliff, and found a huge … fish?
That's right. It was not a whale or any other marine behemoth, and from its appearance, it appeared to be a sardine that had been magnified thousands of times.
However, the fish had been dead for a long time. Its abdomen had been torn open with brute force, and its dark-red innards mixed with white slid out, filling the entire scene with an unbearable stench. The buzzing flies and squirming maggots in the flesh were even more revolting.
It was fortunate that Christina had been on the battlefield and had seen the world. She was not frightened by the disgusting sight, and merely frowned.
Her eyes told her another piece of news.
The fish's abdomen had been torn open from the inside.
The monster that ambushed the bunker seemed to have hidden inside the fish's body to survive the treacherous Kakatino Sea and finally reach the shore.
"Commander, look!" The guard from the investigation squad who was pinching his nose pointed at the inside of the fish's abdomen.
Christina looked towards the direction he was pointing at, where the flesh of the fish's abdomen seemed to be carved full of words.
Upon closer inspection, one would realize that the words were a single word that was not too long, repeating itself over and over again.
"From the structure of the words, it should be ancient elven … It's fortunate that it's not the secret language of the high elves, or there would be no way to decipher it." The guard carefully copied the words, sighing in awe.
"Can you decipher those words?" Christina asked.
"The Empire is working with the Night Elves, and we've gotten quite a lot of ancient language records from them. I can just barely decipher it." The guard whipped out a pocket-sized notebook from his pocket and began to compare the words he copied. "Ruentner Haiyeru Kachumouth Mitrayati …"
"What does that mean?" Christina pressed impatiently.
"Translated into Shaman, it means the elves', unified, true, nation." The guard stammered as he translated.
But before Christina could ask further, she suddenly noticed that the sardine's eyes that had been dead for a long time were twitching bizarrely. Then, it abruptly swung its massive body and beat the guard so heavily that he coughed blood and fell into the sea.
The scent of blood promptly attracted a frenzy of sea beasts, and before the guard could even scream, he was torn into countless pieces of flesh and was clearly not going to survive.
"I'll turn into an undead after being killed? Although it's slow … damn it! " Christina waved her hand with a sour look, and a shining silver scepter appeared in her hand. "Looks like this monster that came to Valla is really troublesome …"
☆
At the same time, outside Crookes.
Almost none of the Players could react to what had happened — the Tunnel Eye Serpent that had been so arrogant just a moment ago was bitten apart just like that?
From the Players' point of view, they could clearly see that the Tunnel Eye Serpent's HP bar wasn't completely emptied. Instead, it had been cut in two at the waist, corresponding to the two parts of its body that were still writhing on the ground.
Be that as it may, most of the Players were no longer looking at the Tunnel Eye Serpent. Instead, they were looking at the head of a beast that was far more ridiculous than the Tunnel Eye Serpent, as well as the undead elven creature that had appeared out of nowhere.
The situation seemed to have become even more complicated and confusing …
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