Two days later.
A certain city.
A sharp arrow pierced through the air, whistling like a whistle as it pierced through a long street and nailed a man to a wall.
"Save … me …" the man struggled to call out.
"Save?"
A female voice called out.
Crow slid down from the wall and stared at the man with interest.
The man begged: "I'm really not a wraith, I'm just a civilian, please don't kill me"
Crow drew her rapier and smiled: "Unfortunately, I've never been softhearted when it comes to killing"
"I'm not lying …"
The man struggled to raise his hand and pointed at the unlatched door behind him.
Inside the door, a woman was holding a baby in her arms, looking at Crow with a fearful expression.
As Crow glanced at her, her expression became complicated.
She shouted towards the end of the street:
"Hey, did you make a mistake this time? Perhaps that bastard won't harm civilians?"
There was no response from the end of the street.
The wind howled.
Perhaps because Crow's voice was too loud, the baby was frightened and started crying.
Crow looked at the end of the street and muttered in irritation: "This great one was born a Combatant, I've never come into contact with a normal person — — what are we going to do with this civilian?"
All of a sudden, Gu Qing Shan's voice came from next to him:
"Let me take a look"
Gu Qing Shan tied the bow to her back, placed one hand on the man's chest, the other holding the black leather book, and muttered:
"The life and death of all things is but an instant, with my power of Condemnation, your suffering shall be alleviated — —"
"Divine Word, Cleanse"
The man's body abruptly trembled and lost all signs of life on the spot.
"No!" the woman's cries resounded.
She rushed out of the room with the baby in her arms, hurriedly running towards the man's corpse.
Crow looked at the corpse, then at the woman, then hurriedly said: "Hey, this is a normal person without any abilities, what are we going to do — –"
Gu Qing Shan didn't say anything, but held the bow in her hand.
"You — –" Crow anxiously shouted.
Gu Qing Shan ignored him and raised her bow to shoot.
A bolt of lightning shot out from the bowstring, pierced through the woman's shoulder, then dragged her away and pinned her to the wall.
"Aaaargh!" the woman's body twitched, screaming in pain.
By the time she was hit by the arrow, the baby in her hand had already been thrown out and was about to hit another wall.
Crow hurriedly went to pick up the baby. Gu Qing Shan flew forward, held the girl down with one hand, and took out the black handbook with the other, quickly chanting: "The life and death of all things is but an instant, with my power of Condemnation, your suffering shall surely be relieved — —"
"Divine Word Technique, Cleanse!"
The woman's body trembled, and immediately, a black shadow flew out from her body and slowly disappeared.
At this point, Crow had caught the baby and was looking at Gu Qing Shan and the woman with concern.
"Leave the baby!" Gu Qing Shan suddenly roared.
In Crow's arms, the crying baby abruptly reached out with both hands and stabbed towards Crow.
The baby's face was ferocious, and his hands turned into sharp claws. He only needed one strike to cut off anyone's neck.
— He had almost succeeded.
But at the very last moment, intense cold air erupted from Crow's body, directly freezing the baby inside a crystal clear block of ice.
"Go!"
The duck plushie jumped out from Crow's arms and kicked the block of ice away.
Noticing that he had lost his chance, a mass of black fog slowly manifested around his body.
The fog then manifested into a wraith figure wearing a red mask, staring straight at Gu Qing Shan.
"Rhode" the wraith figure spoke, "60% of the normal people in this world are under my control, you won't be able to kill me"
His tone became mocking: "Or perhaps, you've always enjoyed slaughtering civilians? Very well, I'll satisfy you. Wherever you go, I guarantee that all civilians will die without a trace "
Gu Qing Shan casually replied: "These people are already dead, not even their souls exist anymore, otherwise, after I dispelled your technique just now, they would have revived and not died"
Crow was soaked in cold sweat earlier, so he angrily shouted: "Bastard, you would even kill a baby, you piece of trash"
He thrust his sword forward.
The wraith figure was instantly shattered, leaving only a few scattered voices:
"Strange … Condemner … could it be you're not …"
The voices disappeared.
— — Red Wraith's technique had ended.
Omaki walked forward to check the three corpses, then said: "It's still the same technique, normally undetectable, only after it's activated will the soul be instantly killed, turning it into a corpse that can be controlled from afar"
He shivered, muttering in a low voice: "The Wraith realm actually has such a cruel technique? Our Void Library had never noticed it before "
Gu Qing Shan glanced at the corpses on the ground.
A family of three.
If the wraiths hadn't invaded, they would have been able to live a peaceful life, instead of being reduced to corpses like they were now.
Two days ago.
In the wilderness outside of Ramon village, the Combatants of the Saint Spirit world had eliminated a large number of wraiths.
Red Wraith used some sort of unknown technique to escape with his body alone.
This was only the beginning.
As the truth was revealed, the Combatants came up with many solutions, finally publicizing seven Divine Techniques to identify the wraiths in order to uncover the hidden wraiths and help the people eliminate them.
What they didn't expect was that the wraiths had been plotting for countless years in the Saint Spirit world, had taken over a large number of aristocrats, and even civilians were under their control.
The Age of Chaos had finally arrived.
One of the two great empires, the Frost Empire, immediately declared that they wouldn't accept any technique's examination, stating that everything was an illusion, an excuse for the Combatants to destroy the empire.
From top to bottom, the entire empire was preparing for war. The Combatants of the empire immediately began to invade other Dukedoms, calling it a preemptive war of righteousness.
This was very clear, the wraiths had taken over the majority of the Combatants of this empire, as well as taking control of everything.
Meanwhile, the other empire, the Roland empire, after a series of intense investigations, found that very few wraiths had taken over their territory.
Turns out this was related to the customs of the empire.
The aristocrats of the Roland empire believed that anything given by others must first be offered to the Deities.
They would soak the inherited techniques, treasures, and armors given by the wraiths in the Sacred Ritual Spring, offering them to the Deities before taking them for themselves.
The Sacred Ritual Spring naturally carried a purifying effect, so any treasures that were soaked in it would lose their ability to be taken over.
The wraiths didn't have any good solutions to this, nor did they dare to try and shake this type of faith.
In the end, the wraiths had no choice but to offer the Roland empire's aristocrats a few decent items, focusing their attention on the Frost Empire.
The Dukedom that Gu Qing Shan resided in was a part of the Frost Empire.
And now, the two great empires had completely fallen out — — -
Or rather, the wraiths had finally revealed their true colors.
War had erupted without any arguments.
This time, everyone was caught up in it.
"The city seems to be about to fall, should we lend a hand?" Crow asked.
Gu Qing Shan followed him to bury the three corpses, then looked towards the depths of the city.
The shadows there were filled with people.
— — -people who had been taken over by the wraiths.
The military, civilians, aristocrats, all of them were doing their best to stop the Roland empire's attack.
These people were actually the wraiths who had taken over their bodies.
Red Wraith had used some sort of unknown technique that allowed him to take control of any person's body at any time and issue orders to the wraiths.
The sound of explosions from the spells resounded continuously across the sky.
The earth and buildings were both trembling, occasionally giving off the sound of collapsing.
The siege of the city was still ongoing.
Gu Qing Shan sighed, then said: "Let's return to the Roland empire for a bit. Today's nobility ceremony will be held, so we need to have authority in hand to better deal with the problem"
Crow agreed: "That's true, but after the nobility ceremony is over, I want to kill the wraiths again"
Gu Qing Shan looked at him.
Only to see that his eyes were filled with uncontrollable killing intent.
"Alright, I'll come with you" Gu Qing Shan said.
A white fog manifested out of nowhere and enveloped the two of them like a tornado.
They left the war-torn streets of the city.
The Roland empire.
The capital, Holy Crown City.
As soon as Gu Qing Shan and the others returned to their rooms, they heard a knock on the door.
"Rhode, his majesty has summoned you"
Gu Qing Shan opened the door and followed the guards into the palace.
After numerous inspections, he and Crow were finally led into the palace.
From afar, they could see the emperor of the Roland empire discussing the current state of the war with other Combatants, occasionally, someone would come to report the latest military situation.
The sense of urgency of war naturally arose in Gu Qing Shan's mind.
The guard had Gu Qing Shan and Crow stay where they were while he stepped forward and loudly reported:
"Your majesty, Rhode has been brought here"
All the voices of discussion disappeared.
The Combatants all turned to look at Gu Qing Shan.
Emperor Roland also put away his solemn expression and smiled as he walked towards Gu Qing Shan.
"The first person to discover the wraiths' scheme was a young man, and a rare Condemner — — in truth, it has been a very long time since a Condemner has appeared on the continent, the Church of Condemners is nothing but an empty shell"
He drew his ceremonial sword and lightly touched Gu Qing Shan's shoulder.
"Rhode, I have a question" Emperor Roland said.
"Please go ahead, your majesty" Gu Qing Shan replied.
Emperor Roland said: "I want to know why you would doubt the wraiths' gifts. You should know that this has been the norm for over a thousand years, everyone has already gotten used to it"
Gu Qing Shan replied: "Your majesty, something like reaping without sowing would always make me feel uneasy, so I don't mind thinking of it with the worst of intentions"
Emperor Roland fell into thought for a bit.
"You're right, the reason why we were fooled by the wraiths was because we were too powerful, causing us to develop arrogance and prejudice, but I guarantee that it won't happen again from now on"
Saying so, he heavily tapped both of Gu Qing Shan's shoulders with the ceremonial sword and muttered:
"I, the King of Roland, Friedrich, hereby confer Baron Rode the title of Viscount of the Holy Roland Empire, and for his salvation and contribution to all of mankind, confer the title of Earl of Midnight."
"May your heart be like a blazing holy light, dispelling all darkness in this world, ensuring that the night never descends upon living beings"
Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised.
Emperor Roland put the ceremonial sword away and patted his shoulder: "Truthfully, the title of Count doesn't match your contributions, but you're only 15 years old, I can't give you too much power, that would only ruin you — — do you have any objections?"
"I do not" Gu Qing Shan replied.
"Very well, it's currently a time of war, so everything should be kept simple, but the things you should receive will not be missing, someone will bring you to receive them"
"Yes"
"By the way, what do you want to do next? The territory I'm giving you is one of the best vacation spots in the empire, go take a look first "
"Your majesty, I was the one who first discovered the wraiths, I want to go to the battlefield"
Emperor Roland smiled.
The Combatants also looked at Gu Qing Shan with a bit of a smile in their eyes.
"What a nice little guy" the red-haired beauty licked her lips and muttered.
"That's right, a new Condemner" the old farmer sighed.
Emperor Roland's attitude also became a bit friendlier and said:
"Rhode, you are a nice child, you will definitely become a pillar of the empire in the future, there is no doubt about that, but you're only 15 years old right now, you need to be protected. Through the tempering of time, you need to grow up properly, and you also need to meet a few like-minded friends. I even hope that you can find some love here"
Before Gu Qing Shan could say anything else, Emperor Roland had already patted his shoulder:
"Don't worry, with so many Combatants here, we're more than enough to handle the war — — servants, bring our new Count away, he needs a formal attire to show his status"
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